The Greatest Commandment

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 14

Psalm 14 ESV

To the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous. You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 6:4-6

Deuteronomy 6:4–6 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

Communion:

Sermon:

Good Morning Church! I was Glad When they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

Well before we dive into today's text, i feel the need to do a little clarification, or more rightly some more explanation of some things that were covered next week. My heart last week was to give comfort and confidence in the hope that we have in the resurrection, and for some of you I missed the mark. If I have one or two person come to me with a question or comment of concern I will gladly answer that, and I ask you to come to me with those, for I love having those conversations. But when I get three or four I begin to realize that 1) there are probably even more people struggling, and 2) that there might have been a disconnect between what I endeavored to say and what was heard. And that is on me.

So last week our topic was, if we remember we are going through these tests of Jesus. But last week the Sadducees approached Jesus and they had a very specific question regarding the Resurrection. Does the resurrection happen. Their “evidence” that it cannot happen was this convoluted story of a woman and her seven husbands who were trying to properly follow the law of moses but ended up with a seemingly ridiculous situation. And Jesus answer to them is that there is and will be resurrection. God is not the God of the dead but rather the living. but he said this in Matthew 22:30 “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

And I said, on the basis of this, that here will be no marriage in heaven. That is not what I feel the need to clarify, because I believe that to be true, but there is more that I can and should say, so what I think I missed the mark on pastorally last week is that this does not minimize marriage here OR and most importantly the love and care that we will have for the people that we are married to on the other side of eternity.

What Jesus is ultimately teaching here at the resurrection is a more wonderful life. many of us look forward to seeing and being with the people that we love here on earth in heaven. We look forward to the full restoration of those relationships. And what I think we can say is that the relationships that we have here on earth will not just be restored, but rather they will be made better. For though we will not be given in marriage to one another we will still know and love one another in heaven. so the people that we long to see and know will be there. those who trusted in Christ we know are safe and secure and when we see therm in heaven we will see then with lives and eyes unclouded by sin. therefore our relationships will all be made more perfect in the presence of God.

So though we will not be married, my goal was not to discourage or cause heartache, but rather, and this is where I missed the mark, the thought is that in the resurrection EVERYTHING is made right and better. so we will still know each other and love each other, and we will do so better. We will still enjoy one another and lift one another up inn psalms hymns and spiritual songs. SO the ones that have gone before we will one day see it will just be BETTER.

So with that out of the way we can move on to the third and final test of jesus, what is the third in our four sermon sort of mini series through the tests of Jesus in Matthew 22. And as we begin to think through what is going to happen there is something that I would like to first note. There has been a building in each and every one of these tests. Before it was some disciples of the pharisees and the herdians who test Jesus. they fail so the Sadducees are sent and they fail so here finally we see the pharisees come back, this time not with their disciples but here with one of their own members. In fact, a lofty and important member of that group. and they will try and hit jesus with another test.

Lets read Our passage

Matthew 22:34–40 ESV

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

These are the words of the lord for us this morning, lets open with a word of prayer.

Dear Lord we thank you for today. For your grace and your mercy, and your kindness towards us. thank you that while we were dead in our sins and trespasses you loved us. you saved us redeemed us and now by the work of your son and the empowering work of your spirit we can now love you. We thank you for your redeeming saving changing sanctifying love. may we walk in its power this morning. May YOU OPEN OUR EYES TO SEE AND EARS TO HEAR your word. May we be those people who hear your word and are changed. who are doers of your word. May we endeavor to follow all that you have said,. it is in Jesus name that we pray AMEN

We have moved from the pharisees and the hedrodians, and actually that's not right, for it wasn't even the pharisees, they sent some of their disciples. They sent their underlings to do their light work and yet Jesus soundly defeated them. So then the Sadducee come and Jesus soundly defeats them. So not enter the pharisees themselves. and this is what Spurgeon says about them and I think this is rather insightful and gives us a great access to their mind and heart:

The multitude that had listened to Christ had been “astonished” at his answers to the Sadducees wold soon publish the tidings of their defeat . When the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they doubtless felt pleased that their natural enemies had been routed, but grieved that Jesus had again proved victorious in argument. He had, in one day, baffled that chief priests and elders of the people, Pharisees and their disciples, Herodians and Sadducees. If he continued to prevail, all the people would be won to his side. So once more they met in consultation: they were gathered together. They must think of some fresh device, some new plan for his overthrow. How persevering wicked men are in their evil courses!

here is another example whose desperate and only thought is how can we soundly defeat Jesus and yet once again they will fail.

It is important to note that we move from the herodians and the disciples of the pharisees in the first question to the Sadducees and the miss characterization of moses in their question to now finally we see the LAWYER AND HIS QUESTION

The LAWYER and HIS QUESTION

As A note, i had to get creative to make sure that the blanks all three week here were not just THE QUESTION and THE ANSWER....

But we see here that it is No longer is it the disciples of the pharisees. this time it is a member of the pharisees, this one a lawyer. A lawyer, in a lot of ways we can think through and understand not exactly in the modern sense, but there are some ties that can help us. most of us when we think of Lawyers we think of those people standing up in court and arguing a case. Pleading either as the prosecutor or the defense pleading with the judge and jury trying to argue their case. They are experts in the ins and outs of the law and seek to find loopholes or other such things that mean that they can win. Weather or not that is fair, for many of us that is the picture we have. But it is helpful in understanding this Pharisaical lawyer here. but instead of defense and prosecution and the ins and outs of civil law he was an expert in arguing and knowing the mosaic law. he most likely had almost all the law memorized.

He was an expert at the law and one good at, exceedingly good at a professional at debating the ins and outs of the law. A “law expert”. he knew it forward and backwards. no longer the disciples and the herodians. I mean, we didn't even like them we should have known that they would fail . We should never have trusted them but you live and you learn. The Sadducees we don't like them, but kinda wished they could have done something, but jesus defeated them too. It is time to pull out the big guns here comes the lawyer. the pharisees have made their one phone call and they called their lawyer.

And he comes with this one question. Verse 36. Matthew 22:36 ““Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”” He is NOT asking which of the laws need to be followed and which ones can we ignore? he is not asking: which are more or less correct and right, for they are all god’s law, and this pharisees would have known that. Instead they are trying to find the sort of fundamental thought that unites all of Gods commands together. The thought here is that if you understand THIS you will more truly know the heart of God and may be better empowered to follow all the other ones.

By most sort of counting there are 613 laws in the Old Testament that must be followed. the pharisees added more of their own, but there are the sort of foundational ones. and once you have as many as 613 different laws that you must follow the thought becomes what unites them. or what PRINCIPLES can empower me to follow all of these.

this is not, I would argue, an attempt from this lawyer to actually find out more information. He was an expert and knew all the answers. When he comes ad says “teacher” the way Matthew presents this it is fairly clear that there is no thought of trying to learn, rather an invitation to debate. Just as in the past questions, the goal is that if jesus picks a side SOMEONE will be mad. Someone will be angry with what Jesus has selected.

There will be the first commandment group who will be upset when Jesus says it is the fourth commandment. The sabatarian group will be really upset when Jesus says it is the do not lie commandment. Some other group comes and says it is the golden rule. Around this time the most famous answer to this question was a rabbi who had said it was a sort of negative formulation of the golden rule. So if the golden rule is “treat others as you would want to be treated” the negative formulation would be “if there is something that you don’t want people to do to you, don’t do it to others.”

But there were camps and thoughts and groups here and there was NO WAY that jesus could answers this that would not go against SOMEONES thoughts of what was right. moreover the pharisees probably thought, given Jesus seemingly radical views of the law. I mean, they have already herd the whole “you have heard it said, but I say” stuff from him. They have seen him and his disciples not following the sabbath laws. So there is probably a heart here that when we ask jesus “what is the great commandment of the law” surely he will say something ridiculous and surely he will say something that will show his impiety that will show he is just too radical and too extreme. Maybe he will refuse to answer showing he is not really a teacher.

jesus did not refuse, in fact, he was more than happy TO ANSWER

Jesus’ Answer

Jesus gives a rather famous and rather important answer in fact. Matthew 22:37-39 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The uniting principle in his answer is LOVE. by focusing on Love Jesus elevates this answer out of some just set of rules, out of certain times and contexts and gives us a universal answer. Many commentators note that this is the MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD of any of the answers that Jesus will give in this section. We could actually go back to before these three tests to the start of this all it was the “where do you get this authority” and there Jesus refused to answer that because they refused to say where the baptism of john came from. in the “is it lawful to pay the taxes” answer it was sort of a beating around the bush of “give to Caesar what is his and God what is God’s” it was just a little cryptic. In the message to the Sadducees and the resurrection it was an issue of “you don’t even know what these things are like, it hinged on a focus on the tense of words and being like the angels.

Here Jesus says sure. What is the first and great commandment, let me quote some scripture. Not only that, i will throw in the second one. by doing this the way jesus does he does more than JUST answer their question, he also challenges them. For in answering THIS WAY, that it is love, it takes us out of a place of achievement in doing things that I can enumerate, and into an attitude, and in particular an attitude that no one lives up to. for who truly fulfills this commandment here?

We should note there is a sense of what we can call pietism in this answer. For my own personal sort of edification and study I have been reading a lot of puritan writers. and one of the things that I think that the puritans did by and large better than any one else in history was understand the intersection between salvation, grace, and holy living.

They felt firmly convicted to preach salvation by Grace alone through faith alone in Chrsit alone according to the scriptures alone to the glory of God alone. but they also felt comfortable calling for people to live lives worthy of the calling they they have recieved. and so here we read Jesus giving commands. these are commands from our savior. commands that he did not come to abolish, rather that he came to fulfill. and so as HIS PEOPLE we should pay close attention and endeavor to follow him.

Jesus answer, two parts it is still one answer, but we will look at these in turn. First LOVE GOD

LOVE GOD

Jesus says to them. Matthew 22:37-38 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Jesus here is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5

Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

It is interesting we have heard this verse in other places like Luke says “heart soul mind and strength.” people look way too far into this. Is it heart soul and mind or heart soul mind and strength? Do not get caught up in the individualities here. What does it mean to Love God with all my heart, then whats does it mean to love him with all my soul, and then what does it mean to love him with all my strengthen and them what does it mean to love him with all my mind, that is not what is being said here, really. these are not listed as separate things. instead what Jesus is saying is: the love that we should have for God requires the whole person. there is not a part of us, there is not a fiber of our being that should not be humbly devoted to God in Love. T

there is a repeated word in English you can see it in the original Greek really clearly, here it is the word ALL. you shall love thew Lord your God with ALL your heart with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind. the repetition here shows all the fullness of ALL. in other words ALL means ALL and Jesus is commanding us that the greatest commandment is, in some sense to love God with ALL OF ALL OF US.

All of our love, Matthew Henry writes, is actually too little to bestow upon God. therefore all the powers of the soul must be engaged for him, and carried out toward him. WE must pour out all of our selves in love and devotion to God. This is what he has commanded us to do. Question one of the Westminster catechism: what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and ENJOY him forever! Enjoying God is loving him, knowing him, serving him. SOLI deo Gloria. We pour out ourselves in loving him. AND the second is like it. you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

We are to LOVE GOD AND LOVE OTHERS

LOVE OTHERS

In some ways we look at this, and honestly this is how I have always kinda looked at this: like: oh, how helpful, jesus gave us a freebie. he have us the greatest and also the second greatest. and that is KINDA. because these are two different commands, and Jesus says, on these TWO. so they are separate. but by uniting them like he did. by saying “the second is LIKE it” he is saying less like one and two and more like one a and one b.

The work LIKE is doing a lot of work here and means of the same nature The same vein, the same thought., it carries in may ways the same weight.

And so we are to love God with every fiber of our being, with ALL our HEART and ALL our SOUL and ALL our MIND. and we also must love our neighbor. Here Jesus quoting from Leviticus 19:18

Leviticus 19:18 ESV

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Teaching that a genuine love of God will manifest itself and express itself in a genuine love for your neighbor. You must love your neighbor as yourself.

If I may be so bold, there is a lot of bad teaching that goes along with this. it starts here: Many of us sometimes struggle with the last part of that, loving ourselves. and while that is true, I don’t think Jesus here is teaching that we have to have great self esteem. that we should just love ourselves SOOO much because that will help us to love others. Jesus is not teaching that a selfish love for self should explode out and help us to love other people. that minimizes the context. we love God first. rather it should be looked at like this:

What jesus is saying here is that we should place the cares wants and desires of other people higher than we usually do and really we should place them over and above ours. the thought of loving your neighbor as yourself is not to elevate self, but rather to lower self and elevate others.

And this, Jesus teaches, is the second great commandment. these two thoughts go hand in hand. they are in some sense the foundation of all that we do in love and service and devotion to God. Matthew 22:40 “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”” Translation: on these two commandments depend all of the OT. On these two commandments depend all that God has said, what he has commanded and what he has revealed about himself. On these two commandments hang all that is needed for life and godliness. Anyone who wants to follow the law, here is your road map. Love God, cherish God, be devoted to him, and love others.

One commentator writes this: Jesus swept aside all such pettifogging (that is a good word… Jesus set aside all trivial debate and elevating of unnecessary and unimportant arguing and nonsense) nonsense with his revolutionary insistence on the centrality of love for God. And for good measure he added that the teaching of the prophets is included in this command. At one stroke he did away with any understanding of the service of God that sees it as concerned with the acquiring of merit or with an emphasis on liturgical concerns. What matters can be summed up in one word: love.

Love God, and Love others.

This is the foundation of our lives. HOW DO WE LIVE MORE HOLY LIVES? how can we please God better? how in our sanctification can we grow more in goodness, holiness and righteousness? Here is the short and simple answer: love God and love others.

We are so good, I am so good, at generating lists of commands and figuring out how I can be better. it seems we have about 3 go to response for how I will be better: i know. I will read the bible five more minutes a day. I will pray 7 minutes more a day, i will give 2% more than I have. I will do this and do that and do this and do that. Here Jesus says: IT IS YOUR HEART! Love God and love others. And the rest flow from this.

if I truly Love God I will read my Bible more. These are his words given to me, if I truly loved him would I not spend MORE TIME devoted to knowing and understanding him. If I love God I will pray more. For it is communing with the one that I love. If I love God will I not give more. For he has given graciously and the lord loves a cheerful giver. and we could go on and on. and the second also works this way.

If I love others will I Not read my bible more? Because the thing that the people around me need more than anything else is God’s word. SO I will read it to show myself a workman approved that I may give a good response to any who ask for the reasons for the hope that I have. if I truly love others will I not pray more? As I carry their concerns and their burdens and even in some sense them before the lord in prayer. if I truly love others will i not give more for God has blessed me how can I not be a blessing to those around me.

we could go on and on and on, you tell me a way that you want to “live better” and we will see that it will all stem from loving God and loving others. these two are the key. Jesus says that these are really the key to all of Scripture. When he says “on these two depend all the law and prophets” he is saying “this is it.”

If you get these two, you have got it all. So love god, and love others.

Doing so in the empowering work of Jesus Christ. jesus came, he said, to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. So he and he alone did this perfectly. None of us have loved God the way that we should none of us have loved others the way that we should. but there is grace and forgiveness at the cross even for that. Come to Jesus find your perfect savior, THEN understand that Jesus himself said that those who love him will keep his commandments, not to earn, but in loving gratitude for the savior that did all for you, so here are his commandments:

LOVE GOD AND LOVE OTHERS.

Lets pray