What Does the Law of God Require?

Introduction:

Good morning and welcome to Collide!

Did you know that....

Walk through a bunch of weird laws.

What would life be like if there are no laws?

Right?! It would all be chaos, there would be madness EVERYWHERE.

Which laws do you think are the most important?

Well the people in our story today are wondering the same thing!

The Bible is really long, there are 783,137 words in the bible. Each of these words is in the most important book in the world. The bible contains wisdom and instruction for life.

If you are a follower of Jesus, then this is your instruction manual. This is your book of laws!

So lets do what is says! Easy as that right? If I read every word and follow it perfectly then I will live a life that glorifies God and serves His people, right?

Well what we know from real life, and from a concept called sin that we will explore later, that is impossible. We can not obey all 783,137 words in the bible. There are so many rules and laws to follow.

Only one man has lived a perfect life and His name is Jesus. He is fully God and fully man and the only person that ever lived a sinless life. He walked this earth just like you and I do, he interacted with people the same way we do, he had feelings like we do, he was tempted like we were, he had family and friends and went to church and had was a human just like us.

BUT, he also is God. He never sinned, he pulled of miraculous works that only God could do, healed people, cast out demons, and most controversially, forgave other people of their sins. He also taught with much authority and gave us a bunch of new laws to follow, that is what this portion of your bible is about.

Wouldn't it be nice if God himself told us how to live an obedient life in just a simple 2 steps? Well, you are in luck. HE DID! So let’s dive in.

Our question for today is Question #7:

What does the Law of God require?

Well we aren’t the only one’s with this question, let’s go ahead and open up our bibles.

Today we are going to be in Matthew 22:36-40. Matthew is the...

In this section, the religious leaders and scholars of the time were questioning Jesus about his knowledge of the scriptures and tried to trap him with trick questions. And they ask a question that we are all wondering today, Which command is the greatest? What is the most important thing that I can do as a follower of Jesus?

Let's start reading in verse 36.

36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

So the Pharisees ask Jesus, what is the most important commandment? They are probably just as confused as we are right? There are SO many words and commands in the bible, but which one is the most important?

Thankfully, Jesus gave us a very clear answer.

The answer to question 7 is.

That we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus lays it out here plain and simple for us. If we are to obey God and bring Glory to Him, we must do that through loving him first and foremost.

What does it mean to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Any ideas?

But I love ice cream, is that the kind of love that God wants?

No, he wants us to love him will ALL of our hearts, ALL of our souls, and ALL of our minds. With everything we have, we should love God.

What does that look like? How do we love something with EVERYTHING?

Dillon - Baseball

Spend a lot of time working on it, learning about it, spending your resources on it. Thinking about it a ton.

If you truly love something, you put effort into it! Being here in Collide is a great first step in doing so. Learning about God every week and how he wants us to love him more and more. Thinking and learning more about who God is another great way. You can love someone you don’t know right? You also have to talk to those people that you love.

If you had a “best friend” but you never talked or hung out with them, they really wouldn’t be much of a friend right?

We also need to talk to God, to pray to him, communicate about all of the things going on.

These are just a couple of things that could be really helpful in starting to love God with all of your Heart Soul Mind and Strength.

Secondly in our passage, Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, this word is not just talking about the person that lives next door or down the street, but this word actually means those who are around you. Your classmates, your teammates, your teachers, your siblings, your coaches, your parents, anyone who you interact with, you are to love them.

But what does that mean?

We once again do not want to love them like I love ice cream, its not the same thing. We want love those around us as we love ourselves. Take care of them, look after them, talk to them, like you would treat yourself.

We care about ourselves right? We want to have friends who are nice to us, we want people to talk nice about us, we want to be included, we want to be loved and appreciated for who we are. Jesus is telling us that we know ourselves, we know what we like, and what we don’t like. So we should love people the way that we want to be loved. The way we want to be treated.

If we Love God first and foremost and love others also, Jesus says that all the other Law’s depend on these two. If we love God and Love others, God will be glorified through out obedience.

Application:

Here is my challenge for you today. I want you to do one thing to show that you love God and one thing to show that you love others. Maybe that looks like sitting down and opening up your bible and getting to know God better. Maybe that is going on a walk and having an intentional time of prayer, praising God, and asking for forgiveness and help. Maybe it is putting on a worship playlist and having your own little worship session while you're in your room. Whatever it is, make time for you to connect with the Lord today and show that you love him.

And make an effort to show someone around you that you really care for them. Maybe write your parents a note saying that you like them, or bring an extra dessert to lunch for one of your friends or help clean up a mess that you didn't create, or just say something nice to a friend. Whatever it is, make an effort to show those around you that you love them.

As we go into our LifeGroups today, I want you to think about this practically. It is easy to say, yeah, I want to love the Lord with all of my heart mind soul and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. It is significantly harder to actually obey that command. So what can we do to practically follow the Greatest Commandment? Talk about that in LifeGroup’s today

Let’s pray.