MATTHEW 22:37-38 | LOVE GOD
Love God. Serve Others. Reach People • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 45:21
0 ratings
· 8 viewsFiles
Notes
Transcript
TEXT: MATTHEW 22:37-38 | LOVE GOD
TEXT: MATTHEW 22:37-38 | LOVE GOD
ILLUSTRATION: A couple weeks back our kids came how with a puzzle that had been loaned to them.
We pulled out the card table for this great opportunity for some family time.
And then I looked at the side of the box and it said 1000 pieces.
We began to work through the puzzle piece by piece, and we did want any normal person does when they start a puzzle, we began to find all of the edge pieces.
Then we began to work our way in.
After a week of picking away at this puzzle, grouping similar colors together, we began to realize that there were some pieces that weren’t there.
In fact, we actually found a piece that belonged to another puzzle.
There is nothing more complicated and frustrating than working on a puzzle that not only doesn’t have all the pieces, but even comes with extra ones!
After a week of giving it our best shot, the puzzle found its way back into it’s box
But we were inspired to purchase another puzzle… however this one came with 300 pieces.
APPLICATION: We are living in a one of the most complicated times in history!
There are voices speaking into your lives at every turn.
TV, Podcast, Social Media, Friends, Parents, the Church!
Everyone is trying to tell you what you should do!
And things can get so incredibly complicated!
There’s so many pressures:
Job pressures
Financial Pressures
Family pressures
For our young people:
The world wants you to question your identity
They want you to question your biology
They want you to question your parents
They want you to question your relationships
Ultimately, the world wants you to question God and His role in your life!
Every one is trying to put together the pieces of your life into the picture they believe you should be!
And sometimes it can feel like you just wish you could take all the pieces and put them in a box and start over!
Amidst all the complexities of life, it can be nice when something complicated can be made simple.
And that is our goal with our theme for this year!
We have condensed not only this year’s theme but the mission statement of our church into 6 words:
LOVE GOD. SERVE OTHERS. REACH PEOPLE
If we can condense the puzzle pieces down to 3 pieces total… 6 words, then maybe it can make our Christian life that much more simple!
My prayer this year is that this year, each person here will grow in these three specific areas of your life.
That our church will focus it’s heart and attention on these three specific areas!
But how can we know how to do these things well?
The wonderful reality is this Book has the answer!
And over these next couple weeks we are going to dive into these three areas of focus for our church.
And we are going to find them right here in God’s Word!
Now maybe you are thinking like I think sometimes: “That’s great… but that’s a big book!”
Where do you even start?
So you open up to the beginning, because that’s where books start, and it’s the start of the year and you made a resolution to read your Bible more, and you start reading.
And you are in Genesis and you start strong… but then you reach Exodus and it gets a little harder… and then you reach Leviticus and all hope is lost.
Now, this whole book is important and we are commanded in Scripture to study it… but have you ever thought, “I just wish there was something simple that could help me make some sense of all the confusion in my life?”
I’ve got great news… Jesus knew you and I were coming.
And he didn’t say we shouldn’t read the whole Bible, because we should!
But He condensed all the teachings of the OT down into 4 simple verses in the NT.
In fact, He gave two commands on which He said all of the OT Law and the OT prophet’s teachings could be summarized.
Two commands for which He said if you will do them, you will fulfill all the teachings and commands of the OT!
They are two commands that if you will choose to follow them today, they will help to make sense of a lot of the complexities in your life in this crazy world!
They are two commands from which we draw the six words of the mission statement of our church
The first command is found in Matthew 22:37-38
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
EXPLANATION: Jesus is in the middle of the showdown in the Holy town
He and His disciples had made their way back into Jerusalem and Jesus has been confronted now by the priests and scribes, the Pharisees and Herodians, and the Sadducees.
Now Jesus is confronted by one final person.
In Mark’s account of this moment, he calls this man a Scribe.
He asks what at first appears to be a sincere question, but here in Matthew’s account we are given a little further insight.
Matthew gives this scribe another name… He calls him a lawyer.
Now I don’t have to tell you just how slimy this guy must have been.
This guy knew how to twist his words to catch his victim in a snare
He knew how to weave a story that was sure to trip up anyone that dared face off with him.
And because of his profession as a lawyer, this guy knew the Law
Not only did he know the Law, he knew the 613 commandments found in the law.
Ya there are a lot more than just those 10 commandments Moses brought down on the tablets, there were 613.
248 of those commandments were affirmatives (do this) and 365 of those commandments were negatives (don’t do this)
And this lawyer made his living because he knew the law.
He knew it so well that not only was he a lawyer, but he was a scribe, which was recognized as an OT expert.
This guy was top of the class
He was the valedictorian
If anyone was going to get Jesus to trip up… it was this lawyer/scribe.
So as the crowd divides and he steps forward he asks, what he believes, will be an easily disputed answer.
This will be the question that will take down this man, Jesus.
V.36, He asks which is the greatest commandment
This was one of those questions that was debated by the scribes and the Pharisees.
Of the 613 laws, which is the greatest?
Maybe it was the command to pray to God in Exodus 23:25
Maybe it was the command to not hold a grudge in Leviticus 19:18
Could it be the command not to reap the entire field in Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22
Maybe it was the command to rest on the Sabbath in in Exodus 23:12, 34:21
We can keep going… there are 613 of them.
I guess we could say, it was pretty complicated!
So the scribes and Pharisees they would debate back and forth which Law was the greatest.
Which was the most important.
And now this Lawyer pulls Jesus into the debate and asks Him, which one is the greatest?
Jesus answers the question with the most familiar verses to the ears of every Jewish person under His voice.
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
Jesus was quoting from the OT law in
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
The command to love the Lord with everything in you.
This was why the Pharisees were so fanatical with keeping all the Law
They wanted to prove their love for God
And while they may have been sincere in their desire, their desire to uphold the Law had led them to add to the Law, and create traditions which they attempted to force upon others.
In their attempt to demonstrate just how much they loved God, their faith had become simply religion, and it was all exterior and pride, and it was no longer out of a true love of God
They kept all the rules, but God didn’t have their heart!
They became distracted by good things… but the good things had stolen their love for God.
ILLUSTRATION: 1 John has an overwhelming theme throughout it’s 5 short chapters.
John had been writing his epistle to the church at Ephesus.
Over 30 times John challenges the believers at Ephesus about love and demonstrating that love to God
30 years prior the apostle Paul had challenged the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 5:2
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
But when you make your way just a few pages over into the book of Revelation 2:4, we find God’s problem with the church at Ephesus:
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Through all the challenges and encouragement to love God, somehow they had gotten off track.
Somehow they had been distracted by other things that had stolen their love from God.
ILLUSTRATION: I remember what it was like when Tressa and I first fell in love.
I’ve been asked how we met, and the truth is she was the very first girl I saw on campus.
And so I would try to just happen to be in the same places that she would be.
I just wanted to be near her as much as possible.
I remember the very first coffee date we ever had she informed me that her dad could hit a moving target from 400 yards out.
I was constantly thinking of what would make her happy and trying to do that.
We would call each other and then just sit on the phone and breath.
That’s when you know you are truly in love!
This year in August we will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.
And I feel like over 15 years, we’ve had a few more “discussions” than I expected.
When we were dating I just assumed everything would always be perfect and we would never have any problems!
But after 14 years of marriage, I’ve learned that if we want to rekindle things, if we just do the “first love” things it all comes flooding back.
The problems come when other things get in the way of my love for her.
The Phone
TV
What I want
Because while I would never say that I love those things more than my wife… sometimes my actions tell a different story.
ILLUSTRATION: When Paul traveled in ministry on his various ministry journeys, he had a number of people that traveled along with him.
There was Paul and Silas
There was Paul and Barnabas.
There was Paul and Timothy
There was even some lesser known companions that joined in Paul’s ministry like Aquilla and Pracilla and even Luke.
But there was another person that traveled with Paul that often is forgotten about… A man by the name of Demas.
In the book of Philemon, Paul mentions him along with other men Philemon 24
Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers.
In Colossians he mentions him again as he wrote to the church in Colossi and as he was finishing it was like Luke and Demas were in the background saying, “tell them hello from us”
Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.
Demas was a fellowlabourer with Paul
He led people to Christ.
He served alongside this great apostle.
He witnessed the work of God.
But somewhere along the way, something happened…
Because at the end of Paul’s life, as he pens the final words he would write, he wrote: 2 Timothy 4:10
For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
A man who had once been in love with Jesus… had his love stolen away by this world.
And now in heartbreak, Paul writes those words… “Demas is gone! He loved the world!”
APPLICATION: Friend, what do you love this morning?
Do you remember what it was like when you first heard and understood the good news of the Gospel?
When you first realized that He had given everything for you and offered you eternal life.
When you first had a hunger for God’s Word
When you first desired to know God
You could testify with the apostle Paul: 2 Corinthians 5:14
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
But could it be, that as time has passed, you’ve left that first love.
Could it be that other things have robbed that place of love for God in your life.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
You know, the reality is there are probably a lot of Christians in this room that you’ve given your heart to God at one point or another…
But today if I asked you if you are closer to God right now than you’ve ever been, you’d have to say “no”
Because you’ve left your first love and you’ve allowed other things to take that place in your life.
If the story were to close this morning and the last testament of your life were written would it say “your heart departed because you loved this present world!
Oh friend, the greatest commandment is clear… you are called to love your God with all of your heart, your soul, and your mind!
And maybe as we have ended one year and started into the next, your love for God isn’t where it should be this morning!
There are numbers of people who once sat in the seats at this church, who are no longer here…
And it isn’t because they got mad and left
It isn’t because they went to another church.
They just decided to love the world more than God!
If you are here today and your heart isn’t where it should be, why don’t you decide this morning to fall back in love with Jesus.
ILLUSTRATION: Robert Robinson was saved and called to preach under George Whitfield
He became a song writer for the Lord
But he became distracted from his love for the Lord
He fell to the lies of the devil and fell into immorality and out of the ministry,
He was running from God when one day he was in a stagecoach
The lady next to him was reading a book and was touched “Could I read these lines to you and could you tell me what they mean to you?”
And the words that she read were words to a song… She said:
Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of thy redeeming love.
“Ma'am I do know that song. I wrote that song”
"When I wrote that song I was close to God, and living for God, and preaching His Word.”
With that she read him the second verse:
Here I raise mine Ebenezer,
Hither by thy help I'm come
And I hope, by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God,
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed his precious blood.
He tried to change the subject but she wouldn’t allow it
“What do these words mean to you?”
“I would give a thousand worlds like this one if I could feel the way I felt when I wrote the words to that song.”
And with that she read the words to that final verse:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.
Robert Robinson got off of that stagecoach and gave his life and heart back to God and went on to live for Him
APPLICATION: Christian, let’s simplify the Christian life this year… and it starts with your love for God!
Maybe you are here today and you’ve never trusted in Christ as your Savior…
On the first Sunday of 2026, why don’t you accept Him right now in your seat
You are a sinner… You need to pay for your sins… death is the only acceptable payment… so Jesus died to pay for your sins.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Friend, right now, accept Christ as your Savior.
Christian, the complexities of this life are made so much simpler when we follow that first command from Jesus: Matthew 22:37-38
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
Decide this morning, for the first time… or for the 100th time… God, here is my heart!
Choose to Love God above all else this morning!
