The Greatest Commandment
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Welcome
Welcome
Intro
Intro
Opening
Opening
The Greatest Commandment: Love as the Inspection of the Lamb
Matthew 22:34–46
Opening: The Inspection of the Lamb
Opening: The Inspection of the Lamb
Picture this with me. It’s Tuesday in Passover week. Jesus is in the temple. So far this week He’s turned over tables, driven out the money changers, healed the blind and the lame. The children have been singing His praises, and He let them. But the religious leaders? They’re watching. They’re tense. They’re threatened. And they’re about to test Him.
We have discussed what happens during Passover week.
The lambs are examined.
Every sacrifice has to be inspected for blemish, for perfection, for worthiness.
And in these last hours before His crucifixion, that’s exactly what’s happening to Jesus. He’s being inspected. Tested. Examined. And I want you to see something: the questions keep getting deeper.
First: The Herodians Test His Political Authority
First come the Herodians.
They ask about taxes to Caesar.
It’s a trap, really.
“Is it lawful to pay the imperial tax, or not?” They’re testing whether Jesus will challenge Rome.
Whether He’s a political threat.
Jesus cuts through it: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
They asked about politics. Jesus answered about allegiance.The ultimate question isn’t Caesar’s claim on your money. It’s God’s claim on your heart.
Second: The Sadducees Test His Metaphysical Authority
Then come the Sadducees.
They don’t even believe in resurrection, so they mock it.
They tell this story about a woman married to seven brothers in succession.
“Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” They think they’re clever. They think this proves resurrection is absurd.
Jesus says: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”
Not just “you’re wrong.” He says you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’re working with a limited imagination.
They asked about metaphysics.
Jesus answered about the nature of God’s power. Each answer goes deeper.
Third: The Pharisees Test His Spiritual Authority
And now comes the final test.
A Pharisee—a Torah expert, a lawyer—steps forward with the deepest question of all: “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the law?”
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together.
35 And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him:
36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”
37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38 This is the greatest and most important command.
39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
41 While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them,
42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.”
43 He asked them, “How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’:
44 The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet’?
45 “If David calls him ‘Lord,’ how, then, can he be his son?”
46 No one was able to answer him at all, and from that day no one dared to question him anymore.
This isn’t about politics.
This isn’t about whether God can raise the dead.
This is about the law itself.
What it means to be righteous.
What it means to please God.
This is the deepest inspection. Because this is about spiritual authority.
Body
Body
Part 1: A Question as Old as the Law Itself
Here’s the thing: this question isn’t new.
The Jewish people have been wrestling with it for centuries.
And it all started with something that sounds almost impossible.
When Moses came down from Sinai, the rabbis counted up all the laws God had given.
And do you know what they found?
613 commandments.
Not 10. Not 100. Six hundred and thirteen.
And they weren’t random.
The rabbis noticed something remarkable: there are 365 laws that tell you what not to do—one for each day of the year. Every single day, there’s a law speaking to you.
And there are 248 laws that tell you what to do—one for each part of your body.
Every limb.
Every part of you.
Your hands, your feet, your eyes, your tongue, your heart—all of it addressed by God’s law.
There’s nothing about you that God isn’t speaking to.
Now here’s what we need to understand about those 613 laws.
They weren’t a punishment.
They weren’t God being demanding for the sake of it.
Those 613 commandments were the keys to sanctification—the divine design for setting apart God’s chosen people as holy.
As different.
As belonging to Him.
God had called Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of a world saturated with false gods and broken ways of living.
And He was saying: “I am making you into something new. I am setting you apart.”
Every law—what you eat, how you treat your neighbor, how you worship, how you rest—every single one was a brushstroke in the portrait of a holy people.
A people who looked different from the nations around them because they were different.
They belonged to God.
So those 613 laws weren’t a burden dropped on Israel.
They were an invitation into holiness.
A road map for what it looks like to live as God’s people in a world that has forgotten Him.
The law was never about earning God’s love—it was about reflecting it.
And yet—the rabbis knew it was an overwhelming road map.
So they started asking: what is the heart of all this?
What is the essence of this sanctified life?
If I had to boil it down, what would it be?
And that question led them on a journey through Scripture itself.
Part 2: A Journey Through Scripture—From 613 to 1
The rabbis preserved a remarkable tradition—it comes from the Talmud, a tractate called Makkot 24a. And it shows how the prophets themselves were asking the same question.
They were distilling the law to its core.
Let me walk you through it.
We begin with Moses and the 613. 365 prohibitions—one for every day. 248 positive commands—one for every part of you. The complete design for a holy people. Comprehensive. Total. Every day, every limb, addressed.
But that’s a lot. And somebody has to ask: “What matters most?”
So David comes—a man after God’s own heart.
In Psalm 15 he asks: “Lord, who may dwell in your tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?”
Not “What are all the laws?”
But “What’s the character of someone who truly belongs to You?”
A psalm of David.
1 Lord, who can dwell in your tent? Who can live on your holy mountain?
2 The one who lives blamelessly, practices righteousness, and acknowledges the truth in his heart—
3 who does not slander with his tongue, who does not harm his friend or discredit his neighbor,
4 who despises the one rejected by the Lord but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his word whatever the cost,
5 who does not lend his silver at interest or take a bribe against the innocent— the one who does these things will never be shaken.
And he answers with eleven marks of a righteous person. Integrity. Justice. Truth. No slander. No harm to a neighbor. Honoring those who fear the Lord. Keeping oaths. Lending without interest. Refusing bribes.
David isn’t saying the law is wrong.
He’s saying: here’s where the law points.
Here’s the character it’s trying to produce in you.
Here’s what a sanctified person actually looks like.
Then comes Isaiah. He distills it further.
Listen to Isaiah 33:15:
15 The one who lives righteously and speaks rightly, who refuses profit from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears from listening to murderous plots and shuts his eyes against evil schemes —
Six concrete actions. Not abstract virtues—things you do. Righteousness made visible. Sanctification with skin on.
Then Micah comes, and something beautiful happens.
8 Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Three things. Justice. Mercy. Humility.
Justice—give people what they’re due.
Mercy—give people more than they deserve.
Humility—walk with God, surrender your will to His. In three words, the whole arc of what it means to be set apart.
But Isaiah comes back one more time. Isaiah 56:1
1 This is what the Lord says: Preserve justice and do what is right, for my salvation is coming soon, and my righteousness will be revealed.
Two commands. Justice and righteousness. Both your obligation to others and your obligation to God. Two words containing the whole moral universe of the sanctified life.
And finally—at the very heart of everything—comes Habakkuk. One word. One principle. Habakkuk 2:4:
4 Look, his ego is inflated; he is without integrity. But the righteous one will live by his faith.
Faith.
Trust.
Not rule-keeping.
Not external compliance.
But faith.
Confidence in God.
Belief in His character.
Surrender to His promise.
Faith is not just belief.
It is a word that depicts Action.
Abraham was not declared righteous because of his doctrinal beliefs or personal emotional intention.
He was declared righteous because he kept God’s statues and commands.
Everything—all 613 commandments, every prohibition for every day, every law for every part of your body, all the prophetic demands, all the justice and mercy and humility—it all flows from faith.
Belief put into Action
Do you see what’s happening?
Scripture itself is on a journey.
613 to 11 to 6 to 3 to 2 to 1.
Deeper and deeper.
Closer and closer to the heart.
Closer and closer to the essence of what it means to be God’s holy, set-apart people.
This is the tradition the lawyer is stepping into when he asks Jesus the question.
He’s asking from centuries of wrestling with Scripture.
He’s asking Jesus to show where He stands in this ancient conversation.
And Jesus—the Author of the law—is about to bring clarity.
Part 3: Jesus Brings Clarity—Leading Us Back to Sanctification
Now here’s something you need to understand.
When that lawyer steps forward with his question, every Jewish person in earshot already knows the answer.
Or they think they do.
Because every devout Jew has been reciting it twice a day since childhood.
Morning and evening. It’s called the Shema.
It’s the central declaration of Jewish faith. And it comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-7.
4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.
7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
That’s the Shema.
Recited every morning.
Recited every evening.
Written on their doorposts.
Worn on their bodies.
The very heartbeat of Jewish devotion.
So when Jesus quotes it, He isn’t surprising anyone with a new idea.
He’s saying: You already know this.
You’ve been saying it your whole life.
The question is—do you understand what you’ve been saying?
And here is the critical thing to understand.
Jesus is not replacing the Old Testament.
He is not tearing down the law.
He is not offering something brand new in place of what came before.
He is the Author of the law, and He is bringing clarity to what it always meant.
He is leading His people back to the keys to sanctification—back to the original design for what it means to be set apart, to be holy, to be God’s people.
Not 613 individual rules to track, but the heart from which all 613 were always flowing.
He responds:
37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38 This is the greatest and most important command.
39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
The Pharisees’ interpretation was right—this is the greatest command in the law.
Jesus confirms it.
But let’s slow down, because there’s more in these words than we might first notice.
Jesus calls this the great and foremost commandment.
The Greek word for great here is megas—nothing is greater, nothing overshadows this command.
And foremost simply means first.
Love God first. Above everything else. Before everything else.
What is Love?
Ahavah (אַהֲבָה) — Love in General
The Hebrew root ahav covers love in its broadest sense. The Talmud treats love as fundamentally action-oriented — something demonstrated through behavior rather than merely felt.
Love of God (Ahavat Hashem)
The Talmud expands on the Shema's command to love God "with all your heart, soul, and might" (Deut. 6:5). In Yoma 86a, it teaches that loving God means living in such a way that God's name is sanctified through you — your conduct in business and community should make others say, "Blessed is the one whose Torah he has learned." Love of God is therefore expressed through moral excellence in public life.
And notice: the Shema in Deuteronomy says heart, soul, and strength.
Mark’s Gospel records Jesus adding mind.
Four aspects of our being—covering all the ways we interact with our world. And if we look at each one, we start to see exactly what this sanctified life looks like from the inside out.
Love God with All Your Heart—In Our Affections
First, we love God with our heart—in our affections. What we love. What we desire. What we treasure most.
Jesus is saying: love God more than you love your hobbies or your job.
Love God even before your spouse or your children.
That’s not saying those things don’t matter—they do.
But when your affections are rightly ordered, when God holds the highest place in your heart, everything else falls into its proper place.
The dangerous thing about misplaced affections is how subtle they are.
We rarely decide to love something more than God.
We just drift.
We give more and more of our emotional energy to something—a relationship, a career, a comfort—and before long, that thing has taken the place that belongs to God.
The sanctified heart is a rightly ordered heart.
And it starts here, with affection.
Love God with All Your Mind—In Our Thinking
Secondly, we love Him with our mind—in our thinking and understanding.
We seek the truth of His word over the world’s lies.
That means regular study of God’s word—not just occasional, not just on Sundays, but regular.
We commit Scripture to memory, allowing God to renew our minds by training us to think as He does.
A sanctified mind is a mind shaped by God’s truth, not the world’s.
And when God’s word comes into conflict with the world’s truth—and it will—we choose God’s word.
This isn’t anti-intellectual.
This is the highest form of intellectual integrity: acknowledging that God’s understanding of reality is more reliable than our own.
Loving God with your mind means bringing your intellect under His authority, not above it.
Love God with All Your Soul—In Our Worship
Thirdly, we love Him with our soul—in our devotion and worship.
We can’t share our worship of God with a pantheon of other gods or spiritual powers.
We can’t worship God properly if we also acknowledge other supposed spiritual powers—horoscopes, astrology, the spiritualities that have become so fashionable in our culture.
That’s not loving God with all our soul, because our soul is divided in its worship.
The Shema begins: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
There is one God.
He does not share the throne.
A sanctified soul is an undivided soul—one that worships God alone, completely, without reservation.
Love God with All Your Strength—In Our Perseverance
And finally, we love Him with all our strength—in our physical struggles, against our own sin and the resistance of the world.
Let’s be honest: following the Lord in a fallen world isn’t easy.
The enemy is determined to make it harder.
So to truly love God, we commit ourselves to persevering in those struggles against sin and temptation.
We remain determined to keep loving God even when it costs us something.
Even in the face of opposition.
Even in the face of persecution.
Loving God with your strength means bringing the same energy you bring to the things you care most deeply about—
your family,
your work,
your health,
your favorite sports team,
You bring that same determination to your walk with God.
This is sanctification in action: pressing forward, persevering, refusing to quit.
Four aspects.
Heart. Mind. Soul. Strength.
Your affections.
Your thinking.
Your worship.
Your perseverance.
Jesus covers every dimension of who you are.
And do you see what He’s doing?
He’s not discarding the 613.
He’s showing us what they were always pointing to.
Every law about what you eat, what you wear, how you treat your neighbor, how you rest—all of it was designed to produce this.
A person whose heart, mind, soul, and strength are wholly given to God.
Jesus is leading His people back to the keys to sanctification—not through 613 individual rules, but through the love that was always the source of every one of them.
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
And then Jesus adds the second command, which He says is like the first.
Not lesser—like it.
Inseparable from it. Love of Neighbor (Ahavat Re'a)
Rabbi Akiva famously declared in Sifra (on Lev. 19:18) that "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" is the greatest principle of the Torah. The Talmud unpacks this through the teaching of Hillel (Shabbat 31a): "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow — that is the whole Torah." Love of neighbor is thus defined by empathetic restraint and active concern.
You can’t truly love God without loving your neighbor.
Because when you love God—really love Him with heart and mind and soul and strength—you start seeing people the way He sees them.
Valuable.
Worth sacrifice.
Worthy of mercy.
Not the neighbor you choose.
Not the convenient neighbor.
Anyone in need.
Anyone suffering.
Anyone different from you. T
he same care you give yourself—that’s the standard.
This is the outward expression of an inward sanctification.
The love you have for God overflows into love for the people He made.
Part 4: Jesus Asks His Own Question
But Jesus isn’t done.
He’s answered their question, and now He’s about to ask His own. And this is where the inspection reaches its climax.
41 While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them,
42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.”
43 He asked them, “How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’:
44 The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet’?
45 “If David calls him ‘Lord,’ how, then, can he be his son?”
46 No one was able to answer him at all, and from that day no one dared to question him anymore.
Jesus is quoting Psalm 110. David calls the Messiah “Lord.” And the question Jesus is pressing is: how can David’s son be David’s lord?
A descendant is never greater than his ancestor in Jewish culture. So if David calls his own son Lord, then who is this Messiah really?
The answer is breathtaking.
The Messiah is not merely David’s son.
The Messiah is David’s Lord.
He transcends human genealogy.
He has ultimate authority.
He is the one who gave the law in the first place.
And that’s the point.
Jesus isn’t replacing the law.
He’s saying: “I am the one who gave you the law. I am the one who designed your sanctification. And now I am showing you what it was always meant to look like—love. Relationship. Me.”
None of them could answer.
And from that day on, no one dared question Him again.
The inspection was over.
The Lamb had been examined.
And He was found without blemish.
Part 5: The Question for Us
So here we are, centuries later.
And the same question comes to us.
Not “What are all the rules?”
But something deeper.
Something that reaches into who we are.
Will we trust Christ’s authority over our own answers?
We all want to know the rules.
We want a formula.
Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.
We want to manage our faith.
But Jesus is saying something different: it’s not about managing rules.
It’s about loving a Person.
It’s about a sanctification that flows from the inside out, from love rather than obligation.
Let me ask you three questions. Sit with these.
First: Are we loving God holistically?
Heart—are our affections rightly ordered?
Mind—are we seeking His truth over the world’s?
Soul—is our worship undivided?
Strength—are we persevering when following Him gets hard?
Or are we holding parts of ourselves back?
Compartmentalizing?
Saying “this part of my life is mine” while offering God the rest?
Second: Are we actually loving our neighbors?
Not just thinking kind thoughts, but moving toward them.
The person who’s suffering.
The person who’s different.
The person outside our circle.
Are we sacrificing for them?
Or are we content with pity instead of presence?
Third: Do we trust Christ’s authority?
When Jesus speaks—not what people say about Jesus, but what Jesus Himself says—do we actually submit?
Or do we filter His words through our own preferences?
Cherry-pick what we like and ignore what challenges us?
Closing: The Invitation
The Pharisees came with questions about the law. And Jesus answered by pointing to something deeper.
Not a system.
A Person.
Himself.
From the very beginning—from the first commandment given to Moses, to the Shema recited every morning and every night, to this moment in the temple—God has been pursuing the same thing.
A people set apart
. A people who are holy.
A people who look like Him.
And the key to that sanctification has always been the same: love.
Love for God with everything you are.
Love for your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus isn’t giving us something new.
He’s bringing us back to what was always true.
He’s saying: Love me. Trust me. Follow me.
And as you do, you will become what you were always made to be
set apart,
Holy,
His.
Part 6: An Invitation to the Altar
First: Come to Receive Jesus
If you’ve never actually given your life to Jesus—if you’ve never confessed Him as Lord and believed in His resurrection—this is your moment.
Not someday.
Today.
You cannot love someone you haven’t met.
You cannot trust an authority you haven’t submitted to.
And Jesus is standing before you right now—just like He stood before the Pharisees—asking: Will you acknowledge me?
Will you turn from your own way and follow mine?
If that’s you—if today is the day you surrender your life to Jesus Christ—I invite you to come forward.
Come to the altar.
Confess.
Believe.
Let our prayer team stand with you.
Let the church celebrate with you. L
et this be the day everything changes.
Second: Come to Renew Your Covenant
And if you’re already a believer, this invitation is for you too. We’ve been challenged this morning about wholeness. About loving God with everything—heart, mind, soul, and strength.
And honestly?
There are probably areas of your life that haven’t been fully surrendered.
Places where sanctification is still incomplete.
Parts of you still trying to manage things on your own terms.
Maybe your mind has drifted toward the world’s answers.
Maybe your affections have been misplaced.
Maybe your worship has been divided.
Maybe your strength has grown weary and you’ve been going through the motions.
I’m inviting you to come to the altar—not to start something new, but to renew what you’ve already begun.
To re-consecrate your mind to His truth.
To realign your affections.
To unify your worship.
To reignite your strength for the journey.
To say yes to Him—all of Him.
Come for prayer. Come for the laying on of hands. Come to be reminded: You are His. Set apart.
Holy.
Completely and wholly His.
Heart, mind, soul, and strength. And He is asking: Will you be all mine?
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