The Heart of Kingdom Life

Suppose someone handed you a Bible and said, “I know this is important, but it’s more than a thousand pages long. I don’t know anything about Christianity. Can you tell me in one sentence what God wants from me?”

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What would you say?

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You get one sentence.

How would you take Genesis through Revelation—the commandments, histories, prophets, poetry, Gospels and letters—and boil it all down to its essence?”

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In our text today, someone essentially asked Jesus that question.

Would you read God’s Word with me?

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.”

The event of our text today happened near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
 Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem is recorded in the previous chapter, Matthew 21. After Jesus entered the city, he went to the Temple and drove out the money changers and those selling animals.

The following morning on the way back to the city, Jesus cursed a fig tree that had leaves but no fruit. The fruitless tree provided a vivid picture within this section of Matthew: outward religious appearance without the fruit God desires.


During these final days in Jerusalem, opposition from the religious establishment intensified.
 The chief priests and elders confronted Jesus and questioned His authority.

The Pharisees and Herodians attempted to trap Him with a politically explosive question about paying taxes to Caesar. The Sadducees challenged Him concerning the resurrection with their hypothetical story about a woman who had been married to seven brothers.


Then the Pharisees gathered again.
 One of them, a lawyer—an expert in the Law—asked:

Matthew 22:36 ESV

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”


This was not a simple, sincere theological question. Matthew explicitly tells us that the lawyer asked the question “to test him.”

Commentators explain…

This was a question which, with some others, divided the Jewish teachers into rival schools, and was a constant bone of contention… . Some pronounced the law of circumcision the greater; others, that of sacrifices, or ablutions, or phylacteries. The Talmud reckoned the positive laws of Moses at 248, the negative at 365, in all 613. To keep so many laws, said the Jews, is an angel’s work.

Johnson, B. W. (1891). The people’s New Testament: with explanatory notes (p. 123). Christian Publishing Company.

By forcing Jesus to identify the greatest commandment in the Law, His opponents potentially could use His answer against Him.

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What is the greatest commandment of all?

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Jesus answered their question, making a profound statement about what life in God’s kingdom looks like.

He answered with the most memorized and recited of all scriptures, the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. But then, Jesus also pointed to a very practical section of the Law, Leviticus 19, which talks about loving God and others.

Here is the basic principle behind Jesus’ answer:

Big Idea: Kingdom life is defined by wholehearted love.

What do we mean that kingdom life is defined by wholehearted love? Note, firstly,…

1. The expectation of kingdom life - we must love God completely, vv. 37-38.

Matthew 22:37 ESV

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.

Interestingly, Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, but Matthew’s wording is slightly different from the wording we find there.

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.

Deuteronomy says might; Matthew says mind. In a similar exchange recorded in Luke, we find all four words:

Luke 10:27 ESV

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

We could spend considerable time examining why the wording differs, but we shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees. Whether we read heard, soul, mind, or strength, the repeated word is all.

Jesus wasn’t dividing us into compartments and telling us how much of each part to give God. Rather, the language piles term upon term to emphasize one point: we must love God with all that we are; we must love God wholeheartedly!

Our affections, our ambitions, our mind and attitudes, our strength and activity - all are to be open to God and devoted to him.

Paraphrased - Augsburger, M. S., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1982). Matthew (Vol. 24, p. 18). Thomas Nelson Inc.

In other words, God desires from us much more than religious participation. God’s passion, God’s command, is not that we should regularly attend church.

The command to love God is not fulfilled necessarily even if we find some ministry in the church. God is not asking us to apply for church membership.

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God is asking you… for YOU!

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Only when we commit ourselves to God in wholehearted love will we experience what kingdom life is about.

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Maybe we should clarify this even further, because sometimes people view life as compartments: church life, home life, work life, play life, sports life… you name it.

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Jesus is not asking for one part of our lives or even most of those parts. Jesus expects us to submit ALL aspects of our lives to him. He alone is our Lord.

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So, we go to church and worship God because we love Jesus. But we also go home and live before our family in love to God. We go to work, and yes, we make money and do our best to succeed… but we do it all loving Jesus first and foremost.

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Our love for Jesus should show when we watch TV and when we play a game of ball, when we work on our hobbies and when we shoot the breeze with our friends. The expectation of kingdom life is that we will love God completely.

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2. The expression of kingdom life - we love others like we love ourselves, v. 39.

The lawyer asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. He expected a single answer; Jesus gave him two!

Matthew 22:39 ESV

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The word “like” is key, carrying the meaning of “resembling” or “similar.”

In other words, Jesus was linking love for God with love for people.

Consider this background information:

In the late first century R. Akiba, in contrast to some of his colleagues, regarded love of neighbor in Lev 19:18 as the greatest commandment in the law. Although Jesus ranked it only second, their rankings were close. Other Jewish teachers also conjoined love of God with love of neighbor, following the natural Jewish interpretive principle of linking two commandments on the basis of the common opening word weʾahavta (“You shall love”).

Keener, C. S. (2009). The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (p. 216). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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If we love God, we will love others like we love ourselves!

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This statement deserves more explanation. Some have suggested that in order to love others properly, we must first love ourselves properly.

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This is NOT what Jesus said.

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Jesus was not teaching us a proper self-love and then asking us to love others similar. Rather… Jesus was assuming we all love ourselves - we care for our own lives.

We take care of our bodies. We eat. We sleep. We exercise. We avoid unnecessary danger. We do our best to live and to enjoy life.

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Yes, our standards of what it means to take care of our bodies may differ from person to person. Some are less concerned about their physical appearance. Some go to great lengths to make sure they are presentable. Some are risktakers. Others never get out of the shallow end of the pool.

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But the point is the same. We all care for our own lives. This love for Self can become all-consuming and cancerous. Some show little regard for others while their estimation of themselves is gargantuan in comparison.

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In this scripture, Jesus explains that kingdom life expressed is as concerned for others as it is for Self. We do not live for ourselves. We live for God.

Because God is full of love for all, we then should demonstrate a loving concern for all people - not just ourselves nor our family, not just for those who might return our love with love, not merely for those who are good to us, but even for those who ignore our love, take advantage of our love, or respond with hate.

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Loving our neighbor “as ourselves” means extending toward others the concern we naturally extend toward ourselves.

Leviticus 19 demonstrates that this love is concrete. This chapter is quite specific as it details various situations in which we are called to love others.

This chapter explains that loving your neighbor means leaving provision for the poor, refusing to steal or deceive, paying workers fairly, refusing to take vengeance, and caring for the outsider.

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After stating the greatest commandment to love God with all we are and its linked commandment, to love others like we love ourselves, Jesus then stated:

3. The essence of kingdom life - love fulfills God's Word and will, v. 40.

Matthew 22:40 ESV

On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The Law, of course, referred to the first five books of what we call the Old Testament. The Prophets refer to the rest of what we call the Old Testament.

In other words, Jesus was saying that all of the Hebrew Bible, the only scripture that existed at this time, was dependent on these two commands: to love God and to love people.

The Bible doesn’t make sense without these two foundational laws! In these two commandments, we find the general principles behind all of God’s desire for His people.

Love fulfills God’s Word… and God’s will!

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If you study God’s Word and you don’t see God’s call to love him and then to love others as an expression of our love to God, you haven’t read your Bible right!

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God’s Word is not merely a rulebook by which we measure ourselves and others.

God’s Word is not meant to provide the philosophical foundation of our political persuasion.

God’s Word is not meant to be a proof text for how I am right and you are wrong.

God’s Word shows us how to love… how to love God and how to love people.

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Have you ever wondered what God’s will for your life is?

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Yes, God speaks to us individually, showing us how he would like to use our lives for his glory. We are called to different tasks and ministries, careers, and stations in life.

But through God’s Word, we also recognize that the basic will of God is fulfilled… in love; love for God and love for others.

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What does this mean - to love God and to love others as the whole essence of God’s Word and God’s will for our lives?

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Critically, we must understand that love is not sentimentalism. God is not calling us to have strong emotions - to feel sappy or weepy.

Love does not replace truth. Rather, love expresses the Truth of God’s Word in terms that convicts but does not condemn.

Love does not replace a holy life; rather, a heart purely motivated from love, even if imperfectly expressed, is the essence of what holiness is about.

We do not resort to love in place of obedience; rather, love gives our obedience its proper orientation.

Some have a distorted understanding of discipleship where we separate being right, holy, or obedient from being loving. The test of wholehearted love is not whether we love when love is easy, but whether God’s love governs us when love becomes costly.

None of us loves God or others this perfectly in our own strength. But the One who gave these commandments also perfectly fulfilled them.

Jesus loved His Father with His whole being, and He loved us enough to give His life for us. When His Spirit fills our hearts with God’s love, He enables us to love in ways that we never could on our own.

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Big Idea: Kingdom life is defined by wholehearted love.

The expectation of kingdom life is that we love God completely. The expression of kingdom life is that we love others like we love ourselves. The essence of kingdom life is seen in that love fulfills God’s Word and God’s will for us.

Truly, I believe we all have a desire that God's love flow through us. But may God’s love govern every part of our heart and every relationship!

The challenge, of course, is putting this love into practice. Yes, this scripture is a challenge for us to love God with every fiber of our being.

But probably the greater challenge is to love others as ourselves. So… let’s apply this scripture with a specific challenge to our lives.

This week, our challenge is to 
identify a situation where we find it challenging to love others and deliberately demonstrate Christlike love.

As I considered potential stories that might provide a suitable illustration and application for this message, I was reminded of John Wesley and George Whitefield.

These two men lived in the 1700s and were key characters in the Great Awakening that spread through England and the American colonies.

Wesley and Whitefield were close coworkers in the early evangelical revival. Whitefield actually helped draw Wesley into field preaching.

But their disagreement over predestination and free grace became severe around 1740–41. Wesley was firmly Arminian; Whitefield became firmly Calvinistic.

Wesley published Free Grace attacking predestination, and Whitefield publicly responded. At one point Whitefield told Wesley that they were preaching essentially different understandings of the gospel and could not continue working together as before.

The emerging Methodist movement effectively divided into Wesleyan and Calvinistic branches.

This wasn’t a minor disagreement about some peripheral issue. They believed the other was seriously wrong about the nature of God’s saving grace.

Yet their friendship survived

Historical accounts indicate that although they continued to disagree—and their respective movements never reunited—the two men eventually restored their personal relationship.

Philip Schaff’s history describes them becoming cordial friends again, with their friendship continuing until Whitefield’s death in 1770.

Before his death, someone reportedly asked Whitefield who should preach his funeral sermon if he died abroad. Should it be his old friend John Wesley?

Whitefield repeatedly answered: “He is the man.”

Wesley preached this sermon on November 18, 1770, at Whitefield’s own London chapels, a heartfelt tribute to his longtime friend and fellow evangelist.

Wesley didn’t use the funeral to settle old scores. Instead, he praised Whitefield’s zeal, compassion, generosity, courage—and especially his capacity for friendship. Wesley said that Whitefield possessed a heart capable of extraordinarily tender friendship and then asked:

“Can anything but love beget love?

The story is also told that one day after Whitefield’s death, Wesley was timidly approached by a Christian woman who loved both Whitefield and Wesley.

"Dear Mr. Wesley, may I ask you a question”, she asked.

“Yes, of course, madam, by all means.”

“But, dear Mr. Wesley, I am very much afraid what the answer will be.”

“Well, madam, let me hear your question, and then you will know my reply.”

At last, after quite a bit of hesitation, the woman tremblingly asked, “Dear Mr. Wesley, do you expect to see dear Mr. Whitefield in heaven?”

A lengthy pause followed, after which John Wesley replied with great seriousness, “No, madam.”

The woman immediately exclaimed, “Ah, I was afraid you would say so.”

Then John Wesley added, with intense earnestness, “Do not misunderstand me, madam; George Whitefield was so bright a star in the firmament of God's glory, and will stand so near the throne, that one like me, who am less than the least, will never catch a glimpse of him."

Wesley and Whitefield never reached agreement on predestination. Their ministries remained organizationally separate. Their followers continued debating the issue. Yet eventually they refused to allow a serious disagreement to determine whether they would love one another.

And so their lives challenge us to truly apply this scripture to our lives by identifying a situation where we find it challenging to love others and then deliberately demonstrating Christlike love to them.

No, this challenge is not that you should change your opinion, pretend nothing happened, or decide the issue doesn’t matter.

Rather, it is a challenge that whatever circumstances you face in life, you will not allow them to keep you from loving as Christ commands you to love.

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The lawyer asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Jesus gave him more than an answer. Jesus gave us the heart of kingdom life.

Love God with all that you are.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

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This week, when loving someone becomes difficult, remember: this is not an interruption to the Christian life. This is where the Christian life is lived.

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Is your life defined by love for God and others?