The Greatest Commandment - Matthew 22:34-40

©Copyright October 1, 2017 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche

Life is filled with choices. Do you take a nap or cut the grass? Do you write a letter or make dinner? Do you speak up or stay quiet? Do you fight or do you wait on the Lord? Of course, the most important choice is: do I follow Christ or go my own way?

For some reason the Jewish religious leaders in the time of Jesus chose to oppose Him rather than follow Him. They chose to hold on to their slice of power rather than surrender to His Lordship. And before we condemn them, let’s be honest enough to admit that we often do the same thing.

It should not surprise us that these same religious leaders spent time debating which of the 613 Laws in the first five books of the Bible was the most important. It was a spirited debate . . .kind of the way Christians debate details about the End Times today! It is into this debate they seek to involve Jesus.

Unlike the other questions (the question on authority, taxes, and the resurrection) it is hard to know what the Pharisees hoped to gain by “testing” Jesus with this question. Did they believe Jesus would not be up to a scholarly debate? Did they hope to ridicule Him as one lacking the knowledge to lead others? It’s hard to know. All we know for sure is Jesus was ready for them!

Let’s look at the text,

34But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

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

The Pharisees sent a scholar to talk with Jesus. He was armed with information and certainly felt he could easily win a debate with this “uneducated carpenter.” But Jesus completely unraveled the scholar with an answer as simple as it was profound: He quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 (known as the Shema). It was a statement every devoted Jew repeated daily.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

In other words, the answer to the question was on the lips of every Jewish person! The question the scholar thought was so difficult was actually elementary. I guess we know who looked like they were educated beyond their intelligence!

Karl Barth was a well-known and respected theologian. He had written many books. One day in 1962 he was at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago. During the question and answer time after his lecture a student asked Barth if he could summarize his whole life’s work in theology in a sentence. Barth said something like. “yes I can. In the words of a song I learned on my Mother’s knee: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Jesus did not stop at the most important commandment. He also told the scholar the second most important commandment which was found in Leviticus 19:18

18“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

We are going to look at both of these commands more closely, but notice that the first command has to do with our vertical relationship with God. The second, with our horizontal relationship with each other. These two are always tied together. If we are in right relationship with God it WILL impact the way we relate to each other.

The Greatest Commandment

Let’s look at these greatest of commandments. Before we do, let’s clear something up. R.C. Sproul writes.

There is a widely held idea in the Christian world that all of the laws of God hold equal weight. Perhaps one of the reasons for that is the teaching of James, who writes, “Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (2:10). However, James does not mean that when we violate one point of the law we thereby violate every particular law. Moreover, there are frequent instances in Scripture where gradations of sin are set forth. God considered certain laws so important that He specified that violations of them deserved the death penalty, but He did not require such grave penalties for other laws. Obviously, therefore, the prohibition against murdering a human being (Ex. 20: 13) was of greater import than the prohibition against boiling a goat in its mother’s milk (Ex. 23: 19). Even Jesus recognized a hierarchy of laws; He said, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments . . . shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5: 19).

To summarize, All the Laws of God are significant but they are not equally important. A violation of God’s commands is always sin but there are degrees of sin!

Jesus said the most important command was to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. In other words, God wants us to love Him fully.

Do you remember when you were first really in love? You couldn’t stop thinking about that person. You talked about them constantly. In fact, you would find ways to bring them up in conversations that had nothing to do with them! If you had a chance to spend time with them, you would completely rearrange your schedule so you could do so. You looked for ways to show them how much you cared about them. I think this is the way God wants us to feel about Him!

When you first become a parent, you would find yourself standing next to your baby’s crib completely mesmerized by that sleeping surprise of joy. You watched them breath and were filled with wonder. You found yourself making noises and carrying on without any concern at all for what other people were thinking about all your babbling. God wants us to be this in love with Him.

Few of us would say we love God with this kind of passion. Sadly, we don’t feel bad about it because we know no one else loves God this completely either. But here is the question: Why don’t we feel this way about the Lord? Who is more wonderful than He is? Who has changed our lives more completely? Who else speaks words of comfort and instruction to us? Who else knows us better than we know ourselves, yet still loves us?

I suspect there are several reasons we don’t love Him as we should. First, we don’t truly know Him. We have a passing knowledge of Him. We know enough, we believe, to get by. Maybe we feel we know enough to get into Heaven. We have settled for crumbs when the main course is before us.

Second, we have taken Him for granted. God does not push us like so many other demands in our lives. Because He is Spirit he is easy to dismiss. We feel like He is always there so there is no hurry to know and love Him. It is not one of our highest priorities because, well, we will have all of eternity to honor and praise Him.

What we overlook is how He seeks to enrich and deepen us right now. As we walk with Him we find that problems are easier to manage. He gives us strength that we often lack. In addition, walking with Him is delightful! The day is more beautiful, people are more fascinating, and knowledge is more captivating. He reveals treasures in life that we would overlook without Him. He guides us away from the landmines and foolish decisions of life. He uses us to do things we never dreamed we could do.

This is the point Paul was trying to make when He wrote:

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (Eph. 3:18-19)

When we think about love, we are usually talking about feelings or emotions. Maybe that would be the equivalent of “heart” love. However, when we add soul and mind we are reminded that love is also a decision. We certainly don’t feel like loving our enemy but we can CHOOSE to do so. We may not love God fully but we can choose to do so.

If we made the most important commandment the goal of our lives, it would revolutionize us and it would have a ripple effect on those around us. We would

Be content to let Him fight our battles

Be confident He could rebuild what was broken

Sleep without worry

Worship without inhibition

Tell others about Him regularly because we would be quick to brag about Him

Pursue Him with all our strength because He is the one most worth pursuing.

Turn to him with our needs because we know there is no better place to turn

We would reach out to others, confident God would use us for good in their lives

View death as our graduation day!

All of this when we start working on loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

The Horizontal Command

Jesus recognized that a true love for God will impact the horizontal relationship we have with others. We can’t truly love God if we do not love those whom He loves.

A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

You have probably heard people say that before we can love others we have to learn to love ourselves. They use this text as an encouragement to positive self-esteem. One commentator writes perceptively,

Let us not debate whether Jesus here commands self-love, nor let us discuss people who dislike themselves. Even those who dislike themselves love themselves. They lavish attention on themselves, on their efforts to feel better or to justify their misery. So, Jesus says, attend to your neighbor’s good as you do to your own. As you fuss over your cuts and blemishes, over bad pillows, over bad reports about your word, so fuss over your neighbor’s good. (Sproul)

It is not about caring for yourself more . . . it is about caring for others in the same way you care about yourself. It is about giving priority to the needs of others; giving them the benefit of the doubt; extending forgiveness, grace, and mercy. It means we try to love others as the Lord has loved us.

C.S. Lewis’ words about humility certainly apply here: “it is not about thinking less of yourself, it is about thinking of yourself less.” We can’t love other people if all we are concerned about is ourselves. Let’s be honest, much of the time the “loving acts” we do are self-serving. We hope (or plan) to get something in return. And if we do not, what we called “love” turns quickly into bitterness or hatred. When we give to get, we are not really giving at all . . . we are negotiating or worse, manipulating.

To truly love others, you must first see their value. We need to see the image of God in the people around us. We must get it through our head (so it will eventually impact our emotions): each person is valuable in God’s sight. We start the process of love when we look for the treasure in others. We may have to dig for it, but it is there. When we focus on the value rather than the weaknesses, we have begun to love.

Second, you need to be alert for pain. There is pain in every life. When you see someone’s pain and then stand with them in that pain, you show a love that will not quickly be forgotten. Much of the distasteful behavior we see from others is rooted in pain. If you look for the pain you will find a doorway to the true person.

Third, the kind of love Jesus commands is a love that goes beyond barriers. Frederick Buechner wrote:

The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich.… The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world[1]

When we can love even those who have hurt us, we begin to love as God has loved. It is easy to forget that we have rebelled against our Holy God. By all rights He should send us away. He should cast us off as His children. . . but He doesn’t. The proper motivation for loving others is our gratitude to God for loving us. This is why it is important to face our sinful nature squarely. When we see the depth of our sin, we are set free to understand and appreciate His mercy and grace.

When we treat each other with that same kind of love; when we see the potential rather than the pain; when we give the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming the worst possible motives; we are loving like He does.

Conclusions

Following God does not require a scholarly degree.

The scholars believed you had to know much before you were a true follower. Jesus said it is not that complicated. The gospel message boils down to some simple truths:

God deserves and requires our love and devotion

We have not given Him what He deserves and now we deserve Hell

The only way we can overcome our sin is through the sacrifice of Jesus

When we repent (regret and confess our sin), turn to Christ (as the only one who can save us) and then set out to follow Him . . . we are members of God’s family.

Here’s the point: you can stop putting off following the Lord because “you don’t know more”. Instead, embrace what you know and begin to grow your relationship with God. He is much more concerned about you knowing Him than He is about how many facts you have gathered.

How do we start following Him?

The first step is to repent of our failure to obey these commands. We must acknowledge that we have not loved God as we should (or even close). We have also not loved others in the same way we love ourselves. We must deal with the sin before we can move forward. Be honest with God and confess.

Second, try to imagine how life would be different if we obeyed the two most important commands God has given to us. How would it change our lives if we pursued Him with a passion that could not be abated? What if we loved Him more than our sports teams, our hobbies, our trinkets, or even all those things we claim are our “rights?” What if we desired Him more than ice cream on a hot day or even our coffee first thing in the morning? What if we longed for Him with a longing that captivated our every thought? What if we did everything in life with a desire to please and honor Him?

What would happen if we persistently chose love over fear, judgment, or competition toward each other? What if we loved one another the way Jesus loves us? What if we stopped demanding from others and started to give to them? What if we looked for the hurt rather than for the weakness we could exploit? Imagine and then do what you imagine!

It seems impossible. But Jesus died to set us free. He died so the impossible would be possible. He died so the Holy Spirit could live in us, guide us, and transform us. He died so we could know God in His richness and glory. It is time to start moving in that direction.

In other words, the way to begin is to BEGIN! It is time to start truly pursuing God and His heart for those around us! It is not nearly as complicated as we think.

[1] Daniel M. Doriani, Matthew 1 & 2, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, vol. 2, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 312.