Next Steps - 1

Next Steps - 1

Matthew 22:34-40

Introduction

One of my favorite things to look at online is workplace fails. People who are getting paid to do simple work but for some reason they just don’t get it done. For example:

- Target Price Tag [pic] (cookies for who?)

- Football Field Sideline [pic]

- Mannequin with Shirt [pic]

- Newscast Weather [pic] (how hard is it to put in the city names?)

This isn’t hard. This isn’t complicated. This is easy stuff, right? Yet, for some reason, the people responsible for doing it just don’t get it done.

Today we are starting a new series, only two weeks, called Next Steps. In it we are going to lay out the clear, simple steps to take to ensure your faith will flourish. Our text for today, and our application of it, is really simple. Simple things to do, simple steps to take…yet at times, those who are responsible for take those steps just don’t take them.

Matthew 22:34-40 - 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 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. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

We are going to anchor in this text this week and next week too and explore what it means, what it looks like to live out these commands. Jesus has just been in an extended conversation with the Sadducees, one of the Jewish religious groups of his day. They pepper him with questions regarding the resurrection because they don’t believe in the resurrection. He answers them perfectly, as he always does. So their conversation ends with this description…Matthew 22:33 - And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

Now it’s the Pharisees turn. This is the group Jesus sparred with the most. The Sadducees were more high-end and ran the Temple in Jerusalem. It was the Pharisees who ran the local synagogues in all the towns, which is why they seem to be everywhere. They were respected and powerful within ancient Judaism. These are the experts on God and his law. They heard that Jesus had silenced the other group, so now they gather and put their heads together. They don’t like Jesus. They don’t like what he says. They are desperate to find a way to trick him. To embarrass him publicly, to trip him up in what he says. Nothing has worked so far. But maybe this tactic will.

A lawyer approaches him…don’t think of lawyer in our sense today, but as one who is an expert in the OT law. The Gospel of Mark calls him a scribe. This is someone whose full-time job is to copy the OT and thus become an expert on it. The question is to test him. This is not authentic. This is not sincere. This is devious. They want to shut Jesus up.

“Which is the great commandment in the Law?” That’s a great question. The word for ‘great’ is mega. What is the mega-commandment? This was a normal question for the Jewish authorities of the day. They catalogued and categorized the OT law…613 of them, 248 positive, 365 negative. Then they continually ranked those laws. It was a never-ending discussion among them about what laws ranked higher than others. It said much about your faith to see which laws you valued more than others. Jesus acknowledges this difference in laws in Matthew 23:23 when he accuses the religious leaders of neglecting the “weightier” matters of the law. Which one is the heaviest?

Jesus didn’t hesitate. And he gives a very non-controversial answer. Nobody would have really debated him on this. In fact, Mark’s Gospel tells us that the lawyer asking the question is impressed by Jesus’ answer and declares, “You are right!” Of course he was right…he’s the God who gave the Law.

Love God with ALL of your being. All your heart, all your soul, all your mind. This is a quotation of Deuteronomy 6, a passage known as the Shema to the Jews. It was the doctrinal foundation for them. All pious Jews recited the Shema twice a day. It was written on the doorposts of their houses. They carried this verse in little leather containers on their wrists and foreheads. Their lives were built on this truth…there is one God and our response is to love him. And we are to love him with all that we are.

How is it that we come to love God? 1 John 4:19 - 19 We love because he first loved us. We love God precisely and primarily because he has shown us what love is and what love does. He is the embodiment and expression of love itself. The only way we can love him is because he has already loved us. He has proven himself lovely. In Jesus, he has given us all the reason we’d ever need to love him. How could you not love the one who has loved you, forgiven you, saved you, adopted you? He is our everything. God’s love is a love for sinners. A love for rebels. A love for those who naturally hate him. He doesn’t forgive the righteous. He forgives sinners. He doesn’t adopt the worthy. He adopts the enemy. Romans 5:8 - 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God loves us and we love him in return. But Jesus continued in Matthew 22. v. 39 - and the second is like it, or equal to it. Then he quotes Leviticus 19:18, love your neighbor as yourself.

Loving others is the natural consequence of loving God. In fact, you cannot love God without loving those who are made in his image.

1 John 3:14-17 - 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

1 John 4:19-21 - 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

I said earlier that when Jesus answered this question from the lawyer, he gives an expected response. Well, sort of. Certainly no one would’ve argued with him. But his answer was technically revolutionary. No one in history before him had linked these two commands together. All the religious before him had stopped at love God. But Jesus takes the answer to its logical, biblical conclusion. If you are going to love God, you have to love people too. So here is how this works…you cannot love people without first loving God (we love because he first loved us)…and you cannot love God without loving people. It’s a package deal.

TS - now we come to the issue at hand for today…how do we actually do this? What does it look like to love God and to love people? Here is the question we will use to guide us, a question I think is at the heart of following Jesus…what does love require of me? Love for God and love for people…what does love require of me? In an effort to be as helpful and practical as possible, we have distilled Christian living into six steps to take. This is not an exhaustive list, of course. Loving God and loving people encompasses all of life. But if we were to narrow it down to the essentials, to those steps, that if you take them, your faith will flourish, what would they be? We will cover the first three today and the second three next week.

WORSHIP FAITHFULLY

At the heart of loving God is to worship him. He has done so very much for us, so the logical, reasonable response from us is to worship.

Romans 12:1 - I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Now, by worship faithfully, I mean attend church faithfully. There is a reason church is called a worship service. Attending church anchors you in your love for the Lord and the right response to him. Corporate worship is designed to do a number of things:

- remind you of what is true

- focus on the Gospel

- hear the Bible preached and taught

- lift voices together in worship

- equip you to serve and share your faith in the world

- encourage you to persevere in your faith

This reality is what prompted the writer of Hebrews to declare in Hebrews 10:23-25 - 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

How do we encourage each other? How do we stir one another up to love and good works? How do we hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering? We go to church!

Here is why this seemingly simplistic step is so important…the average church attender (regular church attender) in America attends church once a month. Ironically a ‘regular’ church attender is the very definition of ‘irregular’ in their attendance. Listen…being a Christian is more than attending church on Sunday, but it is never less than that.

This past year has proven this more than ever before. We are quickly approaching a year since Covid hit here and life as we knew it shut down. For some of you, it is coming up on a year since you’ve attended church. You know better than anyone how important this is. You are frustrated. You are disappointed. You are struggling. And we know why…contrary to what so many church leaders said last year…there is simply no adequate replacement for gathering in corporate worship. No video we produce, no livestream, no resource can EVER replace gathering together.

To those of you who are frustrated and disappointed, hold onto hope…the day is coming when we will all gather together again. Now, to those of you who haven’t attended church in almost a year, but aren’t frustrated by that, who aren’t disappointed by that…something needs to change. The danger of becoming more and more comfortable with online engagement grows each week. The fact of the matter is that the consequences of not attending church are simply incalculable. We have no idea the negative impact on you or on your kids. Let me encourage you…do whatever you have to do to come to a place where convenience doesn’t win the day. Nothing can replace gathering with God’s people…don’t even try.

A study came out at the beginning of this year that measured the level of people’s hope. Did 2020 cause people to become more hopeful or more hopeless. In a staggering result, there was only one demographic in the entire nation that grew in hope in 2020…church attenders.

I meet so many Christians who want to do hard things, big things, for God. Yet they neglect one of the easiest, smallest things to do for God. Show up. There are any number of things to do on Sunday mornings. And if you want your life to be defined by something other than love for God, do those things. But if you want your life to be defined by love for God and love for people, then worship faithfully.

GROW SPIRITUALLY

Once we establish that we worship faithfully, this is our Next Step. For the last six weeks we have been hitting on this idea that Wherever you are, God doesn’t want you there. He wants us to grow.

Hebrews 6:1 - Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity…

Stop acting like you are in Kindergarten and grow up! People who attend church 12x a year also don’t pick up their Bible to read it regularly. They don’t pray often. And they wonder why their life isn’t what they want it to be. Too many Christians have stepped across the line into faith and haven’t take a single step since. Spiritual growth is an act of love…love for the God who saved you, love for the Lord you want to know better, and love for the people around you. You being more like Jesus is better for everyone in your life.

Engage with your Bible. Buy the Core52 resource. Attend the midweek study, or a Sunday group, or another group during the week. Make whatever adjustments to your schedule that are necessary. Love requires it.

CONNECT RELATIONALLY

When the church began in Acts 2, one of the clear steps they took was to connect with each other relationally. In fact, you can see all these steps in the description of life in that first church. Their lives had just been radically altered when they encountered the grace of God to save sinners like them. They place their faith in Jesus and are baptized into him. Immediately, they did this:

Acts 2:42-47 - 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

They worshipped faithfully, verse 46. They grew spiritually, devoting themselves to the Bible and prayer, verse 42. And they connected with the other Christians around them.

- v. 44 - And all who believed were together…

- v. 46 - attending the temple together…breaking bread in their homes

They realized a core truth…you can’t do this alone. If your faith is going to flourish, then you need to link arms with other believers and walk this walk together. The Church is the living lab where you learn how your faith works. You learn what it means to love God and to love his people. Forgiving and being forgiven, bearing one another’s burdens, praying with and for one another, teaching and learning, singing together, serving in some capacity…these are all acts of love…love for God or love for his people.

Conclusion

For some people, they see steps like this and they think…there’s got to be more. Well, technically there are three more next week. But these seem too easy. Too simplistic. Really basic. They seem simple and easy, but are they really? Why is the average church attender coming 1x a month? Why are so few Christians committed to growing their faith to maturity? Why are so few in groups or classes of some kind? Maybe it isn’t as easy we think. Yes, they are basic, foundational. That’s the point.

ILL - I’ve talked about this before, but I grew up in a baseball family. The best baseball teams are those, not with the most all-stars or the highest paid players. The best teams are those that consistently execute the fundamentals for 162 games. They get on base. They get hits. They field the ground balls and catch the fly balls. They avoid errors. They lay down the bunt when its called for. Basics. Essentials. Fundamentals. But executing them faithfully over 162 games is how you win the World Series.

These things seem simple and basic, but you never get to graduate from the basics. 1,000 page novels are built on the ABC’s. Complex mathematics is built on 0-9. This is the foundation. Everything we do is built upon them. Together we build our lives, we build this church, upon this sold foundation.

Love God. Love People. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not at all.

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