“House Rules”

If you open it, close it.

If you turn it on, turn it off.

If you unlock it, lock it.

If you break it, fix it.

If you can’t fix it, call someone who can.

If you borrow it, return it.

If you use it, take care of it.

If you make a mess, clean it up.

If you move it, put it back.

If it belongs to someone else and you want to use it, get permission.

If you don’t know how to operate it, leave it alone.

If it doesn’t concern you, don’t mess with it.

There are rules for every area of life, whether we want to admit it or not…There are rules for employment, family, faith, marriages, parenting, relationship and religion, but seemingly people tend rebel against standards while creating rules they cannot keep. Rules for some highlight what they cannot do…rules creates accountability for those who violate the standard....rules for some are ways to control people…rules for some are manipulative…one thing in life that every rule is not meant for everyone... If you think back to your younger days, the reason why many of you desired to move out early had nothing to do with your parents, but more so with their rules. When you reached the point where you failed to adhere to the standard, your parents insisted that you find your own place where you can make your own rules. In the church, some go from church to church because they either dislike rules or they attempt to control other by their rules. Man made rules are debatable, but God’s house rules are non negotiable. Why then does the church rebel against God’s house rules? Jesus rehearses God’s house rules from Deuteronomy 6:1-5. God’s house rules… #HouseRules

Sermon in a Sentence

Jesus’ house rules cuts through confusion and complexity to focus our lives on two all-encompassing truths that are meant to work together: love God and love others.

The Great Commandment

This text provides us with another controversy narrative where Jesus is again tested, this time by a Pharisee. While in Mark there is no air of hostility involved in this story, but rather someone who is a genuine seeker of knowledge who admires Jesus’ responses under pressure to the Sadducees and others and who responds well and wisely to Jesus’ teaching, this is not at all clear in Matthew in view of the editing of the Markan material. Jesus’ hermeneutics is unveiled here. The entire Law hinges on its central commands to love God and neighbor. God is to be loved whole-heartedly, which is the greatest commandment. But this is impossible without the aid of God, hence the word of Augustine: “give what your command, Lord, and then command whatever you will.” Once again Jesus as the incarnate expression of the mind of God knows exactly what is the heart of the matter and how God sees things. The Pharisees had tried to trap Jesus in his speech (v. 15) without success. But now that they heard that the Sadducees had been silenced (the word means “muzzled”; it indicates clearly that they did not know what to say), the Pharisees reviewed the situation. They were gathered together, which looks like a more or less formal assembly. The impression Matthew gives is that the discomfiture of the Sadducees signaled to the Pharisees that there was a new situation, and it seemed well to them that they should get together and consider what they ought to do. But if that is what is meant, Matthew is not very interested in the Pharisaic discussions. He goes on immediately to a question asked by one of them. It was not the discussion but the sequel that was important.

Matthew says that one of them now put another question to Jesus (so the Pharisaic inquisition was still on the job), this one described as a lawyer. From the form of the question we might be ready to think it was a genuine quest for information, but since Matthew expressly says that the lawyer was testing him we must view this as another attempt to entrap Jesus. The restless attempts to trick Jesus into an answer that would discredit him either with the authorities or with the general public continued. His opponents never learned that they were on a futile quest. Once again we have the polite address, “Teacher”; throughout this series of attempts to entrap and discredit Jesus there is the outward form of politeness....(watch those gaslighters). The lawyer proceeds to ask, “which is the great commandment in the law?” (Mark has “the first commandment,” but this will mean much the same, “the first in importance”). The rabbis divided the commandments in the law into the light and the weighty. They did not mean that some commandments were so slight that they could be neglected. All the commandments were God’s, and therefore all were to be treated with full seriousness.

There was in early Judaism a great deal of dispute about how to rank the 613 commandments (248 positive commands, 365 prohibitions) in the Hebrew Scriptures in terms of importance, and even more debate as to which one was the most crucial or paramount of these commandments, which then could be used as a hermeneutical tool to interpret the rest. But obviously some commandments were more important than others; the command to do no murder is more important than that which prohibits boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Deut. 14:21). That opened up the way for speculation as to which of all the 613 commandments that the rabbis found in the law was to be regarded as the greatest of them all. This is another question that must have looked to the questioner as though it should give matter for argument and controversy no matter what answer Jesus gave. Be careful of those who question you because they motive may be malicious There is no objective yardstick for measuring one commandment against another, so that whatever commandment Jesus selected for the first place would certainly have been placed lower by others. The lawyer was initiating a discussion that might lead anywhere and that in his view would certainly provide a strong possibility of damaging Jesus’ reputation.

Love God — Theology

Let me give you an illustration of the difference between the old and the new covenants drawn from human affairs. There are two schoolmasters. One of them with many threats issues rules and laws for his pupils as to what they shall do and what they shall not do, and certain severe punishments are threatened for disobedience, the rod being the great governor of the school. Now, I can suppose these children to be mere hypocrites, obeying when the master was present, but utterly destitute of any principle of order or obedience. They are glad enough to run into riotous disorder at the first instant that the master’s back is turned.But the other master, by his kindness, his gentle reasoning, and loving instructions, has won the hearts of his pupils, and he has therefore no need to be always giving minute regulations. The lads themselves, knowing in their own consciences what is right to him, and having an affection for him, would be unwilling to grieve him. Men will do far more from love than we might dare to ask as a matter of duty. Are you able to keep the “house rules” when you think no one is looking? Why do you obey God?

The greatest commandment places “love” at the center of human ethics. Jesus’ point is that they must love God with their entire being and with all their faculties, with all that one is and has. The word for love Jesus uses here is agapao, to have love for someone or something, based on sincere appreciation and high regard. The NT writers primarily use the verb agapao to express God’s demonstration of love for humanity and the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Love that is demonstrated is always declared, while declared love may not always be demonstrated. Love for God must govern our emotions, guide our thoughts, and be the dynamic of all we do. These three categories overlap and are not mutually exclusive. This verb refers to a kind of love that expresses personal will and affection rather than emotions or feelings. The word heart Jesus uses is kardia, is the causative source of a person’s psychological life in its various aspects, but with special emphasis upon thoughts. The heart refers to the innermost center of one’s being, the soul is the life force that energizes a person (psyche, the essence of life in terms of thinking, willing, and feeling) and the mind is the faculty of thinking and planning (psyche, . The heart is the core of a person’s existence and the source of his/her thoughts and actions; the soul is probably to be understood as the seat of emotional activity, and the mind (dianoia, the seat of thinking and the place from which desires originate), is the source of mental activity, disposition, and attitudes. The heart is the whole of the inner sphere and source of conscience, the soul is the capacity to feel and desire, and the mind encompasses the powers of thought and volition [MY]. The heart is the center of personality, within which the soul and mind dwell and function; the soul is consciousness and the life that animates the body, and the mind is reason with its functions of thoughts, ideas, and convictions.

Love Others — Practice

Going beyond the original question, Jesus adds a second commandment that is also foundational—Lev 19:18. “The second is like it” probably means that this commandment is of equal importance. Jewish interpreters had long recognized the preeminent value of each of these laws; Jesus apparently was the first to fuse the two and to exalt them above the whole law (though Philo, Spec. Leg. 2:15, comes close to doing this). Divine love issues in interpersonal love. “As yourself” is not a call to self-love but does presuppose it. These two commandments are the greatest because all others flow from them; indeed the whole Old Testament “hangs” on them. In other words, all other commandments are summed up and/or contained in these. Verse 40 is unique to Matthew and reminds one of the concerns of 5:17 and 7:12. Matthew omits Jesus’ relatively positive interchange with this lawyer following his answer (Mark 12:32–34), in keeping with his unrelenting focus on the hostility against Christ. But the Pharisees could scarcely object to Jesus’ reply, even if he elsewhere defines neighbor love much more radically than was customary in Judaism (Luke 10:25–37). The church may not have a leadership problem, but it may have a love problem because we do not practice loving one another.

The word neighbor in the Greek is plesion, a person who lives close beside others and who thus by implication is a part of a so-called “in-group,” that is, the group with which an individual identifies both ethnically and culturally. It means to have the same concern for others that we have for ourselves. It assumes that people naturally love themselves. They love themselves in the sense of being concerned for their own self-interest more than for the interests of others. It means that our treatment of others must be the same as how we would want to be treated. Here, Jesus shows the importance of practicing good theology.

House Rules Regulate the Relationship — If you forget, see rules #1 and #2

The relationship of all the Old Testament to the double love commandment shows that there is a hierarchy of law that above all requires one’s heart attitude to be correct. If this is absent, obedience to commandments degenerates into mere legalism. Combining Jesus’ teaching here with his approach to the law, as, e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount, demonstrates that while the principle of love remains constant, applications vary for different circumstances. Nevertheless, Jesus’ words also strongly differentiate him from situation ethicists. Love does make specific moral demands, including certain absolutes. What is more, the proper motivation for correct interpersonal relationships always remains a profound sense of gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ. Jesus’ twofold answer should warn Christians against emphasizing either piety for God or social concern at the expense of the other. The word depend in the Greek word kremannymi, to be in a relation of dependency upon something, to be tied together by or only have meaning because of.