THE GREATEST THING MY PARENTS EVER TAUGHT ME MATTHEW 22:34-40

Introduction

It was Thanksgiving of this past year and we had gathered together as an extended family for the first time in many years. All of us were there. Well, not all of us. The matriarch and patriarch of our family were not able to attend. The noise and aroma of that day filled the house. It was once again full of life.

Yet, one by one the family began to disperse heading back to their own small and respective places to continue their own lives. It was on that day that my sister gave me a wonderful gift. It was a gift that I had given to my mother at Christmas 1981. It is this book that I hold in my hand today. As I eventually began this past Friday to look through this book, I discovered that my mother had placed and kept a couple of pieces of scrap paper in this book indicating a couple of poems that obviously meant something to her.

One piece of paper apparently was an assignment from my boys Sunday School class. [read]

The other was apparently from a Mothers’ Day program I had some of those boys participate in on Mothers’ Day. It had their names and their assignment for that morning. I had not before this week seen those things for decades.

My parents taught me many things. They taught much about work, marriage, parenting, relationships and life. Be quick to build up others and even quicker to accept blame for your mistakes. Always seek to be a good neighbor to those around you. Care about the right things and don’t fret over things and don’t wast your time fretting over the things that aren’t. Here is a good one. Choose the narrow path. Always allow godly values to guide decision-making. They have taught me so much more than I have time to share. However, the greatest thing my parents ever taught is found in the text this morning. [read]

Sermon Idea

As I have looked at the text for today, I observe that what we have here is a single command with two dimensions. There is a vertical dimension and there is a horizontal. dimension. Our concentration this Mothers’ Day morning we will be on the vertical. Our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is vertical in nature. Since this is true there are some things that God deserves from us. There are at least four applications of that truth we are to observe.

Application #1: God Deserves our Time.

One of the life lessons my parents taught me was that if you love someone you desired to spend time with them. Not only did you want to spend time with them, you wanted to spend as much time as possible with them. What is true in other relationships in general is even more true in one’s relationship with Christ. Do we truly love Him? If we answered that in the positive, then there ought to be the reality of time spent with Him. The very first step in loving Christ is taking time every day to spend with Him. This means that every day we ought to be worshiping Him. Every day we ought to be spending time loving Him. If we love Him we will invest time learning His commandments so that we will know how to obey Him.

Call it whatever you will. Call it having devotions. Call it spending time alone with God. Call it private worship. It really doesn’t matter what you call it. All that matters is that you do it. So, get your Bible something to write on and something to write with and find a quiet place and just do it. It is not that complicated. It is reading the Bible. It is asking God to speak to you. It is taking time in prayer to seek God and listen to Him. Praise Him, thank Him, give Him your praise and give Him our burdens. Give Him your heartaches, your loved ones, your friends, your family and your circumstances. Surrender your life daily to Him.

God deserves our time. When we surrender time to Him we are loving Him. Give God what He deserves.

Application #2: God Deserves our Talents.

We love God by obeying Him. One of the ways we love Him is by serving God. We do this by taking that which God has given and use them for His glory in His kingdom. We use those things to serve others. Do you love God? If that is true you will serve Him. Every act of service you render is simply another way of demonstrating your love of God. My parents taught me never to give up an opportunity to serve Christ. Some pass up every opportunity to serve Christ because they are too busy serving and worshiping themselves.

Why do parents raise their children? Why do you feed them? Do you really enjoy those dirty diapers, wiping noses, and battling bath time? You do everything for your children when they are small because they cannot do anything for themselves? You certainly cannot do it because of what they can do for you? You do it for one reason and that is because you love them.

Just consider what God has done for you through Jesus Christ. Just think about the depth, breadth, and height of God’s love for you. Just consider what God has done for you that which you could never do for yourselves. Considering all this, why is it so difficult to serve Him? The truth is that it isn’t. The truth is that it is not an obedience problem when we don’t. Ultimately, it is a love problem. If we truly love God, we will passionately serve Him.

God deserves our time and He deserves our talents. There is a third thing that God deserves as well.

Application #3: God Deserves our Testimony

What is a testimony? A testimony is bearing witness to the truth. My parents were big on teaching my sister and I to tell the truth and to live by the truth. I remember Mama saying to us growing up, “I love you but I will never lie for you.” We were raised to tell the truth and to live by the truth.

Here is something else about testimony. True friends of God tell their friends about God. Some behave as though they are ashamed of the God who has given us everything, especially life. One of the ways we love God is by sharing our story. Elaine picks on me from time to time about my story of faith. People have told her through the years that they have heard my testimony so many times that they began to believe it was there too. Well, that is a great badge of honor. That means that people hear my story of how much I love Jesus. Where you at when it comes to doing the same. We should jump at the chance to share with someone the story of how God has loved us and how God loves them.

When we begin to love God the way that God desires that we love Him, that is the point when we truly begin to appreciate His love for us. This love was so great that Jesus Christ willingly died for us. When we truly contemplate and appreciate such an amazing love, then we will be moved to a point where we will will share that love with others. That is part of what it means to love the Lord your God with everything-heart, soul, and mind.

God deserves our time, our talents, and our testimony. There is another thing God deserves from us.

Application #4: God Deserves our Treasure

From the very first reckoning of my memory, I remember my parents teaching me about giving financially to the Lord Jesus Christ. We were taught that the very first of everything, including finances belonged to Him. We would take our quarter or whatever and put it in the Sunday School offering plate. As we got older, we would be given two quarters. One went into the Sunday School offering plate and the other one went into the “big church” offering plate. You did not hang on to that money. That belonged to God. My parents taught me that. We demonstrate our genuine love for Jesus by giving to Him. When wouldn’t we? For John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” For God so loved Eddie Brookshire that He gave His best. Here is something to hang your hat on today. You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

One of the ways we know that our love for God is getting somewhere is our financial commitment to His kingdom. You come to a place in your love for God that you give financially not out of obligation, but out of commitment to Him. You do not do it because of a tax deduction. You simply give because of your love for God.

We have been talking about this vertical dimension of loving God and giving Him what He deserves. Yet, recall that I earlier mentioned another dimension of loving God-the horizontal dimension (39-40). Jesus reaches way back into the Old Testament and brings together two separate commands, one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus. Why not, He wrote them. Yet, this was the first time these two had been joined together. Jesus says in effect, “If you have the vertical love of God that you ought to have then you cannot help but have the horizontal love for others that you ought to have.” In other words, the demonstration of your love of God is your love of people and the love of people shows others your love of God. If the only time you show up to church is on Sunday morning, regardless of what you might say, what you are demonstrating is that you really do not love the pastor, you really do not love this assembly of brothers and sisters, and you do not really love God. You may recoil at that, but that is the evidence. The problem with some is that they come to church without ever being part of the church. If you are truly part of His church, you will come to church. We cannot share Christ’s love together if we never show up to be together.

Conclusion

When I was a small child living here in Fayetteville during a different time, I remember my parents telling me two things every night: “Eddie, it is time to get ready for bed” and “We will be in (my room) a few minutes so you can say your prayers. Sure enough within a few minutes Mama and Daddy would come in. All three of us (later my sister as well) would kneel down at my bed and they would help me with the prayer they taught me:

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

It really is a great prayer. Reciting that prayer even today helps me to remember the greatest thing my parents ever taught me: Love God with everything. Love God with your heart. Love God with your soul. Love God with your mind. Why? Because He deserves our time. He deserves our talents. He deserves our testimony, and He deserves our treasure. To put it another way, he deserves our all. Be willing to give Him everything, because He has given us His best. That is what my parents taught me. I hope we all learn this lesson as well.