"34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing 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 foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
In 1961, Bob Merrill wrote the song "Love makes the world go ’round," for the Broadway musical Carnival! notable for its innovative staging, produced by David Merrick based on the 1953 film Lili.
Most of us are familiar with the Whitney Houston song "The Greatest Love of All," in which she said "Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all." The world would have us believe that learning to love yourself is the answer to the question, "What is the greatest love?"
Finding and experiencing, and maintaining love, seems to be a universal goal for all of humanity to obtain. For decades, men have authored hundreds of songs, written numerous books, poems, stories, movies and plays about love. Love is said to be the sweetest of all human emotions. What kind of love do we have if it doesn't change the way we live? Here, in Matthew 22, God's Word confronts us with His truth, true, divine love is much different than that which the world understands. 1 John 4:19, tells us "We love, because He first loved us." Worldly love is subject to the object of love, divine love is based upon God's character, it's Who He is. God is love!
I've often been asked, "Why didn’t God just create everyone so that they would all love him and obey him?" Where there is no freedom, there can be no love. God does not want to force people to love Him, He wants people to choose to love Him. So, God gave us the freedom to choose whether we would love Him and live for Him or push Him away and live for ourselves. I believe there is a great deal of confusion in our world today about what real love is, we use the "love" so carelessly. How often do we see selfless, sacrificial, committed love demonstrated among Christians? I'd like to point out that the divorce rate is significantly lower in couples who regularly practice their faith, reading and studying their bibles together
than those who are mere church attendees or secular society. Sixty percent of Christians members who rarely read their Bible or attend church end up in divorce. These patterns consistently held true whether young or old, and regardless of household income. Validating what we've always heard, "The family that prays together, stays together!"
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we humbly thank You for Your Word. Lord, help us to comprehend the length, the breath, the height, the depth of Your great Truth, bind it and seal it to our hearts that we may be a people known for our love. Never has the world known love is so amazing as when we look at Christ, Who laid down His life for us. May Your Holy Spirit drive that truth deep within our hearts, that we might recognize our own sinfulness and walk more humbly.We ask and pray this in Christ's name
Amen
Today's Message: The Biggest Lie Ever Told
Merriam-Webster defines love as a "strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; an attraction based on sexual desire." Since love originates in God, I believe we need to go directly to the source. The Bible uses different words to describe the different types of love. The Greek word "phileo," is used to describe brotherly love, from which the city of Philadelphia gets it's name, the city of brotherly love. The Greek word "eros," is used to indicate sexual love between a man and a woman. The word eros is not found in the New Testament, the reason being there is no context in which it might be used. The Greek word is "storge," refers to natural love as in the love of a parent for a child. And lastly, we have the Greek word agape, which expresses the steadfast, self-sacrificial love that God demonstrates toward His people as seen in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
Paul wrote a warning passage in 2 Timothy 3, "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these."
All of these things spew out of self-love. Once a person becomes a lover of self, he has just made a decision that will destroy the possibility of every meaningful relationship, and wickedness will certainly ensue, because your agenda is you.
The self-fulfillment, self-love theology has elevated self to new heights and I believe is the reason why we have conflict and chaos in our society on every level. Our culture is consumed with self-love, my own agenda, my own goals, my own plans, my own achievements, and that devastates personal relationships and the result is utter chaos.
Doing
whatever you want, indulging yourself in whatever brings you pleasure
has always been seen as a sin. The philosophy that "You deserve it, you
don’t owe anybody anything because you’re more important than they are,"
I believe it is what has wreaked havoc on our entire society.
I've many times read the Bible, and have never found a command to love yourself, there are however, numerous commands to humble yourself and love others. In Philippians 2:3-4, Paul writes "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others."
In The City of God, St. Augustine said "Two cities have been founded by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, glorifies itself, the latter, the Lord."
I am very deeply disturbed by all the garbage that is coming out of the church today, everything from the prosperity gospel, "just be yourself "self-love psychology to you don’t owe anybody anything; in fact, they owe you.
Open
your Bibles to the twenty-second chapter of the gospel of Matthew. Matthew 22:34-40.
I invite you to follow along with me, as I read these eleven verses to
you. Let us be faithful to open our hearts and minds, and listen to what
the Spirit of God has to say to each of us today.
"But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing 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 foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
Let's look at verse 34, "But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together."
Notice Matthew says "Jesus had silenced the Sadducees," he uses the Greek verb "phimoó," for the word silenced, it means to muzzle or gag. So Jesus silenced them and they didn't have a choice, there was nothing more that they could say. Titus 1 says "For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain."
We see the same word used in Luke 1, when Jesus rebuked and silenced a demon. "Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!" And Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be quiet, and come out of him!"
I imagine the Pharisees had mixed emotions, on one hand, there saying to themselves, "We let the Sadducees try and they failed, we really need to put our heads together, and take care of Him, otherwise people are going to turn against us!" And, on the other hand, they must have been happy that Jesus made their enemies look foolish in proving the resurrection. They must have really been gloating over the ineptness of the Sadducees.
In Acts chapter 4, they were looking back at how this fit into the plan of God, "The kings of the earth took their stand, And the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ."
Verse 35, "One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him." The word used is "nomikós," means Scripture-lawyer, he was more learned than a typical scribe, he was an expert in Jewish biblical law. This was a man who was half lawyer and half theologian, sent on behalf on the Pharisees.
As far as scribes go, this guy was the top of the class. In Mark's parallel record in chapter 12, he describes the man as being intrigued that Jesus had answered them well. So they sent their champion. He may be an emissary for the Pharisees, at least he appears to be more objective, but not completely, they all want Him to lose His credibility. In their minds, Jesus has been attacking Moses teaching, Moses was thought to be the ultimate authority, after all, God gave him the Law.
Verse 36, now the question, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
Interestingly enough, the question he asked intended to test Him, is actually not that difficult but it is a very important question. They wanted Jesus to affirm that His word that supersedes Moses, revered to be the greatest teacher of all. If they had paid attention, Jesus didn't alter Moses teaching, He actually reiterated God’s Law. He did however attack some of things wrong with their rabbinic traditions. If you remember, they added 613 separate laws to the Ten Commandments. There are 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body, and there are 365 negative laws, one for every day of the year. So, they had divided it into two parts, I don't know why, it makes no sense, of course neither did anything they did. Their Laws were so burdensome. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 11, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Verses 37-38, notice Jesus doesn’t answer it with another question. But, without any hesitation, He unapologetically responds with a verse that is familiar that they already knew "‘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 foremost commandment." Mark indicates that He said "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength." I believe what He's saying is, God isn't looking for people just going through the motions. The heart produces the thoughts, produces the words, produces the actions.
You are to love God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole mind and with your whole strength.What a terrific statement! You can't get any clearer than that! He's quoting Moses, the Shema is the affirmation of Judaism and a declaration of faith in One God. If you've ever seen a Mezuzah on the right side of the door, inside is a small scroll of genuine kosher parchment, or "k'laf," with Deuteronomy 6:4-9 written on it with an ink well pen, facing toward you and the Hebrew word "Shaddai" facing inward. They stop twice a day and recite verse 5. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." In fact, in following Jewish tradition, every entrance should have its own Mezuzah, on low end of the top third of the doorway. I know some of you have never read Deuteronomy 6, many Christians only read the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
Christ gave us His whole heart, His whole love when He lay down His life, I believe He wants all of us in return. God wants more than just our believing, if necessary, we’re to lay down our life for Him. Loving God should be at the forefront of everything we think, say and do. So, Jesus is painting a very graphic picture of what it means to love God. That's why out of all the commandments in the Law, this is the greatest one! In His great sacrificial love for humanity, God demonstrates that love, often receives no reciprocation from the recipient. Though many believe in God, they do not love God. Because of wrong preaching, people think simply believing is good enough, but Jesus is saying until you love God with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength, no one is right with God. A person does not become a Christian just because they believe. James 2 tells us that even demons believe and shudder.
When a Christians has a consuming love for God, they love what God loves and they hate what God hates. God hates sin, all sin. Eliminating the sin in our lives is the greatest way that we can be faithful to God’s commands is to love Him! I'm not perfect,I still occasionally sin, and when I sin, I really hate it because I know that sin dishonors God. Paul writes in Romans 7, "For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good."Paul wanted to obey God and it disturbed him deeply when he failed.
And in Romans 8, he says "Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
God who shows mercy unto those that love Him and obey His commandments, that's the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20. Jesus narrows it down to two commands, the greatest command; "‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’" If we love God, we'll seek fellowship with Him. If we love God, we'll hate what hates what God hates, and love what He loves.
1 John 4:19 says "We love, because He first loved us."
In verse 39, He says "The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’"
Beloved, we must grasp the importance of this, true love is a love that obeys, even though the obedience is imperfect. And even we love God with everything we've got, we could love Him more perfectly. The reality of that love as imperfect as it is, is that we're consistently striving to love Him more perfectly. This flows right our of our love for God. When you love God right, you love people right. Do you understand that?
Philippians 4, "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent."
Let me tell you this, if you’re a Christian and your life shows no interest in keeping His commands, if you're indifferent to obedience or justify your sin because of grace, you do not love God. The reason we don’t obey Him, the reason we were indifferent is because we do not love God!
These two commandments sum everything else up. If you love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your mind and all of your strength and you love your neighbor as yourself, there is no need any more commandments. Everything else is just a deeper explanation of that. In Mark chapter 12, he closes his record of this account with, "No one dared ask Him any more questions." They knew there was nothing left to say.
Matthew 7:14, "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
As a pastor, I see a lot of Christians who aren’t living as they ought to be, they may be in the church but they're not in the kingdom and that is a great concern to me. It’s overwhelming for me to think about them going to hell, because they don't truly know Christ. Hebrews 10 says far worse eternal punishment falls to the one who has heard the truth and rejected it.
If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you surely have really heard the Gospel. The more you have heard, the more responsible you become. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Test yourselves whether you be in the faith. Examine yourselves." Surely, self-examination begins with "Am I really a Christian? Have I understood the truth but not truly embraced Christ?"
Two
different roads each marked "This way to Heaven," but leading to two
very different destinations, Satan doesn't mark the wrong road "This way
to Hell." Two roads with two different types of travelers; the few and the many.
Jesus said in John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." I believe there is no greater danger than having been close to salvation and being unsaved. To realize that you have become dull of hearing the Truth because it was uncomfortable. Scripture calls us to discern good and evil. I believe that's a major problem facing people in the church today, they lack discernment. Many Christians find Scripture very difficult to comprehend, because they have not been taught the importance of sound doctrine. Because of easy believism and cheap grace, they think that a profession of faith means that they are saved, when, in fact, they have never truly embraced the Savior, holding tightly to their sin. God has always wanted people who love Him and keep His commandments, that's never changed.
Such was the case with the Jewish religious leaders, they didn't love men, in fact, they abused them, they bound people heavy burdens they couldn't carry, they stole their money and made merchandise of them. They were lovers of self. Surely, they paid the price for their lack of love for God and men.When you love someone, you take care take care of them the same way you take care of yourself. They didn't do that.
That brings us to verse 40, "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
In Closing..
If you love God, you won't live in a habitual pattern of sin, you won't take His name in vain, you won't have any idols. And if you love your neighbor, you won't steal from them, you won't covet what they have, especially their spouse, you won’t kill them or hurt them in any way. You won't slander them behind their back, saying something that you wouldn't dare say to them. If you love your spouse and your children, you don't have to be told not to hurt or abuse them or to care for their needs. You're not going to commit adultery or lust after other people. You will make sure their needs are met, even before your own.
If you're not a Christian you are incapable of that kind of love because you have not loved God. You need a Savior to forgive you and enable you to love as you ought. Otherwise, you’ll be eternally damned, forever away from His presence.
If you are a Christian, and you say that you love God, look at your heart, ask yourself if you are demonstrating God's love toward others, even when they do not deserve it? Only a genuine love for God can enable you to do that!
God loved us while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son to die for people He knew would reject Him. God wants you to take a step further in loving Him, and love others even when you know you'll be rejected or treated unfairly. That is the standard by which true love is measured.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2023 All Rights Reserved
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2023 All Rights Reserved