Love God, Love People
Text: Matthew 22:34-40 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?" 37And 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. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Love God
- Illustration: Who or What is it in your life that you would default to…What is the one topic that you could always talk with passion about…What or who do you think most about…
- Text: V. 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.
- Translation: Jesus is referencing Deuteronomy 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
o With all your heart: Passion and desires
§ This means that we point our passions at God, or that we relinquish our passions to Him. We desire what He desires and are burdened by what burdens Him. Ultimately he becomes our passion and the desire of our Heart.
o With all your soul: Very essence of who you are
§ We acknowledge that everything we have and everything we are is from Him and we give our all to Him, not to pay Him back, but because he loved us first. We long for our essence to line up with Him, so that we are defined not by who we were, but by who He is.
o With all your mind: Thoughts and wisdom
§ We think long and deep about our God and we pursue Him with our intellect. We read and meditate and ask questions, and seek the mind of God until we think about people like He thinks about them and we think about our sin the way He thinks about our sin.
- Application: The point here is that we are to love God in such a way as to leave no room in us for anything else. We are to Love Him with everything that we are.
Loving God is Paramount
- Illustration: I need to like the parents if I am ever going to like the kids in a family…If I don’t like the parents there is no way to like the kids…How can we love anything in creation without loving the Creator?
- Text: V. 38 This is the great and first commandment.
- Translation: Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was and He ups the bet by calling this the first as well.
- In other words Loving God is foundational. If we don’t start with loving God we have no basis for loving others, b/c God is Love (1 John 4:7-8)
- Application: We know Love b/c of God and therefore knowing and loving God is foundational.
Love People
- Text: V. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
- Translation: Jesus continues to up the bet by continuing His answer.
- The second is like it, so loving people is like loving God.
- It is like the first in that both take the proverbial hoe to the root of sin, namely “pride” in order for us to accomplish them.
- Supporting Text: Matthew 7:12 "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
- Translation: When we love others we are fleshing out the law and the prophets.
- Supporting Text: Romans 13: 8-10 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 10Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
- Translation: We fulfill the law when we love others.
- Application: How we love others is the visible expression of how we love God.
- It is literally the fleshing out of the Law.
- Supporting Text: Romans 8:3-4 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
- Illustration: My truck broke down…God is teaching me to view others as more important than myself…
- We must remember that this is only possible with the help of the Spirit. Jesus already fulfilled the law to perfection.
Everything depends on these
- Illustration: High pressure situation…1 second on the clock down by 1 you have two free throws, you need them both to win…if you miss all the other shoots in the game were made in vain…
- Text: V. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
- Translation: Everything hangs on these two commandments.
- Everything written in the entire Old Testament hangs on these two chains. Without these everything else falls apart.
- Is it possible to be religious without loving God and People? Yes, we see it all the time, religious people who love the law and pridefully think they uphold it. They neither love God nor people.
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