1/15/23 The Greatest Commandment - Part 2

The Greatest Commandment – Part 2

Matthew 22:34-40

It’s the middle of January, which means that it is also cold and flu season – and these days we can throw Covid in there as well, right?

Stuffy head, sore throat, runny nose, headache, fever, chills, cough, sneezes, etc.

Research has shown us that in Wisconsin during the month of January, 17% of the population is currently infected with the cold virus and is experiencing some of these symptoms.

Given that percentage, this means that roughly 10 of you here this morning are dealing with a cold and its symptoms. Don’t worry, I won’t ask for a show of hands – you would quickly find your neighbors distancing themselves from you! 😊

I find viruses (like the cold and flu virus) to be truly amazing. The way in which viruses attack healthy cells in our body and use their resources until the cells are destroyed fascinates me.

It reminds me of those science fiction movies where the evil aliens come to earth and begin taking all of our natural resources (including humans of course!) and, if not stopped, would leave the earth a destroyed wasteland. Then the aliens simply move on to the next planet.

It’s a good thing we have warriors like Tom Cruise, Sigourney Weaver and Will Smith who can put a stop to such nefarious alien shenanigans!

The symptoms of a virus such as a runny nose and coughing are visible signs of something invisible (At least to the naked eye) that is happening on the inside of our bodies.

Put another way, viral symptoms are outward manifestations of inward changes.

Our passage for today has to do with loving our neighbor, and the supernatural ability to love our neighbor in a godly way represents an outward manifestation of an inward change.

But unlike a nasty virus, the change that happens on the inside of the believer is wonderful, it’s beautiful - it is life-giving rather than life-destroying.

Last week we looked at the first of a two-part answer that Jesus gives to the question: “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

The Pharisees asked Jesus this question in an attempt to trick him into saying something that would incriminate himself in the eyes of his fellow Jews regarding his inherent superiority to that of Moses and the law.

Jesus easily sees through their malicious intent and answers their question by giving them a straightforward answer containing two parts.

In the first part of his answer, Jesus tells his listeners that the greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (V. 37) This “vertical” love between the believer and God is motivated by our gratitude for what God has done for us through the gift of His son, Jesus Christ.

This commandment to love God with our entire being also encapsulates the first 5 of the 10 commandments listed in Exodus chapter 20. If we follow this one commandment, we will be automatically following these five OT commands.

Anyone here still have a stick shift vehicle? (Hey, at least it’s practically theft-proof – kids these days have no idea how to drive a stick!)

In a stick shift vehicle, every time you want to switch gears you have to do what?....yeah, you have to engage the clutch, right? The clutch allows you to move from one gear to another.

Then, automatic transmissions came along and suddenly the clutch was no longer needed. The gears are still there but the clutch is no longer used to move from one gear into the another – changing gears becomes much easier and smoother in a vehicle with an automatic transmission.

In this passage of scripture, Jesus introduces an “Automatic” transmission of doctrine and obedience, so to speak. The “clutch” of rigid external obedience to each command was no longer needed to move the vehicle because by loving God with our whole being, ALL 5 of the gears would blend together and move seamlessly between each other.

To put it another way, If we simply press down the accelerator of love for God, the gears will take care of themselves!

Let’s refer to these first 5 gears on our vehicle as our low range gears. In order to reach the higher range of gears, we have to first go through all of our low range gears.

The next 5 gears (The high range) in our spiritual vehicle this morning are given to us through the words of Jesus in verse 39 of today’s passage: “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

While part one of the greatest commandment describes our relationship with God, part two of the greatest commandment describes our relationship to others – and it covers Commandments 6-10 in Exodus chapter 20.

Jesus is saying that in order to drive our spiritual vehicle to its full capability, we need to go past the first 5 gears – we need to stay on that “Love Accelerator” to access gears 6-10.

This will enable our spiritual speedometer to go from slow city speeds to the fast speeds on the highways of complete obedience.

Let’s take a look at the second set of commandments (The ‘High Range’ of our spiritual transmission)

Exodus 20:13-17

6) You Shall Not Murder

7) You Shall Not Commit Adultery

8) You Shall Not Steal

9)You Shall Not Give False Testimony Against Your Neighbor

10) You Shall Not Covet

All of these commandments deal with our relationship to other people, and if we love others with the kind of biblical love that we learned about last time (Agape love) then we will automatically be following these 5 Old Testament commandments……your spiritual vehicle will be able to travel in the fast lane of obedience!

The Problem? …. Selflessly loving others is not easy!

Why? …. Because (Without supernatural assistance) we naturally think about ourselves and our own needs before we consider the needs of others.

For Example: When you woke up this morning, (If you prayed) how many of you prayed for the needs of others before praying for your own needs?

When you came into church this morning, how many of you were thinking about how you could bless the life of someone else, rather than simply thinking about what you might be able to receive from the worship service?

I admit, this is hard for me as well. On Sunday morning, my mind is sometimes thinking about things such as the praise songs, or If my mic is turned on, or If I remembered to plug in the stage monitor, or my sermon, or what benediction I’ll use to close the service, or that thoughtful comment that someone made in Sunday School, etc….my thoughts don’t always drift toward the needs of others when I walk into this room on a Sunday morning – but they should.

It’s hard -  It requires a mental shift, a new set of priorities when looking at the world, it requires a heart saturated with compassion.

We are here to worship God this morning (Command #1) AND we are here to love each other this morning as well (Command #2)

It requires that we put the hammer down on that love accelerator!

Let’s look at a story that Jesus told about someone who had their “love accelerator” to the floor, so to speak. They were really “Gunning It”

Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke Chapter 10:25-37

This famous story is known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan (We just finished an in-depth study of this parable in our Sunday night bible study)

 How many of you ever asked a question, then when you heard the answer, you regretted ever asking the question?

That’s the scenario here in Luke 10:29. The Pharisee asks (With a prideful motive) who his neighbor is? I’m sure he was thinking that Jesus would say something like “Your fellow Jews” or “People living near you”

Certainly, he was not expecting the answer that Jesus provided.

In the story, the Priest and the Levite (Who paid no attention to the man in need) were his people, they were the religious authorities of the day – just like he was.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the hero of the story – the only person who demonstrated godly love and compassion – was a Samaritan….A SAMARITAN!?!

The Jews despised the Samaritans and considered them to be dishonorable half-breeds. Yet Jesus describes this Samaritan as having a heart full of compassion as he goes above and beyond to ensure the well-being of the man in need.

Jesus wasn’t making a blanket statement about Samaritans being in any way morally superior to Jews, but he was forcing this Pharisee to come to grips with the fact that in this individual case, the Samaritan acted appropriately (in love), while the Jewish religious leaders acted inappropriately as they ignored the man in need.

A modern-day example would be a story in which a Christian drives up on a car accident that has just occurred, he maybe even sees injured children on the scene, and then he decides to take off down the road because, well, he has a busy schedule that day (Things to do, people to see)

Then a few moments later, the driver behind him, who happens to be, let’s say, a Muslim, stops and offers help to the injured people. In this case it would be the Muslim who acted out of love and the Christian who did not act in love toward his neighbor.

What would that tell others about your faith? What would that tell others about the God in whom you profess to follow?

Instead, an individual representing a false religion would attract praise and attention for their selfless act. As a natural result, people would be interested in the worldview of this individual who demonstrated compassion. What a tragedy if someone were to be converted to a false religion such as Islam rather than learning about, and possibly be attracted to, the good news of Jesus Christ.

We don’t like to hear stories like this because they reminds us of how selfish we can be if we don’t keep our foot on the ‘love accelerator.’

We need to act in accordance with the faith in which we profess to believe!

May we never represent Jesus Christ in a manner that is anything less than a reflection of His perfect, sacrificial love for us!

As we learned last week, that type of love requires action.

I like my friend Dr. Tony Evans’ definition of biblical love – it is very similar to ours from last week:

“Biblical Love – Is the decision to righteously and compassionately seek the well-being of others”

The world is watching us. The world is watching you – and how you represent Jesus to others.

Let us never allow someone who does not know Christ as their Lord & Savior (An Atheist, A Muslim, A member of a quasi-Christian cult, A Buddhist, etc) to replace us in helping someone in need when we had the first opportunity to do so!!!

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if the Holy Spirit has saturated every cell in your body, the symptoms of your inward change need to be obvious to the rest of the world.

Around the year 1200, St. Francis of Assisi famously said “Let all the brothers preach by their works”…. (Lifestyle Evangelism)

The world is watching – how are you going to represent Jesus to others?

All of us know John 3:16, right?

But how many of you know 1 John 3:16?  If you don’t….memorize it. Today.

1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

Maybe there’s a reason why we don’t have this passage memorized. We don’t really like the idea of laying down our life for others, do we….

But John isn’t necessarily talking about literally dying for others (Although in some cases, we may actually be called to do this)

John elaborates on this point in verses 17 & 18: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

To ‘lay down your life’ means to facilitate the well-being of another person. It’s not enough to talk about love – as followers of Jesus, we need to demonstrate our love toward others.

As Tina Turner once asked “What’s Love Got to do With It?”….Well, Tina, Love has Everything to do with it! Love for others is a supreme command of Jesus, second only to our love for God himself!

The World is watching – how are you going to represent Jesus to others?

As another musician, Bonnie Raitt, once said “Let’s give them something to talk about”!!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let’s give the world something to talk about! Let’s give our neighborhood something to talk about! Let’s give our families something to talk about! Let’s give each other something to talk about!

Just this past week, Edie told me how much she appreciated the acts of love recently performed for her by someone else in this congregation….Because of this individual’s loving & self-less deeds, Edie and I had something to talk about!

This needs to be the goal of every individual here this morning – to demonstrate and reflect God’s love toward others.

To allow the outward “Symptoms” of our inward change to be evident to everyone we meet.

To keep the “Love” pedal to the metal !

Let’s Pray.