Sermons

Introduction: It is important for us to both learn and obey the commands of Christ. This week we'll look more closely at what the command of Christ is, and how to follow them.

Commands and Human Nature
Have you ever noticed this about human nature? When we are given boundaries or rules, we want to know which ones are the most important and which ones we can place less emphasis. This is true for adults and children alike.

WORK: When I first started working out of college, I had fear in my eyes. I wanted to do a good job and please my boss. After my company orientation, I was so careful about the dress code, schedules, breaks, deadlines, etc. Then I learned that the most important thing for my boss was getting to work on time. So then my dress got sloppy, I could fudge on certain deadlines, etc.

LYDIA: My daughter is the same way. She is just not so sly about it. The one rule I do not fudge on is talking back. But when it comes to eating habits and bedtime, she knows how to get her way sometimes.

It is human nature to want to know what rules are the most important, and which ones we can pay less attention to.

Pharisees and the Law
The Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus' day were no different. They wanted to please God--so they tried to figure out which rules were most important, and which ones had relative less importance. They spent great energy on this task and debated much among themselves. Why?
We can see why their exercise was so difficult, since through their study they discerned 613 Commandments. They themselves couldn't figure it out, so with such controversy they figured they could trap Him.

On this occasion, when it came to TESTING JESUS with a QUESTION, they asked him about the Law.

GREAT COMMANDMENT
Let's read about this account in Matthew 22:35-40
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

The command of Christ is to LOVE. The commands do not originate with Christ, but He put the great emphasis on two passages: one from Deut. 6:4 and the other from Lev. 19:18. 

They are so important that he even says that not only the Law, but also the teaching of the Prophets, hang by these two commands. Why? It is by these two commandments that the others can be adhered to and obeyed from the heart. Commandments are to govern our heart relationship with God. Jesus came, he says in chapter 5, not to abolish the LAW, but to fulfill them. 
In Him they are fulfilled. As we follow Him and His word we are in essence following His command.

What Jesus shows us is that the way to that to follow Him is to grow in our LOVE. 
First we need to LOVE GOD AS THE SINGULAR OBJECT OF OUR LOVE.

I. Keep God the Singular Object of our Love

Gomer's Straying: Adultery
In our day and age, adultery seems to have become more and more prevalent. At least in movies and TV, it is not uncommon for us to see married people running off and having affairs with whoever strikes their fancy. Whether or not the statistics say we have more adultery than before I am not sure. But I knew I did not want to be damaged by unfaithfulness in my future marriage.

When I was looking for a wife, there were some qualities in a future wife that I would not compromise on. She had to love the Lord and desire to support me in serving Him vocationally. I would like her to be a good listener and flexible. Most of all, I was hoping to marry someone who would be loyal and committed to the marriage.

That is why I never envied a prophet in the OT named Hosea. God gave him a task that I would never want. He wanted Hosea to marry a person who had the propensity to being unfaithful. So, being faithful to the command of God, Hosea married a prostitute named Gomer. Even after having three children together, she broke his heart just as he thought she would: she sold herself to another man. I imagine Hosea's heart was broken.

In the same way, God says, Israel broke the heart of God. As God's chosen people, Israel was meant to be faithful to God alone. They were not to adulterate themselves with the pagan society around them.

Just as God wanted Hosea to love Gomer back with a redeeming love, God wanted Israel to come back to him in a restored relationship.

Let's read from Hosea 3:1-3
1 The LORD said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." 
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.
3 Then I told her, "You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you."

We are Gomer's: As much as I would want to condemn Gomer and Israelites for their transgressions, we too are like them. Each one of us has strayed away from God. We have followed after the things of this world; we have at times placed ourselves in the place of God. 

God does the same for us. In spite of our straying he loves us. He redeemed us with His own Son's blood. Now that we have been redeemed, we are to live with our God in a love relationship that is not adulterated by anything in this world. He is to be the singular object of our love.

Love God with our Whole Being
Jesus quoted Deut. 6:4 which says,
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind."

What part of us is to love God? All of us: Heart, soul, and mind do not mean we separate ourselves into different pieces, and love God with them. We are to love God with all that is within us, through our thinking, through our decisions, through our motive--again, with all of who we are.
We are to love Him without holding anything back because that is the way He loved us: He didn't even hold back his only Son for us. 

How would you answer these two questions?

1. Do you love God?
2. How do you love God?

If we answered yes to #1, then we would not need to look deeper in our passage today for the answer to #2. Do you remember what the second command is? 
Matthew 22:39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'



II. To Love People is the Manifestation of Our Love for God

Two Commands, One Love
When Jesus was asked for the single most important commandment, He couldn't keep it to one. He gave two, because these two are so closely related, so closely intertwined, that you cannot separate one from the other.

To Love God is to Love Your Neighbor, and to Love One Another.

Andrew Murray was quoted in Christianity Today (Vol. 35, no. 5.) as saying:
My relationship with God is part of my relationship with men. Failure in one will cause failure with the other
If the greatest commandment is to Love God, then outworking or manifestation of that love is loving others. Let's look at four passages that confirm this idea that to Love God is to Love others: 

1 John 4:20-21
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Rom 13:8-10: on paying back people what we owe. But here what we owe that we can never pay back is love:
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.
9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Gal 5:13-14: In Paul's exhortation on how Christians should live together:
13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

James 2:8: in a section about not showing favortism:
8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right.

Haddon Robinson, "A Case Study of a Mugging," Preaching Today, #102
When I was a kid in Sunday school, I had to memorize some of those nasty little verses in 1 John. Those verses say, "If a man says he loves God and loves not his brother, he's a liar, because if you haven't loved your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you've not seen?" I thought the whole thing was a bunch of pious nonsense. I could see absolutely no relationship between loving God and loving my brother or my neighbor. 

As time passed, I discovered that John was on to something. In the Scriptures, Christian love is not objective. Christian love is subjective. Christian love does not reside in the personality being loved. It resides in the person doing the loving. My basic premise was wrong; it is not such a simple thing to love God.

III. Be a Loving Person to Others
Haddon Robinson has something right. Loving God is not such a simple thing when we consider that to Love God is to love others. It means being a loving person. If we are to fulfill the Law of Christ, we need to become a loving person.
This can only happen when God's loved poured out on us is received, fills us up and poured out on others.

How do we know we are becoming loving people?

1. Loving becomes second nature to us.
DRIVING: One of our youth just received their driver's license. He told me that learning how to drive in the beginning was difficult. There was so much to remember like looking at mirrors, speed limits, watching out for pedestrians, etc. As he practiced, he started putting it all together. He could focus more on where he was going rather than how to get there. Driving had become second nature to him.
Jesus teaches us to love our neighbor as we love our self. How many of us love ourselves? I don't mean that we look in the mirror and somehow convince our selves that we are lovely. But none of us would normally let ourselves grow hungry. We clothe ourselves. We try to better ourselves through education or other means. We don't think too much about taking care of ourselves. It too is our nature to love ourselves.
And so it should be with love for others. We know we are becoming loving people when we love like we drive or take care of ourselves.
We should learn and practice love in a way that it becomes second nature to us.

2. Loving Depends less on the Loveliness of the Beloved
Have you ever looked at a baby and said, "That is a face only a mother could love?" In a way that is a funny statement. But it also reflects a bit of reality. There are certain people in our lives who are more lovable than others for whatever reason.
A loving person does not put condition on their love. It does not first check out the beloved, the object of love, then determine if one will love him or not. A Godly love does not place conditions on the beloved:
We will love whomever. We are called to love:
--If reciprocated or not
--Our Neighbor: whoever is in need (Luke 10)
--Our Enemy: the person we would least like to spend lunch with (Matthew 5)
--Just as God loved us in spite of our sinfulness (Romans 5:8)

3. Loving is not just a thought, but also an action
Jesus demonstrated his love for his disciples in many ways. But before his Crucifixion there was an act of love recorded in John 13 of washing the disciples feet. 
John tells us that Jesus showed the FULL EXTENT OF HIS LOVE through this act. 
John 13:1 Full Extent of Christ's Love
It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

Modeling: Master to Servant in Washing Feet

John 13:14-17
I can't get into the passage in depth now, but that act of foot washing was one of humility and service. Jews felt that even Jewish male slaves should not wash feet. That was for Gentile slaves or women and children. Jesus took on the nature of the slave by taking off his outer garment and putting on a towel.
So what I am about to do would also be quite an act of humiliation--the washing of a woman's feet--no less the feet of my wife.

And this is the point that Jesus wanted his disciples to understand in washing their feet:

14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.
15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
16 I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

God could have told us he loved us, without ever sending his Son. 
Jesus could have said that He loved us without dying on the Cross.

But God did send His Son
And Jesus did die on the Cross for us.

What will we do for our brothers and sisters?
For our Neighbors and Enemies?

John 13:34-35
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

To Love God is to Love Others. Do You Love God?  

news  |  sunday worship  |  fellowship  |  resources  |  about ccic  |  Chinese ministry

Copyright © 1997-2008 Chinese Church in Christ. All Rights Reserved. Legal statements.