Matthew 22:34-40 All You Need is Love . . . And More

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

The Greatest Commandment in Matthew 22

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome to all of you who are gathered here, and welcome to those who are tuning in on our live stream.

I'm glad that you're able to be a part of what's going on here this morning, too. I'm really glad that we can gather together and hear from God's Word, and the emphasis is on the together. It is our goal here that everyone continues to grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service, and it's our conviction that we need all three of those to be expanding circles in our lives of faith, community, and service, and the primary reason we get together on Sunday morning is for that purpose of growing in our faith, and that's why we focus so much of our attention on the Word of God during our gatherings.

We read it together. We discuss it together. The biggest chunk of our gathering is usually hearing from God's Word. We believe that our faith is necessarily kind of one-to-one tied together directly to God's self-disclosure of himself through the written Word, and so we take that seriously here.

We believe that that's how our faith expands and how it grows, and so this morning we're going to be looking at the final question that was posed to Jesus in this section of Scripture in Matthew chapter 22, and then some of you might be going, where's Christmas, Don?

We're going to be actually focusing the next three messages on Christmas, a short series called Christmas Words, covering and kind of discussing three words that we hear a lot. You see them on Christmas cards.

You see it a lot during this season. The three words that we're focusing in on are joy, peace, and then the first message in the new year, hope, and these are three words that all of us need. Our culture, how many of you know our culture needs those three words, joy, peace, and hope?

How many of you would acknowledge that in your own heart you need those three things? Like, we need to be reminded of them regularly, and so these words represent three things that are ushered in by the arrival of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and so His arrival reminds us that now joy has come.

In His arrival, peace has come. In His arrival, hope has come to us, and so we're going to be looking at that in the coming three weeks' messages, and also just thinking about hope is a great idea, wrapping up a tough year and heading into a new year, a new year of hope, and so this morning our text is going to cover, though, the last of three questions that were asked by the religious elites, by those religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

They were trying to trip up Jesus. This is His last week of life as we get down to Matthew chapter 22 all the way through the end. We're talking about the end, and all of it takes place in that last week of His life, and they're trying to trip Him up.

They want Jesus to fail. They want Him to become embroiled in controversy in front of the crowds there in the temple area. They wanted Him to say something that would divide His following, and this question is no different than they ask today.

Now, one thing that, before we read it, I want you to understand that when Jesus actually is answering the question, which command is the greatest, He has 613 Old Testament commands to deal with in answering that question.

The Jewish scholars isolated 613 discrete commands or imperatives found in that Old Testament law. Now, can you imagine living a life where you have to have 613 rules in mind at all times? You step into the first, you know, you kids, you step into your teacher's classroom, and don't worry kids, here's a list of my classroom rules, and there's 613 of them.

How many of you are going to be like, what? Like, do you know what I'm talking about? 613 laws is a lot to try to keep in balance, and so it makes sense that the religious scholars were frequently debating and arguing and categorizing these laws, and they liked to call them heavier laws and lighter laws, and they categorized them that way.

Which are the heaviest? Which are the lightest? And furthermore, they were constantly in pursuit of the greatest of all laws. They would debate this among themselves, and different religious groups and different denominations would have, would defend their law.

This is the greatest of law, and what you need to understand is when we come to this text, the full-on expectation was that Jesus' answer should be one of the Ten Commandments. That's the way that most of the religious leaders saw it during this time in this era.

They would debate and argue about which of the Ten Commandments would be the centerpiece of God's law. And so I want you to turn to your Bibles, turn to your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 40.

Matthew 22, you can, you know, get a device if you've got one that has the Bible on it, turn over there. But what we're going to see is Jesus skillfully answer the questions, answer the question, which is the greatest law?

And he's going to frame that with the, frame the entire law with this skillful answer, including the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments will be under the law that he mentioned. And so again, recast, this is God's holy precious word that we're reading.

This is a word that desires to change us. Where we might find ourselves disagreeing any time with God's word, it is simply because we need to come in line and conform to it. So again, it's a privilege that we have to hear from God's word.

Matthew 22, verses 34 through 40. But then the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees. When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of 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 of your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that speaks into our daily lives.

And even a law that is so precise as to get down to the things that we need moment by moment, day by day, hour by hour, week by week. We need to love you better and we need to love others better. And I just thank you for the clarity with which Jesus answers this question.

A clarity that astonished the crowds. A clarity that amazed them. And Father, a clarity that defines marching orders for all of us who belong to you. And Father, I thank you for the opportunity we have to gather together.

I thank you. I know I need it. I need the gathering together of God's people. I need to be in fellowship with others. And I pray that you would continue to alleviate and continue to move us past this COVID thing.

But for now, in this time, I thank you that we have the opportunity to fellowship even with those who are on the live stream right now and those who are longing for the gathering of people and are longing to get back to us.

And so Father, I pray that you would be with everyone wherever they're at in this in the different stages of this thing and continue to be moving us all as a culture back towards that face-to-face gathering of your people.

And Father, I thank you that we have an opportunity to praise you in this gathering. We have an opportunity to lift up our voices. We have an opportunity to hear from your word and I pray that you would meet us here in this place.

Each one is individuals. We need you and we need you to show up here in our hearts and and convict us and draw us deeper into you. We.

Ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey Recast! I'm Jason. And I'm Hope. We're excited to worship with you this morning and we've got a couple announcements for you. You should have found one of these worship folders at your chair.

Inside it has different info of what's going on here at Recast. Also, if you want to get plugged in, if you're new or not plugged in, fill out this connection card and drop it off at the welcome table by the front.

If you're joining us virtually and you'd like to fill out a.

Connection card, we have an online option at our website recastchurch .com. You can click the connect tab in our menu. Lastly, inside our worship folder is an offering envelope. We don't pass an offering plate here at Recast, but if you feel led to give, go ahead and drop this envelope into the giving slot at the welcome table in the lobby.

We'd love to encourage you to read through the Bible this coming year in 2021. We have a couple resources available at the welcome table to help you do that. We have some Bible reading plans that you can grab or we have some new Bibles available at cost.

At the welcome table. Also, Pastor Don highly recommends two of these books, Seeking God's Face as well as the Daily Bible in Chronological Order. This January, we will have another session of.

Recast Bible Institute classes and Spencer will be teaching those again. We've got Mike here to give a little bit of an idea of what these Recast Bible Institute classes are all about. I'm Mike.

Perrine and I took the hermeneutics class. My favorite thing about this class was the fact that we had Spencer teaching it because he seems very insightful and very knowledgeable about this topic. We were able to learn how the Bible is laid out basically, kind of a big picture perspective.

We got to understand how to do word studies and what literary context means. Look at how the Bible was written in that time and then how we should use it as we read it today. Another good thing about the course was the fact that we use an actual chapter as the application when we came to class each week.

Spencer focused in on using Romans chapter 7 and we were able to try to apply some of what we learned to that particular chapter and how it fits into the context of the preceding and next chapters. I would say the most challenging thing for me was the reading portion of it because I'm not much of a reader.

We tried to keep on top of it by doing two chapters a week but being kind of a large book that was a lot as much as I have going on right now. But the nice thing about it was that it's optional and we didn't really need to get all the reading done every time.

Oh I think it'd be great to take an RBI class again even. It's awesome because the distance is so close to home you don't have to travel long ways and you're able to see somebody face to face and ask your questions in kind of a small setting of less than 10 people ours was.

The other things are for really for your own personal growth and you know spiritual growth which is the reason I took it. The class size is small enough to where like I said you can get answers you know to questions just by asking whatever you want during the course.

That's not all we've got going on here at Recast.

If you'd like more information check out recastchurch .com for more info. Also make sure.

To subscribe to our youtube channel click the bell for notifications and thanks for watching.

All right thanks to Hope for putting that together and I do encourage you to look into the Recast Bible Institute classes. They just wrapped up an Old Testament survey and then the hermeneutics and then those are going to be offered again in January.

We're going to be looking at doing a systematic theology and a New Testament survey and Spencer's going to be teaching both of those and so I'll be looking for the signups for those and those are just so that you understand I mean it didn't explain exactly those are kind of designed and centered around like the idea of a one credit college class.

There's actually some homework there's some reading and again you get out of it what you put into it but it's a little bit a chance to dive a little bit deeper into the word and into you know just kind of understanding almost kind of like what the first year of a Bible college experience would be and so but the the classes are pared down it's not like a three credit class or something like that.

So and then I encourage you right now to make sure that your Bible or your device is open to Matthew chapter 22 verses 34 through 40 the passage that we just read and the goal is going to be to keep our focus and attention on that before we come to worship and we are just so that I recognize some of you are new here we are doing our worship set at the end.

We'd normally right now sing some songs together but what we are doing right now just during this time of COVID is we've been singing at the end just to give people the freedom to leave if they want to and not be not spend a lot of time in here after we've sung and so but if anytime during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts those are available back there.

You're not going to distract me if you need to get up and stretch out or anything like that. So the Pharisees here in the in the text they put their disciples up to asking the first question that we saw a few weeks ago so we're on the third of three questions that were posed to Jesus here in the last week of his life with the intention of the religious leaders tripping him up.

They wanted to catch him in a mistake. And the first question they asked is a is a powder keg of a question in their time maybe even so in ours is it lawful to give taxes to Caesar was the question that they asked.

And when he answered the text said that they marveled. They were astonished. They were in wonder and awe at the way that he sliced through all of the debate and all of the argument and all the cultural nuance of that question and just got right to the heart of it.

And then last week we saw then the Pharisees kind of tapped tagged out and and the Sadducees jumped in and they challenged Jesus on the topic of resurrection. Uh and when he answered it says the crowds were astonished at his teaching in Matthew.

And so we just see the pattern where they are amazed at the teaching of Jesus. They're in awe of the way that he can take a very complicated issue and just simplify it down to its bedrock and they're like wow this this guy is amazing.

He's a great teacher and he is winning and winning and winning. And so now the Pharisees are back at it. They they heard the Sadducees failed to trip Jesus up it says at the beginning of our text. And so like a cheesy tag team wrestling match the Sadducees tagged out just in time for the Pharisees to come under the ropes with a couple of metal folding chairs and the fight is back on and they're trying to take down Jesus.

And so that's my rough translation of verse uh 34. You don't really see the metal chairs mentioned but I think that they would have used them if they could. So um but that was their game plan here. And one of their lawyers the word lawyer is not a not a courtroom lawyer like you might think but a word that means that this guy was an elite scribe who would have been an expert in those 613 old testament laws.

He prided himself in the ability to explain those and even explain how you are to keep them and how to hedge yourself so that you're careful about them. And then also to um litigate those who were in disobedience to those 613 commands.

And so he comes forward with a question for Jesus. They put him forward and say hey you ask a question. You're a bright guy. So verse 35 tells us directly that his intention was to trip up Jesus. He he wanted to catch Jesus in a mistake here.

And that's his goal. So these three questions have all been towards that end of trying to test Jesus and trying to get him to fail. And you would need to ignore a lot in this context to see a good motive on the part of this lawyer in his questioning to Jesus.

It's not like he's like oh there's Jesus. I really wonder what he thinks about the law. No he wants to see Jesus fail. That's his intention. So the question that he poses in verse 36 is a deeply theological and culturally charged question.

In their day and age all of the religious scholars were arguing about this question regularly which is the great commandment of the law. That's how the esv translates it. What might be another way to translate it would be what is the greatest law.

Or even what is the unifying law of all laws. What brings it all together. Or uh you know. And they start by calling him here in the text teacher as a faint sign of respect before the crowds. They want the crowds to see them demonstrating some level of respect to this guy who the crowds respect.

So those who knew Jesus and his upbringing would have had a reasonable question surrounding all of these religious theological debates. They've asked him they tried. This is the third time they tried to pin him.

Third time they've tried to confuse him. Third time that they've tried to divide his followers. Then the question ought to rest in our minds a little bit this morning too. How can the builder's son be expected to compete with these seminary trained phd theologians and pastors and professors.

The guy asking the question here he doesn't we we don't get his name. We just know he's of the of the the group of the pharisees and that he's a lawyer he's a scribe. But he has much more theological training than Jesus in an earthly sense.

And Jesus keeps putting him down time and time again. This is like Jesus going up against a title title boxer. You know the heavyweight champion. And he just keeps winning. And they're like this guy hasn't even boxed before.

Like who is this guy. You have an elite religious scholar questioning a man who was trained for what. What did he train for in his upbringing. Carpentry is probably what most of us think it's actually home building is uh building houses is likely the word tecton that's used for carpentry is as a home builder.

He built houses. That's what he's trained to do. And he's he's constantly taking it to the religious leaders. And the crowds are like burn Jesus like he's just getting them left and right. And they're giving him points.

You know like he just keeps winning. Jesus is not fazed by this question in the least he immediately answers he knows what command best summarizes and unites the whole law. And he says it directly. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind.

Not only would the content of the answer be significant to these crowds but the readiness of Jesus to interact with all with those 613 old testament laws in such a deep and profound way would have been impressive to the crowds.

He hasn't had any formal training in any of this. But here's what you need to understand. You can rest assured that this is not the first time Jesus has thought about the answer to this question. What the real question is.

What what. How are we designed to operate. How is humanity designed to best function. What is the best function of humanity. And he says oh I know that love God love God. And he gets right down to the point.

Well of course he's the one who wrote the law and he is equally the one who has made mankind. He knows how we function and he knows what how we work best. The first and greatest commandment is that we are to what love God.

That is the first commandment and we are to love him in a certain way we are to love God with our will with our emotions with our internal dialogue that goes on in our mind with our external actions that we that we do with our bodies.

And even even the way that we think is to honor and love God. We can pick apart by the way the nuances of the words heart soul of mind. As a matter of fact I think I could make a three-part. I mean that could be the whole structure of the sermon.

Okay love God with all your heart. So let's talk about that love God with your soul. Let's talk about that. Let's love God with your mind. Third point. And then we could be done. But be careful you don't miss the big picture.

I'm not gonna go that direction because these three are mentioned not to parse them out and explain in depth and detail what what each one means. They are meant to be comprehensive. It is not an exaggeration or hyperbole to say that this quote by the way the quote is from Deuteronomy 6 5.

But this quote is saying that our first priority in life is to love God with all that we've got is what Jesus is getting at by this phrase. Heart soul mind. Some add strength another another. One of the Gospels add strength in there.

But to love God with all all that you are all that you've got heart soul and mind. And as far as summarizing all of a wall this is about as bedrock as you can get. Why have no other gods before him. Because you love him.

Why not take his name in vain. Because you love him. Why set aside a day of rest out of each week because you love him with all of yourself. The fundamental reason to keep any of the commandments of God comes back to love.

Why. Obey him. Because you love him. And so then the fundamental question is do you. But we're going to get there in the application. Do you love him. And not everybody loves him. But at the end of verse 38 Jesus has done what was asked of him.

We could we could end the message there if he did. He answered the question that they asked. What's the greatest law. Love God. He could be done there. But Jesus doesn't end there. And that demonstrates something very important to us.

He has more to say on the subject. He by the way if he was like worried about the questioning of these guys he had an easy out. He's used up his words. He said everything that he needed to say to answer their question.

He could duck and run but instead he's still on it. He declared a second law that he tells us is like the first one. And most of us have heard. How many of you raise your hand. If you've ever heard that you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself.

Have you heard that before. It's a pretty common instruction. It's a maybe one of the parts of scripture that even our culture gets to some degree or understands. But the interesting thing is to the scholars asking the question.

This is a relatively obscure law found in Leviticus 1918. Of those 613 we don't have record of any of the any of the scholars of this day identifying that as the primary law. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Well you can imagine why humanity would not put that one very high on the list. It's a heart. How many of you know it's a hard one to keep love your neighbor as yourself. That is tough. Anybody here on social media is there a lot of loving your neighbor as yourself.

Going on on there. Not a ton. But I want to camp just for a moment on the fact that Jesus says the second law is like the greatest law. It's like that first one. And here's what I find significant. Jesus expects that our love for God.

Hear me hear me carefully. Church. Our love for God will be expressed in love for others. First John warns us this way. In first John 2 9 you don't need to turn over there. You could jot that down and read it later.

But this is what it says. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. You can say all day long I'm walking with God and I love him. But if you hate your neighbor you're not with him.

You're deceiving yourself. You're tricking yourself. That's what first John 2 9 is saying to love God. In other words that's why Jesus is at is tacking this on. He's not. That's just it. Oh by the way runner-up is this law.

Just wanted to clarify. No he's he's wedding. The two. Welding the two together. So to speak to say you love God is or to love God rather is to love others. To say you love God is cheap. Hard to see hard to verify.

But if you want to convince me that you truly love God then show me by obeying what he says regarding your interaction with people. A wholehearted love for God will result in a genuine love for others.

Are you getting what that's saying. Let me explain it a different way. I believe this is all why Jesus cannot end with the first law. Why he welds these two concepts of love God love others together. Because loving God isn't a complete picture to tell people to abstractly love God is like asking someone to paint a masterpiece in their mind in their mind.

I love God in the abstract. You go ahead and paint. Go ahead and right now just paint a masterpiece in your mind. You can call yourself an excellent painter because you've got this unique ability to paint really cool paintings in your brain.

But I might be tempted to give you some brushes and some paint and a canvas to prove it. You tell me I'm a great painter because I've got all of these masterpieces stored in my mind like show me put it on paper.

And what is the canvas of the love of God. Our relationship with others the way we live our lives in community. That is the place that we're showing our love for God. You getting it the second. That's what the second law is doing in the text.

Jesus says love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and prove it by loving your neighbor as yourself. And now we need to be careful as we pick our way through this second command that I think has often been misinterpreted interpreted in terms of the modern-day self-love movement.

How many of you are hearing out in the world today in various circles that you need to love yourself first. Anybody here in that love yourself. It's a it's a common message in our American culture. And unfortunately it's definitely crept into the church even with some misinterpretations of this very passage itself.

First let's take just a second to make sure that we're on the same page about what love is. What are we talking about when we say love. Love is a proactive work. It is not a responsive passivity. Love is not found in the reciprocation for good things that others do for us.

It is an active pursuit to the benefit of another not returning favors but starting favors. And I would suggest to you as a little bit of a caveat here that many marriages struggle at this very point by the time that somebody shows up in my office for marriage counseling more often than not they have already spent months if not years waiting.

What are they waiting for. Waiting for their spouse to get their act together waiting for the other to love them. It's a waiting game. It's a terrible waiting game. Waiting for the other to do their part is not love at all.

But love is the actual stepping out in kindness to the other. You hear that it's proactive it starts and initiates that's what loved us. I have heard by the way some grotesque abuses of this passage in recent years even this past week in my reading and studying for this and I I don't use the word grotesque or gross lightly.

I think it's just terrifying how we how the human mind and how our independent streak and how our our self-centered nature twists scripture to our own devices. And these misinterpretations come about because of our self-centeredness our individualistic culture where we want to make so much of the self-love that we think we find here at the end of verse 39 a passage that says love your neighbor as yourself has quickly slidden in our culture and in our cultural ears.

And to love yourself so you can love your neighbor. Anybody ever heard it mentioned that way make sure I've heard I've heard sermons on this make sure you love yourself. Is that what Jesus is saying that is not his point in the least.

That is to take it and flip it completely on its head as if the first thing is love God's second love yourself or even worse love yourself first. So then you can love God and love others. That is patently false that is a lie from the pit of L gross grotesque I think are not two extreme words to say what the twisting of scripture looks like in this context.

And in this case it's not love yourself so you can love your neighbor. Jesus does not make anything of self-love here. He takes for granted that you do in fact do things for yourself and take care of yourself.

Walking away from this passage with any type of message that we need to start like as if the starting place is by loving ourselves only betrays that grotesque tendency to put who first ourselves. First first says Jesus first and foremost love God.

Second love others. And the greatest thing you can do for yourself is first accept the love of God through Jesus Christ and then love God with all you've got and show it by actively pursuing the good of others.

By the way I think that covers every single one of us in this room. The call is the same to all of us love God love others love God love others. And and some of you might think that this passage is missing you like this is it.

This isn't relate to me. I think Jesus has missed me on this one because here's the fact of the matter. And I think I think of these things sometimes and it's kind of funny in my mind out the way that my mind works.

But the fact of the matter is if we were to line up everybody from this side to the room to this side and we were not to take our you know based on our birthdays or based on our name by alphabetical order but based on self-esteem.

That's a little creepy. So you go over here there is somebody by the way this is what's weird to think about. There is somebody in here who is the most self-confident individual. One of you is or one of us is somebody's over there clear over here the most self-confident individual who is just kind of like never really thought bad thoughts about myself because myself is pretty awesome and I love myself.

Myself is swole and myself does a lot of cool stuff. And then there's somebody any questions about who that might be. And then clear over there because I'm not swole. So you know it's not me guys somebody's clear over there going.

I've never had anybody say anything that I've done right. I've never been never been affirmed by my parents. I've never been affirmed by my boss. I've never been affirmed by my spouse. I just all I think of when I think of myself is darkness.

There's reality to that. And there are people on a spectrum in that. But regardless hear me carefully Church there would be no health by the way in lining up like that. Because here's the fact of the matter.

Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum we would do well to start with loving God and loving others. A corrective to the most arrogant and self-confident and corrected to a corrective to the one who has the lowest self-esteem.

What are you made to do. I can tell you wherever you're at on that spectrum Jesus is telling you what your next step is wherever you are at on that spectrum. Lowest self-esteem. Highest self-esteem.

Love God first and serve others. Love others. You get it. He's not missed you. In case you think that I or Jesus and being naively oversimplifying on this you might think that your lack of self-esteem is uniquely ignored by this passage.

Let me suggest to you that you try out exactly what Jesus is posing here as a solution before judging it as lacking. Why not go into this next year. Why. As you go into this next year why not set your goal to love him wholeheartedly with all of your heart with all of your soul and with all of your mind.

And commit to demonstrate that this next year by loving others in the power that his spirit supplies to you. And I would love to see go ahead and test him and see if that does damage to your self-esteem.

I don't believe. For a second it does. I believe it actually helps you. In the end I truly believe that Jesus gets this one right. A human loved by God that understands the love poured out for them at the cross of Christ who's been forgiven and set free and is now standing on the bedrock of Christ and who's able to launch out in love for him.

And love for others is a person who is moving towards serious spiritual hell angel. Just get his wings or something. I'm the only one thinking that moving towards serious spiritual health. If you are in a position where you are able to love God and love others we are never commanded to focus on loving ourselves.

By the way you can search scripture on your own if you want to spend the time reading it this year looking for it. It's not there because self-love is a movement away from the things that God provides for the greatest human flourishing.