The Great Commandment

The Great Commandment and the Law in Matthew 22

So let's turn to the gospel of Matthew chapter 22, Matthew chapter 22, and the title of this message is, Love thy neighbor as yourself, or the great commandment, because that's what we're going to be looking at here.

And by the way, the great commandment, or this statement, you know, love God, that's the first commandment. Or the second commandment, love thy neighbor as thyself. Some people believe this is the gospel.

This is not the gospel. This is the law. This is really the summary of the ten commandments. So here in Matthew 22, we're going to look at verses 34 through 40. This is where a scribe is asking Jesus yet another question, this time about the great commandment in the law.

And Jesus responds by quoting what is called the Shema. Who's heard of the Shema? Sort of like a creed for the Old Testament Israelites. Mark's account, you don't have to turn to Mark, just stay in Matthew, but Mark's account, Jesus gives the full statement, which starts, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And then he gives what is called the great commandment. So love God. And then the second, love your neighbor as yourself. So what does that mean? What does that look like? How do we apply that to our lives?

And then how is this often distorted in the modern day? Because these things are very much distorted today, even in many churches. So let's read Matthew 22, starting in verse 34. It says, But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him, Jesus, a question, testing him, and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets. So if you've been following along with the messages in Matthew 22, you know that Jesus in this chapter is receiving a series of questions.

So the Pharisees, they tried trapping Jesus in his words. Then the Sadducees, a different sect, they tried trapping Jesus in his words. And now we see that a scribe is coming to him. And it's the same type of thing.

They're not asking just to know. He's asking to test Jesus. That's what it says in the text. So let's start out with this question. Who are the scribes? Because it starts out with a scribe or a lawyer.

Ask Jesus this question. So the scribes were basically the ones who originally their job was to transcribe God's law or the scrolls. They would make copies. They didn't have a printing press back then.

So you had to have professional scribes. So they spent most of their time copying scrolls, transcribing God's word. But they also, as time went on, it developed. And now they are basically the teachers in Israel.

They are called lawyers because they are experts on God's law. And remember, church and state, for lack of a better term, are mingled together. So the religious law and the civil law is all kind of tied up into one thing.

So today, you know, we might say that they are the theologians and the judges and the lawyers all mixed up into one office. So that's who the scribes were. Therefore, when the scribe asked Jesus this question, it's not like he doesn't know.

I mean, if anyone knew the answer to this question, it would be the scribes. So keep that in mind. Look at verse 36. He says to Jesus, teacher. So he's calling him rabbi or teacher, which is the great commandment and the law.

Now, does Jesus know the answer? Well, of course he does. And here in verse 37, Jesus, like I said, quotes from the Shema. This is from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four, and just make a note of that if you want.

If you take notes, I encourage taking notes. That's helpful. It helps you pay attention. Not only can you look at some of these points later, helps you stay engaged. But Jesus quotes the Shema from Deuteronomy six, four, and he says, you shall love.

So what's the great commandment? You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Now, the reason why this isn't the gospel, the gospel means good news.

If you, in order to have a right relationship with God, if you had to love God with your whole heart, your whole mind, who has lived up to that? Raise your hand. If you can honestly say, I love God with my whole heart.

I know there's people who say that. I'm not going to question them. But, you know, I think it's safe to say most people, at times at least, are not really doing that. Certainly not always loving their neighbor as themselves.

So this is the great commandment. Love the Lord, your God. First of all, there's one God. Our Lord is one. And then you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

The only variation is this one word, mind. So from the gospel account to Deuteronomy, you see a variation of mind or soul, strength. It gets mixed up, that list. But you get the point, right? Love God with everything that you have.

So love God and put him first, in other words. So let's go to Exodus chapter 20 for a moment, because I want to look at Exodus 20. This is where you find the Ten Commandments. And as I said, the statement, love God, love your neighbor, this is really a summary of the Ten Commandments.

So Exodus chapter 20. I think most people know, even if it's just because they saw, you know, the movie Charlton Heston and the Ten Commandments, you know, most people know that there are two tablets of stone, right?

The first half of the commandments are written on one tablet. The second half are written on the second tablet. Why is that significant? Because the first half of the commandments are vertical, okay? They deal with our relationship to God.

So, you know, do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. That's vertical. That's between us and God. The second half of the commandments are horizontal. They deal with our relationship with our fellow man.

This, again, is a summary of the law. But let's look at the law for a moment. The Ten Commandments, Exodus 20, starting in verse 1. It says, and God spoke all these words to Moses, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and you shall have no other gods before me.

So, love God with all your heart, all your mind. That is a summary of this statement. And then in verse 4, God instructs them not to make any idols or graven images. So, worship God and worship him alone.

Look at verse 5. You shall not bow down to them, the graven images. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am what? A jealous God. Now, today, the word jealousy usually has negative connotations, which, yeah, there is a bad type of jealousy.

But what's God saying? He wants his people, the children of Israel, really, he wants all of mankind to worship him and to be faithful to him alone. If you look at it in the Old Testament, God, Jehovah, is depicted as the husband to Israel.

So, Jehovah God is the husband. Israel is the wife. And at times in their history, the book of Hosea, for example, Israel is said to be playing the harlot. It's a type of spiritual adultery where they start worshiping other deities, Molech and Asherah.

So, God is saying, no, worship me and worship me only. Do not bow down to statues. Do not worship false gods. And then God makes this statement for those who do worship other deities. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and do what?

Keep my commandments. So, the whole point of me reading this and you reading this is to show what it means to love God. Okay, love God with everything you have. Fine. What does that look like? How do we do that?

Well, according to this, you show your love for God by obeying God, by keeping his commandments. So, this is what love is. Love isn't just some emotion because you know how that goes. People have these emotions of love and they're here today and gone tomorrow.

People say, I love you. And then fast forward a year, all of a sudden they don't love that person anymore. That's an emotion. Emotions change. That's not the divine love. That's not love in the ultimate sense.

This love is a faithfulness towards God and then really a devotion to love and to serve other people. But you cannot separate love from God's commandments. Also, Jesus in John 14 verse 15 says, if you love me, do what?

Keep my commandments. So, Jesus said the exact same thing. All right. So, with that in mind, let's go back to Matthew 22. Matthew 22, as you're turning there, God continues to give the third commandment that we didn't touch on.

Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. So, we shouldn't do that. Then he talks about the Sabbath day and that's something that doesn't get talked about much today. Christians have always observed the Sabbath principle by setting aside usually Sunday as the day for gathering together, worshiping God with the church.

But these are the commandments. Yes, if you love God, do what he says. I mean, it's sort of like a parent, you know. Your child can say, mom, dad, I love you. And we love hearing that, right? But what if they say, I love you.

And then they're just totally rebelling in every area of their life. You would rather have them submitting even if they don't say the word, right? Now, ideally, you would want both. But the point is, you know, talk can be cheap.

So, anyone can say, I love God. But the question is, are you obeying God? Well, this is all the background for this conversation Jesus is having with the scribe. Look at Matthew 22, verse 37. So, he asked the question, what is the great commandment?

Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. So, again, this is a summary of the first half of the 10 commandments. The Shema, if you read the full thing, it would say, there is one God and love God with all your mind, everything you got.

Pretty clear, I think, right? We got that. Okay. So, the question is, do people fall short of that? Yes, people do fall short. And that's where God's grace comes in. So, both Jesus and the scribe understand all this.

So, look at verse 38. Jesus says, this is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it. And now, Jesus is quoting from another Old Testament book. First, it was Deuteronomy. Now, he's quoting from the book of Leviticus.

He says, the first commandment is that, the second is like it. And he says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So, again, that's a summary of the second half of the 10 commandments. What are the second half of the commandments?

Thou shalt, he starts, honor your father and mother. Thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not, what? What's after that? Okay. Steal. Thou shalt not lie or bear false witness.

And then the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet. Coveting is kind of the one that people see. Well, that's not a big deal. But what is coveting? It's when your neighbor gets a new boat and you look at that boat and you're kind of, you know, you're kind of upset with your neighbor.

You're angry at somebody because they have nicer things than you do. You know, you want what they have and you're discontent because that's not fair. I should have that. Well, that's coveting. So, all of these are tied into this statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So, what does that mean? So, if you love God, remember, if you love God, what does that mean? You obey God. You obey the first half of the commandments. If you love your neighbor as yourself, that's the second half.

So, if you love your neighbor, you're not going to kill your neighbor, right? It's pretty low bar, right? If you love your neighbor, you're not going to, you know, cheat with their spouse, okay? People do that.

People do kill. People steal. People lie. But if you love your neighbor, you're not going to do harm to them, right? You're going to look out for their well-being. You're going to care for them. You're going to treat them the way you would want to be treated.

It is very similar to the golden rule. And Jesus is the one who came up with that. Now, we put it this way, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus didn't exactly put it like that, but more or less.

But it's treat others the way you want to be treated. That's how you show your love for other people. So, that's what it's about. But it's more than that. Now, let's turn to Matthew chapter 25. So, just skip ahead three chapters.

Because loving your neighbor as yourself isn't just... See, here's the problem. The Pharisees, they were what we would call legalists. Today, people use the term legalist for anything they don't like.

They call it legalism. And people misuse the term most of the time today. The Pharisees really were legalists. They thought that they could go to heaven. They thought they were right with God. They thought they were going to receive eternal life because their attitude was, hey, we are keeping the commandments.

Now, is that true? See, in reality, nobody fully keeps the commandments. All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. Have you told a lie? Yeah, we've all lied. We've all stolen something, even if it's small, even if it was a long time ago.

Everyone's broken the law. But the Pharisees, they were blind. They were self-righteous. They thought they were keeping the law. And they really believed that they were right with God because they weren't doing anything wrong.

And of course, nothing could be further from the truth. But it's true. They weren't killing people, generally speaking. They weren't stealing. They weren't getting arrested for stealing or anything like that.

But let's look at Matthew 25 because obeying the second half of the commandment is so much more than not breaking into your neighbor's house or killing them. Okay, we have a higher duty than that. And we see that here in Matthew 25, starting in verse 31.

Jesus says, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. And all the nations will be gathered before Him. And He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

And He will set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on the left. Now, is He talking about literal sheep and literal goats? He's talking about people. The sheep are the righteous, those who know God, have a relationship with God.

The goats are the unrighteous, those who don't know God. Verse 34, then the king will say to those on his right hand, the sheep, come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry. This is the part I want you to pay attention to. Jesus says, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me.

I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. And then the righteous will answer Him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you a drink? We never did that.

We never saw you in need. We never did these things to you. When did we see you a stranger and take you in or naked and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, surely I say to you in as much as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.

So what's Jesus saying? You know, when that, uh, church member was sick and they came home from the hospital and you made them a meal and you went and you visited them and you helped them out. Yeah, you were helping them, but who were you doing that on to?

Yeah. It was like you were bringing Jesus a meal. So whatever you do for God's people, you do it for whatever you do for Christ's people, you do it for Christ. Okay. So whatever good deed you do for a fellow brother, a sister, you do it on to God.

Why is that significant? Because this is the way a lot of people operate. You know, they do things, they do things for people, but they do things for people expecting something in return. Like if somebody is poor or they can't help me out, you know, ignore them.

But if somebody can help me, you know, I can, I see some advantage here. I will help that person. I will do nice things for them because it's sort of like, uh, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours type of a situation, right?

What Jesus is saying, there need to be pure motivations. Now, here's the thing. We will get a reward in the life to come. And that's what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 25. But the point being the second half of the commandments, we need to not just not do harm.

We need to help. We need to look out for their welfare. Like if you drove in on the way here and you saw, let's say I was broken down on the side of the road, would you stop and help me out? So you say, well, he's the pastor.

I should help him. If it was this other church member, I might drive by or something. Now you'd stop. I know you would, but, but that's the type of thing we're talking about. So it's more than just, again, the thou shalt nots.

It's let me help. Let me, uh, fulfill a need. This person needs something. I'll, I'll do what I can. Matthew 20, let's just keep reading. And then he, of course, Jesus is speaking about himself and what third person, I guess, or second person.

So he says that he will also say to those on the left hand, the goats depart from me. You cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels for, I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.

I was a stranger and you did not take me in naked and you did not clothe me sick and in prison. And you did not visit me. Then they also will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty?

And they go through the list, right? And it's the same answer, but he says in as much in verse 45, in as much as you did not do it to one of these, you know, the least of these, you did it to me, or you did not do it unto me.

Same, same thing. Someone is a need you ignore that you could help them. You know, you should help them, but you don't help them. You're ignoring them. Who are you really ignoring? You're ignoring Christ.

So that that's what he's saying. It's like the mirror opposite of what we read. So hopefully this is shining a little light on love your neighbor as yourself. So again, the first and great commandment of the law, love God with everything you have.

How do I love God? How do I show my love for God? Well, this is one way you're in church this morning. You know, this isn't the same as the Sabbath. It's a little different, but you know, this is one way we show our love for God.

We gather together and we worship him. How do we love God? We, we don't take his name in vain, but also we praise his name, right? So that's pretty simple obedience, but love your neighbor as yourself.

I explained to you, I just explained what it does mean. Let's talk about how it's often misunderstood today. And we'll close with this point and then end with, with a gospel application. But how is it misunderstood today?

I would say this statement, love your neighbor as yourself has to be one of the, of all the verses that are taken out of context. This is going to be like number two. What's the number one verse that's taken out of context today.

I guess you could argue what judge not. I mean, in my opinion, that would be the number one verse that's out of context. So people will quote that judge not or love your neighbor as yourself. And here's what they do.

So just be on guard for this. People will quote this verse to pretty much excuse and adjust and justify all sorts of bad behavior. Oh, well, this person's doing that. Well, that's wrong. Well, yeah, but you need to love your neighbor as yourself.

So it's okay. How is that done today? So one example, I won't give too many details here, but one of our former vice presidents was asked about his stance regarding a particular sinful lifestyle. We'll put it that way.

And he basically said that while he personally disagreed, he said his faith demands that we support people's right to engage in this type of thing. Why? Well, we need to love our neighbor as ourself. So what he actually said was love your neighbor means we should pass laws to protect this type of behavior that would actually have been criminal behavior in Old Testament Israel.

My friends, that's an example of taking this verse out of context. So it's just very common. People will love your neighbor. We heard this back in 2020. You need to get the vaccine. Why love your neighbor?

Now, this church, we believe in Christian liberty. If you want to get it, great. If that's the decision for you, that's fine. We respect people's conscience. But you can't twist people's arm and kind of bully them into doing things you want just because, well, you need to love your neighbor as yourself.

All I'm saying is that's often taken out of context or misapplied to try to get people to do something that either they don't want to do or they shouldn't do or just to justify bad behavior. If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times.

So all that to say this, love your neighbor means something specific. It is directly tied in to God's law. We know what that looks like. Don't do any harm. Do good. Help. Look out for someone's well-being.

So when you hear someone quote, love your neighbor as yourself, whatever they're trying to push or promote, just say, okay, is that in the Bible or is it detached from the Bible? Because you'll notice this is often distorted.

So today, long story short, love your neighbor. What it really means for people today is you need to be tolerant and affirming of whatever the culture says you need to be tolerant and affirming of. It's like that statement, judge not.

Does the Bible say judge not? Does it say that? Yeah. I mean, Jesus did say that. Of course, if you keep reading, he said that you need to take the beam out of your own eye before you take the speck out of your brother's eye.

So what he really meant was don't judge someone for doing something when you're doing the same thing or something even worse. Let me give you a little example. I'm almost done, okay? We won't stay too long.

I was a kid. I was outside. I went to church on Sunday. I was out in the parking lot and I was chewing gum and I spit my gum on the ground. Now, granted, that was not the right thing to do because someone could step on the piece of gum, right?

But there's another guy, a church member, who yelled at me. He yelled at me. People don't yell at kids anymore. Back in those days, they yelled at kids, even if they weren't their own kids. But he yelled at me, which I don't object to that, but it was the fact that he was smoking a cigarette.

He yelled at me for spitting my gum out and then he flicked his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it and walked into church. I just couldn't believe it. Like I didn't know the word hypocrisy back then, but I mean, what does that have to do with what I was talking about?

But yeah, judge not, right? Right. Don't judge people when you're doing the same thing or something even worse. Should we acknowledge wrongdoing? I mean, we have these people in our culture named judges where they send people to prison and it's a good thing that they do.

But so often today, judge not, love your neighbor. It's all meant to browbeat you into affirming the world's agenda. Sexual sin, substance abuse, gambling, whatever vices are glorified in Hollywood. They're trying to quote verses out of context to get you to affirm that stuff.

So in conclusion, watch out for that. What does the great commandment have to do with the gospel though? I said not a lot because people think love your neighbor as yourself is the gospel. It's not the gospel.

It's the law. And that first commandment, love God with everything you got, your whole mind, body, soul, strength. That's not the gospel in a sense. That's bad news because I'll just tell you I've fallen short of that.

I haven't always loved God with my whole heart, my whole mind, my whole spirit. Nobody has. But thanks be to God that he has provided us a way to be forgiven when we have fallen short, when we have mistreated our neighbor.

There may be a few people here today, there's something between you and a literal neighbor or a friend or a family member, some unresolved issue. Maybe you have said unkind words. You know, if we were judged by these things, how we treated others, how we loved God or didn't always love him the way we should, we would fall short.

One last thing. You know, the Shema, the great commandment, it was sort of like an Israelite creed, a summary of the entire Old Testament faith. If I could summarize the New Testament faith. So the Old Testament is what?

Law, right? The Old Covenant is law. The New Covenant is about grace. Let me summarize the New Covenant by reading what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15. He said, moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel, which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved.

If you hold fast that word, which I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain. And here is the gospel. He says, for I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ, what?

Died for our sins, according to the scriptures. And he was buried. And on the third day, he rose again, according to the scriptures. Why did Jesus have to die? Why was Jesus sent into the world to die?

You say, well, for our sins. It's because we have all fallen short of the great commandment. We have all fallen short of loving your neighbor as yourself. But thank God where we have fallen short in our love.

God has more than made up for it in his. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that there is forgiveness. There is forgiveness at the foot of the cross. We pray that this word today would sink deep into people's hearts.

Lord, you would open our mind, our understanding to better know how to serve you, to serve others. And Lord, help us to do something kind for somebody this holiday season. If there's any issues, any strife between us and someone else, there's no better time.

This is a time where people are more willing, more likely to forgive. I pray that we would reconcile with our brother. And most of all, if there's someone today who has never been reconciled to you, we know that if they would simply believe in Christ's crucifixion and death, and they would simply trust in that by faith and be born again.

Lord, you have promised full reconciliation, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life. So we ask you that you would save the sinner, restore the backslider, and may Christ receive all the glory. We ask it all in his name.

Amen.