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The Matthew 22:34-40 Introduction: A.
Background 1. Scan the entire chapter for a moment. a) Jesus is getting near the end of His ministry. b) The shadow of the Cross is already dark on the near horizon of His life. c) The redeeming Events are coming soon now. 2. Three great questions are asked of Jesus in Matthew 22. a) Verse 15 mentions the Pharisees, and verse 16 the Herodians. (1) The
Pharisees were Jewish religious fanatics who favored (2) The
Herodians were Jewish political fanatics who favored (3) Normally, these two parties were bitter enemies, but it is incredible to see how a common enemy will make bitter enemies into uneasy friends. (4) The Pharisees and Herodians united in this chapter against Jesus. (5) Then the Sadducees are introduced in verse 23. 3. The question of the Pharisees and the Herodians is recorded in verse 17: “Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?” a) This question is political in nature and it suggests that it came from the Herodians, the political party. b) Jesus’ wisdom is on high profile as He answers the first question (verses 18-22). 4. The second question is recorded in verse 28. a) This question is a theological question. b) It was asked by the Sadducees, who did not believe in a life after death. c) So their question was designed to trap Jesus into some inconsistency in His view of immortality. d) Jesus accuses them of an erroneous question because they did not know the Scriptures, “nor the power of God.” e) He disarmed their evil intent while dealing with their question. “And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine” (verse 33). 5. Verse 34 introduces the third question and it is a legal question. a) This question was asked by one of the Pharisees, one who apparently had been delegated to speak for the group. b) He is identified as “a lawyer” (verse 35) - an expert in the law. c) And, he asks a question concerning the law. “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” d) The word translated “which” in this question is not the word for quantity (which one law emerges from the many as the most dominant), but the word for quality. e) What is the quality of the greatest commandment in the law? f) That is, what kind of commandment do you think is the most important in the law? 6. Notice the nature of these questions. All of them have to do with relationships! a) The first question has to do with the relationship of religion and the state (we call it “church and state”). b) The second question has to do with the relationship between this life and the next one. c) The final question has to do with the relationship of man and law. 7. You can learn a principle from this passage, too! a) The principle: Jesus’ answers are always bigger than our questions. b) The lawyer asked for one commandment, and Jesus gave two. c) He asked a legal question, and Jesus gave a relational answer. d) Jesus disregarded the apparent intent of the question, and expressed the content of God’s revelation. e) God’s revelation is always bigger than any question man may ask about it! (1) The answer to any such question is not in a stated answer. (2) The “answer” is not in the “answer”! (3) The “answer” is in a relationship! 8. Reinhold Niebuhr, the great Christian theologian, and Abraham Heschel, the leading Jewish thinker, were engaged in conversation. a) Niebuhr asked Heschel, “Do you really try to obey all of those dietary laws of the book of Leviticus?” b) Heschel answered, “Yes, I do — every one of them.” c) “Why?” Niebuhr asked, “Why would you keep those old archaic laws today?” d) Heschel’s answer was a classic. It also constitutes a good example of faith. e) He replied, “My friend, you may not understand or appreciate my answer, but I try to keep all the dietary of laws of the book of Leviticus simply because I do not understand them!” f) What an insight! What an example of faith! g) In other words, I have discovered that God is much, much smarter than I am, and when He speaks, (1) He speaks out of His infinite intelligence and wisdom! (2) He speaks in the interest of my highest good. h) So though we do not always understand His reasons for the commands, we should keep them anyway! i) We defer to a Higher Intelligence and a Higher Will when we obey God, even though we do not understand why He has commanded us to do so! j) Friends, ponder this until it reaches your heart! B. Gary Larson 1. Perhaps the most puzzling cartoonist on the current scene is an artist of paradox named Gary Larson, who created a one-frame cartoon called “The Far Side.” a) Larson confessed that it was a difficult task to regularly throw his mind into reverse to create the comic pictures in the cartoon. b) But sometimes he stays in the world where we live and creates comedy out of stretched situations there. 2. In one of the easier pieces of hilarity, he pictured a very heavy lady buried in a puffy couch, hair in curlers, a broom in one hand, and a telephone in the other. a) She is surrounded by three large and looming fish bowls, and each bowl shows the exaggerated figures of several marine creatures. b) Apparently, the fish bowls have created a conversational idea for her. c) She says to her friend on the phone, “I kissed a frog, it turned into a prince, we got married — and wham! We’re stuck with a bunch of polliwogs!” 3. Sooner or later, we all know how that woman felt. a) Even our best relationships may sometimes seem to be overpopulated with “polliwogs,” when all we ever wanted was to be related to handsome princes — and to play that same role to others. b) But our relationships sometimes become superficial and shallow and are often strained. c) It is not easy to maintain good relational skills and good relationships. d) The words of Jesus in our text will challenge and help us. C. Where the OT Hangs 1. “Teacher, of what sort is the greatest commandment of the law?” a) “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart (qualitative, not quantitative), and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. b) This is the foremost and greatest commandment. c) And the second is similar, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. d) On these two commandments (this term bears major emphasis in the text, and it is the only emphatic term in the entire passage) hang all the law and the prophets.” 2. The word “hang” means to “suspend” something. a) All the Old Testament revelation of the law and the prophets is suspended upon these two commandments! b) These are very, very important commandments! c) All the Old Testament is like a hat hung on a nail in the wall and the nail is these two commandments! I.
The Obligation A.
Love
is commanded, thus it is controlable 1. First, we note the obligation of these commandments. The common word in the two commandments is the word “love.” 2. This is striking, because it means, first, that love is commanded by God, and thus it is controllable. Can you imagine someone commanding love? And we are even told that not having this love is the greatest and worst sin that we are capable of committing. 3. You see the contrasting views of Christ and culture when you realize that the world tells us that you cannot legislate love. 4. Why does the world say this? Because it has the wrong definition of love! a) To the world, love is an emotional experience which you can “fall into” uncontrollably, and may fall out of. b) It just makes common sense that if you can fall into something, you can also fall out of it. 5. But if love is legitimately commanded, it is necessarily controllable. a) God expects you to control your love! b) So a different definition of love (the correct one) is necessary. 6. Love is not primarily an emotion; it is essentially a vocation. a) True love involves: (1) choice, (2) commitment and (3) continuation. b) Our society is in trouble in its “love-life” today because commitment is an almost totally lost art among us. B. The command is positive 1. Note also that the obligation is positive. 2. This obligation takes us far beyond the ethic that merely says, “I’m OK, because I don’t harm anybody.” a) Many say, “I don’t do this, and I don’t do that — so I’m much better than many believers.” (1) A first-grade teacher was asking the pupils’ names on the first day of class. (2) One little boy said, “My name is ‘Johnny Don’t’!” (3) It seemed that all he had ever heard his parents say to him was, “Johnny, Don’t,” and he thought that was his name! b) Many people live this way all the time. c) In their understanding, the whole Gospel is “Johnny, don’t.” 3. But no life that is merely negative will please God. a) Negatives are necessary, to be sure, but the negatives of the Gospel merely “clear the decks” for Divine action. b) The Divine action is to be continual, while the negatives are to be performed in a moment (though they will need to be maintained by a regular discipline). C. The love is distinctive 1. Again, note that the word for “love” here is the distinctive Christian word. 2. The word is “agape” (in both cases). a) The love that is commanded toward God is agape, b) The love that is declared for self is agape, and c) The love that is commanded for your fellow man is agape. 3. So we need a good definition of agape. a) Agape is the kind of love which God has for man. b) Agape is self-disinterested, self-giving love. c) This kind of love has been defined as “the basic disposition of one’s whole being to relate to God for His glory and to man for his good.” d) It is that distinctive love which desires only the highest good for its object — whether the object be God, self, or others. 4. The fact that God loves you is much more that a sentimental fact. a) It means that He desires only your highest good. b) So He cannot desire anything for you that will compromise holiness, righteousness, or His best dreams for you. c) This is the kind of love we are commanded to have for God and others. d) This is the kind of love we are expected to have even for ourselves. D. Three kinds of love in NT: 1. There are three kinds of love recognized (though eros is not mentioned by name) in the New Testament — eros, philos, and agape. a) The attached chart can help us to see the differences in these three kinds of love: b) Study the chart carefully. c) It is the nature of love to want to possess its object. 2. Love is a combination of two impulses: a) to give itself for the other, and b) to have the other for itself. 3. Perfect love is the proper balance between these two impulses: a) to give and to share for the other, and b) to have and to hold for oneself. 4. The
cross on a) Yet that willingness to give Himself is also coupled with the Divine desire to possess us, the objects of His love. b) The Son of Man came to seek, and c) The purpose of that seeking is that He might find, and bring back His people to God; d) It is the nature of love to long to possess its object. 5. So the whole point of the Gospel is that God is looking for you, and that He jealously wants to possess and use you for His Kingdom and for His glory! E.
Our
response is to be total. 1. A fourth idea about this obligation. The total personhood of each individual is to be involved in the fulfilment of this obligation. a) This requires the cooperation and submission of all faculties that each individual has — (1) heart, (2) soul, (3) mind and (4) strength. b) Man’s response to God’s love is to be a total response. 2. A Dutchman named Jacob Boehmke gave his personal testimony in these words. “I seemed to be like a battalion of soldiers when at ease, marching off in different directions. I was divided within, and a civil war seemed to be always occurring. There was nothing in me to cement me together. The centrifugal force of sin seemed to be hurtling the divided parts away from any integrating center. But God was at work. One night, when conviction had reached its height, I went into a room alone, got down on my knees, and accepted Christ unanimously. At that moment, Jesus Christ made me ‘whole.’” a) And his whole heart, mind, soul and strength were then required to be involved in this mandate to love. b) Notice the threefold occurrence of the word “all” in this commandment. c) This isolates each category and maximizes the total obligation. 3. The word “heart” is normally used in the Bible as the driving mainspring of a person’s life (just like his physical heart is the mainspring of his material life). 4. The word “soul” is the seat of your emotions. a) The word is “psuche”; we get our words “psychology” and “psychiatry” from this word. b) The soul is apparently an individual’s mind, emotions and will acting within. c) Your soul is your psychological life. 5. The word “mind” isolates your mental faculty, your ability to think and reason. a) It is interesting that Jesus apparently added the mind to the list. b) This
command quotes the Jewish “Shema” from c) Let me make a guess! d) Jesus adds the word “mind” because the heart of a man will not long pursue a course which the mind of that man disagrees with. e) The very strategy of Jesus for reaching the world - “making disciples” - requires the continual use of a developing and growing mind. f) If the Gospel is not presentable and persuasive to the best thinking of a man’s mind, it should not invite the devotion of his heart. 6. Your “strength” is the total strength of your life — strength of personality, of energy, and of will. 7. Think of the practical, personal applications of this obligation. a) Our emotions are to be dominated by love; b) Our thoughts are to be directed by love; c) Our actions are to be determined by love; and d) Our words are to be dictated by love. II.
The Object A.
“The
LORD” 1. Second, we notice the primary object of the command. “You shall love the Lord your God.” a) We have some tremendous advantages in helping us to understand this command because this is a direct quote from two Old Testament passages. b) We must simply go to the Old Testament and check the exact words, find their Hebrew meanings, and we may understand the object we are to love. c) The
first command in our text is recorded in d) The
second is recorded in 2. Note in particular the Person who is identified as the object of our commanded love - “The Lord your God.” a) The word “Lord” is the word “Jehovah,” or “Yahweh,” the covenant-making God of the Old Testament. b) The word itself is a compound word comprised of the past, present and future tenses of the Hebrew verb, “I am.” 3. So this is the foundation for the revelation of the great “I Am” God who revealed Himself as such to Moses (see Exodus 3). a) The word indicates that God is always in the Eternal Now, the Eternal Present. b) Though this includes all tenses to us — past, present, and future — there is only an Eternal Present to God. 4. Isaiah 57 says that God “inhabits eternity.” a) Time is His accommodation of our finiteness, but He inhabits eternity. b) So the Hebrew word translated “LORD” indicates that He is the great self-consistent, self-sufficient, self-continuous God. c) He needs not anything from anybody outside Himself — unless He chooses to. B. “Thy God” 1. The word “God” (“thy God”) is another gigantic word. 2. In the Hebrew, it is the word “Elohim.” a) This is a plural word (!), which certainly accommodates the Christian doctrine of the Divine Trinity. b) The plural form also compounds the regular meaning of the word. c) The word means, “powerful,” and the plural form elevates it into “Mighty, All-powerful, All-capable, Omni-competent.” 3. So the object of our love is to be the One who loves us enough to enter into covenant with us for our good, and is capable of fully carrying out His purposes. a) He is certainly worthy of our highest and best love. b) His love for us was not half-hearted, and He doesn’t expect our love for Him to be half-hearted. c) His love for us was whole-hearted, and He expects our love for Him to be whole-hearted. d) God left nothing of Himself out of the relationship, and God expects us to leave nothing of ourselves out of the relationship. e) As He has loved us with His whole Being, we are to “love the Lord our God” with the devotion of our whole being. III.
The Order A.
God
first, then others 1. Thirdly, we note the order of these commands. “You shall love ... God ... and your neighbor as yourself.” 2. The order of the stated objects is very important. a) It is the invariable order of Scripture -- God first, then man. b) For example, reexamine the Ten Commandments, and you will see this order. (1) The first four are an echo of the first commandment stated here, and (2) The last six are an echo of the second commandment stated here. c) We are to love God first, then our fellow man. 3. The order helps us to examine ourselves, for it tells us that where there has been no expression of the love of God through you toward others, there has actually been no experience of the love of God in your own heart. a) Linger here and meditate on this truth. b) No expression of the love of God toward others means no experience of the love of God in you. c) To put it positively, the experience of God’s love by you and in you will lead to the expression of God’s love through you. 4. You see, the concept of relationship precedes time. a) Before the world was created, before man was made, God was (always is) a trinity of persons. b) He has three ways of being God. He is (1) the Father, (2) the Son, and (3) the Holy Spirit. c) As a Trinity, God has always modeled the meaning of love. (1) He has always provided the perfect model for a society of beings. (2) He has continuously demonstrated relational existence. (3) So relationships have been topmost in God’s priorities for all eternity. (4) If there is anything any higher than right relational living, God has not revealed it to us. 5. Someone said, “Success is 15% product knowledge and 85% people knowledge.” a) It will not make any difference how well we as Christians master our message if we do not love people. b) “They won’t care how much we know until they first know how much we care.” c) The disarming aspect of all spiritual initiative, whether from God to us, or from us to others, is in the love that is shown. 6. Here is a very sad statistic about Christian foreign missionaries. a) When Christian missionaries return early from the foreign field, three times as many come back because of problems in relating to other missionaries than those who came back because of problems of: (1) culture, (2) learning the language, or (3) adaptation. b) The lesson? (1) All Christians, however committed they may be, have trouble in relationships. c) Where is the deficiency? (1) The deficiency usually stems from the sad fact that most Christians have never been truly discipled in building relational skills and in building and maintaining positive, loving, supportive, productive relationships. (2) The Christian community has been fairly efficient in teaching revelational theology, but not nearly so effective in understanding and applying relational theology. 7. In any crowd of people, is there usually more companionship or more competition? a) I’m sure we would admit that the answer might largely depend on the nature of the crowd and the reason for its assembly. b) But tragically, many crowds today are conspicuously full of an adversarial attitude. (1) It seems that there is potential violence at every street corner and in every shopping center today. (2) Every person is either a potential friend or a potential foe. c) If you see people as adversaries or competitors, you will spar with them mentally and practically. d) But, if you see people as true spiritual beings, you will: (1) identify with them, (2) help them grow and develop, and (3) help them to see and realize their potential. 8. Years ago, Billy Graham said, “Our alternatives today are few and simple. It is either ‘back to the Bible’ or ‘back to the jungle.’ There is no third possibility.” a) No Christian should ever allow an adversarial attitude to prevail within him toward any other human being. b) However, we must face the fact that this adversarial attitude is natural to the flesh, and that only by the aid of God and His Love can we win over it. B. The Cross carries all the weight in our
relationships 1. Before we go on to the diagram, notice that the two relationships commanded in our text might be viewed in the figure of a cross — vertical, then horizontal. a) Just as with a cross: (1) the vertical shaft (our relationship with God) carries all the weight, and (2) the horizontal arm (true agape relationships with our fellow men) stands only because the vertical supports it. b) Really think about this carefully, even drawing a cross and labeling its two shafts if necessary. (1) At the top of the vertical shaft, put the words, “God’s Love For Man,” and draw an arrow pointing down the upper part of that vertical arm. (2) At the bottom of the vertical shaft, put the words, “Man’s Love For God,” and draw an arrow pointing up the lower part of that vertical shaft. (3) On the right side of the horizontal arm of the cross, put the words, “Love For Fellow Believers,” and draw an arrow pointing outward away from the center shaft. (4) On the left side of the horizontal arm, put the words, “Love For All Men,” and again draw an arrow pointing outward away from the center shaft. 2. Here we see the four basic relationships of life. They are: a) The indispensable relationship — my relationship with the Savior. b) The internal relationship — my relationship with self. c) The interpersonal relationship -- my relationship with the significant other people in my life. d) The involvement relationship — my relationship with society. 3. We can see by looking at the diagram that all these relationships are sanctified and made most useful by the placing of the Cross in the center of them. 4. The four basic relationships in life for any human being are recorded inside the circle moving clockwise from the upper left. The four relationships are: a) your relationship to God, b) your relationship to your own self, c) your relationship to the significant other people in your life, and d) your relationship to the world or society at large. 5. In the diagram, you will note that: a) there are certain things inside the circle with regard to each of these relationships, and b) there are also certain things outside the circle at the point of each relationship. 6. The diagram shows us: a) God’s plan, or Heaven’s ideal, for each of these relationships, and then b) Satan’s alternate plan, or Hell’s ideal, for each of them. (1) God’s plan for each relationship is represented inside the circle, and (2) Satan’s alternate plan is represented outside the circle. 7. The most important relationship in the life of any human being is his relationship with God, which is represented in the upper left part of the circle. a) First, it is God’s plan that every human being live in total trust of Him for his entire life. (1) This life then becomes a life of full and perfect enjoyment. (2) And each one of us as dependent creatures should live a life of happy obedience to God, where both our pleasure and His are found. (3) Each of these areas might be explored in limitless ways. b) Outside the circle, Satan’s alternate plan for man’s relationship with God may be seen. (1) Since every human being is related to God every moment of every day, either in a good way or a bad way, Satan’s plan is to turn man’s relationship with God totally sour. (2) He seeks to get man to fear God and to distrust Him. (a) Every Christian should study this relationship in these areas carefully, because he will see examples of both God’s plan in action and Satan’s plan in action every day of his life. (b) Indeed, he will know the struggles between the two plans in his own life, also. c) The second important relationship in the life of any human being is his relationship to himself. (1) God’s plan for him is that: (a) he live a life of openness, transparency, and total honesty in all relational matters in his life. (b) It is God’s will that he accept himself as God made him, and even that he be honest about himself as he has distorted himself in sin and selfishness — in order that he might present all that he is, good or bad, to God for His purposes to be fulfilled in his life. (c) God expects him to have full appreciation of the unique and distinctive way he is made, and that he realize that it is through his unique personhood that God wants to reveal himself to the world. (2) There is an alternate plan of Satan for this relationship as well. (a) Satan is a master of distortion in our inner lives. (b) If unchecked, he will twist our view of ourselves and our self-worth until it does not match God’s intention or God’s revelation. (c) It is Satan’s desire that we hate ourselves. (d) He tells you that you are worthless and wicked, and your problems will never be solved. (e) So he tempts you to hate yourself. (f) Or he reverses the plan and seeks to get you to worship yourself. (g) This is Satan’s lifestyle — that of self-exaltation. (h) And he longs to have you made in his image. d) The third important relationship in the life of any human being is his relationship to the significant other people in his life. (1) God’s plan is that he live a life of openness with each of these people. (a) It is also God’s purpose that he make himself vulnerable to them. (i) Vulnerability may be popularly defined as getting out on a limb — and putting the saw in someone else’s hands. (ii) This does not mean that we seek our own disadvantage. (iii)It does mean that we would rather allow our own disadvantage than to take selfish or sinful advantage of the others. (iv)We
would rather suffer hurt from others than inflict hurt on them (see I Peter (b) God also desires that we honestly affirm one another in all possible ways. (i) This means that we seek the best, the Christ-like, in the people who are near to us. (ii) God wants us to vocally affirm what we find in others and to build them up. (2) Again, Satan has an alternate plan for our relationships with the significant other people in our lives. (a) It is Satan’s plan that we seek to dominate all of those who are near us. (i) If we are alert each day, we will see clear evidence within ourselves and around us in others of Satan’s plan. (ii) He wants us to selfishly control and intimidate as many people as we can. (b) Or he wants us to altogether separate ourselves from them. (i) Satan is in the separation business. (ii) If he can create divisions between us, then his plan is fulfilled. e) The fourth important relationship in the life of every human being is his relationship to the world. (1) God’s plan for each of us is that we identify with the people of society for the sake of representing and serving Christ. (a) Jesus prayed that we would be “in the world but not of it.” (b) This means that we are to be totally involved in the world, but only for redemptive purposes. (c) We are not to draw our beliefs or attitudes from the world, but we are to become active in it to reach people for Christ’s sake. (d) We are to live in the world as Jesus did, as the servant of both God and man. (2) Satan again offers an alternate plan. (a) It is Satan’s desire that we ignore the world with its massive needs, and be indifferent to it. (b) He offers enough selfish concerns to us to keep us preoccupied with ourselves and our interests so that the needs of the world will go unnoticed and unmet. (c) Or Satan entices us to go along with the moral drift and godlessness of a sinful society. 8. You should meditate on these four relationships and the two plans for them. a) You will begin to see both God’s strategy and Satan’s substitute plan in each area in your own life. b) You
need to keep yourself in the light of God’s truth so that you can glorify God
in the c) If you properly understand God, it should not be at all difficult to trust, obey, and enjoy Him. d) However, you might need to give a lot of care to the other three relationships. e) It is very easy for most people, even believers, to be wrongly related to themselves, to the significant others in their lives, and to the world. 9. An old children’s story may help us to understand the last three relationships. a) It is the story of the handsome prince who fell under the spell and the curse of a wicked witch. b) Through her evil spell, the witch turned the handsome prince into an ugly frog. c) The story declared that the frog would remain an ugly frog unless a beautiful maiden came along and kissed him. d) But everyone knows that beautiful maidens just do not go around kissing ugly frogs! e) But wonder of wonders, one day that is exactly what happened. f) A beautiful maiden came along, noticed the ugly frog, and planted a big kiss on his ugly lips. g) When she did so, the ugly frog was instantly transformed into a prince more handsome than he had been before. h) And of course, in the way of all good children’s stories, the beautiful maiden and the handsome prince fell in love, got married, and “lived happily ever after.” i) Good, happy story! 10.But most people never detect the meaning of the story. a) It is actually an illustration of Biblical truth. b) The handsome prince represents Adam as God created him. c) The wicked witch represents the devil. d) The transformation of the prince to an ugly frog represents the Fall of man into sin and under the spell of Satan. e) The beautiful maiden represents Jesus Christ. f) The kiss represents His embrace of love and grace, and His communication of life to fallen men. g) The restored prince represents the redeemed saint. h) The marriage reminds us that we are “married unto Another, even unto Him who is raised from the dead” (Romans 7:4). i) And we will “live happily ever after”! 11.The punch line? a) What is our relational calling/vocation as Christians living in this fallen world? b) We are to go around kissing ugly frogs — whether the frog be ourselves, a person near and dear to us, or one of the needy sinners-at-large in the world! |
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