Loving God & Loving People

Matthew 22:34-40-“But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Introduction: Illustration: In April of 1998 in our nation’s capital Military Police Maj. Odie Butler said he was northbound on I-395 about 10 minutes before 6 a.m. when he came upon an accident near Alexandria. Amid the debris of a single-truck accident, a person was on the highway, having been thrown from the vehicle. Butler said he did not take time to think. He stopped his car and got out to help the victim. "At first, I couldn’t tell if [the victim] was male or female, there was so much blood...[then] I saw she had on female tennis shoes. At the same time, traffic was rolling through," Butler said. Not having a cell phone, Butler said he was hoping someone would call 911. There was not much else he could do for the victim. "She was on her back with her left leg tucked under and her right leg near the guardrail," Butler said. "She was spitting up blood and I knew she needed medical assistance. There was nothing I could do except stand there. She had a big laceration on her right hand, her whole face was covered in blood, and she was having trouble breathing. Meanwhile motorists were passing by the accident “trying to weave through the debris and get on out of there," Butler said. Some made angry gestures. Butler said one driver told him to "get the ‘stuff’ off the side of the road." "Some folks don’t want to get involved ... [or] they’re in a hurry..," Butler said. After about five minutes, Butler said, another motorist, an Air Force civilian employee, Larry Meade, stopped and used his cell phone to call for assistance. About 10 minutes later, the woman was flown by helicopter to a Washington-area hospital. Meade said that he was prepared for the carnage associated with the crash, but the anger of the other motorists shocked him. Meade said, "People put appointments and memos above someone’s life." According to Butler, what he did on the interstate was "the Christian thing to do."

Notice in those verses the question that Jesus was asked. "Which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus gave the same answer as the he gave the lawyer in our text. Love God. Love your neighbor. He then states that all the law hangs on these two commandments. He makes love for God and our neighbor the foundation of moral responsibility. These elements are increasingly rare in our society. We tend to live with the attitude, "What’s yours is mine, if I can take it from you." Our society increasingly acts as if men owe nothing to their neighbors. We think only of our own lives, ignoring the needs of others.

Illustration-A few years ago, a man and a friend of his, were in Las Vegas. The friend followed a 7 year old into a bathroom and began physically assaulting her. The other man came upon the scene, made a half-hearted attempt to intervene, and then left the girl to her fate. Not only did he fail to stop the assault, he also chose not to report it. On their way home that night, the friend who was the assaulter told Cash he had raped and killed the little girl. Still, the man kept quiet. The police finally caught up with the assaulter and he pleaded guilty to all charges. The man who failed to report the crime was off the hook. Nevada had no law requiring people to report a crime. In an interview with the LA Times, the man who failed to report the crime defended his non-involvement. Without a trace of remorse, he said, ""I’m not going to get upset over someone else’s life . . . I just worry about myself first. I do not think of it. I am not going to lose sleep over someone else’s problems. I didn’t know her.”

As Christians in today’s Post-Modern world, it is far too easy to be bogged down in the trials and temptations of modern culture. To us, "Loving God and Loving Each Other" is often just another slot on our weekly agenda. For many, the relationship with God has become a relationship of convenience. Through Christ, we can all have an intimate, personal, and deeply rewarding relationship with our Creator. The right relationship with God is far more rewarding than anything this world has to offer.