SERIES: HEALTHY CHURCH!
“THE MOTIVATION FACTOR”
MATTHEW 22:36-40
OPEN
In this new year of 2011, I’ve decided to make some changes in my life. One of the changes I’m going to make is to get healthy – physically healthy. I’m overweight, have Type-2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. To combat those physical ailments, I’ve changed my diet. I’ve already lost a couple of pounds in just the two weeks in which I’ve changed the way I eat. I’ve also noticed a change for the better in my blood sugar readings. Starting tomorrow, I start an exercise plan. If I don’t change what I’m doing, I’ll suffer harm to myself and to my family.
We, as a church, also need to do some things that will make us healthier. Let’s face it – we’re not doing real well in the church health category. We’ve got diminished attendance, diminished involvement, and diminished commitment on lots of levels. So, no, we’re not getting healthier as a body. And that’s what the church is – a
body; the body of Christ. And we’re losing our health.
Over the next few weeks, I want us to look together at some factors which will help increase our church health. I’m calling this series: Healthy Church! The first health factor I want us to consider is “The Motivation Factor.”
I want us to look at a passage this morning in which Jesus is asked a very important question. I doubt the person who asked the question actually understood how important his question was. But Jesus understood and gave an answer that was simple yet profound.
Matt. 22:36-40 – “Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them,
an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”
The Pharisees had long debated the most important of the commandments. In rabbinical writings following the time of Jesus, we find that the teachers of the law had determined that there were 613 commandments in the Old Testament Law. They classified 248 of them as positive commands (“do this…” or the “thou shalts..”). The remaining 365 of them were classified as negative commands (“don’t do this…” or the “thou shalt nots…).
And these teachers of the law further classified these commands as being “lighter” or “heavier” in importance.
Jesus understood that the question he was asked had nothing to do with which commands could be ignored and which commands should be obeyed. Jesus taught that not even the least significant parts of the law, such as accent marks and vowel points, would be done away with. He said that He had come to fulfill the Law – the whole Law. Jesus understood that the question really had to do with which command was the fundamental premise on which the whole rest of the law could be understood and practiced.
Jesus first chooses a command which comes from a section of the Old Testament called the Shema. It’s found in Deut. 6 and is part of a passage recited by faithful Jews at the start of every day and at the beginning of synagogue services. It’s the first scripture that a Jew memorizes. He calls this command to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind the first and greatest of all the commandments.
In biblical usage, the word translated “commandment” is like a military order – it cannot be refused. It refers to an order from someone in charge. Disobedience means severe discipline. Jesus is emphasizing that this teaching is not something that can be ignored. In fact, the word for “greatest” in the original language means something “really big; high; mighty.” Jesus is letting us know that what he is saying is HUGE in relation to other things. It goes in front of everything. It’s in first place.
The word for “love” in the original language is what Paul describes in 1 Cor. 13. It’s agape love. It’s a sacrificial love. It’s a love that seeks to look out for the other person. It’s not a feeling but a decision. It says, “I will make your desires important.”
I think that’s why so many people “fall out of love.” They’re in a relationship for what they can get. And when they decide, “I’m not getting what I need,” they sever the relationship. But the love Jesus talks about here doesn’t focus on getting what I need. It’s based on what I give and not on what I get. That’s the love we’re called to have for God.
Jesus said that this love infiltrates our hearts, our souls, and our minds. He wants us to understand that this love comes from the very depths of our being. It’s what pumps our blood. It’s what satisfies our deepest needs. It’s what occupies our deepest thoughts and imaginations. It’s an all-consuming kind of love.
Then Jesus says that there is something else you have to understand. Loving God with all of your heart and soul and mind is first and foremost. But then He says that there is something that comes in a very close second – loving your neighbor as yourself.
Don’t think of this command as being in second place as in first place and then loser. No. The concept is much like a race in which first and second place are determined by a split-second in time. You might say that in order to understand it, you have to envision a race so close as to be a “photo finish” – a race where the first and second places can’t be easily seen without some help. They’re that close.
Again, the word for love here is agape. It’s that sacrificial love that looks out for the other person. And Jesus says that we’re to look out for the just like we’d look out for ourselves. The word “neighbor” is the same one used in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Lk. 10. Who is it that we look out for like we’d look out for ourselves? Jesus defines our neighbor in that parable as anyone we encounter with a need.
Jesus then says something that should make us really uncomfortable. He says that the whole rest of the law, every commandment, “hangs” on these two commandments. It’s the same word in the original language that means “to suspend from” – like a door hangs on its hinges.
Jesus is saying that if you can’t get these two commandments – if you can’t understand them and you can’t do them – then don’t waste your time with anything else. Everything boils down to two things: loving God and loving others. We can call these two instructions the Great Commandment and the Great Commitment. If these two things are active in our lives, we need nothing else. We’ve got it down. We comprehend and practice everything that God can ever ask of us.
So, what kind of church would be if we, as the members of this local body of believers, lived by these two commandments? What would we look like? How would we impact our community if we demonstrated a sacrificial love for God and for others?
Doing everything based on the Great Commandment and the Great Commitment would definitely change some things. If we were really people who loved God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds, and loved our neighbors as ourselves, God would bring revival to this congregation. We would change ourselves and change our community. The Great Commandment and the Great Commitment would be our motivation. The motivation of loving God and loving others, first of all, …
DETERMINES OUR GOALS
We are the church. And as such, we should have some definite goals. Goals are important because they determine which way we go.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland: “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know’, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, ‘It doesn’t matter.’”
The question for every church is, “Why are we here?” We need to understand our purpose as a church so that we can see how well we accomplish that purpose. One of our main problems is that we’ve been pretty much drifting aimlessly without direction or purpose. We’ve been doing church but not being the church.
Rick Warren has identified five basic purposes for the church. They are worship, ministry, evangelism, discipleship, and fellowship. These basic purposes meet our deepest needs and they accomplish the reason why Christ established His church.
What would happen to our worship if we really loved God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds and truly loved our neighbor as ourselves? Wouldn’t out worship be something that would energize and transform us?
Wouldn’t we elevate our service to others to a whole other level? Wouldn’t our fellowship be sweet? Wouldn’t we truly seek the lost? Wouldn’t we dedicate ourselves to things that would cause us to grow in our faith and in our service?
The big difference is our motivation. Do we do it because we love God with everything we have and because we love our neighbor as ourselves?
DECIDES OUR PROCEDURES
Goals are important. But to attain these goals, we have to have a process – a procedure – to get to the goals. We watch a travel show about a beautiful resort or an exciting theme park. And we can say, “I want to go there.” But then we actually have to do something to get there. We have to make plans. We have to find out how to get there.
The same is true of our goals as a church: worship, ministry, evangelism, fellowship, and discipleship. We can’t just say, “We’d love to accomplish these goals” and then do nothing to get there..
One of our problems is that we’re waiting for someone else to decide the procedures. We’re waiting for someone else to tell us how to get there. We’re waiting for someone to load us on the bus and then drive us to where we’d like to go. I’ve got news for you. If there’s someplace you’d like to go, you can’t just sit around hoping somebody will tell you how to get there. You’ve got to look for the information yourself. You’ve got to get out the map, plot the course, and then get on the road to the destination.
And again, motivation is the key. If we love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds, and we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, it will change the way we do things.
Everything we do will have a plan and a purpose. We don’t just come to a building on Sunday and sit in a pew for an hour or two then go home. When we come together, we should say, “How do I show my love for God and my love for others while I’m here?” Then when we leave, we’ve joined with others in common goals and we’ve energized ourselves to show our love for God and our love for others in the rest of our week.
Board meetings would change. Instead of business as usual, every meeting would focus on what can we do to love God and to love others. We would get aggressive in planning and devising procedures that accomplish our goals.
DOMINATES OUR ACTIONS
Loving God and loving others would change how we behave. We wouldn’t be so concerned with what we got out of church. We’d be concerned with what we gave at church.
It would change how we relate to one another. There’d be no more unforgiveness and hard feelings toward anyone. There would be an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement. We would be a place where people wanted to be.
Did you ever hear yourself saying something like this, “I’m too tired to go to church.” Why is the church a place that drains you of your energy? Shouldn’t it be a place where we say, “I’m tired. I’m going to church to get energized?”
CLOSE
Shift from our love of God to His love for us. Rom. 5:8.
