Sermon Brief
Date Written: March 14, 2014
Date Preached: March 16, 2014
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Series Title: A Sermon for New Purpose Statement
Sermon Title: Love Makes It All Work
Sermon Text: Matthew 22:37-40 [ESV] – Read all here
37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Love is the center of God’s plan and purpose here in this world. It is God’s LOVE for His creation that He sent His Son Jesus to die on the Cross of Calvary for OUR sin! It is only through His love that He cradles us in His arms when the world seeks to do us harm and when the storms of life come crashing in on our world.
Jesus focused on love in His time here in this world and in John 13:34-35 we have him saying these words:
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love was how Jesus wanted us to be known to the world…He reemphasizes this when he is speaking with His disciples during His last week before His crucifixion. After His triumphal entry Jesus had cleared the Temple and been challenged by the religious leaders… He countered every question they had with Scripture and the wisdom of God… but Jesus saw that they did not know what God was all about!
The religious leaders saw God as a moderator and enforcer of RULES and REGULATIONS, but Jesus wanted these people to know that it was much more about being in a relationship with God than about following rules or laws… the rules and laws were there for our protection, but the focus was supposed to be on the relationship…with God…and with those around us!
What Jesus said here in Matt 22 was revolutionary… He was sharing a totally radical view of how to approach serving God… a way based on love and mutual respect among those who followed God.
Lets take a look at what Jesus said, and what it means for us today:
37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great[est] and first commandment.
Not only is this the most important commandment, Jesus states that this most important of all commandments has an order to it... Let me share with you what I mean. You see, to love God we can't just say "I love God" and that be it... our words often betray us!
So we find Jesus placing some standards in place so that we can truly know when we DO love God... Jesus sets forth 3 basic standards to know if you "Love" God or if you are all words or full of hot air—Jesus says
First that we are to love God with all of our Heart – what does that mean? Well to love with all your heart simply means that you have a complete and total commitment of all your actions toward God! Whatever you do is focused on showing your love to and for God! Loving God from our hearts is fleshed out in our actions in life...
Do your actions reflect your love for God? Do people see your love for God in what you do and how you live your life? To love God requires ALL of your heart… and we know He has our heart when our actions reveals our love!
Second, Jesus says that we are to love God with all of our Soul – well what does THAT mean preacher? For you to love God with all your soul means that you exhibit complete and total commitment of your attitude to loving Him.
Let me try to explain what I mean. It means that how you approach things and what attitude you carry around in life should reflect a love for God… that attitude comes from within our very soul...
If love from your heart is fleshed out in your actions then whatever you DO, is driven by your underlying attitude of love for God and that comes from within who you are… your very soul!
In other words, God you have changed me by YOUR grace and now I have a new attitude of love for you! That is the focus of my life and it is the underlying factor for all my actions!
Do the people of this world see your ‘heart & soul’ by what you do and your approach to life? Do they see the love of God played out in who you are?
Finally Jesus says here that we are to love God with all of our Mind – What does loving God with my mind mean preacher? Well for you to love God with all your mind requires a total commitment of your thoughts, reasoning, worldview... in other words your thoughts are focused on loving God...
For you to love God with all your mind your reasoning must be focused on loving God and how you view the world has to be based on your love for God!
With a soul that is founded in loving God and is committed to loving God… you can have the right loving attitude toward God and with the right loving attitude toward God you will reveal your love for Him thru your actions...
Love God with all your heart (actions) soul (attitude) and mind (thoughts/worldview)... Jesus sets these three standards as the way in which you are to love God and He tells us it is the MOST important commandments but he follows this up with a 2nd commandment that we must follow!
39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Now I want us to understand something here... this was NOT an add-on commandment by Jesus but in fact it was a commandment of completion.
Here Jesus is telling His disciple that it was not enough for them only love God, but according to Jesus, they were to love their neighbor as they love themselves.
A question was once asked of Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" and Jesus responded to that question with the story of the Good Samaritan and then Jesus asked the question back to the same person who asked him... “which one was the ‘neighbor’ who helped when this man was in need?”
In Luke 10 in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus pointed out that our neighbor was anyone we came across… People we are ALL in this rotten world together and we are called to show the love of God to ALL who cross our paths…
So Jesus says to love my neighbor… who does that mean? Well it means, my physical family, my church/Christian family, my friends, my enemies, and even strangers on the road... SO do you understand what this means?
What this means is whomever you come in contact with, whomever you touch, whomever you see, whomever you can hear... You are called to reveal your love!
You are called to love those who are easy to love AND those who are not so easy to love! I want us to see that the emphasis here by Jesus was that He places NO limits on who we are called to love… our ‘neighbor’ is all of those around us?
• This means that horrible uncle you have in your family who hates church and those Christian do-gooders…
• This means that irritating old aunt you have in your family who is always sticking her nose where it does not belong…
• This means that deacon who always finds wrong in ANYTHING and everything that is going on in the church…
• This means the lady in the church who never has anything good to say & constantly trys to stir up gossip and trouble…
• This means that person on your block who drinks too much… who curses too much… who may be obnoxious and hard to deal with… Jesus is calling us to love ALL these people!
This is NOT easy, in fact it is near impossible on our own strength BUT when we focus all of who we are on loving God, he is going to empower us with the ability to love those who are hard to love!
Who we are to love is NOT in question with this commandment… We have seen that Jesus is calling us to love ALL who are in our lives and who cross our paths… but I want to point out that although Jesus did not put a limit on WHO is to be loved…
Jesus DID place a standard on HOW these people were to be loved! Jesus told His disciples that they were to love their neighbor (anyone who comes into their lives) as they love themselves! Translation is...love others as you want to be loved.
• This means that horrible uncle in your family who hates those Christian do-gooders…You want him to love and respect you, then you must be willing to GIVE the love & respect you want in return.
• This means that irritating old aunt you have in your family who is always sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong…You want her to show restraint & respect for others, then you must show restraint & respect in your own life!
• This means that deacon who seems to find wrong in everything in the church…You want this man to see the good and stop focusing on the negative, then you must do good and focus on what good is being done…
• This means that lady in the church who never has any good to say and is constantly stirring up gossip and trouble…You must love her by NOT saying anything bad about others & by NOT stirring anything up, even if you disagree with what is going on!
In these verses we see Jesus calling all His disciples to love God and love others… Now, several weeks ago we met as a body on a Sunday night and we decided to have this passage from today’s sermon as the Purpose Scripture for our fellowship.
After selecting this passage as our purpose statement verse, the church then asked the staff to develop a new purpose statement for our church.
This morning I am happy to tell you that tonight we plan on unveiling this new purpose statement to you… Tonight we are going to reveal what God has led us to put on paper… but what I want you ALL to understand is that this is NOT just a statement for our refrigerators… this is a statement for our hearts!
This new purpose statement stands as a testament of changed hearts and minds within this fellowship! I believe that we are now seeing God’s mission and plan through a new lens… we are now seeing God’s purpose for this fellowship with more clarity!
Scripture tells us: “Where there is NO vision, the people perish…” In other words, when there is not a focus or destination in mind, then the direction is clouded and a destination is never reached, resulting in aimless wondering! This purpose statement gives us a clear focus as to who we are, what we do and what our purpose is in God… for this community!
But why do you think that loving God and loving people was important? Did Jesus come up with this when He came to earth? Was this a NEW thing for believers? Well we find Jesus revealing in v40 that this was NOT something new but loving God and others has been around the entire time! [Read v40 here]
40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
What was Jesus saying when he said “ALL of the law and prophets…?” Well in other words Jesus was saying that EVERYTHING that had ever been taught by the prophets and/or written in the Law, everything these people had ever learned or would ever learn was meaningless, empty words and of no value unless they had love in their hearts for God and others!
All of what God stands for and strives toward with His creation hinges on humanity clinging to and obeying these 2 simple, but powerful, commandments! Without love for God or our fellow man…all teaching is meaningless and hollow!
God has called us to love Him!
God has called us to love one another!
Unless we have a true, faithful love for God, and an earnest love for our fellow human beings… our words of faith are worthless… our witness for Christ is worthless… LOVE is what makes it all work!
Paul told the Corinthian church that all the knowledge in the world is just as useless as a sounding gong if there is NO love… without love, it all falls apart!
