Two
I. Introduction
Do you ever think about the type of person Jesus was? I am talking about personality wise. When we think about each other that is what we do . . . mild, direct, intense, aloof, or warm. But when we think about Jesus we often stop at thinking about who He was and not what He was like. Well, when I think about His personality I have come to the conclusion that He was precise and concise. In fact, I think it could be said that Jesus was a minimalist. He boiled things down. Think about it . . . He was able to summarize the entire teachings, premises, and principles of the kingdom in one short teaching we call "The Sermon on The Mount." When compared to the religious scholars, teachers and preachers of His day He must have come off as a man of few words. Rather than volumes of information and inspiration it was like He took the opposite route with almost a "less is more" approach. The religious elite of His day had managed to take the 10 simple commandments that made up the law and expound and expand them until they added 603 new commandments to "help" the people of that day understand the original 10.
In contrast, when Jesus was asked to expound on the 10 Commandments, He, rather than adding to and mudding the water, summarized them into two basic concepts that communicated the heart of all the others. Listen to His two.
II. Text
Matthew 22:35-40
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 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 the Law and the Prophets.”
III. Two!
Jesus, with pinpoint, laser-like clarity cuts through all the red tape and fine print and says there are two pinnacle principles that serve as the hinge pins on which the kingdom swings.
He boils it down to this. The first is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. The Message uses the terms with all your passion, prayer and intelligence.
This is no easy task. This command is a constant call and challenge to perpetually examine our love level for God. This moves us beyond a once a week in a service pursuit of God mentality. In fact, this precise statement from Jesus smacks our tendency to become apathetic and comfortable with low levels of love for God in the face. There is no room in this command to go through the motions, to slack off, to half way pursue God. To fulfill this command requires that we become singular in our focus and commitment.
It is this call that should force us to daily ask ourselves this question, "How much do I love God? Does my love for Him capture my heart (my passion)? Is He more important and more pursued than my career, my things, and my causes? Is my soul wrapped up in Him or me?" Soul - is the seat of emotions! In other words, am I as emotional about God as I am about my dog, my kids, my favorite sports team or my favorite character on TV? "Is my mind engaged in my pursuit of God?" How do you love God with all of your mind? You are actively attempting to learn more about Him. Are you studying Him? Some of us love God with our heart and our soul but fail to "Study to show ourselves approved!"
Command One requires a total commitment. It impacts and pulls on every part of us. In one statement, Jesus forces us to recalibrate what constitutes a real disciple. Some of us love God but not "with all!" No part withheld. 3/4 isn't with all. 90% isn't with all. All means all! Holding nothing back. No reserve. No net. No fail safe. No fall back plan.
How close are you to fulfilling one? Without fulfilling all of all you are unable to fulfill the remainder of the commands.
As I stated, this is not an easy task. However, when presented with this unbelievably difficult and imposing challenge we will often quickly and flippantly acknowledge fulfillment of One. Do you love God with everything you have? Yes! I happen to think that our lives would look much different if we actually fulfilled One! Yet, we quickly embrace this challenge because we can attest to fulfillment and avoid scrutiny and challenge because this is such an internal and private undertaking.
However, Jesus lays down a public and equally difficult gauntlet with Two. In attempts to be spiritual we would give more weight and importance to One but notice what Jesus says. The second command is like the first. Or as one version states this second command is "set alongside the first."
Jesus says it is important to love God with all of you and it is equally important to love others!
We will spend hours, weeks, months, and even years trying to fulfill One and never even attempt to respond to Two! And in failing to wrestle with and embrace this challenge, when we harbor apathy, disdain, hate, prejudice towards people we can claim love for God and yet the door of obedience will not swing because the second hinge is missing.
Number #1 cannot be fulfilled without fulfilling Number #2.
We think One is fulfilled simply with worship, devotions, and church life. Our activity is supposed to be the indicator of our love for God. When, according to Jesus, the truth is
Number #1 is actually revealed and validated by #2!
We like to believe that it is our attendance pins, our membership, or our activity that shows how much we love God. However, Jesus makes it clear that these two commands are linked and there is no way to separate them! Jesus doesn't give us a pass because we aren't a people person, we are shy, we are busy or we have been hurt. He simply says if you are going to fulfill One then you must fulfill Two!
Jesus makes this remarkably clear . . . John 13:34-35:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this (by what . . . love of God? No, by love for people!) all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." So without love for people people won’t even know we are disciples!
Paul certainly doesn't give us a pass. He says without works faith is dead. In other words, without Two . . . One doesn't exist!
Let me see if I can help you really get an understanding of what I believe Jesus was and is saying by asking you a couple of questions.
- Have you ever met someone who is always at church, involved in worship, and from all outward appearances loves God with their all but they hate people? The oxymoron is often assigned to them "hateful church people!" They are the ones the waitresses avoid at Sunday lunch.
- Have you ever met someone that "loves God" but never gets involved in any type outreach or act of service? They always have a "legitimate excuse" to keep the love of God to themselves. They relegate outreach to everyone else.
- Have you ever met someone that "loves God" but only cares about themselves?
- Are you that person? A real encounter with Jesus forces us to have real encounters with people! A "with all" love for God should change our demeanor, our tone, our countenance, and our level of compassion! Our love for God should drive us towards people not away from them!
When you break it down that way it sounds apparent. However, I am convinced that most of us are striving for 1 while neglecting 2. Why do we neglect this? I believe it is due to one of two reasons and both are tricks of the enemy to keep us from fulfilling two.
First, We barely have enough room in our life for God so we give ourselves a free pass on Two. We have so filled our lives that we have no room for love for others. Our life is so cram pack full of life that we can barely eke out an hour a week for God much less do the hard work of expending time, energy, and effort for the hard work of loving others. We have to build margin and room for love in our life. If we are not attentive to Two, then we wake up weeks and months down the road and we have pursued loving God and never dealt with people!
....As C.W. Vanderbergh once wrote: “To love the whole world for me is no chore. My only real problem is my neighbor next door.”
Second, we don't love others because we haven't come to the place where we can love ourselves. By the way, if we don't love ourselves then we really don't love God and we are questioning the ability of God. If you don't love the creation you don't love the creator! Self hate leads to "others" hate. Jesus said love others as you love yourself! Some of you fail to validate your love for God and you think it is because you don't love others. However, the truth is you can't get to the place of loving others because you can't get to the place of loving you. Some of you need to love you!
Jesus is clear . . . it takes Two. It is equal parts love God and love people that completes the law. Anything less than equal parts is unbalanced and off kilter.
So in summary we are challenged to love God. It is when we love God that we can love ourselves, and then we are able to love others. Our love for God will motivate and mobilize us to love others.
ILLUSTRATION
A little boy entered the family room after dinner. His dad was weary from a hard day on the job. He had the recliner kicked back and was reading the paper. The little boy inched up beside his Dad and said, "Daddy, I love you."
"I love you too, son," the father replied, and he continued reading the paper. But this didn’t satisfy the boy, so he went around the other side of the chair and began rubbing his daddy’s arm. "Daddy, I love you," he said.
And with the slightest amount of impatience in his voice, the father again said, "I love you, too, son." But still the little one was not satisfied. Suddenly the little boy came crashing through the newspaper onto the father’s chest, reaching his arms as far around his dad as he could, and he said, "Daddy, I love you and I’ve just got to do something about it."
If you are going to fulfill One you must do something about Two! It isn't enough to stand in here and tell our Father that we love Him. It isn't enough to come in here and touch His arm! It is time to reveal our love for Him by doing something about people!
