LOVE THE LORD, LOVE ONE ANOTHER
Matthew 22:34-40
One of the greatest mysteries for me as
a Christian is why some of the most unloving things I have ever experienced
have been at the hands of others who profess to know and love Christ. People will say the meanest things and
expect you not only to allow it but to thank them for their cruelty.
Since most of us
have suffered from that kind of abuse at one time or another, I will not risk
reminding you of particulars and lead you into sin by having you recall the
memories of those awful encounters.
Nearly always,
there is at least a hint that what they are doing is because they love God so
much they cannot help but be mean to you for His sake! He probably would do it Himself but He’s so
busy and everything…
What I realized
was that these folks have heard or understood only half of Jesus’ answer to the
question of what is the great commandment.
They love God, they say. But
they have a strange way of showing it…they say they love you too, but only “in
the Lord.” Jesus says without
compromise that the commandment foremost in His eyes, in the eyes of God is to
love God so much that loving others cannot be helped. It is the result of the overflow of such a joyful, life-changing
heart transformation that love does abound.
THESIS: You cannot
love God and not love your neighbor because loving Him makes it impossible NOT
to love your neighbor.
I. THE GREAT AND FOREMOST COMMANDMENT
--Both a commandment from God and a commitment from His
followers to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
--Last week we explored that in some detail and now come to
the second part of the passage.
II. THE NEXT GREATEST COMMANDMENT
Matthew 22:39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.’
A. LOVE FOR GOD RESULTS IN LOVE FOR ONE
ANOTHER.
1 John 4:19-21 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,”
and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother
whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have
from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
--Love that is genuine for God finds practical expression in
genuine love for other people.
Some people make much of the part of the words “as yourself” and justify self-love as if it were equal to love for
God. While the implication is that we
do love ourselves, it is wrong to
suggest that we should love ourselves in a natural way:
u demands center of attention,
constant recognition
u pushes self to front
u insists on being right,
getting own way
u ignores others while absorbed
with self
Loving yourself in a godly way depends
on a renewed heart and a death to the old, selfish nature. A godly love for yourself consists of
several Christ-centered traits:
u practice sound judgment in
your estimation of yourself
Romans 12:3 “not to think more highly of himself than
he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment…”
u esteem others more highly
than yourself
Phil 2:3 “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of
mind let each of your regard one another as more important than himself”
u see the interests of others as more important than yours
Phil 2:4
“do not merely look out for your own interests, but also for the interests of
others”
u walk humbly before God and
others
Matt
23:11-12 “The greatest among you shall
be you servant, and whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”
Only when we view ourselves from
Christ’s perspective can we properly love our neighbor as ourselves.
B. LOVE FOR GOD AND ONE ANOTHER RESULTS IN
GODLY LIVING.
Matthew 22:40
“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
--When Jesus identified these two commandments as the pinnacle
of the law of God, He was establishing a principle that we cannot afford to
miss.
--Believing all the right things, teaching in the right way,
keeping all the right laws…none of these can sufficiently bring glory to God if
there is no love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. 2 And if I have the
gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all
faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my
possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not
have love, it profits me nothing.
--All the Law and the Prophets depend on a foundation of
love for God and the essential partnering love for others.
--So the message Christ gives us
explains that by keeping these two commandments, if we just look at the Law as
contained in the Ten Commandments, we find all are fulfilled completely.
--Superficial theology leads to poor treatment of
others since what we think about God directly influences what we think about
others…the loftier the theology, the broader the base of love.
--How we love God determines how we love others.
C. LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER RESULTS FROM AN
AUTHENTIC FAITH.
--Our love for God changes our hearts, transforms our
character and enlarges and reshapes our capacity to love.
1. Love Them for Christ’s Sake
--If we truly love Christ, we will love what He loves and those
whom He loves and do it for His sake.
How many times have we as parents grown to love what
our children love simply because they do?
We learn to love some interesting friends…some odd choices of music…some
unusual places to eat (Chuck-E-Cheese anyone?) all for their sake because we
love them. Or what about the things we
do for love of our spouse? Ballgames in
horrible weather…shopping on sunny afternoons…trying to look interested in the
blow-by-blow replay of his every shot on the golf course…or the subtle
distinctions in the ten fabrics she saw which might work with her décor. We do it for the sake of the one we love!
--People we would probably not be interested in meeting much
less loving become candidates for unconditional love to us all for the sake of
our love for those Christ loves.
2. Love Them from Christ’s Perspective
--When we love for Christ’s sake, we also love from His
perspective, seeing what He sees, looking at things the way He does.
--In order to do that, all we need to do is recall how He
loved the people with whom He crossed paths during His earthly ministry.
a. Love that Serves
--Christ took the low place right from the beginning so that
instead of coming to a royal family with great wealth, He chose to join a family
of humble means and little influence.
--He did not cater to the wealthy in order to get something
from them in return—neither the prestige and ego boost some people seem to
need, nor to tap into their generous nature to profit from their friendship.
--He chose to love people as a servant, not looking to get
but to take the low place and give.
Matthew 20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life a
ransom for many.”
b. Love that Sacrifices
--When we love from Christ’s perspective, we realize that no
sacrifice is too great to make when love is at stake.
Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it
is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered
Himself up for me.
--Loving from Christ’s perspective means delivering yourself
up for others…giving up what you have a right to have for the sake of another
person…that is sacrifice!
c. Love that Stretches
--When Christ loves, He stretches His arms out to draw in
people of every sort and shape—every personality and temperament—every
background and heritage.
--Learning to love God as the foremost love of our lives opens
our eyes to see people as He does and allows us to love them the way He does.
--There have been many times over the years here at
Providence when I have not wanted to get involved, not wanted to risk getting
trapped in an uncomfortable situation, in fact wanting to do anything but
extend the love of Christ to someone who really needed it.
--If I love God with all my heart, soul and mind, I can do
nothing less than love His own and do so just like Jesus did.
3. Love Them with Christ’s Compassion
Matthew 12:20 “A battered reed He will not break off, And
a smoldering wick He will not put out, Until He leads justice to victory.
--In most of our lives, there is more smoldering than
flaming, more smoke than fire, and as a result we brace ourselves for rejection
and withholding of love.
--Christ does the opposite in that He gently takes the
“smoldering wick” and sends His breath in softest whispers that encourage and
revitalize the fires of grace He has ignited in our hearts.
Thomas Watson said, “It is the manner
of the world, if they see a little failure in another, to pass by and quench a
great deal of worth because of that failure.
This is our nature, to aggravate a little fault and diminish a great
deal of virtue…”
--When Christ sees even the least sparks of good, the
smallest remnant of hope, the remotest indication of warmth, He does not put
out the smoking wick but coaxes it by His love back into a brilliant flame.
--That is what authentic love does when it demonstrates our
true and comprehensive love for God in the way He loves us.
4. Love Them toward Christ’s Image
--We don’t love folks just for their sake or ours—we love
them to invest in their reformation and transformation into His image.
a. Honest Words
--We speak the truth to them…in love, in the hopes that they
have the heart of a disciple and the wisdom to want to learn so that they might
be made more like Jesus.
Proverbs 27:6
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
--We don’t have to be mean about it, but it is important
that we be faithful friends and that we find faithful friends who will love us
enough to tell us the truth—friends who are more loyal to Christ than they are
to us!
b. Earnest Counsel
--Not only do we tell the truth in love, but we make sure
that what we speak is true by measuring all the counsel we give by the standard
of Scripture.
Proverbs 27:9
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s
friend springs from his earnest counsel.
--Am I inclined to tell my friends what they want to hear,
what they think will make them happy…or do I not have to speak with earnest,
sincere counsel those words which will bring the greatest glory to Christ and
good to their lives?
c. Sharpening Influence
--This love we are to demonstrate toward others will serve
to sharpen them, just as it in turn sharpens us…the result of rubbing up
against the source of some friction to keep the edges honed.
Proverbs 27:17 As
iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
--Whose life is being sharpened by you today because you
love them enough to see them conformed to the image of Jesus Christ?
The brilliant combination of loving God
and loving your neighbor results in a life filled with the joy and delight of
abiding in His love.
As those who
have been created to love God with every capacity in our being, we have to
understand that doing so can never take away our calling to personalize that
love in the way we respond to those around us…regardless of who they are and
what they are like!
Our love must
burn for Christ and for those around us.
John summarizes this entire subject well:
1 John 4:8, 11 The one who does not love does
not know God, for God is love…Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to
love one another.
© David Hornier 2004
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