00:01:00.000Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about the first and greatest commandment.
00:01:07.200Guys, this is a verse that many of you probably memorized as a child if you've been in the church for long.
00:01:13.440But it's an important verse. It's an important verse to teach to your family.
00:01:17.780And it's something that I thought I would break down verse by verse today in Matthew chapter 22.
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00:06:14.840But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.
00:06:21.460Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy.
00:06:27.380Obedience to God's commands is the evidence of those who truly love God.
00:06:33.540If you are obedient and you have a heart to love God and love others,
00:06:38.440that's the evidence that you're truly saved.
00:06:41.700But I want to break down this verse a little bit more
00:06:44.740so we can have a healthy theological understanding of the passage.
00:06:49.920Now, man, we could spend so much time, there's probably books that are written on just this verse, but let's just have a brief overview, a deeper understanding of this passage, the first and greatest commandment, as well as the second.
00:07:05.040So again, Jesus says the first and greatest commitment is to love the Lord your God with
00:07:09.820all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
00:07:13.620So for me, I think of kind of a broader theological principle going on here.
00:07:21.180I think of 1 John 4, 19 that says, we love because he first loved us.
00:07:29.400So I want you to just take that, just tuck it in your brain for a second.
00:08:30.320But we can only love God, truly love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind if we have
00:08:37.740the Spirit of God, if we've been born again.
00:08:41.420But if we just look at the practical command here, I want to just look at that too.
00:08:46.660What is Jesus telling us that can love because we have love because we have Christ?
00:08:52.440he's telling us to prioritize our love for God in every sense that means in your spiritual life
00:09:03.540you put nothing before the one true God again who we worship through Christ Jesus the the one and
00:09:10.200only mediator between God and man right so in your physical or in your spiritual life you have
00:09:16.300nothing before the one true God. In your emotional life, you put nothing above the one true God. In
00:09:25.100your physical life, you put nothing before the one true God. In your intellectual life, you put
00:09:32.520nothing before the one true God. And I want you to just take a moment and evaluate if that's true
00:09:40.380of your life? Obviously, it's not always going to be true, but how far off the mark are you?
00:09:49.480Is God the reigning focus of your life? This isn't a passage just for pastors.
00:10:00.140This isn't a passage just for spiritual, mature people. This is for all who call on the name of
00:10:08.240Christ. This is for people who are calling themselves Christians, are to prioritize God0.99
00:10:16.000through Christ in every aspect, in every faculty of their being. And are you putting Christ first
00:10:27.360in your thoughts, in your schedule? Is he being pursued first in your day, in your parenting? Is
00:10:36.040he present in the way that you parent your children in gentleness and in love? Are you
00:10:42.920showing your family Christ and that you are seeking him first? Are your relationships
00:10:51.040reflective of Christ? Is your reputation reflective of Christ because he is your reigning
00:10:57.060priority? And again, we don't prioritize Christ because we're afraid of being punished by God if
00:11:04.040we don't. That's not the motivation. We don't prioritize Christ because we think he's going to
00:11:09.960love us more if we do. That's not the motivation. We prioritize God in this way with all of our
00:11:17.780heart, soul, and mind as a reaction to the love that he first showed us. That is that he saved
00:11:26.500us while we were still sinners and made us new. He made us one of his own. That is the cause,
00:11:34.200the motivation, the deep fuel, the drive behind why we do this. You need to search your heart and
00:11:40.000go, why am I trying to be obedient? Am I trying to be obedient because I want to earn my self
00:11:44.500righteousness? You just got to go, hey, let go of your own self-righteousness. You'll never make it
00:11:51.780on your own self-righteousness. Don't worry about that. Christ already made you righteous through
00:11:57.400his righteousness. You don't need to be self-righteous. What you need to do is just allow
00:12:02.540the love of God, the grace of God on your life, be the fuel which gets behind your life and
00:12:10.820motivates you, generates obedience because you love God and you're so grateful that he gave his
00:12:18.160life for you. So that's the first section. The next section I want to talk about is he says
00:12:24.460this verse that the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
00:12:32.900So first, this passage supposes that humans love themselves. And we know this,
00:12:42.020Ephesians 5 talks about this, right? Love your wives as you love yourself. Like nobody's ever
00:12:47.640hated his own flesh is what it says in Ephesians 5, right? The passage supposes or presupposes that
00:12:54.280humans already love themselves. We know this because when we're hungry, you know what we do?
00:13:01.220We love ourselves so much that we feed ourselves. When we're cold, we love ourselves so much that
00:13:06.240we put on a jacket. We love ourselves. You know, we don't need to be taught how to love ourselves.
00:13:13.900we need to be taught how to love others. And that's what this is really about.
00:13:19.800So ultimately, we need to apply that type of self-love to others. And basically,
00:13:27.060we need to follow Christ in his example of sacrificial love, not thinking of ourselves
00:13:34.240only, but also the needs of others, which is, I believe, Philippians. He loved us more than he
00:13:41.800loved himself when he willingly, and what Hebrews says is joyfully, went to the cross. And so the
00:13:49.780bottom line is that between these two sections on this great commandment, number one and two,
00:13:55.240is that Jesus is saying, love God and love others. If you want to simplify it, like really simplify
00:14:00.500it, love God and love others. He closes with this one verse in chapter, in verse 40. He says,
00:14:07.620on these two commands depend all the law and the prophets. So the New King James would say,
00:14:14.960like on these two commands, hang all the law and the prophets. And so first notice that there's
00:14:21.760only two. And to a Jewish community, he's responding to people who are trying to keep 6130.91
00:14:29.960laws. And so to simplify all of the law and the prophets on these two commands is really incredible
00:14:39.440and very compelling for the audience that's there in the moment of this text.
00:14:46.880But I want you to just notice something real quick as we get ready to close here.
00:14:52.340I want you to think about the Ten Commandments. And so in the Ten Commandments, the first four,
00:14:56.540no other gods, no idols, don't take the Lord's name in vain, keep the Sabbath. Basically those
00:15:03.140first four are love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
00:15:06.640mind. You're not going to have any other gods. You're prioritizing him there. There's no idols
00:15:11.840in your life. You're not going to take the Lord's name in vain because you love him, right? You're
00:15:16.180keeping the Sabbath holy, which could also apply to our benefit, but I threw it in this first
00:15:20.920category. But then the last six, so those are the first four. So the first four are basically love
00:15:28.120God. The last six you're going to see are basically love others. And the last six are honor your
00:15:35.420parents, right? Your father and mother, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal,
00:15:40.980don't bear false witness, don't covet. And these are, again, are basically love your neighbor as
00:15:45.440yourself. And so what Jesus is saying here, he's just giving a summary statement on the Ten
00:15:51.360Commandments. And so I'll close with a statement that Augustine once made, I think that really
00:15:58.000hits the heart of what's being said here. And I think those of you who have had deep devotion
00:16:04.440with the Lord in prayer, in the study of the word, can see yourself saying something like this.
00:16:11.420And my hope for you is that you all, through your maturity, the Lord's sanctifying you and growing you, that you all get to a place where you can produce this type of joy and love, resting in Christ's righteousness and still seeking out of gratitude to love the Lord your God with everything you have.