And while if you turn in your Bibles to Matthew 22, Matthew 22 verses 34 through 40 will be our text this morning. Matthew 22 verses 34 through 40. Last time we saw Jesus silenced the Sadducees. They were that group that controlled the priesthood and the temple proceedings. They were the religious clergy of Israel and yet they so distorted and rejected the scriptures that as we saw they were more like modernists, modern materialists because they didn't believe in the bodily resurrection. They didn't believe in eternal life and heaven and angels in the spirit. They had some kind of cut up Bible that they only believed the first five books and all the rest and what they cared for and what they used religion for was to maintain their power and their position and their wealth in this world. But a lot of people use religion for unfortunately today. Of course as soon as we consider power and money and position and corruption sooner or later we're going to need lawyers to show up. I wish Dean would be here. I know he's in Sunday school. I already threw the joke at him before I came to the pulpit. But that's what we see in our text. We see a lawyer now. This is the final time on earth when human beings will try to trap Jesus in his words. And this lawyer represents that party which most opposed Jesus, the party of the Pharisees. And so representing now the number one contender in this corner a lawyer of the Pharisees against the son of God. Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for preserving for us so many details of the life of Jesus. Lord God, we could want more. And yet there is so much that we have and we know of course that you've given us all that we need to know you and to live for you. And so fathers, we hear this text. Let us remember it's your word. And by your spirit, let us respond to it as your word. But we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Here now again, the word of the Lord from Matthew 22 beginning in verse 34, this is God's holy word. But the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees. They gathered together. 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 of the law and the prophets. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning. I pray. I want you to notice first of all this morning, the great compromisers. I want you to notice the great compromisers. What do you think I'm talking about here? I'm actually talking about the Pharisees. The Pharisees, I think, are the great compromisers in this text, really, in the New Testament. And conventional wisdom is that they're the opposite. The Pharisees were the purists. The Pharisees were the separatists. They were the ones who stood against Hellenism, Hellenization. Hellenia is just the word for Greek and Rome imposed the Greek culture, which they just took over in hijack, on the whole known world. And that culture was a threat to Israel, to their customs, to their traditions, to their religion, and an influence in corrupted people in so many ways. And the Pharisees, as we saw, began by rejecting that culture, standing against it. No, we will be separate. We will not be infected. We will not be corrupted, but they were wrong. They were infected. They were corrupted so much so that we saw back in verse 16 of this chapter. They had already sent their disciples with the Herodians. The Herodians were the fringe left of Israel. They were the pure political party who were all about Roman power because by Roman power, the Herod's weren't power. And that's why they were the Herodians. They were in favor of Herod. They loved the taxes and everything else. And yet the Pharisees didn't hesitate to side with the secularists, these full compromisers with Rome when it came to their own interest, which at this time was in silencing Christ. So we've seen them compromise already. The Herodians were the far left. The zealots were the far right. The zealots wanted, they were so patriotic, they wanted to kill and eventually the zealots win in Israel. They win the support because that's why there's a rebellion. The zealots lead the rebellion and Jerusalem and Israel is destroyed. But the zealots the far right ready to kill, to stop Rome. The Herodians ready to kill, to continue Rome. And then you have the middle, as it were. The far left, the far right. And then you have the mainline left, the sagesis and the mainline right, the Pharisees. And they were really the ones who vied for the control in the heart and soul of Israel, at least at this time. The zealots were in hiding for the most part and had to disguise themselves in public. Maybe they would occasionally, you know, strike down a Roman and secret and there would be an insurrection, but they had to, they didn't have the numbers at this point. The Herodians, they're in power with their herod, but they're a small group and they're not able to really spread. But the sagesis and the Pharisees, that was the main two parties in Israel. And they hated each other, just like conservatives and liberals today, right? More and more so, the sagesis and the Pharisees hated each other. And yet you would think that when Jesus silences the sagesis, when he puts them to shame, as it were, you would think the Pharisees would jump up and say, yeah, Jesus is our hero. But what do they do? Verse 34, when the Pharisees heard, they heard that he had silenced the sagesis, they gathered together. They're not celebrating. They're not rejoicing. If anything, they see in Christ a challenge, a competitor. Why Christ was able to do what we weren't able to do. You know, the Pharisees, I'm convinced, brought out that little stock story to trap the, I'm sorry, the sagesis would bring that out all the time, that argument about the seven brothers to try to make the Pharisees look silly in their view of the resurrection really to try to make the scriptures, because the scriptures teach it. But the sagesis were wrong and Jesus refuted them and so the Pharisees kind of looked bad. Jesus is better than all of the Pharisees. He was able to refute what the Pharisees weren't able to refute. And so that's where they are. If the Bible, if biblical truth was their focus, they would have rejoiced, but it wasn't. Their focus, more and more, was themselves, their own power, their own position. They were going to save Israel by they're keeping strong together. And so they gathered together. They've got to find a way to stop Jesus themselves. So this time they don't send their disciples, the learners. They gathered together and they send one of their best to Jesus. I wonder who he was. I wonder the scripture doesn't name him, but he's obviously an intelligent man. He's a godly man. And he comes off positively in Matthew, he's sort of generic. He doesn't, you don't see a whole lot. It says verse 35, then one of them, a lawyer asked him a question testing him. On this occasion, both Mark and Luke, by the way, record some positive things about the Pharisees. Matthew leaves it out. You remember Matthew wants to show Israel it's sin. So he's not going to recall for them person because he wants to be saved. That's the only way to be safe. So Matthew doesn't give us some of these details. But listen in Luke, Luke tells us right after Jesus silences the Sadducees, the very next verse in Luke 20 verse 39, then some of the scribes answered and said, Teacher, you have spoken well. Some of the scribes, which were the Pharisees, actually say to Jesus, when he silences the Sadducees, you've spoken well. That was great. I mean, the crowds were astonished. And some of that astonishment even broke through into some of the Pharisees and they couldn't help. Some of them couldn't help say, hey, that was really good. You have spoken well. And in fact, our text this morning, our parick, the our passage is about twice as long and marked. You know why? Because Mark, he continues the conversation. Right after Jesus finishes speaking in our verse, verse 40, right after Jesus says, the greatest commandment, the second greatest commandment, Mark tells us what happens next. Mark 12 32. So the scribe said to him, notice Mark calls the lawyer a scribe because they were the same party. The scribe said to him, well said teacher, he commenced Jesus. Well said teacher, you have spoken the truth for there is one God and there is no other but he and to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, with all the strength, to love one and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. This guy in our text, Matthew doesn't tell us. He agrees with Jesus and he tells Jesus that was good. You answered well and you know what Jesus says to him after that because Mark continues it even further. Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. Jesus said that to a Pharisee. In the last week of his life, at the temple, a Pharisee who was a lawyer, who was a scribe, who was a doctor, there's a different titles for the same thing. And most of the lawyers, doctors, scribes were a Pharisees. But Jesus says that to him. He commenced him, you're not far. Why? Will you understand the law and how important it is? Do you understand your sin? Do you understand that you need? But he got this first part and Christ gives him this commendation. What are we to make of this beloved? I've already said that the Sadducees were sort of the liberal viable denying party and the Pharisees were the conservative Bible affirming party. What are we to take from this as conservative Bible affirming Christians? I think we ought to take this. We ought to be very, very cautious. We ought to be very humble. We ought to be God fearing that we do not end up compromising with the world like the Pharisees did. Compromising with the world when it became more about their success, more about their influence, their peace in the world, than about God's glory, than about God's kingdom, than about God's purposes, that we believe in, that we obey God, that we trust in him, that we proclaim his word, that we don't add to it, that we don't take away from it, and that we do this in good times, and in bad, in sickness, and in health, and plenty, and in want he is our husband after all, we are his bride, that we conservative Bible believing Christians do not think that we can't fall just as the Pharisees did. You know, the Pharisees were a mixed bag even at this time. There was one occasion in Luke 1331, when Pharisees risked their lives to save Jesus. Maybe you not remember this verse, Luke 1331. On that very day, some Pharisees came saying to him, get out and depart from here for Herod wants to kill you. They would have been tried for treason if Herod would have found out that they went to Jesus and rescued him from his attempt to stop Jesus. But some Pharisees ran to Jesus and told him they didn't want Jesus to be taken by Herod. And of course, we know Nicodemus, right? He comes to Jesus, a Pharisee by night. He doesn't want the rest of his party to know what he's doing, but he tell with seeking Jesus. He had this mixed bag where some of them still were seeking the truth, and we know some of the Pharisees believe afterwards, but beloved as a party, as a party, they reject Him. As a party, they're about themselves. As a party, the Pharisees eventually will recast Judaism. We'll look at this in a later sermon, but they're the only party left after 70 AD. And it's the Pharisees who recast Judaism as the anti-Christ religion that it becomes. They reject their Messiah, and yet they live on, they go on, and they try to say that they're still faithful to God. And that's what happens. We must take heed and take caution. It seems to me the Pharisees were closer to the truth, and that's why it was more dangerous. That's why they were more dangerous of a group. When we're close to the truth, but then we begin to tweak it and twist it and put our traditions ahead of it. That's when we can fall and not realize it, because with our mouths, we still articulate the truths. But we don't believe them with our hearts. That's what happened to the Pharisees. Secondly, I want you to notice the greatest commandment. I want you to notice the greatest commandment. In verse 35 of our texts, we have the lawyer showing up. Then one of them, one of the Pharisees, a lawyer. Again, Mark calls him a scribe, asked him a question. Lawyers were experts in the Law of Moses. They were sometimes called doctors. And we see that in Luke 2 when Jesus as a boy is questioning the doctors. That's the lawyers. Lawyers were experts in the Law. They taught the Law, and they were called upon to give testimony and disputes. So you would have a lawyer, you know, to say what the Law said. You remember in Matthew 2, when Herod wants to know where the crisis to be born, he asks the scribes, the lawyers, and they right away say in Bethlehem, because that's what they did. They gave testimony about what the Law said so that the God's people could resolve disputes. And typically, you'd have to have several of them. And the majority would, you know, be trusted. Unless you had a really important one, like a gameleel or something, then he alone could sort of speak as a counsel of scribes and lawyers. But you had to have these lawyers who would interpret the Law. And he asked Jesus, verse 36, which is the great commandment in the Law? Mark's version has which is the first commandment. He's asking what's the most important? What's the most important commandment in the Law? We know the rabbis had 613 commandments. That's what they counted this time. It's common knowledge. You can read it in a lot of commentaries. They had 248 positive commands. They had 365 negative commands. And they had the numbers corresponded to the number of letters and the decalogue. All these little fine-pointed, weird things. But they argued over which ones were more important and which ones were higher or lower. And Jesus agrees that there are more important commandments and lesser important. There are no venial sins, all right? There are no sins that are not a big deal. But Jesus did agree that some commands are more important. We'll see it in chapter 23 where he says to the Pharisees, you strain out a nat and you swallow a camel. He's talking about how they kept a tiny little minutia of the Law. But the big things, he says, justice and mercy and faith, you neglect the way, Jesus calls them the way to your things. So clearly, Jesus thought there were way to your and less way to things in the Law. So he agrees. Because the scribe for right in teaching this. And yet, what I want you to notice, while this man has said, asked in the question, testing him, yet it is a legitimate test. I mean, it's a legitimate question to ask. There's no subtropuse here. This isn't like, you know, the Herodians and the disciples coming, should we pay taxes or not? You know, try to catch him in his answer. There is a right answer to this question. And if Jesus gives it, he's not going to be caught, he's not going to be tripped up. In other words, it's a legitimate test. It's asking him, okay, let's see if you're a good teacher. Do you know what the greatest commandment is in this text? Now, whether or not this lawyer had the opinion that Jesus did by the end of the conversation, we know from Mark that he does. He ends up agreeing with Jesus. But I want to ask you this. Think about that question for a second. If we didn't have Jesus' answers, since we have it, you know, we all could spoil and know what the answer is. Yeah, I know. I can read the next verse too. But let's pretend that the next verse isn't there. And just pretend that God would ask you or you would be asked, what is the greatest commandment in the law? Let me just think about that. If you really thought about your Bible knowledge, what is the greatest commandment in the law? Would anybody say the greatest commandment is to love? Would you put that together? I would think of number one. I'll tell you right here, I would think the first commandment of the ten. That would be I would say the greatest. You shall have no other gods before me. If I were asked that, that's what I would say. If I didn't know Christ's answer, I, as much as I know my own heart, I think that's what my answer would be. That's the greatest commandment, as you shall have no other gods. That starts off everything. Jesus doesn't say that. And I'm so glad we have his answer. I'm so glad this man tested Jesus and asked him this question. And I'm so glad we have Christ's answer because if Christ did not answer the way he does, I think that we would have so many people, even more than they are doing already, separating law from love, separating duty and obligation from love and from willing service. We would have so many doing it so much more readily, but Jesus puts the two of them together. And he says that the greatest commandment, the greatest commandment of all of the law is to love. That's the greatest, the most important of all God's commandments are to love. Now, Mark gives the fuller answer where Jesus doesn't just quote Deuteronomy 6 verse 5. That's what we have in verse 37. Jesus said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, but in Mark's gospel, Jesus starts with verse 4 of Deuteronomy. This is verse 5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. By the way, in the Deuteronomy, it actually says with all of your heart, soul, and might or strength, it's my old God, very exceedingly. You're excessively with what's over and above. But in the suffuities, some of them say mind. And Mark says heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Luke says heart, soul, mind, and strength. But Matthew just says heart, soul, and mind, well, we aren't not to get too hung up on that. And we ought not to get too hung up on trying to sign, well, this is what mind is, and this is what heart is, and this is what soul is. Beloved, what Jesus is plainly saying is that with every fiber of our being, we are commanded. And it is the greatest commandment to love God with every fiber of our being, with all that's in me, with all that I think, with all that I feel, with all that I do, with all that I say, with all of my heart, with all of my soul, with all of my mind. And if I march, Scotsboy Add, with all of my strength, and he begins that answer with what's called the great Shema in Jewish tradition. In fact, to this day, Jews every night and every morning will say the great Shema, they will say it out loud, Shema O Israel, at the night Elohenu, at the night Ahad, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And then they say, and you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, they say that every morning and every evening. Jesus said that this is the great commandment. And when he says that we are to love God, he doesn't mean like I love pretzels, or I love the Steelers, right? When I was a kid, everybody loved the Ferrari Testerosa. That was like the car everybody wanted in the 80s, or the Lamborghini Kuntos. I love this. I love that. No, no, no. Matthew 10, 37, Jesus said, he loves Father and Mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he loves Son or Daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. But I would not my family, not my health, not my own life can come between me and my Lord. I must love him most of all, greatest of all, a whole sold commitment, that he must be my God. And when I read this commandment, you know what it ought to do? When I understand it that way, it ought to make us fall to our knees and say, I do not love you this way of God. I've not loved you this way today. I've not loved you this way for the last hour. I haven't loved you this way for the last five minutes with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength. I have not loved you. I put other things in front of you. I've sinned against you. This command more than anything should drive us to the gospel, should drive us to our need for grace. And I wonder if it did with this man? Was it merely his academic pleasure that he had that this rabbi really was solid and good? And he commanded him and probably to the chagrin of his fellow Pharisees. He didn't want him to do that. But he had some integrity this man. And Jesus gets him not only the greatest commandment, but he gives him the second greatest commandment. So thirdly, I want you to notice the second greatest commandment. This scribe, this lawyer gets a bonus. He gets more than what his contract called for. He doesn't just get one commandment. He gets two. And notice how Jesus says that the second is like it. Because in the second commandment, we have the same command, the same imperative to love. The second commandment is like it because it's the same love that's going out. We are commanded to love God and we are commanded here to love our neighbors. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The principle of love, in other words, determines all obedience. And it's not possible to love God and not love man. The scripture is clear on that. First, John 4.20, if someone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. You can't do it. You can't love God and hates your brother. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God, whom he has not seen? According to scripture, it's harder to love God than it is to love people. Now if there's anything counterintuitive, that's it. It's hard to love people, isn't it? If you're honest, who do you struggle? What causes you the most heartaches and pain in life, the people in your life that are opposing you, that are obnoxious to you, that are against you? And yet if I can't love those people, who I see, how can I love God? Who I can't even see? And that's because, beloved, love is not a feeling. It's not something that we have in some kind of state. It's an action that would bring about the good of the beloved. And so there is no real love in the fallen, sinful heart of man. I want to show you that scripture teaches that. Love is born in us in the regeneration of the new man. There's no real biblical love in an unbeliever, is what I'm saying. scripture teaches that clearly. Love comes about when we're born again. We love because he first loved us. Love is called by the medieval theologians, a theological virtue. It's only given by the spirit. It doesn't come through your reason or through your innate goodness. It has to come about by the spirit. It's an evangelical grace. It's only produced as we believe the gospel and God sanctifies us by His Spirit through grace, through saving grace that He gives us the ability to love.
John Calvin says it this way, there will never be true charity towards neighbors unless the love of God ranks. Hear that? Never be true charity, true love. For, Calvin says, it is a mercenary love which the children of the world entertain for each other, because every one of them has regard to his own advantage. It's not possible to love man without first loving God. Loving man is the effect of loving God. Of course, we can't love God until the Holy Spirit regenerates us. And so that means that all the affection, all the politeness, all of the niceness of many unbelievers in our lives, all of the zeal, all of the attachment, loyalty, commitment of unbelievers who sometimes will die for things that they're so in love with, to lack a better word, but biblically, scripturally, according to Calvin, that's really not love. Think about the man who would constantly, and we all know people like this, where he's just constantly bragging about his children. Well, my child does this, and my child does that. To be careful about that, because sometimes I want to do that too. I think all parents are tempted to do that, right? You have a child who's done something well, you want people to know. Well, part of that is because that reflects back on you, right? You don't brag about other people's kids. You brag about your own. We do the same thing with our spouses, some, you know, husband of doves on his wife. He'll brag about what the awesome wife is. Well, that reflects back to him, because blessed I am, I have this awesome wife, we're vice versa. We can do it about another family member or a friend, somebody that we're attached to somehow, when we boast about them, it redounds back to us, and that's why we do it, right? There's this self-concern in that kind of love. That's because every affection that doesn't find its origin in the love of God is ultimately self-oriented. Ultimately it is at some level, so it can't be love. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be thankful for the civic virtue, for the civility, for the common decency of most people. We should thank God for that, we're, we benefit from that, all the time, but let's not confuse it with the genuine article of biblical love, which was produced as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Let's not confuse it with that and think that the people in this world who hate God are loving other people, because that's not true Biblically, it's not possible Biblically. First John, chapter 4, verse 7, beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. That's where it comes from, and everyone who loves, here it is, everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. What that means that if a person loves, he has to already have been born of God, he has to already know God. Yeah, that's what's good for teachers. Again, that doesn't mean people aren't nice and simple and so forth out in the world, but let's not call it love because Biblically speaking, it's not that. John goes on, he who does not love does not know God for God is love. How can you have love if you don't have God? And how can you not love your neighbor if you do love God? Because that's the fruit of that. If I have love for God, I have to love my neighbor. I have to love. What does love mean? What does love do? Love is to desire the true good of another, to desire their true good. They're everlasting good. It doesn't mean I love you so I want you to have what you want. Which is not the way we treat our kids. Right now, I want to stick this pencil in the light socket. Well, I love you so much and since you want to do that, no. But if we love people, we will want their true good. They're everlasting good. Which ultimately is what? Their repentance and their faith. If you ever have somebody make you mad, I do this as a practice because something happens and my first reaction is mad and someone cuts you off in traffic and does something silly and even Robin will say to me, how come everything is stupid with you when you're driving? You know, that stupid sign, that stupid car, the stupid construction. And I, you know, I caught that thing. Yeah, it's just probably not good. But what I try to do when it's a person is I try to immediately pray for them and say, Lord sanctify that person, Lord save that person. Because I'm mad at them because they did something wrong, right? But I want to show that kind of love that we're called. And so I find that if you turn it into a prayer, no matter what has happened, you can always pray, Father, save that person, give him faith, give him repentance, right? You can always pray, Lord, cause that person to grow in their love and their faith for you, even when it's somebody who slanders you or who attacks you, you can pray that prayer for them. And I think that is loving or neighbor ultimately. You know, I saw on the news where people were talking about how rude everybody is and how angry everybody is and how fearful. And they have all these solutions, these worldly solutions, how we're all going to be united and we're going to all come together and fix our problems. There's only one way we're actually going to treat people decently. And that's if there are more loving Christians in the world. If more people come to Christ and more people actually put into practice loving your neighbor as yourself, by the way, as yourself because you always want the best for yourself. You always treat yourself. Well, I know people will give objections to this and maybe I'll even get a few after the sermon about, well, I know somebody who's always beating himself up and he's too hard on himself and he gets pleasure out of that. Okay. He gets pleasure out of that. That's why he doesn't. Even the person who kills himself and maybe we, I think we've all known people have committed suicide. It's one of the most selfish things you can do. You do it, not because you hate yourself so much. You do it to escape ultimately. When they ask people who tried and seriously tried, sincerely tried and failed, it wasn't that they hated their lives. They wanted the pain to stop. That's why. That's selfish because all that pain now is going to go on everybody else that knew you, that loved you, that's going to wrestle with you. This always happens. Oh, I saw him last week and I should have said something. Oh, he called me on the phone, but I didn't have time for him and people beat themselves up with the guilt because this person now who so selfishly is just put all that on everybody else because he loved himself so much that he took his own life. Now, there is no one who doesn't love themselves. There's no one who's problem is there are too hard on themselves. That hardness is pleasurable. It's pleasurable to be in the midst of sorrow. Sometimes we get pleasure from that self-pity. One of the few reasons I was reading talks about the pleasure we get from anger because when you're angry, you're in your mind, you're getting vengeance on some evil that you imagine and that feels good. That's why we hold on to anger. All these kind of emotions we can hold on to. We get pleasure from whether it's pity, whether it's whether it's guilt, whatever you hold on to it, you get some pleasure from it. There is no one who does not love himself and seek the good of himself, but that's what we're called to do to everyone. Who is my neighbor? That's what happens in Luke and Luke chapter 10, which is a similar situation. Remember what Jesus does on that occasion? He gives the parable of the good Samaritan, which in effect says, everybody's your neighbor. Everybody. We have to make, obviously, someone attacking you. You're allowed to defend yourself. You're a war. You're allowed to kill. If it's a just war, soldiers are allowed to do that, but we're talking about in ordinary circumstances, anybody who's put in your pad. You're either called to love as your spouse, and that's only your spouse, or to love as a neighbor, and that's everybody else, or to love as an enemy. Even your enemy, you're supposed to love, which means what? Doing that and wishing for that, which would truly be for their good. That's what it is. That's what love does. Love seeks the true and everlasting and real good of another, whether they want it or not is another thing. Fourthly and lastly, therefore, notice the law of love. Notice the law of love. Verse 40, on these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets. Jesus summarizes all of our moral duty. All of the 613 commandments are summarized in the 10 commandments. Our Westernistic profession clearly teaches that. The whole moral law is summarized under the 10 commandments. That means every righteous act of obedience can be traced back to obeying one of the 10, right? The first four, my love to God, the last six, my love to man, the two tables sometimes of the law. And every sin can be traced back to breaking at least one of the 10 commandments. But Jesus gives a further summary here. In addition to being able to summarize all moral duty, and that means all righteousness under 10 commandments, Jesus says we can do it under two. Because if we truly love God, we will keep all of those first four commandments. And if we truly love man, we will keep all of the last six commandments. That's what Christ said, means when he says on these two commands, hang all the, he pictures it as a pin to hang in on, right? Like a coat rack or something, you can hang the law and hang the prophets on this nail on the wall and it will they'll all be hauled out because they're all contained in this. That means beloved that love includes the affections and the will. Love must be given voluntarily. That's the, that's the fact of love, right? You can't force someone to love you. My dad could force me to eat my peace, but he couldn't force me to like it. I hated peace. To this day, we never have them at the house.
You can't force love, right? Love has to be given freely. Love is from the heart. Love is voluntarily. Calvin is big on this. He talks about it has to be that way. And yet God commands that which we must voluntarily give. I love that. God commands what we must freely give, which means law and love are not antithetical. Law and love are not somehow opposite. Law and love are not somehow to be kept separate. Law and love go together. That's why the theme of the service is the law of. Now we're commanded to do a lot of things that are voluntary. We're commanded to believe in God. We're commanded to trust in Him. We're commanded to hope in Him, to be confident in Him. A faith and hope are crucial to the Christian life, but they're not first. The fear of the Lord is commanded all over the place. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's where wisdom starts. The God fearing man is the man that's known by his love for God. The man who there is no fear of God before his eyes is the wicked man. And yet the fear of the Lord is not first. We're commanded to serve God, to live for God, to obey God. We're commanded to worship. You know in John 4, the only place where it talks about God's seeking for a kind of people, it says in John 4, 24 that the Father is seeking worshipers who worship Him in truth. He's seeking. That's how important worship is. God the Father is seeking for worshipers. And yet the command of worship is not first. The command of worship is not first. The command of rejoice. The command to give thanks. The command to praise God. The command to pray to God. All of these commands do not come before love. In fact, beloved, all of these commands have to begin in love. I can't praise God rightly unless I love him. I can't believe in God rightly unless I love him. I can't hope in God unless I love him. I can't worship God unless I love him. Love has to be first. All these other things come out of love as their true source. What does it mean to love God? What do we notice with the content of love? Well, as I said before, I think we're too wrapped up in wanting to think about the attitude or the feeling that we associate with love. The Bible focuses on the action of love. Listen to these verses. Jesus said, if you love me what? You will keep my commandments. John 14, 21, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. Well, that's how we know. And he who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love him. And I will manifest myself to him. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. Did you hear how the one time it was commandment, one time it was word? Do you know in Jewish culture and among the Hebrews in the Old Testament, word, you can see this in Psalm 119, all over the place, word and law, they don't have an issue with using those interchangeably. I know a lot of Christians who will say, I love the word of God. Not too many who will say, I love the law of God. To the Jew, that's the same thing. It's the same thing to say that. To say, I love the word is to say, I love the law. They use the word law to summarize their whole scriptures. What is it saying in your law? Jesus says. And then he gets a quote from the Psalms. And he didn't correct them in because that is the law. The whole word of God is the law. Anything God says becomes law by definition. It's obligatory if he says it. That doesn't make it bad. That's the wrong way of thinking.
He who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love him and manifest myself to him. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my father will love him. Listen, and we will come to him. I'm going to comment on this again in a little bit and make our home with him. I brought Jesus talks about being in us and us being in him. Just hold that thought for a second. Jesus says, he who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the fathers who sent me. John 159, as the father loved me, I also love you abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Just as I kept my command, fathers commands, and I abide in his love. There's no divorce for love. There's no separation. There's no, you've got to keep these things separate. It's either obey God or love God. It's either do your duty or do what feels good and what you want to do. It's either the obligations that we have and I have to force myself to obey, or I get to love because that feels good and that's what I want. You don't see any of that. You see a marriage of the two. The word of God doesn't separate the two. The word of God doesn't see the divorce. I think one of Satan's greatest lies of our day is to get people, to get Christians, to think law and love are antithetical, but they're opposed to each other. Satan has never been able to pull a better lie on the generation. It seems to me than that one and it has almost taken for granted by so much of the church. Beloved, according to all those verses that I read, I could read a lot more.
It's not possible to have affection for God and yet to have a version for the law. To see in the law a cold list of do's and don'ts. That's to divorce the law from God. No, that's to divorce love from God and what you have left on the God side, that's an idol because there is no such thing as a lawless God or a lawless love. Law is the content of love. If you love me, keep my commandments. Love is the motivation of law. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God. Second John chapter two, sorry, second John verse six, there are no chapters and second so. Second John verse six, this is love. What? That we walk according to his commandments. First John 5, 3, for this is the love of God. What? That we keep his commandments. I know you're waiting for the butt. You're going to take this away pastor. You're going to take it all away and say no but you really don't have to. And yeah, it's really not about law at all. And you want me to take it away and I'm not going to because God doesn't. If you don't get this, I don't know how I can say it, I keep trying to say it different ways. If it doesn't get through, I don't know what to do. This is the love of God that we keep his commandments. Listen to the rest of the verse I stopped and his commandments are not burdensome. How can they be burdensome? How can the commandments of God be burdensome? Do you know what the commandments of God are, don't you? They're not arbitrary hoops. They're not positive law, casualistic or case law. They're apodictic law. They're absolutely certainly true because they are who he is. The law of God is nothing less than the description to us of the character of God. I'm talking about the moral on, not the ceremony on the judicial, which were for a temple purpose. The moral ethical code, which is eternal, which can't change. God could not have given a different one. I mean, it seems to me maybe God could have had the robe green instead of blue or had this many tassels instead of that many or maybe allow some shellfish or something. It seems to me those kind of laws which all cease. It's therefore they weren't ever moral. Maybe God could have done something different, but you know what God could never have done different. He could never have given us different moral laws because the moral laws reflect they flow from. They are a description of his perfect righteousness. God shows us who he is in the law. How could they be burdensome? How could it be burdensome to be actually given the privilege to be like God? We were made like him in his image and the law says this is how you live as a creature and be like me. The law was on Adam and his heart in the garden. They kept it perfectly till they fell and they loved it and beloved it happened. We will love it perfectly and we will keep it perfectly. But right now this is what I want you to see. Right now that the goodness, the beauty, the truth of God that's promised to us, we get to experience whenever we keep one of his commandments from the heart, we get to experience it. The like-godness, love isn't a feeling, love isn't something you fall into, love isn't an emotion, love isn't something that happens, love is a decision, a commitment, a choice from the heart that's sincere and real and that's obedient and conforming absolutely to the righteousness of God. Love is an action that gives for the good of another I said to you without consideration of the cost. This is why it says for God so love the world that he gave his only son. You want to talk about cost so that what for the good of another that we could have, eternal life the greatest good and God didn't get anything out of that, nothing. There wasn't any selfish concern. God didn't get anything. He already owned all the souls. He already had all righteousness. He already had perfect bliss in himself. He got nothing out of it. He doesn't get more glory because we glorify him. He's infinitely glory, eternally glorious. He got nothing but that's what love does. That's what love does. Love does for the good of another and when God gives us his law, he's giving that for our good too. The law is good and righteous and true and that it can fix us of sin. That's the best thing because without that, we would never go to Jesus. This is why we need to study the law and be in the law. I said earlier about price being in us and us being in God. Theologians speak of a love the highest love. It's called the love of complacency. We hear the word complacent and we think of somebody who's too readily satisfied with the mundane. He's so complacent. That's not what theologians mean. The love of complacency is when we are at rest, when the lover totally possesses the beloved. There's nothing more to long for. There's nothing more to hope for. There's nothing more to want because you have it all. You are in the beloved and the beloved is in you and there's none of you that you're holding out. You know, some sin out here. It's the love of complacency. This is the love that we will have when we see God, when we when we will be like him as he is. And again, we get to experience that right now when we keep the law from the heart. We experience the delight of God and every one of you, if you're a believer, you know what I'm talking about. It's the joy of obedience. It's the joy of love. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we get to keep your law. Father, we won't normally pray that way. Shame on us. Your law is your perfections revealed to us. And we get to keep them. The animals can't keep them. The rocks and the trees can't only we who are made in your image can bear and live out that image by walking in the law of liberty. The law of Christ, the law of love, all these things, your word speaks of your law. Let our heart sing of your law, O God. And let us remember that it's because of the blood of Jesus that your law not condemns us but shows us who you are. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.