Presentation 40
Presentation 40
Introduction
Ask a hundred football fans to name the best
footballer who has ever lived and you could
easily get a hundred different answers. And in
each case you may discover that a sensible
reason has been provided for their choice.
We will always disagree over what the best of
something because our own opinions are often
based on very subjective judgments. And you
will always find someone to disagree with your
opinion and tell you why they do so. This was
the subtlety behind the next question that was
put to Jesus by an expert in religious law: ‘What
is the greatest of all the commandments?’
Presentation 40
The Lawyer's Question
The teachers of the law were responsible for
interpreting the law and we read in Matt. 22v35
that this particular lawyer had come to trap Jesus.
However, as he listened to Jesus’ reply something
was happening inside him. He had begun to
reassess his position and began to take Jesus
seriously. He became a serious enquirer. This of
course would not be the last time someone would
come along to ridicule Jesus and end up being
captivated by him.
You may have heard of people who have gone
along to church for a laugh and been soundly
converted!
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
In order to understand Jesus’ reply we need to
remind ourselves that the religious leaders of Jesus’
day were preoccupied with accomplishment and not
with relationship. They saw the law as a checklist.
The more ticks they scored the more convinced they
were that God was pleased with them.
Christianity has often been presented in this
erroneous manner – as a mere outward observance
of a set of rules. Some try to describe Christianity in
checklist terms: 'Christians don't drink, smoke, attend
cinema, wear cosmetics, whistle on a Sunday...’ The
more ticks that are attained the better pleased they
were with themselves.
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
Some people foolishly try to reduce Christianity
to rule-keeping. People outside of the Christian
faith are understandably put off when it is
defined as doing certain things and refraining
from doing other things.
The false conclusion which this approach
encourages is that God’s favour can be earned by
rule keeping. But in actual fact, God's principal
concern is to call us into a vital love relationship
with himself. The great passion of our lives is to
be God himself - not a set of rules.
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
Of course once that relationship is established and the
wonder of it begins to captivate our imagination, and
warm our emotions and shape our wills, then we will
ask a vitally important question.
'How can I please God?'
And this is where the law comes into its own. The law,
rightly understood, is an expression of God's character
- and the Christian wants his life to increasingly reflect
that character. Therefore, he keeps the law, not to earn
enough points to be called a Christian, but because he
wants to express his love for God who has lavished
grace and mercy on him!
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
We need to bear this understanding of law in
mind as we approach Jesus’ reply, which begins
with a quotation from the book of Deuteronomy.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with
all your strength”. Deut. 6v5
Jesus does not single out a particular
commandment as the lawyer had hoped. Instead,
he exhorts him to a wholehearted love for God.
He is saying, 'The centre of your whole being
should be directed towards God and his glory'.
God must come first in your ambitions and
motives.
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
1. You are to love him with all your soul- so that
your affections and emotions will be brought
into tune with his will.
2. You are to love him with all your mind by
giving your thought life over to him, seeking
to keep your mind pure and to have your
thinking regulated by his Word.
3. You are to love him with all of your strength
and energy which are to be poured into this
response to God.
What a comprehensive expression of love for
God this is and this is his expectation of us!
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
Augustine wrote, 'Love God and do what you
like’. He recognised that if we truly love God in
the way Jesus defines it, we will only want to
please him. This willno casual relationship.
A young couple had been out on their first
date, the fellow’s parting remark was, 'Thanks
for tonight, I'll probably call you sometime,
maybe'. The girl must have thought she had
simply filled up his social diary for the
evening. Had he said, 'Can I see you next
week, twice...? Then she is more likely to
think, ‘He must be interested in me, perhaps
this has the makings of a serious relationship’.
Presentation 40
Jesus' Answer: Love For God
What sort of interest do we have in God? Is it a
casual relationship which is a diary filler, an
interest to be engaged in when we have nothing
better to do? It is so easy to content ourselves
with a moderate Christianity, but moderate
Christianity is not found in the pages of the New
Testament. Dare we reply to God's
wholehearted love for us half-heartedly?
C.H. Spurgeon made this telling observation:
‘A man's heart has only enough life in it to
pursue one object fully’.
Do we love God with all our hearts or does our
spiritual passion need to be restored?
Presentation 40
Jesus’ Answer: Love For Our Neighbour
Jesus indicate that love for God cannot be divorced from our
love for our neighbour, 'Love your neighbour as yourself' v31.
How do we do that? We are to love man who is made in the
image of God. We come from different ethnic backgrounds,
and have a different skin colour, social standing, personality
type, and so on… But the one thing that binds men together
is that we all share God’s image.
To love ourselves is an expression of our love for the God in
whose image we are made. This should motivate our love for
others. Even when that image is disfigured be it a drunk lying
in the gutter, or a woman on the street corner who’s been
driven to prostitution. They have been made in God’s image.
We can love the person without loving their behaviour.
Presentation 40
Jesus’ Answer: Love For Our Neighbour
It is comparatively easy to love people who are loveable.
People who are on our wavelength, who think as we do,
who have likeable personalities. But what of people who
rub us up the wrong way? What of those who are
obnoxious and unlovely? We love them for what they
were meant to be. How? There is only one answer.
The man who has been transformed, magnetised by
God's love will begin to behave in a way he would not
have dreamed possible. Just as a pin cannot pick up
another until it has first been picked up by a magnet so
that the magnetism is transferred, so too, only when we
are gripped, transformed and indwelt by God's love will
we be able to behave to our neighbour as we ought.
Presentation 40
Jesus’ Answer: Love For Our Neighbour
“The love that Christ commands is not easy,
even for people who are blessed with great
natural warmth of heart. And it is not
impossible, even for those of us who tend to be
crabby and short-tempered. For Christian love is
not a vague feeling of affection for someone. It
is rather a condition of the heart and will that
causes us to seek the welfare of others including people we don't particularly like, and
even people who have done us wrong.”
Louis Cassels
Presentation 40
The Lawyer's Response
Love is not simply an affectionate feeling, but a
striving for the loved person's ultimate good as far as
it can be achieved. This is true love, to do the best
we can for others. This is what God does for those
he loves. He has done, THE BEST HE CAN. Love will
ask much more of us than the law could ever
require. True love can never say, ‘I have done
enough. I have now fulfilled all my obligations’.
Love is restless in the best sense of the word! Love
drives us on. Love will asks us to walk many more
miles than might be demanded by justice or law.
Presentation 40
The Lawyer's Response
The lawyer was clearly impressed by Jesus’ reply.
The expression 'well said' in v32 might read
'excellent'. It is an expression that contains both
admiration and relief. Jesus’ words had satisfied
the deepest longings of his soul, they had an
undeniable ring of truth attached to them. Jesus
had lifted human behaviour out of the petty
legalism into which it had sunk.
Here is a man whose understanding of life had
been like an unsolved jig-saw puzzle. But Jesus
had put the pieces together before his very eyes.
So much so that a tremendous truth began to
break upon his consciousness cf v33....
Presentation 40
The Lawyer's Response
In other words mere mechanical legalistic acts of
religious observance and law-keeping are no substitute
for a heart religion. We can engage in a whole host of
religious duties but these are meaningless if they are
not prompted by a heart that is truly in love with God.
Heartfelt obedience to the Lord is far more important
than any religious ritual that leaves loving obedience
outside.
Jesus commended the man upon his grasp of spiritual
truth and said, 'you are not far from the kingdom'. He
was clearly standing on the threshold. We don't know
if this man ever acknowledged Jesus as Saviour and
not just a great teacher.
Presentation 40
Conclusion
Do we understood what God expects of us? Are we eager
to pursue a relationship of love rather than one of
legalistic performance. Or, perhaps you are standing on
the threshold of God’s kingdom. Access is gained, not
through law-keeping, but through the gracious provision
of God.
God sent Jesus to be our Saviour. He came to die in our
place and to bear the punishment of our sin upon the
cross. You can enter into a personal, faith relationship with
Jesus by repenting of your sin and by asking him to
transform your life . He alone is able to empower
you to love God as he deserves and to love
others as he wishes?
Presentation 40