October 29, 2023, All About You, Matthew 22:34-46 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ October 29, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above. An outline is given below.

Another test for Jesus – theological this time, (thus, a lawyer, who was an expert on the law), rather than political (render unto Caesar) – What is the most important commandment? Is it most important to observe the Sabbath? To be honest and truthful? To keep your marriage pure? To respect your parents and take good care of them? What does God care about the most?

But Jesus responds to the lawyer’s question by quoting the law itself:

from Deut 6 – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

From Lev. 19 – you shall love your neighbor as yourself

Jesus says the whole law – and not only the law, but the prophets, too – how it all hangs on those two commandments.

** But what I want to notice today is how both of those commandments hang on you.** now point out all the “you”s

1. The first – How does the law require us to love God? Well, first, it depends on who you are, right? Love God with all your…

Heart: what kind of heart do you have? Big-hearted? Soft-hearted? Broken hearted?

Love God with all of that; give him your heart

Soul: Just who are you? What’s your story? What’s your journey been that brought you all the way from then to now? Your failures? Your tragedies? Your times of joy?

Love God with everything that is you

Mind: Do you know a lot about God? Do you have graduate and post-graduate degrees? Did you drop out of school? Is it hard for you sometimes to understand the Bible when you read it?

It doesn’t matter – Love God with all the understanding you have – remember, he knows everything – he doesn’t need you to fill him in, he just wants your love

2. The second is like the first – We are quick to use this to talk about self-love. If we don’t love ourselves we can’t love other people. This is true, but not, I think, what Jesus is talking about here.

Think of the loves in your life – what are the loves that belong to you? Who is it that you love as much or more than your own life?

Child or grandchild – if they are sick, or sad, or hurting – we begin to learn how our heart should react to the pictures of children in Israel or Gaza, to the kid down the street from you who lives in a broken home

A spouse, a brother or sister – we know what it is to want to do everything we can when they are in need – we begin to feel the enormity of the need we see all around us

Loss of a pet – we have the barest beginning but it is a beginning – of knowing the pain of someone else, someone we don’t even know, who is grieving their own loss

We learn love of neighbor by our personal experience. Our love isn’t God-sized. We are rank beginners at these most important of commandments – I certainly know I am. But we are all, every one of us, lovers in training. Jesus’s point is that we already know how to love – we have to grow, we are growing, and we have a long, long way to grow up to love like our father – But we all know how to love because we are all created for love, designed to be lovers. Love is in our blueprints.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.” We were stamped from the very beginning with the image of the God who is Love itself

Jeremiah 31:33 “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. – His law of love is engraved on the tablets of our hearts by his own Spirit

1 John 3:1-2 +