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00:00:01 today's scripture reading is taken from Matthew 22: 23-46 that same day the Sadducees who say there is no Resurrection came to him with a question teacher they said Moses told us that if a man dies without having children his brother must marry the Widow and raise up Offspring for him now there were seven brothers Among Us the first one married and died and since he had no children he left his wife to his brother the same thing happened to the second and third brother right on down to the seventh finally the woman
00:00:43 died now then at the resurrection whose wife will she be of the seven since all of them were married to her Jesus replied you are an error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage they will be like the angels in heaven but about the resurrection of the Dead have you not read what God said to you I am the god of Abraham the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob he is not the god of the dead but of the living When the Crowds heard this they
00:01:22 were astonished at his teaching hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees the Pharisees got together when one of them an expert in the law tested him with this question teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law Jesus replied love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind this is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself all the law and the prophets hang on these two Commandments while the Pharisees were
00:01:59 gathered together Jesus asked them what do you think about the Messiah whose son is he the son of David they replied he said to them how is it then that David speaking by the spirit calls him Lord for he says the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet if then David calls him Lord how can he be his son no one could say a word in reply and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions this is the word of God thank you Sarah once again it's my joy and
00:02:43 privilege to be standing here sharing with you from the word of God we are in the midst of our long running series on the Book of Matthew um and this morning we have come to uh the second half of uh chapter 22 with a sermon titled the greatest commandment and I believe most of you know what the SEC what the greatest commandment is which is to love the Lord Our God with all our heart soul and strength we shall examine in depth what it means to to love God with all these components of our being now this greatest commandment sits
00:03:26 in the in the middle of the text in uh verse 37 it also sits between uh two portions of the text that are seemingly unrelated which uh poses a question uh a challenge the clicker is where's the clicker wonder the text is uh clearly divided into uh into three segments the text is clearly divided into three into three segments and my NIV Bible has this uh headings for these segments one marriage at the resurrection two the greatest commandment and three whose son is the Messiah we shall discuss what it says in
00:04:23 each segment and also see how one segment is linked to the next so that the whole text will come across more seamless uh as a one continuous flow of uh teaching but obviously our our Focus will be on segment two uh on the greatest commandment shall we first uh Commit This Time to the Lord in prayer Our Father in Heaven what does it mean to love you with all our heart soul and strength open up these verses before us so that your truth will speak to our heart impact our soul and strengthen us as well so that we may relate to you in
00:05:11 accordance to the greatest commandment this we ask in jesus' name amen occasionally um during my sermons I would show you photos from my trips to Israel and talk about the things that I saw in Jerusalem or to illustrate or even validate uh some verses in the sermon text the holy land is an amazing place where the word of God often comes alive from the standpoint of uh of history geography uh archaeology Etc during my first trip to Israel in 2011 I visited a close friend in Tel Aviv um uh she is a religious Jew whom
00:06:03 I've known for almost 30 years now as I entered his apartment my eyes caught a a small tube about 4 in Long stuck to the wall next to the right door frame I can't find a photo to show you what it looked like but interestingly I saw this same tube outside many apartments in that building to the right of each door now on my last trip to Israel in 2017 I stayed in this hotel in Jerusalem and again this Cube on the right of the door and this one I have a photo to show you just like what I saw in the
00:06:45 apartment building in Tel Aviv on the right door frame of every room in this hotel was this cylindrical object which backs the question what is it and what's inside but I should let you know that my roommate throughout this 12-day trip was none other than our brother David un I'm not sure if he noticed this we were on a like a twin sharing basis but don't get me started on the snoring that I had to endure every night I should have brought a pair of uh ear plugs but I didn't complain to David because I grind my teeth when I sleep
00:07:34 and so we are like even now back to the question what's inside this tube it's called a mezuza and it contains a small patment on which is written a prayer which is derived mainly from two passages in the book of Deuteronomy and which carries the Commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and strength and so at the entrance of most Jewish homes and hotel rooms in Israel today is a physical reminder to the occupants inside to remind them to channel their love to God wholeheartedly and when Jesus identified
00:08:22 the greatest commandment in verse 17 verse 37 of our text he was actually quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 oh though he changed the word strength to mind now let's look let's take a look at the entire passage from Deuteronomy 6 from Verses 4 to9 here o Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is one love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength and then in verse 7 impress them or not on your children talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road when you lie down
00:09:05 and when you get up in other words this commandment is to be found is to be a foundational part of your personal life and your also your family life life is to be taken very very seriously okay testing okay it's much better now and jumping to the last verse write them on the door frames of your houses and on your Gates they are to write them at the entrance of their homes and so you see the those ubiquitous mesas that we see in Israel today it's their way of obeying this commandment in Deuteronomy
00:09:56 6:9 now I'm not suggesting to you that you do the same for your the house although some Christians uh uh prefer to do this better on the car than on the house now I have one more photo to show you before we dive into the text and I got this from Google image it shows a group of Israeli soldiers praying and meditating you can see this little boxes black boxes strapped to their foreheads and arms which are known as filteries and they have the same content as the mezuza inside is found the same parchment the Commandment to love the
00:10:43 Lord your God with all your heart soul and strength and this is done again in obedience to Deuteronomy 6:8 tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads now you can guess where I'm going with this the big question is how do we love the Lord Our God with all our heart soul and strength what does it mean to love the Lord Our God with all our heart soul and strength is it to a fix mausa at the entrance of our house or on our foreheads or even on our cars all these muzas vories and even our
00:11:30 cast sckers may be useful reminders to us to have to love God but you will agree that they are more form than substance what is required of us goes much much deeper than that we're now ready to examine the text and as mentioned as now the sermon is divided into three distinct segments that appear to be totally unrelated to each other the narrative starts uh uh in verse 23 with the Sadducees coming to Jesus with a question now put do this to put this into context chronologically it is the day or two after Jesus triumphal entry
00:12:16 into Jerusalem and we are just a few days before his crucifixion the narrative in our text actually starts back in verse 15 with the Pharisees uh approaching Jesus it says in verse 15 the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words they asked him a a trap question about paying Texas to Caesar but this part of the of chapter 22 is outside the scope of our sermon even earlier in chapter 22 from in the first 14 verses Jesus had told them the parable of the Wedding Banquet which was preached by Dr Peter last
00:12:55 Sunday and we learned that that Parable plus two more parables in chapter 21 were designed to expose the sins of the Pharisees and Sadducees obviously they were not very pleased and they were planning to get back at Jesus after after Jesus third parable of the Wedding Banquet I can imagine the Pharisees and and Sadducees getting together to plot how they might retaliate against Jesus okay let's let's ask him some tough theological questions and let the public see him fumbling with his answers I can almost hear the the sad
00:13:40 the the Sadducees saying you Pharisees you go first and the Pharisees agreed maybe because they thought they were smarter and hence what happens from verse 15 including the the verses in our text is essentially the Pharisees and Sadducees response to Jesus criticism of them via the parables in verse 15 the Pharisees uh first came to Jesus with a trap question and here in verse 23 the Sadducees now come with another trap Christian and later you'll see in the second segment the Pharisees coming back yet with
00:14:21 another trap Christian they are taking turns to to to to attack Jesus first the Pharisees and then the Sadducees and then the pH es again earlier in the first round the Sadducees had failed the Pharisees has failed and the sades must have must have Sneed at them is that all you can do and so in our first segment now is the FIS the seduce turn very confusing Sadducees Pharisees but now it's the seduce turn and they first address Jesus as teacher which is more out of sarcasm than respect and from verses 24 to 28 they post Jesus
00:15:04 a twisted question about a woman and seven brothers first the woman marries one of them but he dies before she Bears a child and so the deceased brother marries her and the same tragedy happens and she's married to yet another brother and this goes on and on until the seventh brother looks like all these men are are uh rather in rather poor health and eventually the woman also dies the question is in heaven of the seven brothers whose wife will she be now to understand what's going on here we need to know a bit of their
00:15:45 culture in those days today if a if a woman woman's husband passes away it would seem strange or even socially improper for her to marry her brother-in-law but back in the time it was it was the norm if the woman had no son by her late husband it was table as a law by Moses in Deuteronomy 25:5 if brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son her husband's brother namely The Widow's husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of her brother-in-law to her now this is known as the leverate
00:16:29 law from the from this Latin word l meaning brother-in-law according to this law if a woman's husband dies before fathering a son with her is the duty of the deceased brother to marry her so that she she could have a son and we see this leverate law in action in Genesis 38 which I think I preached on uh one or two years ago in this bizarre account of uh Judah and Tamar and Tamar this this canite woman was married to judah's eldest son but he died before they had any children and so she was married to
00:17:10 the to judah's Second Son and the same thing happened again and Tamar was supposed to be married to judah's third son now viewed through our modern lands we may find it rather incredulous that such a practice would be allowed in ancient Biblical times that alone as law by Moses but before you adopt a lower view of the Bible because of this verse the liverite law was actually put into place partly not entirely but partly for the purpose of protecting the Widow women in those days were not financially uh independent and the
00:17:52 childless Widow would face a life of destitution in the old age with no children to care for her and because of this concern a childless widow when when a husband uh passes away her brother-in-law would do his duty to take the woman in and to see that she bore a son it was meant to be an act of compassion on the part of a brother towards a childless widowed sister-in-law and understanding this uh uh right law will give you the background to the ridiculous question posed by the Sadducees to Jesus ridiculous in the sense that the
00:18:39 three brothers in Tamar's case in Genesis 38 is already a statistical anomaly now to Concord a hypothetical case involving Seven Brothers is really quite a stretch now one more thing we need to know in order to to better appreciate uh this exchange between Jesus and the seduces is to know the Theology of the seduces as we learned from past Matthew sermons The seduces didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead as evident from uh verse 23 here their position was that when a person dies that's it there
00:19:16 is nothing beyond the grave the sedes also didn't believe in the Supernatural they didn't believe in angels for example and one last thing they only subscribed to the first five books of the Bible Genesis to Deuteronomy although by the time of Jesus the whole Old Testament was already in place now knowing all these things about the stues will be helpful to us now back to their question in this verses It Isn't So Much a question that they have crafted specially for Jesus rather is their way of disproving the
00:19:56 Resurrection they're like saying if the resurrection were true then we would have this absurd situation whose wife will she be in heaven surely she can't be the wife of seven husbands at the same time and because this is absurd therefore they cannot be any Resurrection so they concluded actually this is an accepted technique in logical argument meaning if we start with a premise but if that leads us to an illogical or or even unreasonable conclusion then the original premise must be wrong and hence the the the stues are so
00:20:39 sure of of their Ironclad logic their conclusion of no Resurrection they're convinced that the question is unanswerable and they can't wait to see Jesus stumbling when trying to answer the question in the next uh Chun of verses 29 to 32 Jesus proceeds to answer their question to refute their position on the resurrection you see the problem is that the seduces wrongly assume that the realities on Earth would extend to Heaven that life in heaven would be like life on Earth and so Jesus simply challenges that assumption and he starts
00:21:25 uh in verse 29 by saying you are mistaken you think you know the Bible but you do not you don't understand the power of God namely the power to resurrect the dead and then further down in verse 32 Jesus uses scripture to point out the error in their thinking and we'll come back we'll come to that in a bit the interesting part really is verse 30 where Jesus discloses a different reality in heaven where there be no marriages at least not in the way we experience marriage in heaven we will be like Angels who do not
00:22:07 marry notice he does say that we will become angels we will be like angels in a sense that we are not defined by marriage I think I would need to elaborate on this later and with this Jesus invalidates the hypothetical case of the woman and the Seven Brothers what the Sadducees think will be a problem in heaven wouldn't be a problem at all now it's notable that Jesus talks about angels here which he does on purpose because the Sadducees don't believe in angels but through this verse we catch a glimpse of what eternal life will be
00:22:48 like life in heaven will be vastly different from that on Earth but scripture doesn't offer a whole lot of detail about life in heaven and hence Jesus words in this verse attract attracts a lot of attention and interest but this verse has also generated a measure of concern among Christian couples the unsettling thought is this will lean be still be my wife in heaven will lean and I still live together as husband and wife now for many husbands anything other than the current Arrangement is a frightening
00:23:36 Prospect now of course some husband they find is a welcoming Prospect but I think most husband will find that you know other than what is the current Arrangement will be really frightening because many husbands simply cannot function without your wife Yours Truly included I mean who is going to cook and wash and clean the house assuming that cooking washing cleaning still need to be done in heaven my super capable wife does all that my only responsibility is to take out the trash every night now if your situation is like mine
00:24:20 then you get very worried you know whether you still be husband and wife in heaven but let me assure you don't worry so much Jesus doesn't give us a whole lot of details in that one verse it's just one verse Jesus doesn't say that my wife will seized to be my wife in heaven he doesn't say that we won't be together as husband and wife I believe that family and marital relationships will continue in the Eternal age CU one indication is that in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 the rich man did in his
00:24:56 afterlife did acknowledge his f family and his five brothers I believe that the relationships that we enjoy with our believing spouse children parents uh siblings we will continue to enjoy them when we all get to heaven but these relationships will be subjected to new realities new Dynamics which I will elaborate later in secondment 2 now back in back to Jesus encounter with the seduces at first he CHS them uh uh for not knowing the scripture actually the fact of the Resurrection uh is found here and there
00:25:38 in the Old Testament especially in the Daniel 12:2 multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake some to everlasting life others to shame and everlasting contemn and so the Bible is clear that all will be resurrected even in the old test all will be resurrected although not not all to the same Eternal Destiny but because the Sadducees reject all the books of the Bible except the first five books Jesus doesn't use this Daniel verse uh to refute them instead he chooses the book of Exodus which they
00:26:20 accept and quotes them a verse from Exodus 3 have you not read about what God said to you I'm the god of Abraham the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob now precisely this is a quote from Exodus 3:6 which is part of the account of God appearing to Moses in the form of a burning bush now notice that that what God Said here is quoted by Jesus almost word for word now to make sense of this obviously by the time this Burning Bush encounter took place Moses ancestors Abraham Jacob uh Isaac Jacob were all long
00:27:04 gone and yet God said I am the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob notice the present tense I am not I was if there were no Resurrection God would have said I was the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob but no God is saying to Moses I am present tense the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob meaning yes it's a fact that they have died but Moses ancestors have all been resurrected and that's why Jesus uh uh and adds in at the end he's not the god of the dead but of the living in fact Moses himself has been resurrected if not how else can you
00:27:52 explain Matthew 17 where three of the disciples saw Jesus standing with moon Moses and Elijah during his Transfiguration anyway at the end of this debate with the Stu sees so instead of day trapping Jesus Jesus completely turns the table around and dismantles their theology verse 33 describes the crowd as being astonished at Jesus teaching but not a word about the sedu reaction and so I picture them looking very stupid and feeling very angry as as well but let's move on to segment two we have dwelt on segment one at length
00:28:35 because as you will soon see it actually serves as the as a setup for Segment two which is Central in the text segment two from verse 34 onwards opens with the Pharisees now approaching Jesus is now their turn to have a go at him after seeing how badly the Sadducees failed uh this is a segment on what Jesus describes as the first and greatest commandment now some translations uh render this as the most important commandment and this exchange with the Pharisees starts with one of them a very smart and learned
00:29:16 lawyer testing Jesus with a Christian teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law once again Jesus is addressed as teacher the background to this is that the legalistic Pharisees have counted the number of Commandments in the Old Testament and have established that they are 613 specific laws now I've not seen this list but the idea is that there are many many laws they asking Jesus to pick the most important one in attempt to test him to back him into a corner the word test here actually means
00:29:55 to trap if Jesus would have pick anyone of of these laws as the greatest they might say hey what about the other ones so it's an entrapment Jesus response to this if you notice is more positive compared to how he corrected and rebuked the sedu sees a short while ago he proceeds to answer the question as if to Enlighten this expert in the law I Think Jesus thinks that it's a good question although they mean to trap him as a matter of fact he gives him not one but two answers by one free one his first reply is in verse 37 to
00:30:38 love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind this is the first and greatest commandment and then in verse 39 he adds the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor as yourself because both Commandments go hand in hand and we shall scrutinize them in a short while the discussion the discussion ends in verse 40 with Jesus pointing out how the law and the prophets hang or rest on these Commandments and this needs a bit of explanation you see the Hebrew Bible is exactly the same as our Old Testament
00:31:15 in terms of content but the order is different in the Hebrew Bible the books are divided into three sections one the law consisting of of the five books of Moses two so-called prophets including the books of of the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets and then thirdly uh the writings including all the poetic books Psalms Proverbs Etc now this is just for for Bible knowledge so when Jesus mentions the law and the prophets even though the writings is not mentioned what he means is the entire scripture that they have and this phrase
00:31:58 the law and the prophets appears many times in the in the New Testament as you can now appreciate it simply means the word of God and hence when Jesus answers the Pharisee that not uh with not one but two answers he's essentially saying that the two greatest Commandments love the Lord your God and love your neighbor they are the two big pillars on which the the entire scripture rests they are found foundational to the word of God and hence to the Christian faith you know if I have to sum up Christianity in just a few words it
00:32:39 would be love God love people just four words and the rest are really peripheral because stripped to its core our Christian faith boil down to loving God and loving people but before we proceed to examine what it really means to love God and to love people I want us to take a step back to consider something more foundational that is to ponder where this idea of love the Lord your God comes from and in the process we shall discern the connection between segment one and segment two of our text why this commandment to love the
00:33:24 Lord your God can we Trace its origin Pascal the French philosopher and theologian is taught to have said there is a god-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created things but only by God the Creator in other words man is hardwired to be in the in a relationship with his maker to be close to to him nothing else will truly satisfy without his creator feeling that void in his heart there will be a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness this particular variation of Pascal's code says that
00:34:17 says to that effect God created a void in your heart that only he can feel when life becomes becomes meaningless boring and hard it's because we've been filling with filling it with anything but him and hence when God commands us to love him he's really telling us that this is what we are meant to be this is what he designed us to be to be in a in a loving relationship with him God loves us so much he wants us to respond to love him now those of us who enjoy a deep loving marital relationship can perhaps
00:35:08 understand this better a little bit to be in the intimate fulfilling relationship with your spouse but unfortunately such model marriages are more the exception than the norm marital Strife is common the divorce rate keeps going up but nevertheless God ordained the institution of marriage not only for procreation but also as a foreshadow of our relationship with him the Bible uses the the the Earthly marriage as a metaphor for God's relationship with his people Christ is the bridegroom the church is the
00:35:55 bride it's the ultimate marriage a perfect union and it will be initiated by a wedding banquet at the start of the Eternal age in heaven Remember The Wedding Banquet from last Sunday but meanwhile here on Earth our relationship with God is far from perfect due to our sinful nature but one day in heaven it will be made perfect but what does this mean for a marriage made on Earth when the couple gets to heaven this is the question we ask in segment one this is the question the seduces ask the answer is this is actually a
00:36:39 mood Point lacking relevance why because as I mentioned in segment one the realities in heaven will be vastly different from those on Earth what is implicit in segment one is this Jesus is hinting to us that when we get to heaven we will be completely satisfied and overwhelmed in an intimate and perfect relationship with God why should we be why should we be so preoccupied with the issue of marriage in heaven our Focus now should be to develop our relationship with God which will be consumated in
00:37:18 heaven and hence the Commandment in segment two to love to love the Lord Our God and this is how segment one is connected to segment two segment one is not an isolated passage but it serves as a buildup to segment two it sets the stage for Segment two on the greatest commandment back to the question will my wife still be my be my wife in heaven as I said earlier I believe family and marital relationships will continue in the Eternal age but they will be subjected to new Dynamics meaning they will operate under the con uh with in
00:37:58 the context of Under the Umbrella of a consumate perfect relationship with God in heaven our relationships with our spouse and family will pale in comparison with the sheer Delight of knowing god intimately lean and I will still enjoy each other in heaven but better than that we will we will both enjoy God far more one commentary on Matthew 22 uses the term Beyond marriage Beyond marriage to describe what it will be like pardon the digression to segment one I was talking about Pascal's God shaped void in our heart I was I was
00:38:44 saying how the greatest commandment is meant to fill this emptiness to satisfy our deepest need to commune with God and hence When God says to love him is not just to love him but but to do so with our with all our heart all our soul and all our strength as written in Deuteronomy 6:5 all our heart all our soul all our strength what does this mean when Jesus quotes this verse in verse 37 of our text he changes the the word strength to mind does this make a difference to complicate matters in the
00:39:27 parallel vers in Mark 12:30 the word strength is retained and the word mind added and so we have four words in play heart soul strength and mind what can we learn from this can it help us to understand what it means to love God now one perspective on one perspective on this from a somewhat surface understanding is that this covers is supposed to cover all levels of our existence it is said that our existence consists of four levels the physical the emotional the intellectual and the spiritual and fittingly we have the word
00:40:13 strength here to point to the physical heart and mind pointing to the emotional and the intellectual and the Soul which is often used as a synonym for for Spirit pointing pointing to the spiritual in other words to love God at all levels of existence well it is a rather analytical way of looking at this but actually is uh not so complicated as that we have to try to understand what these words meant to the writers when they wrote These verses the truth is all four words are somewhat synonymous with overlaps in their
00:40:56 meaning the anchor verse is the word heart heart is the anchor word in Deuteronomy 6 in verse six God added these Commandments are to be on your hearts on your hearts now throughout scripture the heart can can relate to many things it's associated with with with how you feel or think with what you you decide or desire it's connected to your will your your conscience and moral in other words the heart is the seat of your very being next love the god the Lord your God with all your soul some translations
00:41:45 render this as with your being or with your whole being so Soul here actually refers to your whole being as for strength many translations have it as might love the Lord your God with all your might but strength or might here has nothing to do with the physical it simply means to a great degree or intensely one version uh even uh translated strength in this verse as your entire being and so you see all three words heart soul and strength embody roughly the same meaning and hence when God said with all
00:42:29 your heart with all your soul and with all your strength he was really saying the same thing three times like when the seraphine in Isaiah 6 calling out holy holy holy Lord God Almighty and when something is me is repeated three times it is very very important as for the word mind the fourth word which Jesus added is just something uh cultural what I mean is that in ancient Biblical times the concept of the Mind wasn't so pronounced the prevalent word was was hard but by the time of Jesus because of
00:43:08 the influence of the Greeks mind had become a rather a fashionable word so Jesus merely added a word that they were familiar with I will take away from all this discussion is that God wants us to love him wholeheartedly with all all our inner capacities with every fiber of our being it has to spring up from deep within us is not something just external like putting a mezuza on your door frame or a fctory on your forehead certainly one of these things can serve as a reminder but if it is only external it is
00:43:56 meaningless another another approach to the greatest to the greatest commandment is to examine the Greek word for love that Jesus used when he quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5 the word love comes from the Greek word agapa which means the love of the will the love of choice the love of intention the love of purpose look at all these words associated with Biblical love which is very different from the love that the world promotes which is based based mostly on feelings which is very shaky this is firm and with this we now have a a
00:44:46 comprehensive idea of what it means to love the Lord your God what it involves what it requires of us and what we should Aspire towards if I had to choose one word to sum all this up it's the word commit commit to love God is to commit yourself to him let's uh wrap up uh segment two by taking a quick look at the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor Jesus is quoting here from Leviticus 1918 now I must first point out that the word love here is also from the Greek word agapa so this is also not an easy
00:45:36 commandment it follows that if you love God you will also love others recall the phrase earlier love God love people conversely if we have no love for others how can you profess to love God and hence the words in this poster you cannot hate people and love God at the same time in fact if a Christian doesn't have an iota of love for others I might haror some doubts if he's a True Believer the Apostle John puts this across rather blandly in in 1 John 4 to to the early Christians whoever does not love their
00:46:24 brother and sister cannot love God anyone who loves God must must also love their brother and sister loving others includes especially our fellow Believers but what does it mean to love your neighbor as you love yourself as you love yourself doesn't loving yourself sound rather self-centered no To Love Yourself means to care for yourself when you are sick you go and see a doctor when you're in need you go and seek help your own welfare and of course that of your immediate family are your primary concern now if you would
00:47:08 extend that same care to others being concerned for the welfare of others is a Hallmark of a True Believer and of God's people when we discussed the liverite law earlier we saw that it was out of concern for the welfare of the childless Widow so in a small small way it's a sort of an expression of the second greatest commandment on a practical note the problem with us is that we value things higher than people and here's a piece of wisdom for you to take home it's actually is an indictment against
00:47:49 us God gives us people to love and things to use not things to love and people to use how we all live in an upside down world we finally come to the last segment which is which be a quick segment Jesus is still with the Pharisees but now he he he turns the table around and asks them a question instead a question that seems to have nothing to do with the with the discussion of on the greatest commandment verse 42 what do you think about the Messiah whose son is he to which they answer correctly the
00:48:32 son of David the Pharisees certainly know their Bible Well the Messiah is the is a descendant of David and then out of nowhere in verses 43 and 45 Jesus lops them a ridle if the Messiah is David's son why did David call him Lord how can your son be your lord verse 45 is the same question in Reverse when did David refer to the Messiah his descendant as his Lord in verse 44 Jesus again quot quotes from the Old Testament this time from Psalm 110 Psalm 1110 was written by David and he started with the Lord said to to my
00:49:25 Lord and this can be of course Very very confusing as the same word is used twice the Lord said to my Lord and to make sense of this we must look at the original verse in Psalm 110 ver1 Jesus is quoting from this verse and here is much clearer the first Lord is all in caps whenever the word Lord is written in all capital letters it refers to Yahweh the personal name of God the second Lord the second Lord only L is capitalized and the Hebrew word for this is Adonai meaning Lord as is translated Adonai is a title used for
00:50:13 God lord Jesus Adonai Jesus so to rephrase this it was God the Father talking to God the son in this verse sit sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the foot stool for your feet what is relevant to us is that Psalm 110 is David's s about the coming Messiah he's writing about the Messiah coming and here he's referring to the Messiah as my Lord my Adonai my God which points undoubtedly to the deity of the Messiah the Messiah is both man and God and this is what Jesus is trying to tell them in other words this Messiah is
00:51:05 David's son yes but he's ALS he also predates David meaning this Messiah that David is writing about is actually David's Creator now the the the the Pharisees they expect the Messiah to be a to be a man like David a king a political leader well they are right that the Messiah is a man but he is also God fully man and fully God and this is the essence of what Jesus is trying to say to them but strangely the conversation ends abruptly in verse 45 in the last verse they are left speechless and from then on no one dares
00:51:51 to ask Jesus any more questions not because they afraid of him but because they unwilling to risk losing faith again but more importantly verse 46 marks a change in their attitude and strategy they now realize that they cannot bring Jesus down using uh verbal confrontations they will soon decide to resort to violence to get rid of him but to us the big question confronting us is why did Jesus suddenly stop the discussion it's like the narrative having no conclusion the question wasn't answered I shall leave you uh to ponder
00:52:42 why given the lack of time wow sermon also got homework you know why did Jesus stop the conversation but what I can do is to tell you what Jesus could have said to them the unsaid part of the conversation can also be very telling Jesus didn't but could have said to them hey this Messiah whom we have been waiting for this Messiah who is both man and God he is standing right in front of you he is talking to you now look I'm the descendant of David bornn in Bethlehem and over the past 3 years I have been performing many miracles in
00:53:35 public who else you think has the power over diseases over demons over nature what more evidence do you need but Jesus refrained from saying all this to them because you're supposed to to figure out why Jesus kept silent leaving them to figure it out on their own but for us reading the text today the lesson is clear the Commandment to love God is now brought into sharp Focus whereas in the Old Testament the idea of loving God might have been somewhat abstract because God is an invisible God but now the object of our
00:54:21 devotion our commitment to God is very clear Jesus Jesus fully God and fully man is the one around whom the greatest commandment revolves he is at the center of this commandment and this is how segment three is linked to segment two now to conclude this sermon I shall leave you this thought for you to meditate upon is this if I ask you what is a Christian or what makes a person a Christian the common answer is well he's one who has uh accepted and received Jesus as his savior good answer but let me give you a even better
00:55:18 answer a Christian is someone who loves God with all his heart with all all his soul and with all his mind his salvation is only the first step a prerequisite to enable him to be able to do this to love God think about it shall we close in prayer Our Father in heaven we confess our weakness our half-heartedness our empathy towards you wake us from our Slumber and cause us to love you with all our hearts with all our soul and with all our mind for nothing else on Earth really matters in comparison and this we ask in Jesus name
00:56:13 amen all shall we all arise [Music] this is my desire to All You Lord we love my heart I worship you [Music] all I have in me I give you [Music] praise all I adore is see you Lord I give you my heart I give you my soul I live for you alone every breath that I take every moment I'm a lord have your way [Applause] me this is my desire to hor you all of my heart I worship [Music] you all I have within me I give you praise all that I adore is in [Music] you Lord I give you my heart I give you my [Music]
00:59:47 soul I live for you alone every breath that I gave every morning I'm away Lord have your way me Lord I give you my heart I give you my soul I live for you alone every bread that I take every moment I Lord have your way Lord have your way if you want God to fill that God shaped vacuum in your life but you're not sure what to do if you are in need of prayer and you want to have someone to pray for you or if you are in a situation where you need some help please don't hesitate to come and see me after the service or
01:01:02 you may approach any of the elders or pastors we be we will love to minister to you now as we close this service receive the Ben benediction May the love of God envelop you so entirely as his grace and goodness saturate you da daily may you in response and in obedience love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind and may you also in obedience to him love those around you extending to them your compassion and charity the Lord bless you and keep you now go in peace the service is over
01:01:55 but please do stay back for a cup of coffee uh to chat with your uh uh other friends okay uh visitors please we wait for you at the connect corner
