Morning Message Text: Matthew 22: 34-40
The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Morning Message: “Do We Love or Luv?”
Morning Message:
Let’s look at this topic of love focusing on our love of both God and others.
Most, if not all of us would agree that loving God is a necessity. C. S. Lewis put it this way, “Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God. If we think about that for a moment, I think that we will realize that is a pretty fair statement. What does loving God look like in our lives? We must all answer that for ourselves. A good measuring stick of your love for God might be the amount of time you spend with him. We all say that we love God. Even the common person on the street that doesn’t attend church would most likely say that they love God. Love, real love is not a feeling, it’s an action. It is impossible to love someone and ignore them. This, by the way, is good marital advice. How much love can you have for God if the only time you spend with him is here on Sunday for an hour.
We are called to love others, but how good are we at showing our love?
Here is an example. Consider a cobbler who is so busy making shoes for other people that his own children go barefoot. That might speak to pride, selfish ambition, or negligence by the father. At the very least, it shows a lack of love for his children. When love is absent, life is unbalanced. What does our scripture from 1Corinthians 13, verse 1 say? “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” In other words, I make love noises, but everyone can tell my heart is not in it. Listen Church, Paul is talking to us here. The apostle Paul began his chapter on love with illustrations of “ministry” replacing love in the church. He cites several commendable activities: using the gift of tongues or prophecy, having spiritual knowledge and faith, being generous to the poor, and even dying for the sake of Christ. Then he says that if any, or all, of these ministries are performed without love — that is, for carnal or self-promoting reasons —then the ministries themselves are worthless. Better not to undertake such ministries at all than to undertake them without the motivation and practice of love. Consider this paraphrase of Paul’s words in 1Corinthians 10: 31: “Whatever you do, do it in the Spirit of love.” Clothe your words and deeds today with a cloak of true love.
Let’s look at the difference today between what we humans think of love as compared to the love that God calls us to. Luv is a playful, whimsical expression of sentiment. One would never luv one’s enemy or express unconditional luv. One wouldn’t luv someone who didn’t luv one back. I think that this is a good way for us to separate in our minds true love from luv. Say it with me one time. True love, and then the fake word that we use kind of everyday casually, luv. Love and luv. Think about how casually we use this very important word. We don’t even think about its true meaning. In the world it is used for casual friendship, sometimes as a way of showing appreciation, and many times it is confused with lust. We should save the word love for people, for those who are special to us and those that we are willing to put real effort into showing them love. You can luv money, but you can’t love it. You can luv your car or your home, or your job, but you can’t truly love any of those things.
That sets luv apart from the true, biblical meaning of love in scripture.
God’s love — expressed by the Greek word agape — is unconditional love. It is the kind of love that rises above feelings of warmth or affection; it is a love based on an act of the will that seeks the best outcome for others. It is a love so strong that it can be expressed toward an enemy. In fact, in Romans 5: 10, Paul refers to us as enemies of God who were nonetheless reconciled to God because of his great love for us. We didn’t deserve God’s love, but God so loved us that he sent his Son to reunite us to himself. That is the kind of love we are to have for one another. We are called in our Christian walk to look for opportunities to love unconditionally — in spite of how others treat us. Another quote for you: Religion that does not glow with love is unsatisfactory.
Jesus tells us in today’s reading from Matthew that the love of God is the most important of all the commandments, but He also says to love your neighbor as yourself is the same as loving God. It is the greatest commandment. How many times in God’s word Jesus implores us to love one another, to love our enemies, to love the poor and the homeless and the sick and the needy. When He tells us to love, He doesn’t mean luv. Loving someone is a very serious matter. God calls us to a different kind of love that goes beyond human understanding and can only be realized through the movement of the Holy Spirit in God’s people. Love is unconditional and it is much too important to simply say without meaning. You can luv all of the things that you want, but reserve your love as a holy gift to others.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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