Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] So I think you could probably tell by my voice that I'm not feeling so well.
[00:00:06] So much so that we had to cancel the steak dinner Saturday night because I've been sick for the last several days.
[00:00:13] So between sleeping and coughing and hacking, I've been putting this message together. So I hope it makes sense and I hope that God can in some way use it in your life. We're continuing on in our series in Matthew and go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22.
[00:00:33] And we're going to be looking at verses 23 through 46.
[00:00:40] And the main point I, I think I want you to get out of this message is how Jesus is truly the one source of sustaining hope and love and faith in the believer's life. Foreign We've come upon a season in Jesus life where the religious elite were constantly asking him questions, attempting to trick him and get him to stumble, to discredit him amongst the people. And this is what is happening in our text today. So let's go ahead and read.
[00:01:12] Hold on one second.
[00:01:15] I think we're going to wait for a second here to read because I wanted to introduce the main players in our text today.
[00:01:25] And Jesus in our story today is the central figure in which everything revolves around his disciples. While not mentioned so much, you know, are there near him. And he's their 12 most intimate followers and friends who at any time could come up with brilliant observations while at other times at a loss of understanding. And yet these are the men who would change the world.
[00:01:46] There's always crowds, large number of people who follow Jesus throughout the countryside. And as with any large crowds, there's mixed motivations for the reasons they follow.
[00:01:55] Many of them follow because they of what they believe they can get from Jesus. They witnessed miracles. Their stomachs were full. But some of them, those designated sinners by the religious elites, they see their desperate straits. They understand the destructive pattern of sin in their lives. And what they've seen in Jesus is one who can set them free from their brokenness, their hurt, their pain and bondage of their lives. They can easily see that he is so different from the religious leaders because his compassion for the downtrodden was always evident.
[00:02:26] This is one of the reasons why I love going to Colombia so much.
[00:02:30] I never feel more alive, more in connection with God. For a week. I get to live and breathe the gospel. I get to meet with people who have experienced horrific things in their lives, show them compassion of Jesus and pray for them to receive God's gift of grace and to witness Their lives eternally changed before my very eyes.
[00:02:48] I get to see them enfolded into church and discipled and begin serving God and finding themselves included in a church family. I get to see the joy in their faces as the peace of God fills their hearts.
[00:03:00] A few other stories was the very first person I got to share with as we were going to the first house, there was a 60 year old woman, 61 year old woman, who just came running at us and said, I need to speak with you, I need to speak with you.
[00:03:14] Her life was falling apart, her kids were a mess and she was in the process of divorcing her husband. And I got a chance to pray with her to receive Christ.
[00:03:24] Another young woman who is 22 years old, who had seven year old twins, you do the math.
[00:03:31] And had the opportunity to share with her and she prayed with us to receive Christ.
[00:03:36] Later that day, a 29 year old man was struggling with alcohol. And I could see on his face as we were there and I began talking with him, you could see the apathy and the indifferences. He was kind of laying on the floor with his head cocked back. And as I began to share my story with him, which is always a story that involves a deep emptiness and deep pain and alcohol abuse and drug abuse, all of a sudden he began to connect with life's story and see how Christ was the answer because he struggled with alcohol.
[00:04:05] Another young woman who had just given birth several days earlier was in so much pain that she couldn't even come to the door. So we were sharing with her as she was sat in a chair 15ft across from the living room. And she told us her baby was in the hospital, still in the icu.
[00:04:20] And I just, you know, was heartbroken, you know, that here she is just having a new baby and they're separated because her baby's going through struggles. So not only did we pray for her baby's help, but we prayed with her to receive Christ as well.
[00:04:35] Do these problems sound different from those of our family or our neighbors or our classmates and co workers?
[00:04:43] Is not Jesus the answer to what ails them as well?
[00:04:47] Maybe in a given year I go to Columbia two to three different times for a week each time. And I find myself asking myself, when I get back, what about the other 49 to 50 weeks a year?
[00:04:58] This is where I live, this is where God has planted me. This is where I'm surrounded by friends and family who don't know Jesus. And the same is true of you. How have we come to believe that it is impossible for God's power to break through in the same ways here where we live as in Columbia.
[00:05:15] Do we still not have the same God who orchestrates divine appointments? Do we not have the same power in prayer, the same Holy Spirit at work, the same Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe?
[00:05:27] Matthew 19:26, one of the verses we actually use in Columbia, says, with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
[00:05:36] And I feel like we all need to ask God to forgive us for our indifference and our unbelief.
[00:05:44] Sam told me that while we were gone to Columbia, he and his daughter Millie were praying for Pastor Jim and the team. And one day Millie said to Sam, we should make a commitment over the remaining days until Pastor Jim returns, for each of us to share the gospel with one person.
[00:06:00] I thought that was kind of cool.
[00:06:02] And Sam agreed. And Millie accomplished it by sharing with one of her friends. But Sam told me he delayed and got down to the final day and had not shared with anyone.
[00:06:10] And he was starting to rationalize in his mind that he had a busy week and would just have to tell Millie that he didn't do it.
[00:06:19] And on that final day, he was in Bredco and meeting with a brother in Christ and they were talking theology. And after his friend left, a man walked up to him, a Muslim man that he had spoken with before and asked, were you discussing Christian theology?
[00:06:31] And he said yes.
[00:06:33] He says, I've always been interested in Christian theology. I really don't believe what the Muslims teach.
[00:06:38] So Sam had the opportunity to share with them what they had been talking about. And then he shared the gospel with him.
[00:06:44] But the man wasn't interested.
[00:06:49] But God had created a divine appointment to share the gospel with this man and to also fulfill his promise to his daughter.
[00:06:57] The simple childlike faith of a nine year old girl led to two people hearing the good news of the gospel. Maybe we've just gotten too sophisticated in our Christianity, too busy with other things, and have lost sight of our true mission here.
[00:07:10] Millie's faith should both encourage us and convict us.
[00:07:20] Let's go ahead and move on into our text.
[00:07:24] Let's go ahead and read Matthew 22, 23, 33.
[00:07:34] That same. That same day, Sadducees who say there is no resurrection came up to him and questioned him. Teacher Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother is to marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now, there were seven brothers among us. The first got married and died having no offspring. He left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second also in the third, and so on to all seven.
[00:07:58] Last of all, the woman died in the resurrection. Then whose wife will she be of the 7? For they all had married her.
[00:08:07] Jesus answered, you are mistaken because you don't know the scriptures of the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
[00:08:17] Now, concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't you read what was spoken to you by God? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
[00:08:34] So a couple of players that I hadn't mentioned in the introduction was a couple sects of religious people in Jesus day called the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And I want to give you a little bit more background into the Sadducees. They were a Jewish political and religious sect and primarily composed of wealthy aristocratic priests and high ranking officials. They were known for their strict adherence to the Torah, which are the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy, they held the most powerful positions in the Jerusalem Temple, both the position of chief priest and high priest. The Sadducees also held the majority of the 70 seats of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling council.
[00:09:15] They worked hard to keep the peace with the people and the edicts that Rome would hand down. It seems as if they were more concerned with politics than they were religion, which sadly I think is also true of many American Christians today.
[00:09:30] And yet Jesus had very little to say about politics. His focus was on the kingdom of God and not the kingdom of men. The one is of eternal significance, the other is temporal and its impact is short lived.
[00:09:43] They did not relate well to the common man and the common man had a low opinion of them, mainly because of their collusion with Rome.
[00:09:50] The Sadducees were implicated in the death of James, the brother of John, which we can see in Acts chapter 12. And according to Josephus the historian, also the death of James, the half brother of Jesus and the Sadducees ceased to exist as a group in 8070 when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.
[00:10:10] The reason for their absurd question of Jesus was to show those surrounding him how ridiculous the teaching of the resurrection of the dead truly is. You see, the religious sect did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They did not believe in the afterlife or spirit Beings or demons or angels.
[00:10:28] The question they laid before Jesus was connected to the Old Testament teaching in the Torah called the Levirate marriage.
[00:10:36] That's a custom which is outlined in Deuteronomy 25, 5, 10, where if a woman's husband died and they had no children, then the younger brother would be responsible to marry her, impregnate her, so that his brother's name in line would continue and that the widow would be taken care of. It's what we see in the story of Ruth and Boet.
[00:10:58] The scenario they were presenting. Jesus is that there were seven brothers and the eldest was married and died without children. So each of the successive brothers would marry her, but also died without having children, leaving the widow married seven times with no children.
[00:11:16] The question they asked, which of the seven brothers will she be married to in heaven?
[00:11:23] My contention is all of them.
[00:11:25] In eternity she's going to have seven husbands.
[00:11:29] I'm sure the women here today are thinking, what a nightmare.
[00:11:33] I have enough trouble with one. This doesn't sound like heaven to me.
[00:11:38] Well, I'm just kidding. It's not really what he's saying here.
[00:11:43] Because Jesus answered, you're mistaken, because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God or in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. But unlike the angels of heaven, you see, in heaven there will be no marriage.
[00:11:58] We will be like the angels. And what he means is that we'll be eternal, we'll be immortal. They do not die.
[00:12:05] So in heaven there'll be no need to procreate to continue in your family line, for you will never die.
[00:12:11] Also, the women will not need the provision of a man, for God will provide all we need for eternity.
[00:12:18] Then Jesus goes on in verse 31, 32, and he says, now, concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't you read what was spoken to you by God? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
[00:12:32] This passage that Jesus quotes in Exodus is found in Exodus 3, 6, and it's when God is speaking to Moses.
[00:12:40] At this point, all the patriarchs have were dead for hundreds of years. And he asked the Sadducees, have you not read this part of Exodus? You see, the. The first five books of the Bible were supposed to be their bread and butter.
[00:12:53] And notice God speaks to Moses in present tense. He says, I am the God of. Not I was the God of. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
[00:13:03] And even though they may have been dead hundreds of years. They are yet alive. I have an ongoing relationship with them. I am not the God of the dead, but living.
[00:13:14] And I want to camp here just a bit, you see, because the resurrection, starting with Jesus rising from the tomb and promised to all believers in Christ, is ab absolutely essential to our faith.
[00:13:28] Jesus says in John 11:25, I am the resurrection of the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?
[00:13:40] If you remember, these words of Jesus were to Martha, the sister of Lazarus.
[00:13:47] Jesus had delayed in coming to Mary, Martha and Lazarus house upon hearing that Lazarus was ill.
[00:13:53] And Lazarus ends up dying in the time Jesus gets there, Lazarus is four days in the tomb. And Martha's concerned that there will be a foul stench coming from the tomb if Jesus opens it. It.
[00:14:05] Jesus is so moved by their grief at the devastating consequences of sin and that the the grief of Mary and Martha and the loss of their brother that we get the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, Jesus wept.
[00:14:21] Jesus has the tomb opened and he calls forth Lazarus, who is brought back from the dead. But make no mistake in this. This is not a resurrection but a resuscitation, because Lazarus is going to die again.
[00:14:34] What Jesus is trying to get through to them is that he gives eternal life to all who believe in him, that all who believe in him will one day be raised to life in heaven with him.
[00:14:45] The best passage to understand the resurrection of the dead is found in Paul's first Letter to the Corinthians. So I want you to sit back and listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.
[00:14:57] And first of all, in verses 3 through 8, he says, what I received, I passed on to you a source of importance. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to Scriptures, and that he appeared. And it goes through a whole list of people who he appeared to and says over 500 in total, that he appeared to you See, Christ's death on the cross is God's solution to the problem of sin.
[00:15:24] For it says in Romans 3:23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
[00:15:30] Christ's resurrection from the grave is God's solution to the problem of death, which is our separation from God. For in Romans 6:23 it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[00:15:43] Paul's establishing that because Jesus rose from the dead, so too will we. All who are believers in Christ rise to eternal life in Christ.
[00:15:51] But don't forget, all believers will also be raised from the dead. But to all unbelievers will also be raised. But that will be through eternal condemnation.
[00:16:01] Paul says in verse 12, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead in verse 17? And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still dead in your sins, verse 21 and 22. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ Christ all will be made alive.
[00:16:25] Then in verse 32, if the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
[00:16:31] Paul's saying that if the dead are not raised, then hey, just go on living the way you want, doing what you want, indulge in your fleshly appetites, because there's nothing after this life.
[00:16:45] You see, the Sadducees in their belief that there was no resurrection, that there was nothing after this life or dead, wrong in their theological beliefs.
[00:16:55] To close this, this part, I want to read verses 54 through 58 in First Corinthians 15.
[00:17:04] And Paul writes, when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that has been written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, this is an incredible promise. What a promise. What a future hope, an anchor of hope while living in a fallen, sinful world. That believers in Christ, there really is no sting of death because it's been swallowed up in victory through Christ and his finished work on the cross. And that he rose from the dead that third day.
[00:17:47] Paul finishes this section, you see, because what I want to get at this morning is what we're talking about, that in Christ we have hope, or in Christ we have love, or in Christ we have faith, that it is supposed to come to an application in our lives. It's just not to be some, you know, ethereal belief that we have, that, oh, isn't that cool? Because Paul says here, therefore, my dear brother, stand firm, let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor is not in vain.
[00:18:19] Now that I told you all of this about the promise that you will be raised because Christ was raised. This is how you're supposed to live. Give yourself fully to the things of the Lord.
[00:18:31] Let's move on in our text. In Matthew, let's read verses 34 through 40.
[00:18:45] When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, an expert in the law, asked the question to test him. Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?
[00:18:56] He said to him, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is, like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:19:07] All the law and the prophets depend on these two commands.
[00:19:14] Well, Jesus is being addressed by a whole different group, a whole different religious sect. The first were the Sadducees and now the Pharisees. And I want to get into, in just a minute, a little bit of the background of the Pharisees. But first, there's a beautiful Jewish prayer called Hashima, and it's one of the most famous prayers in the Bible.
[00:19:34] It was a daily prayer for ancient Israelites and is still recited by Jewish people today.
[00:19:39] It comes from the book of Deuteronomy, where in Deuteronomy 6, 4, 5, it says, Hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
[00:19:52] You see, Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament to these Pharisees.
[00:19:59] She may get its name from the first Hebrew word of the prayer, hear or listen, which is the translation of the Hebrew word she met.
[00:20:07] And he's saying that it's. It's not merely God's word entering your ears.
[00:20:13] The word shima means to allow the words to sink in, to provide understanding and generate a response. It's about action.
[00:20:20] In Hebrew, hearing and doing are the same thing.
[00:20:24] The next instruction of the prayer is to love the Lord your God. And what we translate into English as love here is the word ahava. And ahava is not about the warm, fuzzy emotional energy we sometimes feel when we like someone much like listening. Biblical love is about action. You ahava someone when you act in loyalty and faithfulness for Israel. Loving means faithful obedience to the terms of the covenant relationship with Yahweh. And those terms are the laws and commands that will make up the body of the book. Jesus also reveals that our obedience reveals the depth of our love for him. When he says in John 14:15, if you love me, you will obey my commands.
[00:21:08] So his followers, love is Always connected to their obedience. And the proof of their love for them is their obedience.
[00:21:19] The Shema is a prayer about listening to and loving God. But the prayer continues. It says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And in other words, the people are to love God with all of their beings, their knowledge, their existence, everything that they are is to love God with action, obedience and covenant, faithfulness.
[00:21:39] How much more should this be true of the Christian? Because as we stand on the other side of grace, so Jesus silenced the Sadducees and the crowds were astonished at his teaching. And now it's the Pharisees turn and one of them, an expert of the law, a lawyer, comes at Jesus with the question to test him.
[00:22:00] And some of the background that I found out about the Pharisees is the word Pharisee is a Hebrew word, actually means separate, to be separate or separated.
[00:22:09] And some of the differences that they had with the Sadducees was their group consisted of middle class businessmen, while the Sadducees were wealthy aristocrats.
[00:22:21] The Pharisees were leaders in a synagogue where the Sadducees were leaders in the Temple.
[00:22:28] They held that the Word of God consisted of all the law and the prophets, not just the first five books. And they did believe in the resurrection, the afterlife, angels and demons. Unlike the Sadducees, these two schools that they had, which consisted of the Shammai, used a strict unbending interpretation of law on every issue.
[00:22:50] And they fostered hatred for anything Roman, including taxation.
[00:22:54] They wanted to allow all communication and commerce between Jew and Gentile, while the other school, Hillel, held a more loose level interpretation and application of the law. And they were more gracious in their dealings with Gentiles and opposed such extreme exclusiveness as the other school did.
[00:23:12] These two schools were so hostile to each other, they refused to worship together.
[00:23:17] And their emphasis was on personal piety and making a show of it whenever they could.
[00:23:24] They were an influential religious sect within Judaism. While they were always a minority in the Sanhedrin, they seemed to control the decision making because they had the favor of the people.
[00:23:35] They accepted and followed both oral traditions and the written law, and they held to the entire Old Testament, whereas the Sadducees only the first five books, they believe the Jews should observe all 613 laws found in the Torah.
[00:23:50] You know, I, I taught about this passage in a senior care center and talked about, can you imagine trying to live your life trying to follow 613 rules?
[00:24:04] 365 of those rules or laws were considered negative things you should not do, and 248 were considered positive things you should do.
[00:24:15] I mean, just how oppressive and, and bound up a person could be trying to live out like their faith this way.
[00:24:24] And I think it's one reason why Jesus accused the religious leaders of lording over the people.
[00:24:30] How many of us find ourselves in constant struggle mode trying to figure out this thing called the Christian life.
[00:24:37] Don't we sometimes feel like we're all tied up in knots? It just seems like there's so many responsibilities and so many relationships, so much stress and pressure and burden, so many things I need to have a handle on, so many opportunities. It can all be overwhelming sometimes.
[00:24:54] Life too often feels filled with anxiety, worry, fear and fatigue. And raise your hand if you've ever felt that way.
[00:25:05] Is this how Jesus meant life to be when he said, take my yoke upon you and learn to me, for I'm gentle and humble of heart, and you'll find rest for your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:25:16] Basically, he's saying that the yoke represents surrendering, giving him control, letting him be the authority of all of your life and all your decision making and all the things that you do. And he says it is easy and it's light.
[00:25:32] But quite often the Christian life doesn't feel that way.
[00:25:37] I think the greatest obstacle, love is fear.
[00:25:41] And John writes in his first letter that God is love and love comes from God. And then he writes in First John 14, There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment.
[00:25:55] And you see, the perfect love that he speaks of here is not ever us being perfect in this side of heaven. We cannot reach that place of perfect love in this life.
[00:26:05] We most certainly can and should grow in our ability to love. But the perfect love he speaks of is the love of Christ.
[00:26:12] And I believe that word punishment here refers to the unwanted consequences of our living in fear.
[00:26:18] You see, fear can be a good thing when it warns us of impending danger. But there are other fears that leave us paralyzed and debilitated.
[00:26:29] It could be the fear of rejection, that as I try to move forward in life, others will see my shortcomings and they're going to reject me or say I don't have what it takes.
[00:26:38] It could be the fear of loss, that if I obey God in this area, then I'm going to lose out on something desirable.
[00:26:45] Maybe it's something that I love to do or Maybe it's friendships that I think that I'm going to lose.
[00:26:50] Could be the fear of humiliation, that I'm going to be embarrassed or made fun of or ridiculed. If I actually obey God and step out in faith in some way, it could be the fear of exposure. Someone will find out about my sin and condemn me.
[00:27:07] Mark Twain once said, I've been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually have happened.
[00:27:15] And isn't that so true with fear?
[00:27:19] So many things that we fear and that we imagine in our minds and the worst can happen. Rarely ever does the thing we fear the most almost never manifests itself. And most times there are lies from the enemy who wants to keep you stuck in place.
[00:27:37] The devil will masquerade as the impassable giant in your life, speaking lies that you aren't big enough, you aren't strong enough, you aren't smart enough, you're not gifted or talented enough to do what God's asking you to do.
[00:27:52] While in Colombia on Sunday, at our first time Mission Point in Soledad, we worshiped at Pastor Sergio's church. And Pastor Mark gave a sermon on fear, which he was focusing on David and Goliath. David being the only one of thousands of Israeli Israelite warriors who was willing to actually face the giant.
[00:28:14] Pastor Mark stated that in the story David's not us, it's Jesus.
[00:28:20] And I find that very interesting because I think we sometimes think that that's us and that we're supposed to be facing our giants. But the one who faces our giants for us is Jesus. The only one who has the strength and the power to defeat the giants in their life is Jesus.
[00:28:35] And that's when we surrender our life to Jesus. That's when we trust Jesus, that when we place our faith in Jesus, that we really can get beyond the giants of fear in our lives.
[00:28:49] Only when we understand our secure place with Christ can we advance against the giants in our lives.
[00:29:00] You know my story, I. I lived the better part of my adult life filled with anxiety.
[00:29:06] And in the early years of my walk with Christ, I would say no to God when he asked me to move out in some way out of my comfort zone. My life was structured in such a way, moving in from my upbringing as a is to try to establish and find my comfort zone and stay there and never be asked to move out of it.
[00:29:28] Finally, as I began to understand God's love for me and my secure place with Him, I made a decision that I was no longer going to miss out. Because see when you live in FE and you're paralyzed and debilitated by fear, you are missing out on God's very best. You are missing out on so many things that he wants to do in and through you. You're missing out on this adventure that he has placed before you.
[00:29:51] And. And you're just stuck.
[00:29:57] I would never have preached one sermon. I would have never led a small group, I would never have pastored a church, and I would never have gone on the mission field now 15 times if I had not repeatedly said yes to God while I still had fear.
[00:30:13] If you wait to take steps forward until your fear goes away, get used to being stuck with the life that you have, because that's all the farther you're going to go. Because, you see, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to step out with your fear and trust God.
[00:30:33] And sometimes we most certainly can be our worst enemy, our own worst enemy.
[00:30:40] And what I mean by that is quite often our anxiety and fear come from life choices we've made outside of the will of God that we've not surrendered to his authority and control. You know, those choices that we've convinced ourselves that's God's will and have ended up stretching us beyond our ability to endure or have kept us stuck in places that we'd prefer not to be.
[00:31:01] What always makes a mess of things is you thinking you know better than God.
[00:31:08] Is there a way to boil it all down in such a way that makes sense and is doable? I'm talking about the Christian life.
[00:31:16] Well, I believe in this passage, Jesus is telling us the art of healthy living is loving. Loving God with all of our heart, mind in soul. I believe Mark adds strength to that. He says, this is the first and greatest commandment.
[00:31:32] Your ability to love others well comes in direct proportion to you daily staying connected to Christ, empowered by his spirit.
[00:31:43] And then he says the second command that is like the first. Love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:31:49] And listen, love does involve feelings and it involves emotions and it involves passion. But the love that Jesus speaks of here is the Hebrew word agape, and that is unconditional love. It's everlasting love. It's unbreakable love. It's selfless love. It's sacrificial love. It's love that chooses over and over and over to die to self for the betterment of another person.
[00:32:18] Who's your neighbor in this?
[00:32:22] It's every person that has been made in the image of God.
[00:32:28] So it doesn't exclude anyone.
[00:32:33] The kind of love that God sews in our hearts is when you aren't feeling it, when you've been wronged, when you have been excluded or rejected, when you disagree with someone, let's say politically, where that person is unlovable and where they don't deserve it. And this is how God loves us. For in Romans 5, 8, it says, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You need. Christ never asked us to clean up our act first. He never asked us to get straight our life first. He never asked us to get rid of all of our sin first. That while we were yet sinners, he died for us.
[00:33:09] And that's the beauty and the amazement of his grace, because his love and his grace is undeserved favor.
[00:33:19] According to Jesus, all of us live in three directions.
[00:33:23] Our love for God upward, our love for our neighbor outward, and our love for ourselves inward.
[00:33:32] And this third kind of love is not some Eastern mysticism, self help guru, self actualization, putting yourself first approach to life.
[00:33:44] Instead it's laying at the foot of the cross, all of your sin, your failures, your guilt, your shame and your regret. It's dispelling the lies of your enemy with the truth of God's word. It's embracing the unconditional love of God in Christ and your new identity as a beloved child of God. So many people I know struggle with this.
[00:34:03] God went to great lengths to ensure your forgiveness, and yet you will not forgive yourself. How crazy is that?
[00:34:10] Do you get that you're doing that?
[00:34:17] If you want to know if you, if you love yourself, ask the person who's closest to you.
[00:34:23] You see, because the person closest to you can begin to detect when you, when you constantly beat up yourself when you make a mistake.
[00:34:31] And, and sometimes we're just, we're. We're not self aware about the selves and ourselves and the way we are.
[00:34:40] I don't believe that Jesus is trying to identify a division of parts so much in our makeup as human beings, but is trying to get across to his followers that the heart, mind, soul and strength represent the totality of you, that you're holding nothing back from him.
[00:34:55] And Jesus, you're loved, you're forgiven, and you are precious. And when you embrace that, you begin to experience the freedom of that debilitating fear and the love of God that enraptures your heart and fills your mind and strengthens you to move forward in life.
[00:35:18] That even though I'm afraid that this God's with me and nothing's ever going to separate me from His Low.
[00:35:28] Okay, let's read the final section of our passage today. Let's read verses 41, 46.
[00:35:42] While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them, what do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?
[00:35:48] They replied David's. He asked them, how is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord? The Lord declared to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under my feet.
[00:36:00] Under your feet. If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son? No one was able to answer him at all. And from that day, no one dared to question him anymore. I love that how this section ends. You know, the first one says that he silenced the Sadducees. I mean, they had no response. And now it says, hey, we're going to give up asking this guy questions because he just gives too profound of answers for us to even respond to anymore.
[00:36:32] Matthew closes chapter with Jesus changing the approach from allowing them to question him to him asking them a question, what do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?
[00:36:42] And the Pharisees answered, david. The most common Messianic term for the Jews was the son of David.
[00:36:49] Then how is it that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, calls him Lord and quotes Psalm 110? 1. This is considered a Messianic psalm for telling of the coming Messiah.
[00:36:59] Why? It had to do with God's promise to David, found in 2nd Samuel 7, where God says, your descendant will sit on your throne forever.
[00:37:09] Well, that can't be Solomon, David's son, for he died.
[00:37:15] And after his death, the kingdom was divided in two between Jeroboam and Rehoboam, southern and northern. And then the kingdom was displaced by foreign powers.
[00:37:25] So who could this descendant be?
[00:37:29] The Jews believe this promise will be fulfilled through a human agent.
[00:37:33] And Jesus telling them that, you got a problem with that?
[00:37:38] If David called Messiah, that his Lord, which is the term, the word Adonai, which means Lord and refers to God, then how could he be David's human son?
[00:37:49] Messiah David speaks of must be both human and divine.
[00:37:56] And that's where the Jews were rough.
[00:38:02] Van, you can come back up.
[00:38:07] I just want to close with this. This morning, the thing three things that we focused on this morning is we started out with hope.
[00:38:20] You know, that we can find hope in the promise that because we're believers in Christ, we too will be raised with Christ and get to live eternally with him.
[00:38:31] And we focus on love, which the basis of and the source of our love is that it's a love in Christ that we can never be separated from.
[00:38:42] And that should give us security as we live in this life. And then the final is faith. That Jesus is alone, the object of our faith. And he never fails.
[00:38:54] There must be something. God has spoken directly to you this morning.
[00:38:58] I just want you to take some time now and over with him.
[00:39:02] Jordan, spend some time doing that now.
