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TranscriptDon’t get your commandments out of Order

There's a big emphasis today in society and in the church about love. Who doesn't love, love? Here's the thing. Love is a word desperately in need of a definition. So often, even we in the church don't have a biblically-based concept of love. Today I want us to look at what Jesus said when he was asked what the greatest commandment was in the law. In Matthew 22 we see a record of one of the experts in the Mosaic Law coming and talking to Jesus. He said,

”Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Now before we go on and see what Jesus said, it may be helpful to understand where this question was coming from. You see, the Jews had 613 commandments. They had 613 laws they had to obey. That's just extremely burdensome. What we understand is that they'd actually divided these into heavy and light types of laws. The heavy ones are the "you really need to do these" types of laws. The light ones are "Well, if you think about it or you get to it, then focus on those."

The law was burdensome, and it was meant to be a teacher, to tell us as people about the gravity of sin, the perfection that is God and his standard, and our inability to meet that standard. I think it did a very good job at that. But, that's kind of what's behind this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in all of the law."

Here's how Jesus replies. He says,

”Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."

This also takes us back to the Shema in Deuteronomy. He Continues,

”And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. All of the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”

He distilled all of the law down to these two statements. Love God and love others. Now I don't think that order is a mistake, and I don't think it's just an accident when Jesus said this is the first and greatest commandment, referring to loving God.

However, in the church today, I think there's been this tendency to flip the order of those commandments, to love your neighbor like yourself, and the second commandment is like it: love the Lord your God. We flip those things practically sometimes. Would we ever say that they should be in a different order? No, but I think the way we act sometimes betrays us.

Social Justice

Now, what are some examples of this? I think the whole social justice movement is a an example of this, where the mission of the church is defined more in terms of what the church is supposed to affect in a physical sense here on earth. That maybe it's supposed to end sex trafficking. That it's supposed to end hunger and poverty. That Jesus came to transform the world here and now through the church.

The problem is, firstly, as some have pointed out, that whenever you put another word in front of justice, like “social justice,” you've probably corrupted it. Justice should stand on its own. I agree with that. More than that, the mission of the church is not about transforming this world here and now. It's not about building the kingdom of God but about God ushering in his own kingdom. The kingdom of God breaks into this world. We don't build it in that way.

Jesus didn't fundamentally come to end poverty, or slavery, or hunger, or things like that. Should the church care about those things? Yes, but that is not the primary job of the church. In fact, the way we show our love for God is by giving him the glory due his name and sharing about him and his glory, and what he has done in history and in our lives with other people so that they might come to worship him in the same way. This is a very practical outworking of the First Commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, …