The Greatest Commandment audio
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Luke: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome back to another episode of the living for his glory podcast, or to you people on my YouTube, if you're watching through that either way is awesome and highly recommended. of course, you know, YouTube is going to offer a more visual perspective while the podcast is more of an audio, but whatever works for you, whichever is best for you, the same content on either or it's just a matter of preference.
Now, we have just finished last week. We just finished our series on James and these first, we went to the five chapters of James. Those first five weeks is me just kind of getting back into things, getting to a routine where I could do this again. but now we're finally back. We're finally in a good routine.
We're finally in a good place that I can do this again. And I'm really excited to do that. It's been awesome being back. It's been awesome being back with you guys, spread the good word and, and honestly spreading it, you know, doing this, it's helped me, really focus on the word and, and, and be deeper [00:01:00] connected to that and, be more active in my faith and then learning and growing my faith.
It's been really cool. right now, we're just not, we're not going to go into another series, but we're just going to go through various of the topics, you know, people that, you know, maybe my peers want me to talk about. We're speaking to my peers. Be expecting some guests soon. I got, I got some guys and girls that are lined up, they're ready to go.
And, those are going to be some great discussions. So be on the lookout for those. I'm really looking forward to those, but right now, stay in the present and focus on what we're talking about this week. And Matthew 22. We're coming from verses 34 through 40. in my, in my translation, it's titled the greatest commandment.
Some of you have may or may not have heard this before. We're mainly going to be prioritized by prioritizing versus 37 through 39. we're talking about, you know, Jesus's take on what is the greatest commandment? Let's go into some context with verses 34 through 36 hearing that Jesus had silenced, that had [00:02:00] silenced the Staes, the Pharisees got together, one of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question.
Teacher, what is the gr, what is the greatest commandment in the law? Trying to test Jesus as the Pharisees knew, 'cause they're like that. They keep trying to test 'em, make 'em trip up. And as we get into three seven, which is where we. Hitting on Jesus replied, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul with all your mind This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself Talks about love and I think this is a very this is something that we can we we know love Like we kind of this is a concept that we grasp.
This is something that we kind of know We know what jesus is talking about when he's when he mentions This word, but I think that this is a harder thing to do than we realize because we can't do it on our own. We can't do it on our own. Okay. let me give you some examples. I can force myself to do [00:03:00] things, McKinley, things that I don't like.
Okay. So let's say, you know, I'm at the dinner table. Let's say I'm back home. Let's say I'm a kid again. All right. Now, there's not going to be really any fights between me and my parents if, you know, we're eating pizza, if it's a pizza night, or we got cheeseburgers, or, ooh, give me some pork chops, I love, I love my pork chops, give me my pork chops and mac and cheese.
My parents put that down for me every single night, pork chops and mac and cheese every night. I would not argue, I would not complain, things would be perfect, there would be no dinner arguments from me. I love that meal, and I... Honestly would encourage you guys to try it. it would change your life when I especially when I cook it It it is a great great thing But unfortunately, that's not how things roll and sometimes as a kid my parents would put something like asparagus in front of my face Or whatever it may be.
Some food, some nasty food that I didn't like or appreciate. I couldn't mechanically force [00:04:00] myself to eat that food. Especially, you know, when given the ultimatum. Like, eat this food. This will be the next food you eat. Whether that be now or in three days. Or in a week, this will be the next thing you eat.
Now, when given that ultimatum, I can mechanically say, I'm going to eat this food, then I can mechanically do it. I can chew it and swallow it as much as I hate it. I can do it. And this is why, and this is why I think we're saved by faith and not by works. Cause we can, we can make ourselves do something.
We can force ourselves to do something. We can force ourselves to do a chore that we don't want to do, that we don't like or appreciate. But the thing is, Jesus, Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself and impossible, like an impossible, an impossible task and then loving the Lord, your God with everything you got, you know, all your heart and soul and your mind like that, like this is more than just an action.
This is more than just forcing myself to do something. This is a whole. When I talk about love, [00:05:00] something that I thoroughly enjoy, something that I want to do, something that I wake up excited, excited to do, like Kobe Bryant. He loved, he loved basketball. He loved it. Basketball was his thing. He woke up.
Every day excited to go play basketball to work on his game to to get better at basketball. That was his whole life That's the reason he woke up in the morning. He's excited to do that Sometimes, you know, we wake up in the morning to go do our stuff and we don't always feel excited This idea of loving the Lord, you know with all your heart soul and mind Then also loving your neighbors yourself at something that we are excited to be excited to do that requires an X level of excitement We love to do it.
There's nothing else we would rather be doing But that's impossible, because actually we've mentioned this in James already. The same tongue that praises God curses mankind. We curse mankind, we curse each other, we curse our peers and the people that we're around, our neighbors. But [00:06:00] yet, the second commandment, the second commandment that goes along with the first is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Think about, like, if you're an athlete, okay, your coach has told you to go run, or to do this drill that you don't really like, it's boring, it's boring. You love the game! You like the game. You like playing the game. But this one drill, this whole thing that coach is asking you to do, you're like, Ugh, I gotta do this.
I gotta, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, that's first commandment. Oh, I can love the God like, I can love God like that with all my heart, mind, and soul. And then Jesus follows it up with, Oh, love your neighbor too. It's like, Oh, I gotta, like, I gotta. Like, like this guy over here, like him, come on, like he just, he's a, he's a sinner, you know, he's, he's not that guy, he's not that guy.
And so, that's, you know, that's, that's where the line can be drawn a lot of times, and that's when our faith has to take a new level, get to a new level, gotta get to a new meaning. So as a golfer, here's something that I don't always like. I don't always like to practice [00:07:00] my putting. So the putting it's more, it's the more boring side of golf.
We're not sitting up to a, to a golf ball and giving it this full swing that I'm not swinging out of my shoes. You know, if I'm hitting a driver, I'm not swinging 115 miles an hour. And I hit this pot. I'm just sitting up there and rocking my shoulders a little bit, just a little, this motion. It's not exciting.
It's not the athletic motion. It's not something that I'm like, yeah, this is great. Like, this is, you know, it's not, you're not running around hitting people basketball, like football, like whatever. It's not that exciting. The thing is, I don't like to do it, but putting it's very important to do. It helps the game long story short for you non golfers out there.
It makes things better and easier. And it really, and it can really make a good round. It can make a, it can make a brick around it probably can, but it's not very enjoyable or it wasn't. I learned, but the thing is, in order to make it enjoyable, that's, that's the way that I had to get better to really love it.
I could force myself to do [00:08:00] that, but if I didn't really love it and it didn't really excite me, well, it could take away. Or my love of the game, or, you know, my putting could not be, could not get as good as it could have been, and I could fail. So I had to learn to love it, and it's nothing that I could force myself to do.
It's something that just kind of had to come, something that had to change in me, in my own being. The thing about our hearts is that our hearts, by nature, It's like people say, oh, God knows my heart. God knows my intentions. Yeah, God knows your heart, and He wants to give you a new one. Because this new one with our heart, as good of our, as our intentions may or may not be, we cannot live up to this greatest commandment as well as we can with our hearts.
Even if we, you know, we love the Lord, we love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, and mind. Like, oh yeah, that's kind of, you know, that's kind of the basics of Christianity. That's kind of us getting into it and understanding it. But I think this is the second one of loving your neighbor as yourself.
That gets, that, [00:09:00] that gets into a deeper level. That's like the, like what I'm saying about putting, it's like, yeah, I already love the game, but now I got to love this aspect of it that I may not really enjoy naturally, that I'm naturally wake up excited to do, that I naturally want to do. And this comes down to, to the power, of the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit in us, it can work through us, and the Holy Spirit has the power to change us. It can, it, it can change our hearts. So when it comes to this law, this statement of loving, it comes from a sense of source. I want to do this now. I want to love my neighbor as I do myself.
Like no matter who it is, whether it's my best friend or some stranger that may or may not be on whatever, you know, even the lowest, the low is still our neighbor still requires a level of love, even though, you may not always be buddy, buddy with them, you know, sometimes it's not safe to be buddy, buddy with them.
It [00:10:00] doesn't mean you love them any less. So the thing is, it's like we have to have this level of love. That, and love has come from a source. It's not something you can just force yourself to do. It's something that has to come from your source, your innermost being your heart. That's where love comes from.
And so if we are to learn to love our, to love something that we don't want to naturally do, our heart has to change. My heart had to change for me to enjoy and love putting as I have learned to do so as I do now, my heart changed. The reason of why I love the game has changed. My appreciation for the game has deepened and, again, changed.
And I think, and I know, that the Holy Spirit has to work in us and change us. We have to let the Holy Spirit change us so that we can follow this greatest command of loving the Lord our God with our heart, soul, and mind. And then also loving our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus says in verse 40, All the law and the prophets hang on these two [00:11:00] commandments.
So all, so if we bring in all these laws, we bring in Leviticus, and everything that we've ever been told throughout the entire scripture, these two things of love hinge on everything. It's kind of the source. If you do these two things, you're gonna do that, you're gonna do the law pretty well. If the law is going to hold up to a good amount, you're going to do it pretty well.
So, what I invite us to do is to not just have this discipline and force ourselves to do something, force ourselves to obey this law. I encourage us to allow the Holy Spirit to change us, to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit. And allow it to change us so that now we just do these things naturally. And the things that the law hinges on, well, we now have a love and affection for it, and that's our source.
Our, our source says, I want to do this. I love to do this and I'm going to do this. I think that's a great way to live. I think that's a great thing to have. And, all in all, [00:12:00] it's like, we have to have a good source. We should, we should, these two commandments that we see here, we should want to do them. We should wake up looking to do them, wanting to do them, and doing them in every part of our day, no matter what we're doing.
These are things that we can just do. No matter what action we're partaking in, almost no matter what action we're partaking in. Of course, if you're doing something that's contradictory to the good word of Jesus, you know, maybe that's a little different. But for the majority of the things that you're going to do in your everyday life, you can love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind in your everyday life.
You can love your neighbor in your everyday life. Even if you aren't buddy buddy with them, even if you don't know them, you can still love them. And that's, that comes from a real heart for Jesus. That comes from a heart that's been changed by the Holy Spirit, that has heard the word of Jesus, that loves God, has been changed away from its original sinful and fleshy desires.
So I encourage us every single [00:13:00] day of every single week and every moment that we can, we should want and invite the Holy Spirit to change our hearts to be Like David, David, a man after God's own heart. We should hope to be men and women after God's own heart, men and women of God are his children. And that means allowing the Holy spirit to come in and change us so that we can obey these two greatest commandments that we cannot do on our own, that we cannot just simply force ourselves to do.
This requires an external source to help us out. If we can allow God to overcome our hearts, to be the source of our hearts, to have a heart after Him, all of a sudden we have the direction through Him. Our job is just to keep pushing forward, to keep rowing the boat that He is guiding, and to keep chasing after Him.
And I believe that He will take care of the rest. So go forth and remember to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your [00:14:00] neighbor as yourself, and go and be changed by the Holy Spirit to be able to do these things to the best of your ability. Again, thank you for coming back on, thank you for coming back, thank you for listening.
I really hope this message has touched you in some sort of way. Pray that God has moved you, pray that God continues to move you, that you can not just operate based off a spiritual high, but every single day, and that God changes your heart to be more like his, so that you can become like David, a man or woman.
After God's own heart, again, thank you guys. I love you guys. Of course. I love you guys. That's the commandment and that's the way my heart has been changed. Of course. I love you guys. You guys are my neighbors. Even if you don't live right next to me, even if you live all across the country, you are my neighbor.
You're my brother and sister in Christ. So I love you because I am commanded to do so. And my heart has been changed by God for the good. thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Be sure to tune in next week for our, for our [00:15:00] next video. Thank you. Have a fantastic day and week.
