TEN COMMANDMENTS
THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT
DR. JIM DIXON
JULY 26, 1992
MATTHEW 22:34-40
“NGC 3115” sounds like something you would see on the license plate of the car in front of you, but it actually represents something a lot larger and a lot further away. “NGC 3115” is the name of a galaxy thirty million light years from earth. In these past few months, this galaxy has become of particular interest and concern for astronomers and scientists. They have witnessed something at the core of this distant galaxy. They have seen something big. They have seen something dark. They have seen something ominous. They have seen something powerful.
They have seen a black hole that is the size of our entire solar system, a black hole with a mass equal to a billion of our suns. It is a black hole so powerful that human minds cannot comprehend its power, a black hole that is literally devouring stellar material and gobbling up stars and planets. This black hole is destroying light and perhaps even life. But, you see, that is what black holes do. Their gravitational pull is so great that light itself cannot escape. Scientists tell us that at the core of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, there is a black hole called the “annihilator.”
As we study the physical universe, we soon discover that there are forces of light and darkness in the physical realm. There are forces that are constructive and forces that are destructive. There are benevolent forces and there are malignant forces.
What is true of the physical universe is also true of the spiritual and relational world. In the spiritual and relational world, there are destructive forces and constructive forces. There are malignant forces, and there are benevolent forces, forces of light and forces of darkness. The Bible tells us that in the relational world, there is no power more benevolent, no power greater than the power of love. Faith, hope, and “the greatest of these,” the Bible says, “is love.”
The Bible mentions many different kinds of love. The Bible speaks of “philanthropos,” which is the love of people. The Bible speaks of “philadelphus,” which is the love of brothers, sisters, and friends. The Bible speaks of “philoxenos,” which is the love of strangers. The Bible speaks of “philostorgis,” which is the love of family. The Bible speaks of “philogothos,” which is the love of all things good. The Bible speaks of philohtos which is the love of self. But for us, as Christians, the Bible says that no love is more important than “philotheos,” which is the love of God. This word, “philotheos,” is not used to describe God’s love for us; it is used, rather, to describe our love for God.
This is the first and greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” This morning, we will focus on this great commandment, on this great power. I have three brief teachings, and the first is this: We cannot love God until we have experienced, in some measure, God’s love for us. It is not possible for us to truly love God until we have actually experienced the love that God has for us.
There is a small branch of theology that is called angelology. Angelology is the study of angels. I think most Christians would affirm the reality and existence of angels, but most Christians spend very little time studying angels. This is not true of angelologists. They study archangels, cherubim, seraphim, principalities, powers, thrones, and dominions. They study the nature, appearance, and function of angels.
There are some angelologists who believe that the angels of God do not have the power or the ability to love. They believe this because, in accordance with the Scriptures, angels are holy. Of course, being holy, they have no sin. Having no sin, they, therefore, do not need to repent. Not needing to repent, they, therefore, never experience forgiveness. They have never experienced God’s grace. They have never experienced God’s mercy. It is said they cannot possibly fully comprehend God’s love. They are, it is said, perfect legalists. These angelologists point to 1 Peter chapter 1, where we are told that the gospel of Christ is a mystery into which angels long to look.
I would disagree with this perspective on angels. I do believe that the holy angels of God have the power to love. I do not see how they could worship God perfectly, surrounding His throne in heaven, if they did not have love for God. Yet, when we look at the human realm, we must admit it is true that we really cannot love God unless we have experienced something of His mercy and something of His grace. The Bible states this. We can only love God to the extent that we have begun to experience His mercy, His grace, and His forgiveness.
A few weeks ago, we took a look at Luke chapter 7. Jesus was at the home of Simon the Pharisee when a woman of the streets came in, a prostitute. She came in repentance, and she came to Christ. She had tears in her eyes, and He forgave her. In that passage of Scripture, we are told that Simon the Pharisee looked at this woman, and he judged her. He judged her as of no worth and no value. He thought to himself, “If Jesus knew what this woman was really like, He wouldn’t have anything to do with her.” The Bible tells us that Jesus knew Simon’s thoughts. Jesus said to him, “Simon, when I came into your house, you gave Me no water to wash My feet. This woman has not ceased to wash My feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. When I came into your house, you did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with costly ointment. When I came into your house, you did not greet Me with so much as a kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who has been forgiven much, loves much. He who has been forgiven little, loves little.” Perhaps the implication of that statement is this: the person that has not been forgiven at all does not love at all.
You see, it is only as we come to Christ and experience His love, His grace, and His mercy that we are enabled to love God. All over this world, from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, there are men and women seeking to discover God and love Him; but we can only love God as we come to Him in Christ, as we begin to understand and embrace His love, His mercy, and His grace. That is why the Bible says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the expiation for our sins. We love because He first loved us.” It is impossible to love God until you have experienced something of His love for you. It is impossible to truly love God until you have responded to the gospel of His Son, until you have embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and begun to experience His incomprehensible grace and mercy.
The second teaching this morning is this: you cannot love God without obeying His commandments. This is squarely rooted in the Word of God. The Bible affirms again and again that unless we obey the commandments of the Lord, we do not truly love the Lord.
Ivan IV ruled Russia for 37 years. This young prince ascended the throne in the year 1547 at the age of seventeen. Many historians view Ivan IV as perhaps the greatest ruler in Russian history, second only to Peter the Great (the half-brother of Ivan V). Ivan IV laid the foundation for Russia’s growth, and he expanded Russia into Siberia. He conquered regions and lands along the Volga River, and he made Moscow the capital of Russia. He opened up Russia’s doors to diplomatic relations with western powers. He was a man with great skill, and he was very eloquent of speech. He had great administrative abilities.
Ivan IV loved God . . . at least, he said he loved God. He believed in God. He spent great gobs of time fasting. He spent much time praying. He built churches all over Russia, many of which still stand today. Ivan IV believed, without a doubt, that he was established on the throne of Russia by the hand of God. In fact, he believed that his acts were actually the acts of God—so much did God work through him and through his life. This is what he believed. When he died in the year 1584, he was declared a monk. His head was shaved like a monk, and he was buried in monk’s garb. Ivan IV had no doubt that he would just fly through the gates of heaven.
I must say, I have my doubts because, you see, Ivan IV did not truly love God. He could not have loved God because he lived his whole life in violation of the commandments of God. He had no love for God’s commandments, God’s values, or God’s ethics. This was true particularly after the death of Anastasia, his first wife, who died in the 13th year of Ivan’s reign. After her death, Ivan went ballistic. He went into the city of Novgorod. It was rumored that Novgorod was contemplating a defection into the neighboring country of Lithuania. He went into the city of Novgorod, and he exterminated it. He tortured the people for five weeks. He butchered and murdered 60,000 people. Ivan IV killed his own son in a fit of rage.
This tendency towards violence and cruelty was in him from his youth. As a young man, he would throw cats and dogs from the roof of the Kremlin and watch them die. Ivan IV was a man who was married seven times. He had countless affairs, and he was a chronic adulterer. He was drunk as often as he was sober. He lived a life of debauchery and sin with no regard for the will of God. Did he love God? It seems unlikely. That is why, of course, Ivan IV was ultimately called, “Ivan the Terrible.” Though declared a monk, he seemingly did not love God.
We live in a world where there is hypocrisy, perhaps not of the magnitude of Ivan IV, but hypocrisy, nonetheless. So many people in our world say they love God, so many people in the United States of America. So many of us say, “We love God!” And yet, our country places less and less value on the commandments of God. We transgress those commandments so freely, and we take them so lightly. Hypocrisy.
If we love God, we want to obey His commandments. The Bible indicates that if we love God, then we are going to love the things that God loves. The Bible indicates that if we truly love God, we are going to have God’s heart. If we love God, we are going to hate the things that God hates. We are going to be vexed by the things that vex God. The love of God is not a weak love. It is not a soft love. It is not a love that just tolerates everything. It loves everyone, but it does not tolerate everything. I think sometimes the world does not understand the love of God or even the love of Christians.
Bill McCartney was instrumental in putting together this conference up in Boulder this weekend. Twenty-two thousand, five hundred men attended yesterday, and almost that number attended on Friday night. It was a great conference for men, by all accounts, and very Christ-centered. It was very needful in this time in which we live. Outside of the conference on Friday night, as reported in “The Denver Post” and “The Rocky Mountain News,” there was a group of approximately 100 gay rights advocates. They were upset with Coach McCartney and, perhaps, with all who were in that stadium. They called Coach McCartney and others “born again bigots” and “hatemongers.”
Coach McCartney has come out in support of a pro-family organizations. He has spoken against the practice of homosexual behavior. He has spoken against the indiscriminate use of abortion in our nation. And he has been greatly persecuted by the world because of this. Pat Schroeder, our congresswoman, has said that Coach McCartney is a hatemonger and a self-styled Ayatollah. The world cannot understand. But if you love God, you are going to be vexed by the things that vex Him. You are going to hate sin. If you really love God, you are going to hate sin in your own life and in society.
I know Coach Bill McCartney enough to say this: I know he loves people. I believe he loves all people. I believe he loves gays. I believe he loves women who have had abortions. I really believe that if anyone reached out and asked for help, he would reach out and give help. I really believe he loves people, but he also loves God; and if you love God, your heart is vexed by the things that vex God. You grieve at the sin that permeates our society.
I honestly believe that this world is becoming a darker place. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to be light in the world. There was a time when the morals and ethics of Christians in general were embraced by society as a whole. That time is gone. I think it is going to become more and more difficult to be a Christian, to take a stand. We have been called to be light in the darkness and salt on the earth. The Bible says, “Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. For if anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away and the desires of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever.” If you love God, you want His will in your life, and you want His will in this world.
I have a third and final teaching, this morning, concerning love. It is this: if we love God, we will love people. Of course, this is perhaps the most important teaching that we could give on love. If we really love God, we will love people. I read an interview with Katharine Hepburn in the June 29 issue of “Time Magazine.” It is kind of a tragic interview. In the interview, Katharine Hepburn said that she thought it was amazing that anyone could love anyone. She said that it is just extremely hard to love another human being.
I suppose there’s a lot of people in this world who feel like that; but if we really love God, we are going to begin to love people too—because God loves people. The Bible says, “He who says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God ought to love his brother also.”
Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like to it: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” These two commandments are joined. If you love God, you love your neighbor. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. This is My commandment, that you love one another.”
Tragically, there are many people in our world—perhaps some people in this room—who do not feel loved. There are a lot of people in this world that feel like they have no friends. There might be some men or women in this room today who feel like they have no friends. Christians are called to befriend people. In fact, one of the words for love is the word “phileo.” This is the most common word for love in the Greek world, used time and again in the Bible. The word “friend” comes from the same root. The word “friend” in the Greek is the word “philos.” And the word “love” is “phileo,” meaning “to love with affection.” As Christians, we are called to love, to befriend people.
There is a story told in the gospel of John concerning an event in the life of the disciples after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are told that Christ appeared to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee. There was a moment when Jesus talked to Peter. Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” Jesus asked him that three times. “Do you love Me?” Three times Peter said, “Lord, you know that I love you.”
The first time, when Jesus said, “Peter, do you love Me?” Jesus used the word “agape,” a selfless love. “Do you love Me with a selfless love?” Peter responded by saying, “Lord, you know that I love you.” Peter used the word “phileo,” friendship love. “I have great affection for you, and you have great affection for me. We are friends. I love you like that.” The second time Jesus said, “Peter, do you love Me?” Again, Jesus used the word “agape.” “Do you love Me with selfless love?” Again, Peter said, “Lord, I love you with ‘phileo.’ You’re my friend.” Then finally, the third time, Jesus took Peter’s word. Jesus said, “Peter, do you love Me?” This time, Jesus used the word “phileo.” “Do you love Me like a friend?” Peter was grieved.
It is often said that Peter was grieved because the Lord asked him three times. Perhaps that was part of it. But it seems to me that there has to be some inference from the use of the Greek words here. I doubt that they are interchangeable. It seems to me that Peter longed to be a friend of Jesus Christ, and that friendship with Christ was precious to him. How grieved he was that Christ might question their friendship. If you love Jesus Christ, if you believe in Him, then you want Christ to be your friend. He is your Lord, and He is your God; but He is also your friend. If He is your friend . . . If you love Him, then know this: He has called you to love and befriend others like that. That’s part of what it means to be a Christian.
I told the staff a little story a few weeks ago. It is a true story that comes from the animal world. There is a little marine animal called the Pena sea snail. The Pena sea snail is found in saltwater oceans all over the world. It lives in a little shell. This little shell has a bi-valve, which can open like a lid or a door. When the snail is hungry, it opens that door—that’s the only way it can get food. The problem is, the snail is blind. It cannot see, and it has many enemies. It’s very dangerous to open the door to that shell because the enemies are there. One of its enemies is the cuttlefish. The cuttlefish tends to hang around the shells of the Pena sea snails, waiting for them to open. When the door is open, the cuttlefish will swim right in and eat that little snail. That is bad news for the Pena sea snail.
There is another little sea animal that is a crab, and this crab does not have the ability to burrow into the sand as many crabs do. This crab longs for protection as all crabs do, but it cannot burrow into the sand. So, this little crab has somehow come to share the shell with the Pena sea snail. It lives in there with the snail. When the snail is hungry, it opens the bi-valve. It opens the door, and the crab goes nuts. The crab has great vision, and the crab can see if there is any danger out there. If there is not any danger, the crab goes and gets food, comes back, makes a little noise at the door, and the Pena sea snail opens the door. The crab goes in, and they eat together. Marine biologists tell us that wherever they have found these Pena sea snails, they have found these little crabs within their shells.
You might think that is just a dumb little story, but I think it’s great. I mean, this world is tough to live in. And it’s tough for people too. We need each other. The Bible tells us that God has given us to each other. We have been called to love all people. But how much more are we called to love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ?—that we might make it through this world, through tough times and hard times . . . good times too. We’ve been called to befriend each other. If we love God, we love each other.
I think, sometimes, in forming our friends we just tend to look for people who really like us. Maybe we look for people we really like. Sometimes, I think the Spirit of God would like us to look for people who really need a friend. It’s great to find a few people who really like you and you like, but you shouldn’t limit your friends to that group. Look for people who just need a friend. Look for people who are hurting.
We have a ministry in our church called the Stephen Ministry. We have men and women who have been trained, not as professional counselors, but as caregivers. They have been trained to be friends. They love God, and they want to help people. If you are hurting, and you just feel like you do not have anyone to talk to you . . . will you call our church? Would you ask for one of our Stephen ministers? The truth of the matter is that though we have a number of them, they are already swamped. We need more Stephen ministers. We are going to be having another training class coming up. We want to invite you to consider being part of that, to become a caregiver and friend because you love God and you want to love people for Christ’s sake. Even if you are not going to be a Stephen minister, pray that God might touch your heart to reach out a little bit more in loving others, in befriending people. If we love God, we have experienced His mercy and grace. If we love God, we want to obey Him. If we love God, we begin to want to love others. Let us close with a word of prayer.