Sermon Tone Analysis

The great principle of God

Quite rightly we esteem this book!

It is the Word of God Himself!

It is the manual for all faith and practice.

It tells us about God!

It reveals Him and it tells us how to live.

But there is quite a bit in it!

Now I am going to make a bold and, you may regard as arrogant, assertion: that I am going to talk this morning about the most important thing this great Book tells us to do.

It is a big book, there is a fair amount of material in it.

How can I say that it is the most important?

….

Because Jesus Himself did! Look!

Here is something we really need to grasp, lay hold of, put into action!

It is of supreme importance!

This is the great principle of God! [P] Jesus spoke about this matter in the temple, just before He died.

If you know that you are going to die soon, you speak about the things that really matter, the things that you consider most important, the legacy that you want to pass on.

I want to read what Jesus said, ….

twice.

Firstly in Matthew chapter 22 [P] – Jesus had been teaching in the temple; various religious groups had been asking Him questions, testing Him, trying to catch Him out, trying to get Him to say something that they could hold against Him, to trap Him, to prove their point of view – He answered them all, avoiding the traps along the way, finally leaving them silenced, confounded!

Picking it up in verse 34: [Matthew 22:34–40 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.

One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (that is the תּוֹרָה, the Law, given by יהוה to Moses) And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

“This is the great and foremost commandment.

“The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”]

That is the תּוֹרָה and the נביאים, the prophets; by which Jesus was indicating the rest of the Jewish Scriptures which was made up of the Law ( תּוֹרָה), the Prophets ( נביאים) and the Writings ( כתובים) – together making up the תנ״ך – what we would call the Old Testament.

Jesus was saying that the whole of the Scriptures they had depended, was based on, just these two commandments.

Here was this mass of Scriptures but it was but commentary; it was all based on just two commands.

All of their Holy writings could be distilled down into two principles.

Now some of us are better at remembering things than others.

Once I tried to memorize 1 John; I got about half-way through chapter 2 and that was it.

There is no way that I could remember all of the Scriptures.

But those two commands; …. that we can manage.

This is vitally important!

This we must lay hold of and put into practise.

This is the most important thing.

It is easy to remember; ….. but not so easy to do!

We get a slightly different perspective on the same incident in: [P] [Mark 12:28–34 One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, (this man was not antagonistic to Jesus, trying to trap Him.

No, he saw that Jesus handled Scripture well.

He was a scribe, the Scriptures were what He was an expert on; yet, He recognized that Jesus knew them well and applied them well, that He answered well.

This man studied the Scriptures, he’d given his life to their study; yet, there were things that he had wondered about.

He respected Jesus, he genuinely wanted His opinion on these questions that bothered him; so, he ….) asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel!

The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

(you notice that the answer is fuller in Mark, Jesus also gave the context for that commandment) “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.]

This scribe was an expert in the Hebrew Scriptures, that was his profession, it was his whole life.

Yet he yearned for something more, something was missing.

It is said that there are 613 commandments in the תּוֹרָה – we have trouble reciting 10 of them!

But the Jews had built a “hedge” around the Law, other rules to ensure that those in the תּוֹרָה were in no danger of being violated.

For instance: the תּוֹרָה said:” Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” – but to ensure that this never happened there developed a whole raft of laws to keep all meat and dairy separate: separate plates and sinks, certificates of Kashrut.

The Law had become very complicated.

This oral tradition was added; and you had to be an expert to navigate it.

This scribe was such an expert.

But perhaps he felt, that for all his expertise, that he had missed something.

It was all so complicated, unwieldy!

Who could live by it?!

Who could remember all the requirements?

How could you distil it down into something simple, practical, that ordinary people could remember and live by?

What was the essence of this great Law?

What was the key to it?

What unified it?

What was its main theme?

What was it all about when you boiled it down?

What was the greatest commandment?

So, He came and asked Jesus.

When people asked Jesus a question, so often He gave an indirect answer, side-stepping traps, giving an enigmatic reply.

But here, Jesus gave a simple and direct answer.

He told this man straight what the greatest commandment was.

But Jesus quoted the verse before the greatest commandment (Deut 6:4) [P] – it is the iconic verse in the Hebrew faith (known as the shema, from the first word in the verse): [P] אֶחָֽד׃ יהוה אֲנַ֫חְנוּ יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יהוה שְׁמַ֖ע.

Just six words.

Everyone acknowledges that this is the fundamental statement of the Jewish religion.

The great declaration of monotheism.

And the scribe picked up on the message of this verse.

He didn’t just parrot it back – he gave his interpretation of it: it stated that יהוה is ONE, the only God, that there is none besides Him.

Furthermore, they knew Him by name, personally: not just “God” but יהוה, His own personal name that HE revealed only to them.

This is key!

Only six words in the shema: but 2 of them are יהוה – the Name is repeated.

It is all about יהוה!

And yet still furthermore, He is “our God” – not remote, inaccessible, belonging to others; but our own personal God! Utterly unique!

There is a great amount in those six Hebrew words.

But there is a consequence.

Because He is our God, because we know Him by Name, because He is utterly unique …THEREFORE the consequence is that we are to love Him!

It is a tremendous privilege to know God, for Him to be counted as ours!

The Almighty!

The Creator!

The Eternal!

The Sovereign!

Given this awesome accessibility to God Himself; what other response is right but to love Him with all that we have and are?! [P] Jesus Himself said that this was the GREATEST and FOREMOST commandment.

There is nothing greater that you can do than love God.

This is way beyond and more important that religious ritual: sacrifices, burnt offerings, services and the like.

Greater than all great spiritual things that we do: [1 Corinthians 13:1–3 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.]

An absolute waste of energy and talent – I mean, He did stuff: spoke, prophesied, gave, moved mountains, sacrificed himself!

He knew it all: all knowledge, all wisdom, all faith.

Yet is was useless!

It was nothing!

Love is the most important – there is nothing greater that God requires of us than this!

It ranks first and it is the first thing that God requires of us.