All right, back to our message. Okay. Matthew chapter 22. I want to look at verses 36 through 38. Actually, we'll begin... I need to get there. I'm in Acts. Matthew. Matthew chapter 22. I want to look at the title of the message today that I've titled, Do You Love God? Beginning in verse 34, the Bible says, But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, saying, Master, which is the great commandment of the law? Jesus said unto him, 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. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Let's ask the Lord to bless this service today. Lord Jesus, thank you that you have loved us, you've cared for us. And Lord, you want us to learn from your word. I pray, Lord, that you'd open my heart to what you have to say to me today. I pray that you'd be with your people, Lord. Would you open their hearts? Help them to become more like you because of the word that's preached today. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, give me some context regarding this passage. In verse 34, we see that when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, you've got to go all the way back to chapter 15 to figure out the context of what's taking place here. So in verse number 15, the same chapter, we have the Pharisees getting together to figure out how they can trip Jesus up. in his words of the their very words how they can how they can how they might entangle him in his talk they're trying to pose a question to jesus and they will trap him into getting in trouble with either the government or the law or something that's what they're trying to do here so they come together and unlikely unlikely allies the pharisees the herodians and the sadducees These people would be like the Democrats and Republicans in Congress right now. They do not get along. The Pharisees are the people, they're uppity-ups in the law system. They knew the law, they knew the law inside and out. The Sadducees, they didn't believe there was a resurrection. And the Rhodians were the tax collectors, the people that allied themselves with the Roman government. And so nobody like them And yet they all get together because they all have a common cause, and that cause is their hate for our Lord Jesus. Now, don't try and make any applications at this point. I'm not accusing us of hating the Lord Jesus Christ. There's another point we're going to get to. But these three people, these three groups of people, they all come together to try and ensnare our Lord in His words. Which, if you think about it, it's a very hilarious proposition that men can get together to trip up the Lord Jesus on the law that He wrote. It's an interesting proposition. But that's what they're trying to do here. They're trying to ensnare Jesus in his words. But I want to look at the specific question that is posed by this lawyer, this Pharisee lawyer, who knew the law. You have to understand, these people, they were taught the law from the youngest age. One of the first things that these Jewish children would learn, they would learn certain parts of the law. They would learn this as a small child. And so when this Pharisee comes to Jesus, and he says, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? What I'm proposing is that this man, this Pharisee, this lawyer, when he comes to Jesus, he has forgotten everything that he has been taught as a Jewish child. Let's go over to Deuteronomy chapter six, verse five, and I want to prove this point to you. Deuteronomy chapter six. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse number five. I want to prove this point that this man forgot. He forgot what he was supposed to do. He forgot his God. If you have a Schofield reference Bible like I have, I don't believe Schofield's notes are inspired, but I enjoy his system of cross-reference. Above verse number four you see the phrase, the great commandment. Now, why would this be considered the great commandment? Well, we understand New Testament why. But I want to look at this passage, beginning of verse number four. The verse says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. With all thy might, I'm sorry. This particular passage in Hebrew is called the Shema. This Shema was what they would teach young children often when they could first learn to speak. This is the first thing a Jewish child would learn. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is what they were taught. This is what Jewish parents, Jewish mothers would teach their children on their knee. This is what they would learn. They would learn about their God. This was part of the religious teaching, the religious bringing up that a Jewish child would have. And this lawyer, this lawyer coming to Jesus, dares ask the question, what is the greatest commandment of the law? What I'm saying is he had forgotten He had forgotten everything he had learned. He had forgotten what he had learned about his God. He had forgotten that he was supposed to be serving his God. He was supposed to love his God above everything, and now he is worshiping and loving the laws of man more than his own God. What he had learned as a child, When I speak about our love, loving our God, asking the question, do we love God? My question then is, have we as believers forgotten our God? Not are we actively participating in going against our God, actively participating in trying to harm the name of God, but have we forgotten what God requires of us? Have we forgotten that God requires and demands love for Him and for Him alone? I want to take this time now and take a look at a couple examples from the Old Testament and get some ideas of how we ought to love God and how we can bring our love, make sure we are loving our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our might. I want to first look at an example in Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22, I want to look at a man named Abraham. The first thing that I think of when I think of Abraham in Genesis chapter 22, the word that comes to my mind is supreme love. And I wanna say that our love for God must be supreme. In Genesis chapter 22, we are brought to the story, brought into the story of Abraham. And I won't read the entire passage. I won't read the entire passage for time's sake. But I do wanna reach a couple highlights. In chapter two, God comes to Abraham and he says, take now thy son. thine only Son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I shall tell thee of." When I think of a supreme command, or supreme demonstration, or supreme love, I think of this passage. I don't have any sons yet, maybe the Lord will give us one, but I have a two-year-old daughter, two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Obviously, Abraham, Isaac is a little bit older than that at this point. But can you imagine getting a word from God, your child, God telling you, I want you to take your child whom you love, Maybe it's your only child. And in Abraham's case, it was his only child. Where God comes to Abraham and he says, Abraham, I want you to take your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him as a burnt offering to me. How would you feel about that? We oftentimes, we read these stories in the Bible, and I have a problem with it as much as anyone else, but we read these stories in the Bible and we don't put ourselves into that position. And until I had a child, I don't think I could put myself into that position. Because I love my daughter. I don't know how I would respond. Would I think, well, that couldn't be God. That could not be God asking me to take that child. There's no way, would be my response. God would not ask something like that. It doesn't even fit, it doesn't fit with scripture. But that was not Abraham's response. When you continue reading, it says, Abraham rose up early in the morning. He didn't hesitate. I don't know. I'm actually fairly confident I would have failed at this point. Where Abraham had demonstrated supreme love, he demonstrated that he was willing to give up everything. He was willing to give up everything he had to surrender it to God. That is supreme. When we talk about something that is supreme, something that is the highest, You can't get any more than that. You can't get anything more. I'm sure that if Abraham had the choice, he said, no, God, I'll give you myself, but I can't give you my son. A father or a parent would much rather give their own life for their child than let their child have harm come to it. That's part of human nature. But Abraham was willing to take what he understood, what he knew God was asking. Something that he was, in verse six, he took the wood and laid it upon Isaac, his son. And then in verse eight, when Isaac asks him, Father, where's the lamb for the burnt offering? And verse nine, when he lays the wood and binds his son. Can you imagine what takes place in Abraham's mind, in Abraham's heart? This is supreme love. This is supreme love. He was willing to surrender everything. When it comes to surrender, a person that I enjoy reading about is a story of Adoniram Judson. If you ever have time and you want to read a moving story, I have three biographies I can recommend for Judson's life, Ednarm Judson's life in his time in Burma. Seven years before he saw his first convert. But it wasn't just that. It was the fact that later on, he was put in prison and his wife sacrificed everything, including her own life, sacrificed her health and eventually an early death to save her husband, to be there in Burma, to reach those people with the gospel. For very little visible effect, He sacrificed, he had a supreme sacrifice because he has supreme love for his God. He sacrificed everything for what God wanted him to do. But I wanna see that we see Abraham's example, but I see that God deserves supreme love. I don't know that Abraham knew what he was saying in verse number eight when he says, God will provide himself a lamb. I don't know that he was looking forward prophetically saying that God would send his son Jesus to the cross, when in reality, this place, this land of Moriah, this is where the son of God would be crucified. I don't know that Abraham knew what he was saying in regards to Jesus Christ coming to this earth, but God showed that he loved us in a supreme way, that he did not ask Abraham to do something that he would not do himself. God sent his only son, though he was asking Abraham and did not accept that offering. He was testing Abraham, but God went above and beyond where he didn't just test, he actually sent his only son to die in our place. In 1 John 4, 19, it says, we love him because he first loved us. God loved us supremely, and the only reason we can love Him with the supreme love that He demands is because He loved us that way first. He demonstrates His supreme love on the cross, and He demands supreme love. Exodus 20, verse three. One of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt have no other gods before me. He demands that His love, our love for Him, is supreme. that we love him exclusively, supreme exclusively. But also I wanna look at our love for God must be passionate. When we talk about passion, people get passionate about all kinds of things, right? If you start a conversation with somebody and you know what they're passionate about, you can tell when they start talking, they start going and going and going and going and going, and you're like, will you please be quiet? I wanna get a word in. That's passionate. Someone's passionate about something. You know, something that I enjoy, I enjoy bowhunting. I enjoy archery. Not just bowhunting, but archery in general. But can you imagine, would you think I was passionate about archery if you came up and asked me, so, how do you feel about, you know, I don't even know what's common on the market because it's been a while, but anyways, someone to say, how do you feel about carbon fiber versus aluminum arrows? Okay, if you don't know anything about archery, It doesn't make any sense. But if I said, well, whatever. I don't care. But if I said, man, my carbon fiber arrows, they shoot faster. They're straighter. I can reuse them more times. I don't have to worry about checking them every time. He actually understands a little bit about what he's talking about. He's passionate about that. He's passionate about something. When we talk about passion, our love for God must be passion, I wanna look at a man in 2 Kings 23. 2 Kings 23, actually 22, I think, we're introduced to a man named Josiah. A man named Josiah. Josiah was a young man who had greatness thrust upon him. He was made king, I think, at the age of eight. And when he fully took the throne as a young man in chapter 22, he begins a process of repairing the temple of God. It had fallen into disrepair. Before this, you had bad kings in the nation of Israel and they refused to worship God. They didn't spend time worshiping God in the temple. And so the temple had fallen into disrepair. It had filled with as a storage area, basically, and they begin cleaning it out and repairing it. And they find the Word of God. They find a, I don't remember exactly what book it was, but they find the Book of the Law. And the priest comes before Josiah and he reads the Book of the Law to Josiah. And I mentioned this morning that when we hear something, we have responsibility to act upon it. And when Josiah heard the word of the law read, he read it to all the people. And then he started a purge in the nation of Israel. The word of God got into Josiah's heart that he began, he had to do something. He felt like if I don't do something, nothing will get done. And so he begins a process of purging the nation of Israel, burning down the groves and getting rid of the high priests of these false religions, getting rid of the places where parents would send their children before, sacrifice their children to the god Molech and Chemosh. He threw these down. He started destroying all these places and making worship of Jehovah God primary importance to the nation of Israel again. He was passionate about what he did. I think of the word fervent when it comes to passionate. In Romans chapter 12, 11, We see the Apostle Paul writing, not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. What does that mean, fervent means? means it's our uh... ardent is a word we don't use very much but earnest excited or animated when the apostle when when when josiah was going about this i don't think he was saying okay let's cut those trees down over there let's burn these bones over here actually later on in in chapter twenty three you see it appears that he's going he's going sepulcher by sepulcher and asking whose bones are in here Were they a false priest? Okay, drag them out, burn them and desecrate them. This guy was going all out trying to purge the land of Israel from what he saw, what he knew was idolatry. He was excited about this. He was animated. He was trying to get this done. He was fervent in spirit. He was passionate about serving and worshiping his God. But I want to look at another man, named Joshua. Joshua chapter 24, verse 116, verses 1 through 16. Joshua chapter 24. Joshua 24, beginning in verse number one, Early on in the book of Joshua, you have the Lord, Joshua chapter one, telling Joshua, be strong and very courageous, be strong and very courageous. Over and over again, the Lord is trying to instill this courage into Joshua to do what God has said. But in Joshua 24, you don't have that. I believe Joshua learned that his courage came from God and he was confident in what the Lord had called him to do. But in Joshua 24, verse 116, we see Joshua coming to the end of his life. Joshua coming towards the end of his life, and his last charge to the nation of Israel. It says, Joshua gathered all the tribes of the nation of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for all their heads, for the judges, for the officers, and they presented themselves before God. And then he goes through and repeats a history of what God has brought them through. But then when it comes down to verse 14 and 15, it says, Now therefore, fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth. And put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. "'If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, "'choose you this day whom ye will serve, "'whether the gods of the fathers, "'which were on the other side of the flood, "'or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell. "'But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.'" The first thing I see in this, that Joshua was giving the people a choice. They had a choice. It's not something you're born into. In Nepal, what they want, is they do not want people to make a choice. They don't want them to make a choice. Well, do you want to be a Hindu? Do you want to be a Buddhist? Do you want to be a Christian? No, what they're going for is if you are born a Hindu, you will die a Hindu. They don't want people to have a choice. That's part of the law that is written now. But Joshua is giving the people a choice. He's saying, you must choose as a person, as an individual, who you are going to serve. I see our love for God then must be willing. It's a choice that we have to make. God did not make us robots. He did not make us robots to serve Him, to love Him. He says, no, I'm giving you a choice. You can either serve me or you can serve these other false gods. It's your choice. In Exodus chapter 25, or 21, there's an interesting story as Moses is giving out laws of what to do in this scenario and this scenario. There's a certain scenario in Exodus 21. that when a servant is brought into a household, he's married, he's in this household as basically an indentured servant. And when his time comes to depart, this servant came in as a single man, but now he has a wife and he has children. And he's free to go, but his family is not. And what Moses is saying is, if a servant comes before the master and he says, Master, I don't want to leave. You have blessed me while I'm here. I have my family and my wife and my children. I don't want to leave. Moses says at that point, he's to go profess this before the elders and a hole is bored in his ear and an earring is put. He willingly chose to stay with his master. It's a great example of who we are as believers. God has given us a choice. God has been very, very gracious and merciful to us as believers. He has loved us with an everlasting love. And it'd be like that servant, the master, has been wonderful to that servant. He's provided everything he needs. He's given him a wife. He has children. He takes care of his needs. He's done everything that servant has ever needed. That's what our God has done for us. And yet sometimes we choose to reject everything God has done for us and walk away. It doesn't even seem right for us, but that will happen. That sometimes happens. But I want to look that our love for God has to be willing, but it's also continuous. It has to be a continuous choice. We don't wake up one morning, say, I'm going to love God, and we never have to make a decision about that ever again. We often make that decision on a moment-by-moment basis. Am I going to love God in this activity, or am I going to choose to love myself? Am I going to do this, or am I going to do this? Am I going to love God, or am I not going to love God? It's a moment-by-moment choice. The reason I started the message the way we did with this Pharisee had forgotten everything he learned from a child by not knowing what this greatest commandment is. This isn't the first time we've ever heard this, is it? This isn't the first time we've heard that our love for God must be willing, it must be passionate. It's not the first time we heard it. We've heard that since we're a child. John 3, verse 16, for God so loved the world. Everybody can quote it. He loved us. And therefore, in response, we ought to love Him. Be it we oftentimes forget how good our God has been to us and how we ought to love Him. But when these three things, when our love is passionate, when our love is willing, when our love is supreme, our love for God is evident, not only to ourselves, but to those around us. If we were to go back in time and ask Sarah, Abraham's wife, and said, Sarah, seeing what Abraham just did, does he love God supremely? What do you think Sarah's response would be? Absolutely. If I'd have known what he's doing, I wouldn't have let him go. That's what my wife would tell me anyways. She loved God passionately. He loved God. It was evident. If you were to ask the Jebusites, who were in this territory at that time, when they saw that, when they saw what took place, heard the voice of God coming from heaven, what do you think their response would be? Do you think they love, do you think Abraham loves his God? Absolutely. To offer his only son? What if we went to Josiah's day? Said, so Israel, is it evident, is it obvious that Josiah loves his God? What do you think the response would be? Let me say to those high priests, the high priests that watched as he pulled bones from sepulchers and burned them to desecrate them. Do you think he loves his God? I think everybody in that time period would say, absolutely. Whether you agree with him or not, he loves his God. What about Joshua? Do you think the Israelites knew that he loved his God? If we were to look, go back, to our story that we started out with when this lawyer comes to Jesus. If you ask the people around him, do you, does this lawyer love God based on forgetting what he learned as a child about his God? What do you think people's response would be? My question for us, and this is where I want to close, is your love for God evident? We can say we love God, that we love Him supremely, willingly, passionately. But when we do love Him willingly, supremely, passionately, it's evident to those around us. You don't have to try and convince people that you love God. You won't have to convince your neighbors or those that you're witnessing to that you love God. They'll understand. They will know that you love God based on your speech and your actions. They will also know, man, you don't really love God. You're just like me. You say you read the Bible, you obey the Bible, but you're not doing this over here. And I know the Bible says to do this. The world around us needs to see our love for them, but they need to be able to see our love for God first of all. So I just want to ask you again, do you love God? Would others know that you love God? That's close, a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for, Lord, loving us, unlovely people, dying for us when we didn't even deserve love. But Lord, you loved us. You sent your Son to die for us. And for that, Lord, we are supremely grateful that we have a place in eternity because of your love. But Father, we ask now that you'd help us as believers to love you as you require, to know your word, to love you supremely, passionately, and willingly. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.