We turn to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22 and we read together the verses 23 through 40. I think I may have put 46 on the bulletin, but we'll read from verse 23 through verse 40. Now text for this evening is taken from the verses 37 through 40. So if we pay more particular attention to those verses as we read them. Matthew chapter 22 and reading from verse 23. The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, saying, Pastor, Moses said, if a man die having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren, and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased and having no issue, left his wife unto his brother. Likewise the second also and the third unto the seventh last of all the woman died also Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven for they all had her Jesus answered and said unto them ye do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God and For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine. But when the Pharisees had heard that he put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 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. Amen. Thus far we read in God's holy and inspired word. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we return tonight to our series of sermons that we've been doing, using as a basis of it, our Shorter Catechism. And the section that we now come to concerns the law of God, or if you like that summary of the law of God, the Ten Commandments. The law as it is set down for us, the law as it is in the Ten Commandments is a beautiful and systematic summary of the truth of how we are to live before God. It is a most beautiful truth. But we also know that it cannot be the source of our salvation. And we saw that this morning, didn't we? That's why we need the baptism of the Holy Spirit to wash away our sins. because as we try to keep the law, we realize that we daily break it in thought and word and deed. We cannot have righteousness by the keeping of the law, by the keeping of the Ten Commandments. However, we also know that Christians, being saved, we don't say, as it were, We don't have anything to do with the law. As it were, throw it away, as some blasphemously say. They say, well, we are no longer under the law, we are under grace, so the law has nothing to do with us anymore. No, not so. We love to keep the law. That's why it's called the law of the covenant. Because we are in a covenant relationship with the Lord, then he gives to us the law as a beautiful pattern that reflects God's very nature And it's the means by which we may more and more live in the image of our Redeemer. That's why Paul in Romans 7 says that he delights in the law of God. That this is a good thing and he delights in it. Before we come to consider each one of the commandments in depth, which Lord willing we will do over subsequent weeks, we ought to stop and consider what God tells us about the law more generally. To take a kind of a broad overview of it, to stand back and to consider it. Sometimes you hear that expression, you know, he can't see the forest for the trees. As it were, you get in there and you can examine this tree and that tree and that tree, but you have no idea what the forest is actually like. But when you stand back and you get the whole view of it, then you can understand the place of each of the trees in the forest. Well, the same thing for the law. We ought to understand the whole breadth of the law, what the law is all about, have that broad overview and understanding what it is, in order that when we dive into each of the commandments, it will make sense in the light of what it is overall. Well, our text tonight does just that. It takes a broad overview of the law, the law of God. How does it come up? It comes up during the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we've just read here, one of the Pharisees, who was also a lawyer, he was hoping to try and catch Jesus out. The Pharisees were constantly trying to find some way in which they could criticize Jesus Christ and discredit his ministry. And that's the same with this man. He comes along and he asks a particular question. Which one of those 10 commandments, because we've got 10 of them laid out, which one is the most important one? Which one is the greatest one? Hoping that Jesus would single one particular commandment out and there'd be a way to criticize him for doing that thing. But of course, that's all in the sovereignty of God as well. Sovereignty of God this man asked this question so that Jesus Christ can then set forth this beautiful Summary of the law a very important summary and overview In fact what the Lord Jesus Christ teaches here is nothing new This isn't something that's just found in the New Testament. What Jesus is doing is he's actually quoting from the Old Testament as he frequently does and as he did to the Sadducees when he said to them back in verse 29, you were because you don't know the scriptures. And so here, when he gives the summary here in these verses, he's actually quoting from places such as Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 and Joshua 22. This has always been the summary of the law. It's not just for the New Testament. That was the summary of the law in the Old Testament as well. Exactly this same teaching is brought out by our Shorter Catechism 42 when it asks, what is the sum of the Ten Commandments? How can we, as it were, put it all together in that summary? And the answer comes, the sum of the Ten Commandments is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. Let's then take up and examine this teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ under the theme, loving God and neighbor. We'll consider that under three headings. First of all, what? What is this teaching about loving God and loving neighbor? How can we define it more clearly? Secondly, how? How do we go about loving God and loving neighbor? And thirdly, why are we to love God and love neighbor? As we come to this topic, we need to have very clearly in our mind the culture in which we live, the society in which we live, because it tends to crowd in upon us, doesn't it, with its ideas, and particularly its ideas of love. The culture in which we live has very definite ideas about love, and they're constantly taught. It crowds in upon us. If you are listening to the poetry and the songs and so forth that are out there in the world, then that idea and concept of love comes in. What does it involve? A very particular concept. It's this. Love is a feeling of strong or constant affection for another person. Or love is a fondness or warm affection for another. In fact, what I've just given you there are dictionary definitions. In other words, this isn't just something that's in the poetry and in the songs. This is what's found in our dictionaries, giving a definition of love. According to our culture, according to the ideas of our society, the people around about us, love is all about our feelings for another person. When we turn to the Word of God, when we hear the Lord Jesus Christ saying, thou shalt love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself, is that what the Bible is talking about? And the answer to that is no. Not primarily. And I'll add that, because very much our feelings are to come into love. without a doubt in the world. But the idea of love as it's found in the Bible, this word that Jesus uses here, is not primarily a feeling. There is a word in the Greek which means a warm and friendly affection and fondness. And you will find it translated love in our English translation as well. So for example, in Matthew 6, 5, Jesus says there that the Pharisees, they love to pray standing in the synagogues or in the corners of the street. They have a warm affection and they have a fondness for standing in the corners of the streets and praying so everybody can see them and say, wow, what a wonderful guy. I love that. That's the idea of that. It's a fondness, an affection for something. There is, in fact, another Greek word which has the idea of a sensual or erotic love, the word eros. But in fact, you won't find that particular word anywhere in the Greek New Testament. It doesn't appear at all. Then there's the word for love in the Greek, which is this word, which is agape. Agape This word is not so commonly found in the Greek language of all of the secular literature It's found far more commonly in the Bible This is the love that you will find mentioned so commonly throughout the New Testament. What does it mean? This love is actually a decision It's not primarily things to do with feelings at all This love is a decision. It means a decision that you will regard another person well. That you will make a decision to honour that person, to esteem that person. It means that you will desire, you make a decision to desire for their welfare and to work towards their welfare, to do that which is good for them and to practically put that into place. To desire to walk with that other person, to know them and therefore to walk closely and have a communion with them. You notice how all these things are outwardly looking. It's a decision to be about all of that. So we can say then, if we want to sort of bring that in a little bit, we can say love is therefore a whole being decision to do nothing but good towards another person, to esteem or delight in another person, and to seek the closest fellowship and communion with that other. Notice as I just said, this is outward looking. Notice that this definition of love does not depend upon what the other person is or what this other person is doing. The world's definition of love, of fondness or affection or this kind of an idea, it does depend on what the other person is doing. Why does the Pharisee love to stand on the street corners? Because then people are looking at him and that's what he wants and he wants people with other people to think well of him and that's why he has an affection for doing these things. So the world, it says, if someone else is doing or saying things toward me that makes me feel good, that makes me happy, then I love them. But if that same person turns around and starts doing and saying things that make me feel unhappy, then I don't love them. And that, for the world, is love. Think about that. Is that really a description of love? Or is that a description of selfishness and self-centeredness? It's actually a description of someone who has me as the center of the world. and it's all about me. And I will love you if you do what I want you to do. If you continue to do things that are nice, as far as my category of nice is concerned, and you make sure you bow down in my world and my kingdom, then I'll love you. It's not terribly surprising, is it, that the world finds it so easy to fall in love and finds it just as easy to fall out of love. It's not so surprising that relationships are so easily broken that marriages fall apart so quickly. But this love that's spoken of here, this word that's used by the Holy Spirit, indicates a love that does not depend on what the other person is doing for you. It is not self-centered. This love is God-centered. This is a God-centered love. As such, this love does not seek my good. It doesn't seek things for me. Selfishness does that, but Godly and true love seeks only to do good for the other that it sets its love upon. It is a completely self-disinterested love. So this is love. Who are we to love? According to our command here, thou shalt love the Lord thy God. And then secondly, thou shalt love thy neighbor. So first of all, we are to love God. It's pretty obvious that that is really the sum of the 10 commandments. And particularly when you read through the 10 commandments, you look at the first four, and they are fairly obviously to do with the love of God, aren't they? As you continue to read and you look at the second six of the Ten Commandments, then you look at those and you say, well, they are all to do with loving my neighbor. And it's true, we can break that into the first and second table of the law. But consider this, we ought to realize that every one of those commandments is about loving God. And every one of those commandments is also about loving neighbor. Why is that so? Well, we ought to realize that when we have no other God, the first commandment, have no other God besides the true and the living God, it's only then that we will have a right basis for loving neighbor. So when we, in fact, put God first in our life and have none other but Him, then the flow on will be that we will love our neighbor. Have a think about, say, the ninth commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness. You shall speak truth to your neighbor. In doing so, you will not defraud your neighbor. You will not tell lies to your neighbor. You will not have deceit. But you see, as you are doing that, you are loving God, who is the God of all truth. So to love neighbor in that way is to love God. To love God means that you will love neighbor. The two things are inextricably connected, which is what John brings out in the epistle that we read. To love God means, as we apply that definition therefore, means that we will make that decision at all times with all of our mind and will and affections to do nothing but that which is good toward God, to delight in God and to seek the closest fellowship and communion with Him. Now in order to do that, we need to know God. When it says love God, then the what of that means that we must know God. You cannot love someone that you do not know. If someone says, I love my wife. And then you ask them and you say, well, tell me about your wife. And they say, what is she like? Where does she like going? You don't know her. How on earth are you supposed to do good toward her? How on earth are you supposed to walk closely with her if you don't know her? You have to know her, to know her needs, to know what is a help and a blessing to her before you can go about to actually love her and to do good towards her. So it is that unless we know God, then we cannot give of ourselves to do that which is good toward Him. How do we come to know God? We come to know God through all that He has done. Because you see, God is far above us. His ways and His thoughts are so high above us that the scripture tells us in Isaiah, that it's like the heavens being high above the earth. So are His ways higher than our ways. He is transcendent. And it would be absolutely impossible for us to know Him at all, except that He has condescended. He has come down to reveal Himself to us. And He's revealed Himself to us in the whole of the created world so that mankind is without excuses. It tells us in Romans 1 that we know His eternal power and Godhead from the created world. We know of His existence. We know His power. We know His glory. We know that He is God and that He deserves our worship. So no man may say, I don't know God. God sets himself right in front of the face of mankind. But more particularly, God makes himself known through his word. Through his word. He declares who he is. He declares that he is to be worshipped and how he is to be worshipped. He declares all of his purposes for mankind. But particularly, we may know God in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, the person who has seen Him has seen the Father. If you see and you know Jesus Christ, then you know God. It's actually coming to have a right relationship in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the way that we may know the Father and to know God. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6 says that God gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And as we come therefore to know God, the more we are enabled to love Him. But we're also told as part of the what that we are to love our neighbor. Who is our neighbor? Because if we follow this command of the what, what am I to do, I'm to love my neighbour, well, there's a few neighbours out there, isn't there? Our neighbour, we ought to understand, is not, very definitely not, every single person on the face of the earth. Our neighbour is not even every single person in Brisbane. If you even think about that, I cannot possibly know all the people in Brisbane, or even meet all the people in Brisbane. If I was to attempt to do that, and that I was to meet a new person in Brisbane every minute, and ignore eating or sleeping or anything like that, but just continue to meet new people every minute, it would take me four years to meet everybody in Brisbane. I cannot possibly love my neighbor and say my neighbor is everybody in Brisbane. It simply isn't so. Who's my neighbor? Well, the scripture makes it clear. You see, that word neighbor, as it's used in the scripture, means those who are near. Those who are nearby. Who puts the people near me? God does. God's the one who has already determined who your neighbor is. And you have many of them already. Who are you near right now? You're near your family for a start. Your husband, your wife, your parents, your children. But you are near sitting here in the congregation of God's people. This is called the family and the household of God. These are your neighbors. But it includes then all those in your sphere of life. You see, God has determined the bounds of your habitation, as it tells us in the scripture, and therefore he's determined where you live. The people that live right next door to you, on either side of you and over your back fence, are your neighbors. God put you there. Do you know them? Do you know their names? Do you know anything about their lives? Because we're to know them if we are to love them. The same as we need to know God, if we would love God, you need to know your neighbor. Do you know the person that comes and sits beside you in the bus stop where you sit to go to work every morning? Do you know the students in your study group at university? Do you know them? Do you love them? God put them there. They're your neighbors. They're the ones that are near to you. Have a think about your life. Have a think about the ones that God has put near to you. They are your neighbors and God says love your neighbor. Notice that it's to include all those. There's not a sort of a... God doesn't put a bracket around this and sort of say, love your neighbor, at least the ones that you like and are not too difficult to get on with. He doesn't say that. We cannot choose which ones in our sphere that we will love and which one that we will not. It is to be every single one that God places near you in your life. It's not the ones that you just naturally like or the ones that are easy to get on with. If they are our neighbor, then we ought to know them and love them. A conscious decision to do nothing but good toward each one of them and to seek fellowship with them as we are able. And of course, that will only be the closest in Christ Jesus. but know them. Do you truly know your family members? Do you? Do you truly know them? Seek to know those in the church. They are also those whom God has put near you. He's put them near to you in this sense that they are the living members, the living stones of the temple of God that he has put into his building and set right next to you. Do you know every member of the congregation? Would you be able to tell me something about every one of their lives and where they're up to? Do you know them and therefore are you loving them in that way? And we're to seek to meet and to know those that are round about us, even the neighbours over our fence, that we may love them. So that's the what. That's the what. What about the how? How am I to love the Lord my God and my neighbor? Notice that the scripture tells us very clearly how. It tells us, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Now we ought not to get hung up too much on these different faculties that are mentioned here. Heart, soul, and mind are spoken of here in Matthew 22, but it's a little different in other places. For example, in Mark 12 30, it's heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then in Deuteronomy 6 5, it is heart, soul, and might. So it's not like you have to distinguish each one of these things and, as it were, bring them in little separate categories. The whole idea of what God is setting before us is that we are to love God with every part of our conscious and living beings. It's not that I'm to do a part loving of God. I devote part of myself to God, part of my mind toward God, part of my living toward Him. No, it's to be every part of me. It's to be my mind. In other words, all of my thinking, every single thought that passes through my mind, and you know what it's like sometimes with your mind going here and there and everywhere and thoughts darting off. The word of God says bring every thought captive to Christ. All of my thinking is to be in the way of loving God and loving His truth, loving who He is. I'm to love God with all of my soul and there it's talking about those deep things of our heart, our impulses and our ambitions and our passions and all of those sorts of things that are within it. All of those things that be brought to love God. to be there within us so that every one of those impulses and ambitions and desires is to do good toward God and to honor His name and to esteem Him and to draw us into closer fellowship with Him. I am to love God with my whole strength and all my might. In other words, practically, what I do with my hands, what I'm doing every day, whether I'm eating or drinking or whatever I am doing, every activity is to be about the business of loving Him. We ought to understand that when we say, that I'm to love God and that means that I'm to do good toward Him, a decision to do good toward another. To do good toward God is not in the way of doing nice things for God. If someone else person comes in and they look pretty tired, you might say, take a load off your feet and I'll grab you a cup of tea and you do something nice for them. There's no such thing that we can do for God in that way, is there? God does not need my help. God does not need my assistance. He doesn't need my support. He has no need of anything. So what does it mean to do good toward God? First of all, it means fear Him. It means fear Him. Hebrews 12 verse 28 says, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. And that's that idea, that reverence and awe. In all of my life I am to stand, as it were, with my eyes lifted to heaven and to stand in absolute awe of Almighty God. And I do good to Him as I live my life in that way, that I have a reverence for Him. And that reverence is shown in the whole way in which I conduct myself, whether it be in the worship here or whether it be about the rest of the activities of my life. It means that I am to have a trembling of heart before Him so that I would desire never to do anything against Him. It means that I will do all that He commands me to as well. If I would love God, then I would obey Him. That's part of what it comes across into the commandment to honor your father and your mother, isn't it? Who is our great father? It's our God. And therefore, we will delight to obey Him. We will know the Word of God and say, Lord, I will do what you call me to do in my life, in the whole of it, in my relationships, in my decision, as far as my work is concerned, about every part of my life, I will submit to what the Word of God says. No matter what it brings for me, even if it brings persecution, even if it brings for me to stand up and say, this is the truth, and it brings death to me. Yet I will love my God by obeying Him because I delight in Him. Especially it is to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. To love God is to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. It's to acknowledge truth before His face, that which He sets forth. It's to acknowledge what He says is absolutely true. And I love Him by acknowledging His truth and saying, Lord, yea, I am a broken sinner and I cannot do the least good thing. And I need that baptism of the Holy Spirit. I need to be washed clean. I need the righteousness of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to cover me. What truly honors God is to honor His Son, whom He has sent to be our Savior, and therefore I honor Him as I believe in Him and trust in Him and cast myself fully upon Christ alone. To love God. is to do so with every ounce of our being. That's emphasized by the use of the word all. Notice that with each of the faculties here. It says thou shalt love the Lord thy God with, it doesn't say all thy heart, soul, and mind. It emphasizes it three times, doesn't it? With all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. It's to trust and obey and reverence and stand in awe of Him and to believe with every part of all of our faculties. There is never to be anything ever going on in our life in any millisecond of any part of us which is not fully devoted to loving God, reverencing and obeying and adoring Him. That's a tall order. One that as we hear it, we know, oh Lord, that's impossible for me to achieve. And that's why we need our Savior. the one who has loved his father in just this way and his righteousness becomes ours by faith. It's only by God first loving us that we may receive through repentance unto life, through that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the wondrous gift of the Holy Spirit given unto us, that we may know of our sins washed away, and the covering of Christ's righteousness, and then, and then, because He has first loved us, that we then love Him, and desire more and more that our lives would reflect this great truth. But then the how, we're also told something about the how with regards to our neighbours. That we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. We know that this is the second great commandment and by necessity it has to be the second great commandment, not just in order of priority, God first and then man, but also because it comes out of the love of God. 1 John 4 verses 20 and 21, we read there, if a man say, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. Okay, what's he lying about? About hating his brother or about loving God? He's lying about loving God. For he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment have we from him that he who loves God loves his brother also. You see what this verse is telling us is that it is only a person who has had a new heart given to them by the work of the Holy Spirit, a radical change that has been brought about in them and the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit that only then can any human being ever love. with this love. It's a gift of God. It's a gift of grace. The world talks all the time about having a greater love in the communities and to do good to each other and so forth, but such a love for the world is absolutely impossible. Until that vertical relationship to God is set right. And then when we love God, because He first loved us, only then will that love of God proceed forth out of our heart toward others. But there's another application here, one that's very sobering. And it's this. When we find in our lives that we have difficulty in loving another person who is our neighbor, then it's showing us something very significant. Do you see that? If I brought to a position where I am having trouble loving my neighbor, no matter who it may be, whether it be my wife or my husband, or someone in my family, or someone in the congregation, or the guy over the back fence who throws his garbage onto my yard, whoever it may be. If I'm having trouble loving my neighbor, then there's only one place to look. And the reason why I can't love my neighbor is not because they're really difficult people. It's not because they have so many problems. It's not because they are so annoying. It's because I am not loving God. Do we understand that and see that? The only reason why I cannot love my neighbor as I ought to is because I am not loving God as I ought to. How can a man say, I love God and yet hate his brother? He's a liar. If you are hating your brother, it's because you are hating God. and not loving him. That's very sobering, isn't it? But something that is so incredibly important. There's a problem in our relationship to God. We are not loving God as we ought to do, and that's where we need to go. If I am not loving my neighbor as I ought to do, that doesn't mean that we don't have a love of God at all. But what it means is that there is something significantly wrong in the way I am looking at God and the way in which I am relating to Him and I am not loving Him as I ought to do because with my eyes fixed upon Him, to know His love for me in Jesus Christ ought to so lift me up that I cannot help but love my neighbor. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we're told. To love our neighbor as ourselves. Very often in our day, in Christian circles, this is interpreted as, we need to really love ourselves. You need to really build yourself up. You need to spend a lot of time pampering yourself and loving yourself a lot and getting yourself a really good self-esteem. And then when you have got so much love of yourself and so much self-esteem, then you can afford to actually love other people. That's said to be the interpretation of you need to love your neighbor as yourself. That's false. You find me somewhere apart from supposedly the implication here, somewhere in the Bible where it tells us about and gives us instructions about how we are to love ourselves better. You actually won't find it. What you do find in the scripture is that the Bible so often tells us, what's our problem? We love ourselves too much. We love ourselves too much. We put ourselves at the center instead of having God at the center of our lives. And because I'm me-centered, therefore I set myself up as an idol and I love me, and that's my very problem, why I don't love God and I don't love neighbor as I ought to do. No man ever yet hated his own flesh, says Ephesians 5.29. It's never happened. The Holy Spirit gives us a diagnosis. It has never happened. than a man ever yet hated his own flesh. We don't need to be built up in self-esteem. We need to be taken down an awful lot of notches in our pride. That's the diagnosis of the Word of God. We're not to think too highly of ourselves. That's the great problem of pride and self-worship which is in us all. The Holy Spirit is telling us here that we are to see the way in which God has created in us a proper and a right care of ourselves. We do that naturally. No man ever yet hated his own flesh. We make sure that we care for ourselves, that we feed ourselves when we're hungry, we have a drink of water when we're thirsty. There is a proper and right care. And the idea of the scripture is, whatever you would have others do unto you, do so unto them. The idea is the manner in which we are to go about doing this. We are not to be thinking, what is it that people should be doing for me? And how about they start doing it? But I can actually gain a good insight into what others would benefit from when I think about what's the sort of care that would benefit someone such as myself. Now, how can I give that to all my neighbours? How can I go about giving of myself in such a way as a servant to others, to love them in such a way? It's to give of myself in just the ways that God reveals to us by the fact that we are those who have received so much already from His hand, and in the delight of that, we desire to give. And of course, the greatest way we are to love our neighbor is to see their greatest need, and that's the gospel. The greatest need of my neighbor is that they know of Christ alone. We can do all manner of good things to our neighbor, and so we ought to do. We ought to see what they have need of, and if they need a cup of cold water, then we give them a cup of cold water. but never ever neglect their greatest need, which is to speak of them of the gospel, to speak of them of the fact that they are sinners in need of salvation, and to point out to them the beauty of Jesus Christ. You see, it's a bit like this. If someone has a terrible accident right in front of you, and they're hemorrhaging terribly out one side, and they've got a terrible head injury on the other, and they've given themselves a small nick on their toe, and you come along, you put a Band-Aid on their toe, and you say, oh, I've done good for my neighbor. See ya. Well, sure, you have. But what about their greatest needs? It's the gospel. That's what's so needful. Don't neglect the cut on the toe, by all means. But you sure better not neglect the speaking of the truth of Christ, which is their need for now and for eternity. Why? Why are we to love God and why are we to love our neighbor? When it comes to why we ought to love God, it should be pretty self-evident, shouldn't it? But we also ought to note this, first of all. We ought to note that the way in which we love God is very different from the way in which we love neighbor. Even though that definition of love is the same, For example, with God, we are to fear and reverence and worship and obey God, but we're not to fear and reverence and worship and obey our neighbor. That's love for God, isn't it? And we are to help, assist, support and feel pity for our neighbor, but we certainly do not do that toward God. Both of them love. But when it comes to the why we love God and why we love neighbor, there's a big difference there as well. Why do we love God? Well, the fundamental reason why we love God is because He is God. And there really is, doesn't need to be any other reason. He is that self-existent being, infinitely great in everything that He is, in all of His attributes. Men and angels may love, but God is love. All beauty and glory that can be found anywhere in the creation is but a dull and tiny reflection of the amazing and marvelous beauty and glory of God. And we ought to love Him for His beauty and glory in and of Himself in His being. The beauty and glory of anything else that you see is nothing compared to His beauty and His glory. Love that. Love it. We ought to delight in Him. He is our Creator. He made us. He brought us into being. The reason why you are here and you are still breathing and you can see and you can experience all the things that you do in your life is because He made you. You belong to Him and He puts every breath in your mouth. Love Him for this. And of course, for the Christian, there is the greatest reason of all to love Him. I was a rebel, set on the pathway to hell and had a determination that I would do no other thing. And he laid a hold upon me by the power of the Holy Spirit's baptism. And he's washed me and made me clean. He's given me the robes of his son's righteousness. He's adopted me into the family of heaven and I have an inheritance forevermore in glory. You want any more reasons to love him? Why are we to love neighbor? It's because of our love for God. It's because God first loved me and I now love Him. That's the reason why I'm to love neighbor. It's as simple as that. As I know, what I have received in Jesus Christ, the riches of His covenant fellowship, then I owe my life to Him. Ephesians 2.10, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works that He has foreordained that we should walk in them. I've been recreated in Christ Jesus and that for the purpose of good works. Good works to who? My neighbor? To show forth my love for God by loving my neighbor? 1 Peter 2 verse 9, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people. That's the church. You've been chosen in this way and loved of God. Why? In order that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Show the praises to who? to our neighbor. God doesn't need to see his praises. He knows them already. We are showing forth his praises to the world around about us in the whole way in which we live our life unto them by loving them. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Those good works are to love them. to love them. You see, we're not only to love God in these ways arising out of that, but we're also, we're to love our neighbor because of what God is doing even with our neighbors in our life. We understand our God is almighty and sovereign. He has put me into my life perfectly. He has placed me with those that are around about me, my neighbors, every single one of them. He's placed me into the church where I am. but he knows every single other person that he has placed around me as my neighbors. So no matter what my neighbor is doing towards me, whether it be what I would call good or evil, God is behind it all and he's working all things to my good. And for me then to get grumpy at my neighbor because they're doing such and such is actually to shake my fist at God and say, God, you got it wrong by putting this neighbor here to do these things instead of saying, thank you, Lord. for the good and the evil in which you are working my salvation. And unto love my neighbor, unto love even my enemies that hate me, that persecute me, that want to do evil toward me, I will love them because of God, not because of what they're doing to me, but because of God and because of the sovereignty of my God's hands as he is working all things well. And more particularly, we're to love one another in the church. In the church, it's not just God is using all things out there, particularly, let us love one another in the church of Jesus Christ. He applies his grace through us. Every single one of us are broken instruments. Every single one of us are in much need of grace every day and the forgiveness of Christ. Are we not? But He is wonderfully working it all through the body of Christ to apply His grace. That's wonderful. Do we love one another in that way? To see one another as precious instruments in God's hands, working in wonderful ways in the church. May it be tonight that we are enabled to see that to love God and to love neighbor on these two things hang all the law and the prophets. That's what Christ says here, isn't it? All the law and the prophets, the whole of the scripture. hangs upon these two things. It is in fact here that we see all the purposes of God to redeem the people for himself. It is here that we see all the work of Jesus Christ as he brings us into that love and that perfect fellowship which will be ours for eternity. It is here that we see all of the Christian life of thankfulness because of what God has done for us. Rejoice and live in that truth. Amen. Let's stand to pray. Now dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the love of God which is shared abroad in our hearts. Lord, we know that by nature this love is so foreign to us. It is the most beautiful and rich treasure that we are beginning to know and to experience and then to love you in return and to love our neighbor. We pray, Lord, reveal unto us more of your love in the face of Jesus Christ, in the wonder of our salvation. that we may, with thankful hearts, love you. Love you in the keeping of the commandments, for they are indeed love of you and love of our neighbor. We pray, be with us, strengthen us in your truth. May we delight in our God, who has loved us from all eternity. In Jesus' name, amen. The final psalm is Psalm number 36.