What is the sum of the Ten Commandments? That is the question we are considering this evening. What is the sum, the total, the essence of the Ten Commandments? Repeat after me. The sum of the Ten Commandments is… The sum of the Ten Commandments is… To love the Lord our God… To love the Lord our God… With all our heart… With all our heart… With all our soul… with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves." The Scripture reading for this evening is Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 40. This is a very familiar text for us. We read it often to prepare our hearts for the confession of sin in our morning worship service. But listen carefully to it. But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, speaking of Jesus silencing the Sadducees, these are religious groups that existed within Jesus' day, they gathered together and one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And He said to him, ìYou 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 first commandment, and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.î So far the reading of Godís Most Holy Word. May He add His blessing to the preaching of it this evening. I want for you to track with me now. We have asked the question, what duty does God require of man? And we have answered that man is obligated to keep God's revealed will. So we know that God has revealed His will. He has made known to us what He requires of us. And so the next question that we ask flows quite naturally. What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of His obedience? The answer, in short, the moral law. This moral law was revealed to Adam. It was written on his heart according to the Scriptures. And all who are human, all who descend from Adam, being made in the image of God, do have this moral law within them. There is, of course, a problem now. All have the moral law, but all do suppress and distort it now that we are falling into sin. This moral law is not as clear to us as it was for Adam when he was first made, when he stood right before God in the garden. And so our catechism then asks, where is the moral law summarily comprehended? In other words, where is this moral law summarized and most clearly revealed so that we may know it truly? And perhaps I should pause for just a moment and make this observation. God was not obligated to reveal His moral law to sinners in such a clear way. Do you realize that? He was not obligated to do so. He would have done no wrong to leave us only with the moral law written upon our hearts, the law which we do suppress and distort by nature. He could have left us just with that and He would be right to judge us according to that law at the end of time. This is what Paul teaches in the book of Romans. The law which we suppress and distort by nature is clear enough to us that it is a rule by which God may judge. That He has revealed His law clearly so that it may be comprehended is in itself an act of grace. When our catechism asks in question 46, where is the moral law summarily comprehended? It assumes that God has revealed His moral law in another place besides man's heart. And as we consider this fact we should be moved to give thanks to God for His mercy and grace. I know some assume that there is a radical distinction and divide between the law and the gospel, or the law that God has revealed to us and the grace of God. No, they're not opposed to one another, but they do work together. Both are acts of grace from God that He would reveal Himself to us so clearly and to show us what it is that He requires of Him. It is a gift from God. The moral law was written on man's heart. All have a conscience whereby they may distinguish between right and wrong. And the moral law has, by God's grace, been revealed more clearly. Where is the moral law summarily comprehended? We answer, in brief, in the Ten Commandments. In the Ten Commandments. Now, you would think that our catechism would move on to a consideration of the Ten Commandments right away. Aren't we ready? What does God require of us? Obedience to His revealed will. Where did He first reveal it? Moral law written on Adam's heart. Where is this moral law summarily comprehended? Now Ten Commandments, so let's get to it, right? Let's begin to consider the Ten Commandments. But there is one more question. that our catechism asks. And it's a very, very important one. Question 47, what is the sum of the Ten Commandments? Sum here I think means essence. What is the main message of the Ten Commandments? What are they all about? Make it simple. What do the Ten Commandments reveal to us? Answer, 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 neighbor as ourselves. This is beautiful. This is the teaching of Jesus. This is essential for us to understand. This is what Jesus taught in the passage from Matthew that we have just read. A lawyer, that is to say an expert in the law of Moses, asked Jesus a question to test him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And it is not surprising that a lawyer would ask this question. Granted, he asked the question to test Jesus. Maybe he had a desire to trip him up a bit. Perhaps his motives were wrong, but the question is a good question. It's an interesting one. Jesus simplified the law for us. Have you ever read the Law of Moses? The first five books of the New Testament in general, but also the Ten Commandments in particular. The lawyer wanted the essence of it. Boil it all down to one commandment. That was his request. Give us the central and most important commandment. And Jesus' response is wonderful and it is very instructive. First of all, notice that Jesus did not give one commandment, two. The lawyer asked for one, Jesus gave him two. And there is a reason for this. As we will see, Jesus intended for these two commandments to sum up the ten commandments. And the ten commandments are to be considered in two parts. The first four commands have to do with our relationship to God and the last six have to do with our relationship to our fellow man. And so when Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment, He gave two. In brief, man is to love God and man is to love man, his neighbor. Secondly, and this is massively important so please do not miss it. When Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment in the law, He immediately spoke of love. He spoke of love. In other words, the essence of the law is love. We obey God's law when we love, and we love when we obey God's law. I want for you to let that sink in for just a moment. The essence of the law is love. I think it is very common for people, yes even Christians, to assume that there is law on the one hand and there is love in the other, but these two things have little to do with each other. Have you ever thought that way? Stated differently, some assume that we must choose between two options. Either we serve God through law keeping or we serve God being moved by love. But these two ways are opposed to one another, many assume. And it is better to be driven by love for God than by law. This way of thinking is obviously unbiblical. I know why people think this way. They think like this in part because they have watched people obey God externally but not love Him from the heart and they think to themselves, this is surely wrong. And it is wrong. But it is also wrong to assume that law and love are contrary to one another. They are not contrary. No, God's will is that we obey Him from the heart. His desire is that we would keep His commandments in love. This is why Jesus said in another place, �If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.� That is John 14, 15. Did you hear that? �If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.� So you have to think about that statement. If you love Christ, you will keep His commandments. Those who love God will obey His moral law from the heart. Law and love are not contrary to one another, friends. They go hand in hand. Those who keep God's rules in a superficial way but don't love have not really kept God's law, in other words. It is possible to conform externally to the law and to really not keep the law. Those who say they love God but do not keep His commandments are liars, the Scriptures say. The truth is not in them. Consider also 1 John 2, 3-6, �And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.� Whoever says, I know Him, but does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked." So the point is this, brothers and sisters, to love God is to keep His commandments and to keep His commandments truly and from the heart is to love Him. Three, notice that Jesus did not say anything new when He summarized the law in this way. This also is a massively important principle. Jesus did not say anything new when He responded to that question from the lawyer summarizing the law in this way. Instead, Jesus correctly identified the greatest commandments that were already stated in the law of Moses. They were not new commandments that Jesus invented in that moment, as if Jesus was now replacing the law of Moses with the law of His own. Neither did they become the greatest commandments when Jesus identified them as such. The law to love God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength and the law to love your neighbor as yourself are found in Moses and they have always summarized the two tables of the law. One of the places the Ten Commandments are found is Deuteronomy chapter 5. But I want for you to listen to Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 and following. So we have the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy chapter 5 and in the very next chapter we hear these words, �Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Did you hear that? Ten commandments given. But immediately afterwards it is Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, being led by God. He says even to Israel, obey these commandments from the heart. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. You are to love Him. And your faith, your obedience to God, your love for Him is to so permeate the whole of your life that you talk about God and your love for Him even in your household. You're not to have a superficial external kind of obedience to God, or a superficial kind of religion, but rather your love for God is to be sincere. And it is to control all of who you are and you are to bring it even into the most intimate parts of your life. So it was Moses who commanded Israel to love the Lord and to keep God's commands from the heart. This has always been the standard. And when Jesus summarized the second table of the law with the words, ìLove your neighbor as yourself,î He was simply quoting Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 which says, ìYou shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.î And so you see that these were not new commandments that Jesus was inventing in that moment. He was simply properly interpreting the law itself. He was giving the proper interpretation of it. There is a false teaching out there that some who claim to be Reformed teach. It is called New Covenant Theology. I don't know if you've heard of it. And this teaching does, in one way or another, make a distinction between the so-called law of Moses and the law of Christ. Those who promote New Covenant theology imagine that Christ's law is different from the moral law found in the Ten Commandments, but it is not. Christ did not abolish the law of Moses. What did he do? He fulfilled it. Christ did not give a new law but showed what obedience to the moral law revealed through Moses truly means. He gives the proper interpretation of it and so I think it is right for you to be aware of this theology that is out there and to avoid it. So Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments with two commandments, love God and love neighbor. Law and love are not contrary therefore they agree. We love God when we obey Him from the heart and we obey Him when we love Him. Jesus did not say something new in summarizing the law with these two commands. No, these two commands were from Moses. Christ simply interpreted the law correctly when He identified those commands in response to the lawyer's question. So with those observations about Matthew 22 now stated, let us consider the words of the Catechism. What duty does God require of man? Well, if we boil it all down, we are to love. First, we are to love the Lord our God. We are to love Him above all else. He is to be our greatest treasure, our greatest delight. He is to be our greatest comfort, our greatest hope. All of our trust is to be placed in Him. When we love other people or things more than God, we fall short of the duty which God requires of us. We break His law. And our love for God is to be thorough, and it is to be sincere. We are to love Him with all our being. We are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, our catechism says. You may have noticed that in Matthew 22.37 Jesus says, �You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.� Strength is not mentioned there. But in Luke 10.25 and following, a parallel passage to the Matthew 22 passage, strength is mentioned. Strength is mentioned. There we find a different story actually. It's a very similar one to the one in Matthew 22 but it's different. And behold a lawyer stood up to put him to the test. Jesus was always being tested, wasn't He? Saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? The question is a little bit different, isn't it? What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, what is written in the law? You should know, you're a lawyer. What is written in the law? How do you read it? And the lawyer answered, ìYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.î And Jesus said to him, ìYou have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.î That is Luke 10.25-28. This is an interesting passage, isnít it? So this confirms what I have said earlier about this teaching not being unique to Jesus. He didn't make it up. Even this lawyer possessed a proper interpretation of the Law of Moses. But when he summarizes the Law of Moses he mentions strength. And this does fit with what Deuteronomy 6 says, "...you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." The word is different there but it is the same concept, might or strength. Really, there is no reason to make much of the discrepancy. The meaning is the same. The first and great commandment is to love God with everything that you are, with your entire being. You're to love Him with all your heart. You're to love Him with all your soul. You're to love Him with all your mind. You're to love Him with all your strength. You are to love, worship, and serve God with your whole being, perfectly and perpetually. Never are you to come short of it. I think I should pause for a moment here to ask, Is this law, is this law of love that we are now considering, is this law to love God with all that you are, is it lighter or is it heavier than the Ten Commandments themselves? Have you ever thought about that? Is it lighter than the Ten Commandments or is it a heavier law, a more difficult law to keep than the Ten Commandments? What do you think? I think many would say it is lighter. They assume that to love is a lighter burden than to keep the law. Or perhaps we should say the law of love is neither lighter nor heavier for it is merely a summary of the first four of the Ten Commandments. I think that would actually be a very good answer. But there is also a sense in which the law to love God is heavier. It is heavier. For it does reveal that God's moral law was never intended to be kept in a merely external manner but from the heart even. This is the thing that so many of the religious leaders in Jesus' day did not understand. They thought to themselves, well, I have not murdered anyone, so I have kept God's law. Or I have not committed adultery, so I have kept God's law. But what was Jesus' concern to show them? No, these commandments, if you properly understand them, are to be applied and obeyed even in the mind and in the heart. This isn't about external religion. This is about doing what is right and not doing what is wrong, but also it is about thinking what is right and feeling what is right and speaking what is right. So there is a sense in which this law of love, as we may call it, it's actually a heavier burden. For example, the command to have no other gods before God does not only forbid us from crafting idols and bowing before them, it even forbids having other gods, greater loves we might say, in our heart. The command to love does not weaken the law, it deepens it. The same may be said of the laws against murder and adultery in the second table. Not only are these acts forbidden, but also hatred and lust in the heart. Again, it wasn't Jesus who made that up, it was the intent of the law from the beginning when Moses gave it The commands to love God with all you are and to love your neighbor as yourself do not weaken or soften the two commandments, instead they reveal that we are to keep these laws not merely in an external way, but from the heart. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself, we now ask? Well, you are to treat your neighbor as you yourself would want to be treated. You are to do good to your neighbor. So long as it depends upon you, you are to see to it that their life, their property, their good name are preserved. As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them, Luke 6.31 says. So let me conclude with this question. If I were to read the Ten Commandments to you and then ask, have you kept this law perfectly? What should you say? I hope that you would say what you have been trained to say, ìNo, I have violated this law and thought, word and deed.î You know that the Ten Commandments are a rule for us to live by and you should also know that you have come short of it. You need a Savior therefore. You need a Savior therefore. But what if I were to read to you the sum of the moral law, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself, and then ask you the same question, have you kept this law perfectly, what would you say? I hope you would say, with equal or even greater certainty, no, I have violated this law in thought, word, and deed. and that you would run to your Savior for the forgiveness of sins and for the hope of life everlasting. Brothers and sisters, on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. They are the core of them. They do summarize them beautifully. So what is the sum of the Ten Commandments? 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 neighbor as ourselves. Let's bow together for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, help us to love you from the heart, from the core of our being. Help us to love you with all of our energy as well. Help us to have a sincere love for You. Help us to practice true religion, to not be consumed with appearing righteous on the surface, but to be truly godly in our hearts and in our minds. Father, as we consider this rule that You have given to us, as we consider Your revealed will, Lord, help us to strive after keeping it. But as we strive to keep it, protect us from that sin of legalism, protect us from thinking that we can earn our right standing before You as some of these lawyers did who put Jesus to the test. As we strive to live a godly life, help us to always know that it is by Your grace alone that we stand before You right. We thank you for Christ. We thank you that He kept this law perfectly. He loved you with all of His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He loved His neighbor as Himself. And then He went to the cross to pay for, not His sins, but the sins of others. And then He rose again in victory. We rejoice in Him. All of our hope is in Him. Father, sanctify us according to Your Word and by the power of Your Holy Spirit. It's in the name of Christ that we say these things and all of God's people say, Amen.