Have you ever had a Martha moment? A moment where God says to you, “Hey, you’re missing it. Your affections and your attention are all over the place, Martha, and you’re missing the one thing, the main thing that’s right in front of you.” Luke tells this story in his gospel:
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).
Three words in this passage describe Martha: distracted, anxious, troubled. These things cause her, in this moment, to miss Jesus, to miss the One who is in her house teaching.
Serving is a good thing. Hospitality is a good thing. These are good things that God has commanded us, and yet, when they become the thing, the main thing, they cause us to miss the main thing. For Martha, they had distracted her from what was truly important, from Jesus, who was right in front of her.
In Matthew 22, Jesus is providing the religious leaders with a “Martha moment.” He confronts their chaotic, divided, distracted hearts with a clear command: to love God and love others.
If you remember, it’s been a while: Nine weeks ago, we were going through the book of Matthew. Then we paused for three weeks to talk about death, eternity, and endurance. Then we spent five weeks in Wisdomfest (Jesus in Dark Places). And last Sunday, we ended that with the Great Commission, which is Jesus’s call to us. It’s our mission to go into dark places.
This Sunday, we’re traveling back in Matthew to the great commandment. If last Sunday (the Great Commission) is our mission, this Sunday (the Great Commandment) is our motivation. So let’s do a little review because it’s been a while, all those nine weeks ago.
This section comes right in the middle of the chaos of Passover week. This is the busiest week of the year in the capital (Jerusalem), and the Pharisees and the Sadducees are not happy about how popular Jesus is with the crowds.
You remember, Jesus entered Jerusalem with people shouting, “Hosanna, Hosanna,” so the Pharisees and the Sadducees are determined that he needs to be stopped. They’re coming up with some questions to try to trip Jesus up because they’re stuck. They’re in a tough spot.
Jesus is really popular with the crowds, so if they just take him out, then they’re going to become unpopular with the crowd. So they have to come up with a question to make him either commit blasphemy (which makes their job easy; then it’s obvious what they need to do), or to say something that makes him unpopular with the crowds. If they can get him to say something that the crowds don’t like, then he’s unpopular, and again, their job is easier.
This is what the Sadducees and the Pharisees are trying to do. Again and again, though, the plan backfires. Jesus answers their questions and ends up becoming even more— The people marvel at his answers. So again and again, we see that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, in the midst of this situation, are more concerned about what the crowds think than what is true.
I want us to look at a couple of examples to remember where we’re at. Earlier, when Jesus had asked them in a confrontation with the religious leaders, he said,
“‘The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?’
This is Jesus’s question to the religious leaders.
“And they discussed it among themselves, saying [this is their discussion], ‘If we say, “From heaven,” he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?” But if we say, “From man,” we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.’ So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And he said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things’” (Matthew 21:25-27).
Notice their discussion has nothing to do with what might actually be true. Their discussion is, “If we say this, this will happen. If we say this, this will happen, so we have to plead ignorance.” And they do, and they miss Jesus because of that. They miss Jesus giving them the answer to where he gets his authority because they’re too concerned about what the crowds think.
Another example, a few verses later, Matthew tells us,
“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because [the crowds] held him to be a prophet” (Matthew 21:45-46).
After our passage today in Matthew 23, we’re going to get an exposition of the hearts of the Pharisees from Jesus. He says this about them, he says, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others.” This is the picture:
They’re concerned about keeping their reputation, their position, and their power with the crowds and with Rome. They’re kind of stuck between appeasing Rome and pleasing the crowds and all of these distractions. Their divided hearts caused them to miss who is right in front of them.
It’s good for us to pause and put ourselves in their shoes and be humble before we just point our fingers at the Pharisees and Sadducees. Imagine if you were in their shoes:
Somebody threatens your position, what’s your response? Or when somebody calls you out publicly (as Jesus had done to the Pharisees), what’s your response? Or when the people who listened to you and respected you start to follow after this new guy in town.
This is the situation the Pharisees and the Sadducees are in, so we start to get a feel for why two groups that normally didn’t get along are coming together to figure out how to take Jesus down.
Both groups have had a try. The Pharisees asked him about taxes, and the Sadducees then asked him about marriage. You can see they’re trying to get at questions that are hard to answer and could potentially either get Jesus in trouble with Rome or unpopular with the crowds.
Today we come to one more question before next week, when it’s Jesus’s turn to ask the questions. So the final question. The Pharisees are back up again to try to trip Jesus up. This is Matthew 22:34.
“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, 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?’” (Matthew 22:34-36)
So, Teacher, there are a lot of commandments. Which one’s the greatest?
The Pharisees and the Sadducees love to bring Jesus in on their debates. One of their things, part of their role, was to help the people know and distinguish between light commands and heavy/weighty commands, or lighter commands and the greater commands. “So Jesus, give us your verdict. What do you think is the great commandment?”
It’s hard to know exactly what this lawyer is going for, like what he wants, how he’s going to trip Jesus up with this question. But think of this: It tells you a lot when somebody tells you the greatest of a group of things. They’re telling you something about them, right?
If I were to ask you, what’s the greatest law in the United States of America? Your answer will tell me something about you, right? It reveals something. If you say “the right to bear arms,” then I know something about you. I’ve learned a couple things, probably, about you.
So this question’s goal is to see something about what’s going on with this guy. What’s the greatest? Jesus’s answer is simple, holistic, and impossible. It’s simple, holistic, and impossible.
“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 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” (Matthew 22:37-40).
So, here’s Jesus’s answer: Love. Love God, love neighbor. Love for God, spilling over into love for others, is what you and I were made for. It’s the greatest thing. It’s the greatest commandment, the most weighty thing in your life, in my life. Loving God, loving neighbor.
1. The Greatest Commandment is simple.
Jesus’s answer, first, is straightforward and simple. It sums up all of life. Jesus says that all the law and the prophets depend on these two commands. There are—in just the first five books of the Bible—613 laws. 613. Jesus boils all those down to two. These two sum all of those up. All of those laws, and others, depend on them.
So let’s look at one example of a law from Leviticus 19. As you look at this law, look for how love for God and love for others provide the basis, the motivation underneath this particular expression of that. Leviticus 19:35,
“Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight, or volume. Your scales and weights must be accurate. Your containers for measuring dry materials or liquids must be accurate. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:35-36).
Love your neighbor by being honest and accurate in your dealings because of who your God is. Because of who your God is, be honest and accurate. And because of what he’s done for you: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” He’s treated you way better than fairly.
Imagine a fountain: Love for God is like water getting pumped out of the top of a fountain. Then love for neighbor is what spills over the basin. The splashes, all the different splashes of water, are all the expressions of that love, all the 613 expressions of love. Jesus beautifully sums up all the laws into what is behind them, what’s underneath them, and motivates them.
This leads us to the question: What’s underneath what you do? What’s under your life? If you do 613 things in a day or a week, what’s behind those? What’s underneath those? What could those things be summed up as?
When you’re driving around running errands, when you’re working out at the gym, when you’re cleaning another dirty diaper, going to work, eating meals… What sums all that up? We can do a lot of those things right and miss what’s underneath them, miss the right motivation underneath them.
Jesus says to the Pharisees— These guys were theology students, and he says that they got a lot right. We’re going to see this in the next chapter. They get a lot of things right, but their starting place is wrong, and so it’s off. What is underneath for them is wrong, so the expressions look good, but it’s not coming from a love for God and a love for others. They do all their deeds to be seen by others, not to love others.
Let us not miss in our own lives the main thing that our lives are meant to be about, that gives meaning and motivation to all the little things that we do in a day. The little things aren’t bad. The little things are good, but are meant to flow from love for God and love for neighbor.
So first, the command is simple. It sums up all of life for those of us who are followers of Jesus.
2. The Greatest Commandment is holistic.
Second, the command is holistic. It requires all of you. So it sums up all of life, and it requires all of you, every part.
Notice in this passage, all of the all’s. There are a lot of all’s: all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind. This is how comprehensive, holistic our love for God should be. Love is this multi-dimensional, holistic thing. It takes every part of us.
I like John Frame’s definition of love because it gets at this multi-dimensional aspect of love. He says that love is allegiance, action, and affection. Altogether, it’s allegiance, action, and affection. If we get off, if our version of love is just one of those, if it’s just what I feel, we’ll be all over the place. But if I stick to it, it doesn’t matter how I feel, I just stick to it, that’s off too. It has to be all these different parts:
First, allegiance. Love is committed. It’s faithful and loyal to its covenant. It’s steadfast action: Love serves. It does good. It meets real needs and acts on behalf of another. And affection: Love has desires and joys. It desires the good of another and finds joy in the other.
Notice these in 1 Corinthians 13. This is Paul’s description (part of it) of what love is. He says,
“Love is patient [that’s an internal thing] and kind [external]; love does not envy [internal desire or affection gone wrong] or boast [external expression of that]; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable—” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)
This is the one that gets me the most,
“It is not irritable.”
I can be irritable. I love that it doesn’t say, “Love does a good job of keeping people from irritating it.” It says it’s not irritable.
“It’s not easily provoked. It’s not resentful.”
That is, it doesn’t hold on to wrongs. If you’re holding on to wrongs, something’s off. You’re not living in love for God and love for others.
For any of these—as we think about them and ask God to search our own hearts as we look at this very convicting list—if love is the main thing (love toward God that flows into love towards others), if that’s the main thing for us, then growth in our love for God and love for others, growth in the Christian walk is going to look like growth in these areas. So are we becoming people who are less irritable, less resentful?
If we’re not, then the situation might be that (like Martha) our attention is off. There’s something that has become the thing that I’m irritated about because I didn’t get it, or that I am resentful for because this person didn’t do what they were supposed to do. You see how the love for God flows out into love for neighbor. Paul continues,
“…it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
And here, this last part is the steadfastness of it:
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:6-8).
These are indicators for us. If I have envy in my heart, then I’m not trusting that God is my provider and that he is enough. That lack of trust in who God is flows out into the way I interact with you because now my heart just wants what you have. My love for God is off, and that affects the way I can love you.
If I am arrogant, I’m not resting in God’s grace and goodness to me. I haven’t been humbled by that, and that affects the way I view you as my neighbor.
So what is love? It is this multi-dimensional, holistic allegiance, action, and affection. This love doesn’t come from us. Hopefully you realized that as that list from 1 Corinthians 13 was up. This is otherworldly. This does not come from you. It comes from how God loves you.
He is faithful and steadfast (allegiance). He is your provider. He meets your needs and hears your prayers. He acts on your behalf (action). And his heart is warm in compassion toward you, his child (affection). If we’ve limited our view of love from us to one of them, we might have limited God’s love toward us to one too. But it is all those things. It sums up all of life, and it requires all of us.
Church, Jesus says this is the main thing. It’s the weightiest commandment. Is this our main thing?
If you’re a dad, this is your thing. If you are a mom, this is your thing: Love for God, spilling over into love for neighbor. Grandchildren, grandparents, this is your thing. This is what your life is about. If you’re a student or a pastor or a car mechanic or an employee at Starbucks, this is what sums up all of what you do and is the motivation behind all of your life.
The various expressions of this will look different for each of us based on our personality, our calling, our gifting, and the places God puts us, the jobs he gives us, the families he gives to us, but what’s underneath it is the same.
You might think, as I’m describing this (something that sums up all of life and requires every part of you), that this is a really high bar. And it is a really high bar. It is impossible. The command, the history of it, our own experience of this shows us that this is impossible. Seeing that actually helps us to see the fullness of the solution.
If God doesn’t enable that kind of love that flows from our hearts and our minds and every part of our being to him and towards others, if he doesn’t awaken that and make that alive and possible, then we’re just talking tips and tricks and life hacks to try to be better people. God hasn’t called us to just go from here and clench your fists and work harder to love the people around you that are really hard to love. He enables that love in you.
First, it’s simple, and it sums up all of life. Second, it is holistic. It requires all of you. And third, it is impossible. It is too great for you. It is too great for you.
3. The Greatest Commandment is impossible.
Don’t go home thinking, “Oh, I’ve just got to really like try to love people better.” Watch how God enables this in his people. Look at how Jesus wins this, purchases this kind of love for his people, for you, and rest in his work.
We’re going to take a brief history tour on this command. Jesus’s answer to the lawyer was not a shocker. This is something that had been clear throughout the Old Testament, and the command was given very clearly in the creed of the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 6.
This is the context of Deuteronomy: The people of Israel, God’s people, had been formed in Genesis. Then they were rescued from slavery in Exodus. In Exodus and Leviticus, God gave them his law. Then in Numbers, they’re right on the edge of the promised land, the place that God had promised to bring them by a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire.
They’re on the right edge of it, and what happened? Kids in here, what happened? 12 men went to spy on Canaan. 10 were bad, two were good. We’re not teaching the great hymns of the faith anymore, I guess. They missed it. They didn’t trust. Right on the edge.
This is what God had promised to them, and they’re right on that edge of the promised land, and they are like, “No. That’s a great land, but we can’t get that. Those people are too strong for us. They will wipe us out. We’re like grasshoppers to them.” They didn’t trust, and so God said they would wander the desert, the wilderness, for 40 years.
Just imagine that: 40 years. If you were a 12-year-old girl when you saw that happen, you waited ’till you were 52. 52, you’re back on the edge of the promised land. This is the context for the book of Deuteronomy. We’re back on the edge. We’ve wandered the wilderness for 40 years, and here we are.
The whole book is Moses’s plea to the people of Israel: Don’t turn from the Lord. This is it. You’re here again. Don’t do what your fathers did. Serve the Lord, love the Lord, do not turn from him, trust him. This is when Moses gives the Shema. A good Jew would have said this at least twice a day.
“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” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
The whole book is a plea from Moses for that kind of love for the people to have for the Lord. He says later in Deuteronomy,
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12-14)
But after all this, a whole book of pleading for this, at the end of the book, we get a hint that—even before they go into the promised land—we know what’s going to happen. God says to Moses,
“For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give” (Deuteronomy 31:21).
God knows their hearts are distracted and divided and stubborn. Before we even get into the promised land, we know what’s going to happen. The history of Israel is just an outworking of that. Again and again, they turn from the Lord, and it’s bondage for them. They run after other gods.
Think of Judges, the book of Judges, the cycles of judges where they repent and they come back and the Lord delivers them, and then they’re right back following other gods with stubborn and rebellious hearts. This is the patience of the Lord, long-suffering with a people who turn from him again and again.
We see that the people don’t just need commands and pleas; they need new hearts and God’s Spirit in them. This is what, when we come to the prophets, this is what is promised. This is Jeremiah 31:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).
Ezekiel echoes the same promise:
“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols [that’s the distracted/divided hearts]. I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh [that is, a soft heart]. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:24-28).
So the law told God’s people to love him for their own good.
The history of God’s people showed their failure to do that.
The prophets tell us of a day when God would send a messiah, an anointed one, to come and enable his people’s hearts to love and serve him.
So why is this command right here in Matthew? Why does Matthew stick it where he does? Two reasons:
First, this command is thrown right in the middle of all the Pharisees’ failure to obey it. If you have your Bible in front of you, you can see right before this, all the questions, the hypocrisy, the duplicity of the Pharisees, trying to get people’s approval, trying to keep Rome pleased, keep the crowds pleased. They’re distracted and divided, and they’re missing the One who’s right in front of them. The One whom they are supposed to love with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Next week, Jesus asks a question (a little teaser; the answer is Jesus). Why does David call his son “Lord?” Because he is Lord, and it’s Jesus. It’s the One who you’re talking with, Pharisees, and he’s the One. He could have phrased the command, “You shall love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” He’s right there in the flesh, and they’re distracted and divided. They’re more concerned with what people think of them than with loving the Lord. So the command is there first because it provides a contrast to what we’re seeing in the Pharisees.
Second, the command is right here because in the middle of all that, Jesus is right on his way to the cross, in order to purchase that new covenant. The promise that Jeremiah and Ezekiel give, Jesus is on his way to purchase it. He’s days away from that. He is on his way. He’s in Jerusalem.
He’s on his way to the cross to enact that new covenant with his blood so that his people—not just them in the past (them too), but his people today, you and me—would be forgiven for stubborn and rebellious hearts, for missing it again and again, for being distracted, for our hearts being divided.
Jesus says, in a couple of chapters in Matthew, says to his disciples, “Take, eat; this is my body. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant [and in Mark’s version he adds “new,” for this is the blood of the new covenant], which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
This is it. Jesus is saying, “I’ve come. That new covenant you heard about in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, where God forgives his people, he cleanses them from their idols, he puts a new heart in them and a new spirit in them to be able to love him, I’m here to make that a possibility, to make that a reality.”
In a little bit, we’re going to actually remember that. We’re going to spend time remembering Jesus’s purchase for forgiveness and a new heart on the cross. But before we do that, we’re going to spend some time reflecting.
This is such a big thing. It is, Jesus said, the greatest commandment. So we want to take some time to pause and say, “Lord, is this the main thing for me? Is this what my life is about?” Everything is meant to come under and toward this thing: Love for God flowing out into love for neighbor. Is that true of us? We want to spend some time quietly praying and asking God, “Show us where that’s not true of us.”
Here are some questions that might be helpful. You can write these down if you want: Does God have my attention? Probably the most valuable commodity in our culture right now is attention, and the hardest thing. Does God have my attention, or am I like Martha? Maybe even doing a lot of good things, but I’m missing what’s underneath it. Does he have my attention?
Is there something maybe that you can do as an individual or maybe as a family that would keep this front and center in your life? Maybe a rhythm you could have waking up in the morning, getting alone with God and saying, “Lord, forgive us our sins [part of the Lord’s Prayer] and help me love you today. I’m going to see a lot of people. I’m going to do a lot of things. Help me love you. Give me the power to love you and love others.” Maybe it’s a prayer around the table with your family: “God, help us be a family that this is our main thing. This is what we’re about.”
After we reflect, we’ll take communion together. If you’re not a believer in Jesus, we ask you to just pass the plate and to ask God to show you himself, show you your need for forgiveness, for Jesus’s work. You can’t love without the One who is love. You can’t do it.
If you are a believer, we encourage you to take the Lord’s Supper and use this time of reflection as a time to give thanks to the Lord. Give thanks to Jesus for what he’s done, for forgiving you, for right now, this morning. Like, “My heart is distracted, divided, seeking approval. God, forgive me for the ways I’ve done that a hundred times this morning. Thank you for giving me a new heart, and putting your Spirit in me so I’m not alone to try to figure out this command. I’m not alone to make this happen.”
And I just want to say, the Lord’s Supper is not for you to skip if you’re just not feeling that love. This isn’t a thing to take just because you’re feeling love for God, especially today. What do we do? What do we do when we are in a place where we’re not feeling it? Maybe that’s you this morning. You’re like, “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t feel any of that. I feel numb.” What do you do then?
You put yourself in the paths of grace again and again. Put yourselves in the path of grace and wait on the Lord. What are the paths or the means of grace? You go to his word, you meditate on it. You seek the Lord. You ask him, “Lord, open my eyes. Help me see. Restore to me—Psalm 51—restore to me the joy of your salvation. Renew that joy. I feel numb. I need you to help me.”
And you wait. You go to God’s Word, you pray, and you ask him for that. You seek him to renew that love in you. You come to church and sing and take the Lord’s Supper, because it isn’t about you especially feeling love for him right now; it’s about receiving his unstoppable love for you, his forgiveness for your wayward heart, and giving thanks for the fact that he has made you new. You may be in a season of waiting and not feeling it, but his work is greater than your heart.
So we’re going to reflect. Ben’s going to play while we do that, then we’ll just be quiet and pray to God. Then afterwards, he’s going to start singing a song over us that may be new for you, and we’ll pass out the plates. After we do that, I’ll come up, and we’ll take communion all together.
I want to end this with a quote from Jonathan Edwards as we start to reflect. It’s been so encouraging to me to reflect on what heaven will be like. He gave a sermon that was called Heaven Is a World of Love.
As many of you all know, my mom passed away two months ago tomorrow, and I just want to say that you all pour out this kind of love in so many amazing ways. We’ve experienced that, and I’m so thankful for it, for you all, the Spirit of God in you, and the love that he has given you all that we have experienced. So think about this from Jonathan Edwards in light of all the hypocrisy, the divided and distracted hearts of the Pharisees and our own. He says,
“The joy of heavenly love shall never be interrupted or damped by jealousy. [No more jealousy.] Heavenly lovers will have no doubt of the love of each other. They shall have no fear that the declarations and professions of love are hypocritical; but shall be perfectly satisfied of the sincerity and strength of each other’s affection, as much as if there were a window in every breast, so that everything in the heart could be seen. There shall be no such thing as flattery or dissimulation in heaven, but there perfect sincerity shall reign through all and in all. Everyone will be just what he seems to be, and will really have all the love that he seems to have…The saints shall know that God loves them, and they shall never doubt the greatness of his love.”
For those who struggle with doubt, when that day comes, you will never doubt the greatness of his love for you again.
“There shall be none there to tempt any to dislike or hatred; no busybodies, or malicious adversaries, to make misrepresentations, or create misunderstandings, or spread abroad any evil reports, but every being and everything shall conspire to promote love, and the full enjoyment of love…None are unsocial or distant from each other. The petty distinctions of this world do not draw lines in the society of heaven, but all meet in the equality of holiness and of holy love.”
That is what Jesus has purchased for you and for me when we put our faith in him. We get to taste that now in part, and will fully experience it one day. So let’s spend some time giving thanks, reflecting, and we’ll take the Lord’s Supper together.
