Our scripture reading tonight is from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, taking up our reading at verse 15, Matthew 22, taking up the reading at verse 15. We'll read down through verse 40. Let us give attention to God's own word. Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully. And you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us then what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why do you put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax. And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? They said, Caesar's. Then he said to them, therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. When they heard it, they marveled, and they left him and went away. The same day, Sadducees came to him, who say there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers among us, the first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. So to the second and third, down to the seventh, after them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her. But Jesus answered them, You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. 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? And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 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. So far the reading. of God's Word. Here in response to the question of the Pharisees, Jesus gives us a summary of the law, a summary of the law that is very, very familiar to us, a summary of the law that is read very frequently in our morning worship services. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And these two commandments are so familiar, so valuable, so frequently repeated, that we can sometimes neglect the fact that they come to us in a context in Scripture. They certainly can stand alone. They certainly are true just as they stand. But I think we'll gain an even deeper insight into what our Lord was saying and teaching if we look carefully at the context of what is being said. And I've said to you before that often scriptures that are very familiar to us can be hard to look at with fresh eyes and to allow them to say something to us that maybe we haven't quite heard before. And if we think carefully about this, we maybe are alerted to that in that Jesus is asked, what is the great commandment? And he gives an answer to that question, but you notice he doesn't stop with that answer. He goes on to say, and the second is like it. They had asked for just one commandment, but he gives them two. Why does he do that? Well, I hope we'll see as we go along. I want you to be, you know, on the edge of your seats. Why two? What's going on here? well, Matthew has very carefully set the context for us. These are not neutral questions. These are not honest questions. These are not serious investigative questions. These are not questions that are seriously in the hearts of people. These three questions are put to Jesus as a trap. They want to entangle him. They want to trip him up. They want to expose him. They are convinced that he is a fraud and a liar. And they want to show the people that they should not be following him or listening to him. And so they come to him. And they come with three questions. Three questions. When else in Matthew's gospel have three questions been put to Jesus in the wilderness by the devil to test him, to try to trap him, to try to entangle him? What Matthew is really saying to us here in chapter 22 is that the devil who came personally directly to Jesus at the beginning of his ministry to try to thwart him. Now near the end of his ministry, the devil sends his agents in Jerusalem to continue the temptation, to continue the effort to stop Jesus and to defeat him. And if we had time tonight, and you may fear that we might, we can see parallels between the questions that the devil asks and the questions that these agents of the devil asks, questions that relate to worship, questions that relate to power, questions that relate to the Word of God. But in each of these questions, Jesus sees clearly the wicked heart that asks them, The wicked plan that directs them. And so Jesus answers them with great skill and great cleverness, revealing exactly where these questions are coming from and the wicked hearts that have directed them. And in the third question, we have this remarkable moment that Matthew alone records, Mark and Luke also record this question being put to Jesus, what is the great commandment? But only Luke records that when Jesus mentions also the second commandment, he says, and the second is like it. The second is like it. you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Have you ever asked yourself, how is the second commandment like the first? I asked some ministers I knew, had they ever heard a sermon on how the second commandment is like the first? And they said no. So, I thought I could subject you safely to such a sermon. How is the second commandment like the first? One is a command to love God. that makes perfect sense as the great commandment. And we can understand that loving the neighbor is important and vital. We understand that as a genuine expression of what our religion calls us to. But to say that second commandment is like the first is remarkable. And so I'd like us to think a little bit about how is the second commandment like the first, and how do relating those two commandments to one another help us to understand more what the Lord calls us to? Well, the obvious point, first off, is that both are commands to love. It's the same word for love in both commands. They are like one another in that they are both commands from our God to love. And as we think about that command, it's easy to think, isn't it, about the way in which love is stressed in the Scripture as central to our lives, to our experience, to our understanding of God and our understanding of ourselves. Love, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, is the great and lasting virtue. One day we won't need faith anymore because we'll see the truth face-to-face, but we'll always need love. Love is the great virtue that binds us to our God, and we were created for that purpose. We were created to love God and to love our neighbor. That's inherent in God's statement, it is not good that man should be alone. We need family and friends. We need connection with one another as well as connection with our God in love. That's why in the Mosaic law, love is central in the expression of the law. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, we read, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Here's the essence of true religion. They're embedded in the law that Moses gave to his people. The first thing the law says is not keep every little detail of the law. The first thing the law says is love the Lord your God. And these words, Moses says, or God says, that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Love should be written everywhere. I had a great experience driving to church this morning. I was driving behind a car, and I looked at the license plate of the car. My wife says I don't pay close enough attention to the driving of driving. So I was looking at the license plate, and there was a frame around the license plate on the back of the car. And it said, Calvin Christian School. And then the top of the frame said, Called to Love. I thought, that's just like Deuteronomy chapter 6. We're writing love on the frames of our car licenses. But the important thing is, isn't it, that we think about love as central in our Christian experience. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Love is reciprocal. God loves us and we love Him. That's the call and experience at the very heart and center of the Christian life. Paul sums up Christian living in Romans 13, verse 8, in this remarkable way. The one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Here's the center, here's the essence, the importance of the call to love in our lives. The great human problem is so well summarized, isn't it, in the Heidelberg Catechism, question five. What's our problem as sinners? It's that we're prone by nature to hate God and our neighbor. We're prone, by nature, to hate God and our neighbor. That's the result of sin. That's the result of the fall. That's the fallen world in which we live, a world in which there is more tendency to hate than to love. And yet God has called us to love. And He has said that that call to love is to be expressed in our love to God. and in our love to our neighbor. So, the two commands are connected by the command to love, and they are connected by the connection that we find in what God has said about us in relation to Himself. Who are we? We are those created in the image of God. We are those created in the image of God. And therefore, as we are called to love God, so we are called to love His image bearers. That's central to who we are and what we are to experience. The image of God has always been a crucial concern for our God, hasn't it? We saw that in our text tonight. When the Pharisees wanted to know whether they had to pay taxes or not, a perennial question, a good way to get into a political fight. Jesus so cleverly says, well, bring me the denarius that we use to pay the tax. Whose image is on it? Now, this is so clever on Jesus' part. These Pharisees who were so scrupulous about the law, who were insistent that nothing idolatrous have ever be done. They would have said it is unimaginable that they could ever commit the sin of idolatry. They so love the Lord. And Jesus says, what are you carrying around with you? But an idol. An idol as a picture of Caesar, as God. Give it away. Why are you holding on to it? Instead of a coin bearing the image of an idol, Jesus is saying to us, think about your neighbor. Think about your neighbor who is created in the image of God, who bears the image of God, who is in the likeness of God in the fullest and truest sense. That's what we are created as human beings to be. And in your desire to love God, be sure you love the one who is created in His image. In the first letter of John, chapter 4, it's almost as if John is thinking back to what Jesus said, as it's recorded for us in Matthew 22. It's as if John is giving us a little meditation on how the second commandment is like the first commandment. 1 John 4, verse 7, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that He sent His only Son into the world, that we should live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must love his brother. You see how wonderfully John has knitted the theme of God's love for us and our love for God and our love for the neighbor together? How they are inseparable, John is saying, just as Jesus had said. If we do not love our brother, we cannot say we love God. That is unimaginable. And it was precisely that reality that evoked from Jesus this second commandment as he faced the Pharisees. these Pharisees that thought they were such great law keepers. Have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? The Pharisee would have said, I have. I have given my life to loving the Lord according to His law. I have summarized that law in over 600 points. I have memorized that law. I have lived scrupulously according to that law. and I have loved the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Jesus says, and what about loving your neighbor? You who are so proud, so confident. What about loving your neighbor? And do you see how telling that is? Who is their neighbor? Jesus is their neighbor. and they are there because they hate him, because they want to destroy him. They are there as those who will soon be plotting his death. And Jesus, you see, is challenging them to think about this connection between loving God and loving his image bearer. All of their proud talk about loving God comes to nothing when it is revealed that they hate those who bear his image. They hate Jesus, but Jesus isn't the only one they hate. They hate all the common rabble that are not well-educated in the word. They hate all those common people who are not scrupulous in keeping the law the way they are. They are so filled with themselves, there's no room for anyone except themselves and God. Because they love God as he ought to be loved. And Jesus, by this simple little statement, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Destroys the whole edifice of their religion. True religion and undefiled is to love God and his image bearers. That's what we're called to. Now, of course, the irony is that not only have these Pharisees hated Jesus, their neighbor, but they've hated Jesus, their God. Jesus is God come in the flesh to save them from their sins. But they refuse to acknowledge their sin. They refuse to acknowledge their need. And so they understand neither God nor the neighbor. And they reveal that they know nothing about love. This is really tragic. This is really sad. And it comes then, this connection between these two commandments, it comes then also as a challenge to us, doesn't it? So how is it with us and with our religion? We're in church Sunday night. Clearly, we love God. It may not take all of our strength to get to church Sunday night, but clearly we're a lot better than a lot of people. Well, that may be true. But we have to see clearly, as Jesus wants us to see clearly, that we cannot claim a love to God that is not reflected in a love for the neighbor. That's what we're called to. That's what we need to express. and the neighbor often isn't very appealing, is he? There are lots of things about neighbors that we don't like. Some of the things we don't like, it's right not to like. But the call of the Scripture is that we need to love the image of God in the person created by God. And that that has to inform the very heart of our lives as Christians. You know, my own conviction is that this congregation is a very loving congregation, a very welcoming congregation, a congregation that loves God and loves the neighbor. But not perfectly. Not perfectly. That's why we have to hear the Word of God, to be challenged, to reflect, to realize that when it comes to this remarkable call to love, we can get it wrong in any number of ways. The world gets it wrong. Much of the world doesn't love God or the neighbor, but only loves the self. How tragic that is. How disastrous for the world and for the individuals that live that way. But then there are also the people who think they love God and hate the neighbor. That was true of the Pharisees, wasn't it? That's true today of some violent forms of Islam. Out of their love for God, they kill the neighbor. And there are people who hate God and claim to love the neighbor. That was true of communism, isn't it? Oh, they're so concerned about the people. Not so concerned about individuals, but they're greatly concerned about the people, and they can speak for the people, but they hate God. And Jesus says, all of these ways of life are destructive and tragic and alienated from God. We have to love God and love the neighbor and love ourselves. Thirdly, that's what's so hard, isn't it? Not to be self-centered, but to allow the love of God and the love of the neighbor to have priority in our lives. And where will that love come from? Not from our nature, because by nature we're prone to hate God and the neighbor. Such love was lost in the fall. So where will it come from? It can only come from the Savior. It can only come from God. It can only come from the God who sent His own Son into the world to die for sinners so that our hatreds can be forgiven and so that we can be renewed by His Spirit to live a life of love. That's what we're called to, not to live in our own strength, Not to despair, but to say those who have turned to God and cried out to Him will find in Him a God of love. That's what John means when he says God is love. God is love in that He loved us and gave His own Son as a propitiation for us that we might be forgiven, and sends His Spirit into our hearts so that we might be a people of love. That's what we're called to. That's the challenge before us. That's the connection between the Second and the First Commandments. And how thankful we should be that our Lord has loved us so that we might love Him and love one another. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself, and know that when you fail, Jesus loves you and will forgive you as you turn to Him for mercy and for strength. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, how we look forward to that great day when there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which love dwells, in which forever the hatreds of our hearts will be taken away, in which forever there will be a wonderful balance of love for you, our God, and love for our neighbor and love for ourselves after you. O Lord, as we find ourselves still in this fallen world and find ourselves so much preoccupied with ourselves, we do pray that you would have mercy upon us for our failures of love. We do pray that for the sake of Jesus Christ, our sins would be taken away. and we pray that Your Holy Spirit would come so that more and more we might mortify our flesh and more and more the new life of Jesus and His love might be manifested in us. And we pray for our congregation that we might be a community of love as well as a community of faith and that in that love we would glorify You. and be a light shining in a dark place. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.