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Refocus Church

1. Introducing the Great Commandment
   

Introduction to the Series

 

•  Jesus laid down five ‘tasks', things for us, the Church, to do in what we call the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.
•  Tasks 1 & 2 (in the Great Commandment) – are heart or attitude issues
•  Tasks 3-5 (in the Great Commission) – are doing issues
•  In this first teaching we consider 1 & 2 in outline

 

A. Introduction - The Origins

 

The Old Testament revealed two calls which are subsequently picked up and reiterated by Jesus:

 

a) Jesus in the New Testament

Mt 22:37-39 – Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 

b) The Old Testament Quoted

Deut 6:4,5   Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Lev 19:18   Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

 

•  Put very simply this might be summarised as:
  •  Put God first in everything and love other people like you love yourself.
  •  Every other rule hangs on these two
  •  If we love God we will not sin
  •  If we love our neighbour we will bless them and seek to reach them

 

B. Seeing the Context

•  There is a danger looking at these ‘commands' – we see them as ‘heavy rules' that we ought to keep,
•  When we can't, we feel guilty failures.
•  What was the basis of the Law of Moses?
•  Did God just dream up a set of rules that He thought might be a good idea for us?
•  No, when He created us He designed us to ‘work' or ‘function' in particular ways and all of the Laws that He gave through Moses reflected His design.
•  Let's consider these two rules as ‘design-rules' that help us function as human beings the best we can (and thus be fulfilled and able to enjoy life to the most).

 

C. Law versus Grace

 

•  Law says you ought to follow these rules.
•  Law says these rules will drive you to God.
•  Grace says, now you know God they can help show you the path to walk.
•  Grace says these rules will bring blessing.

 

D. Practical Outworking (1) Loving God.

 

In simplest form it means:

•  make GOD, the PERSON, a wonderful person, the centre of your life in thinking and doing.

 

i) A PERSON

    

•  i.e. a person, not rituals
•  e.g. consider if you pray mechanically you go through a ritual and ‘something' happens
•  NO! The PERSON turned up and touched you.
•  So when we pray we reach out to a PERSON.
•  When you feel loved, a PERSON flows over you.
•  When we read the Bible and it comes alive, a PERSON is speaking to us.
•  When the worship leader changes direction it a PERSON directing them.

 

ii) A WONDERFUL Person

  

•  Some of us might struggle with this but it's true!
•  Consider a wonderful mother who is always there for her children, always gentle, always loving, always caring, always providing, always protecting, always wise.
•  Is it difficult for a small child to love her? No!
•  Mt 13:45,46  “ the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”.
•  The kingdom of heaven is about God who rules
•  Jesus says knowing God is THE most wonderful thing possible, because HE is so wonderful.

 

iii) Centre of your life?

He naturally becomes the focus - this is something to be learned.

e.g.1. something goes wrong

•  old response – struggle to overcome.
•  new response – talk to God about it, commit it to Him and leave Him to show the way through.

e.g.2. need for direction arises

•  old response – think of every possibility, work on it logically.
•  new response – talk to God about it, wait on Him to reveal the right direction.

e.g.3. weakness strikes

•  old response – rest, sleep, drop out
•  new response – talk to God about it, receive His enabling, His energy.

 

E. Practical Outworking (2) Love your neighbour

 

•  Again do we see this as a ‘hard' instruction?
•  It's about how we view everyone else.
•  When we see them through His eyes, we'll think and feel differently about people.
•  We'll examine this in detail in the days to come.

 

  

F. Recap

 

We have considered these instructions in outline as:

•  showing us how God has designed us
•  things to bless us in our walk with Him

Once we consider them we see:

•  loving God is a natural thing once you realise who He is,
•  focusing on Him becomes obvious once we realise who He is,
•  seeing others through His eyes brings a transformation in how we think about people.

 

A Final Comment

Loving God and being loved by Him is at the heart of the Christian life. Isn't it silly to think that we OUGHT to love God. The reason we think that is that, because we are sinful people and so we saw what God had to say in the Law of Moses, which Jesus reiterated it in his day - and we saw it as a 'rule to be obeyed instead of a signpost to God.

But the truth is that if we were able to see God through sinless eyes, we would not be feeling guilty or fearful when we approach God; we would be filled with wonder at who He is and with the fact that He loves me unconditionally because He IS love. How can we read about Jesus dying for us and still not see that we are loved? So many of our difficulties are because we can't believe that we can be loved like this. How sad! May you see through the following pages that His love IS unconditionally there for you.