You may be seated. So again, Scott MacArthur is our preacher for this evening. We just appreciate, Scott, your willingness to come and preach so that one of our pastors, Pastor Butler, our full-time elder, can take this month of sabbatical and just rest his own soul and his own mental and emotional state. And we appreciate our other pastor, Cam, for the great labors that he does amongst us. But it is difficult when you're working all week full time to come and fill the pulpit twice on Sunday as he did last week. So thank you. Thank you, brethren. I'll ask you to come and share with us from the Word of God. Well, good evening. It's a pleasure to be here. And I thank you for the opportunity to serve you with God's word tonight. I have a great love and affection for this church and for Pastor Jim, especially as I've gotten to know him for the past 12 or so years, I was trying to remember how long it has been earlier today, but I couldn't quite come up with an exact date. But I know it's more than 10 years at least. So I appreciate our brother Jim's friendship and appreciate getting to know Cam of late as well. And I see a lot of familiar faces here and some new faces too. So I pray that God will continue to bless this work. And be assured that you are in our prayers. We pray regularly, especially on Sunday mornings when we know Jim is going to be preaching the word or this morning. In the case that Cam was preaching, so we were in prayer for Cam. And I also wanted to take just a minute to thank you for your prayers on my behalf, my family's behalf, as we have gone through various trials and struggles concerning sickness and bad health of various sorts. And I just appreciate and we just wanted to express our gratitude for your prayers. In that, if you've been one of those families that have been praying or individuals, we truly do appreciate it. And that was during some very dark times when I could think that I knew that the Lord's people were praying and that sustained us during that time. So I really want to express our gratitude for that. Well, turn in your Bibles to Matthew 22, 34 to 40. This is the great command passage, Matthew 22. Thirty four to 40, we just want to read the text and then we're going to go over to John for a little bit and then we're going to come back to this text. So starting at verse 34 of Matthew 22. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus 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 first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments. Hang all the law and the prophets. Let's pray. Lord God, we come to you tonight, needy people in need of your presence. In need of your Holy Spirit to teach us and to guide us as we move along through these verses. Just pray, Lord, that you would help me to expound your word properly and appropriately. And just pray that you would help my dear brothers and sisters here to receive your word and to implement it in their daily lives. And we thank you, as our brother Steve prayed earlier, for the inheritance that we have in Christ, that great salvation that we have, that the Father has elected a people, the Son has died for those elect, and the Spirit has sealed for the day of redemption. We thank you, Lord, that we can be found in Christ tonight. And I just pray if there are any outside of Christ that you would do a work in their heart and that you would redeem them even here tonight and that you would show your great power in this. And we just pray, Lord, that you would be with us, that you would grant us your presence in Jesus name. Amen. Well, often as we survey the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we see that there are a lot of questions going back and forth. The Pharisees are asking questions of Jesus. The Sadducees are asking questions of Jesus. And Jesus, in turn, is asking questions to other onlookers. So there's a lot of questions going back and forth. And if you're to read through the Gospels, you would see this, that that Christ uses these questions as great hinges to to push this big door open and to answer these questions and to provide the great doctrinal truth. And we want to look at a couple of those just to show you what I'm talking about. I want to start in John, chapter seven. If you could turn over with me to John, chapter seven, we're going to look at a couple of these great questions that we have. The actual question that I want to look at is in chapter eight, but to set that up, go back to chapter seven. And look at verse 40. There's already people who are questioning who this man is. They're trying to decipher who the person of Christ is. And it is not like the game. Who am I? And then you have to guess 20 questions to figure out who Christ is. It's not like that. Christ tells us plainly who he is. And as we move through the context here, you'll discover that at the end of verse 40. Truly, this is a prophet. But others said this is the Christ. But some said, well, will the Christ come out of Galilee? And so in verse forty three, there was a division among the people because of him. They're questioning who he is. Now, turn over to chapter eight and verse twenty five. And here we have a question. Then they said to him, who are you? And Jesus said to them, just what I've been saying to you from the beginning. So we see this questioning going on and Jesus is going to tell them very plainly who he is. Look over to verse 53 of chapter 8. Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead and the prophets are dead? Who do you make yourself out to be? So they're asking, tell us plainly who you are. And go down to verse 56, your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old. And have you seen Abraham? And Jesus said to them, most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So he takes the verse from Exodus 314 and applies it to himself. He take remember in Exodus, it's the burning bush passage where Moses has this is confronted by the Lord and the Lord wants him to go to the people. And Moses says, Who shall I tell the children of Israel has sent me on whose behalf am I going? And he says, I am. And so Jesus claims this, I am statement for himself. He claims deity. He claims to be Jehovah. He claims to be Yahweh. And one of the reasons why we know that in the context here is because the Jews immediately pick up stones to stone him in verse fifty nine. And that was the punishment for blasphemy. They wanted to stone him right away. So Christ does not leave it a mystery as to who he is. He wants us to know very clearly and plainly that he is Christ. So what is our response? What should our response be to that? That he is God, he is Christ. Well, if you go to chapter nine and verse thirty five. Jesus heals the man of blindness. And at the end of verse thirty five, do you believe in the son of God? And he answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, You have both seen him and it is he who is talking with you. Then he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. And I trust that if you believe that Christ is God, if you have submitted your life to Christ, that that is your response to that we worship. Lord, I believe you are who you say you are in the word and we worship, we trust, we obey and we follow. John, chapter 18, there's another question there. This is the mock trial of Jesus. You turn over to chapter 18. Pilate is questioning Jesus, verse 33. Are you the king of the Jews? So again, trying to figure out who this man is. And then again, in verse 37, are you a king then? And Jesus answered, You say rightly that I am a king. And then at the end of the verse, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. And in response to that, Pilate offers up that question. What is truth? That's a huge question, isn't it? What is truth? Of course, Pilate does not realize that in John 17, 17, Jesus defined truth for us when he said, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. So we see the doctrine of Christ, the character, the nature of God, then the doctrine of scripture become these great pillars upon which we build. And we see that in the sixteen eighty nine confession, the confession of this church. It starts with the doctrine of scripture, moves right away to the doctrine of God. We establish those and then we build upon them. And we see that in other in other church confessions as well. And if we could answer those questions, that would go a long way to establishing a strong foundation. I'm so thankful for church history, for for church confessions like the 1689 or the Westminster, because they've they've hammered out these various doctrines for us. And church councils previously have have done this with the authority of Scripture, the deity of Christ, the doctrine of God, these types of things, the Trinity. Could you imagine if we tried to do that today? Where would we find consensus in our evangelical world? It'd be difficult, wouldn't it? We struggle with things like open theism, this open concept of who God is, that God isn't the God who is all powerful and all knowing. He's a God who's changing. He's kind of more like you and I are. We learn over time. And the God of open theism is not the God of scripture. This is not a God is changing over time and getting better and better. It's the God who has established his truth once for all in his word. And so I just wanted to give you an idea of these various questions so that you can see, as we move back to Matthew 22 and go through this passage, that that not only are there questions throughout the Gospels, This day on which Christ was doing this teaching was a day of questions. We look in verse 15 to 22, and the Pharisees are asking Jesus a political question. In regards to paying taxes to Caesar in verse 17, and then Jesus answers, render in verse 21, render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And then verse 22, I always love it when when when this is in the passages here, as we often see, when they had heard these words, they marveled and left him and went their way. And eventually all of them just give up and go their way and nobody dares question him anymore. So the the Pharisees go away, but they're going to come back, as we've already read. Then the Sadducees come and ask a question in verse 23 through 33 concerning the resurrection. And they're trying to trap Jesus into making some kind of a false statement so that they can point their finger at him and shame him in some way so that the crowds will not come to Christ, will not listen, will not marvel. They're trying to to make him and the Pharisees as well. They're trying to make him blaspheme God in some way or to say some kind of heresy or false statement that they can point to him as a false teacher. So they're questioning him concerning the resurrection, a theological question. And Jesus answers them in verse twenty nine. And said to them, you are mistaken, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. So they're asking this question concerning the woman who's had multiple husbands. Who will be her husband in the resurrection? And this is Jesus' response here. And then verse 33. And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. And so the Sadducees go away. Jesus has silenced them, as it says in verse 34. But the Pharisees have returned. And they're coming back to ask a theological question. Previously, they wanted a political question answered. Now they're going to theology. And so let's just move through this passage here and we're just going to discover some of the context and then we're going to have a few points of application. OK, verse thirty four. But when the Pharisees. So the Pharisees have returned to attack him and to shame him in some kind of a way. They had heard that he had silenced the Sadducees. Now, they would have been quite happy that he silenced the Sadducees in this way because the Pharisees held to the doctrine of the resurrection as well. So they would have been happy that he had silenced them on that. But he would not be happy that the crowds are marveling at the way that Jesus is teaching. So they they're trying to protect the turf that they have as religious false teachers. Verse 35, then one of them, a lawyer. So they choose one from among their ranks, a scribe or a lawyer to ask Jesus this question. And we have to leave it to a lawyer to stir up trouble. Right. But this lawyer asked the question, testing him. So here we see a question explicit within the text that we are looking at and saying in verse 36, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Now, the Jews had all kinds of commandments that they took from the Old Testament. There were six hundred and thirteen of them in total. Three hundred and sixty five of them were negative and two hundred and forty eight were positive. So they had all of these commandments and they wanted to know which one was the greatest. Now, the scribes or the rabbis, they spent long hours hair splitting with hair splitting legalism, trying to determine which ones of the commandments were great, which ones were low, which ones were heavy and which ones were were easier. Some would argue falsely that that the most important commandments revolved around the sacrifices. Others said it was around the Sabbath. And this lawyer comes to Jesus and wants to know which of all the commandments is the greatest. Turn back with me to Deuteronomy chapter six, Deuteronomy six. You'll remember the term that we read in scripture, the phylacteries. Now, the phylacteries the Jews used, they were these small boxes, they were one inch by an inch and a half, and they would strap these boxes to their left arm. and to their foreheads. And in them, they had four parchments of scripture rolled up in these boxes. And one of them is this is these verses here that we're going to read. One of the parchments that they have, verse four of Deuteronomy six hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And so you can see how this is teaching the phylacteries has arisen because they take this very literally and they strap this to their arm and their forehead and put it on the doorpost of their house. These these four passages, two from Exodus and two from Deuteronomy. And this is one of the ones from Deuteronomy. And there are lots of teaching in here concerning how we raise our children, that we are to teach them diligently the word of God. And we're to do this in in every aspect of our lives. So when we're doing menial things, maybe we're mowing the lawn, whatever it is, we are to be teaching scriptural lessons to our children and raising them in this way. But the point of the passage that I want you to look at. Is this you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. We are to love God with everything that we have all the time. So let's go back to Matthew 22. Matthew 22. Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Verse 38, this is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. We shall love the neighbor as yourself. So Jesus is, in effect, saying to this lawyer, you know what the great command is. You know what the greatest command is. It's the one that you have in your phylacteries that you carry around with you. Again, they're trying to trick Jesus into some kind of heresy or false teaching so they can point their finger at him. But Christ goes one step further. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Because our love for God will be shown in our relationships with other people and how we love other people. In verse 40, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. The sum total of all the entire Old Testament, with its commandments, its covenants, its promises, its prophecies, all point to the love of God, which demands the answer of love in return. So what Jesus is saying is that the main point of this passage is love, that love is paramount, and we know that God is love. And central to the moral character of the law of God is love. It's a central part of it. The whole duty of man can be summed up in that one word love, love to God and love to our fellow man. We are to love God with all of our hearts, soul and mind. This simply means with all of our being. In totality, we are to love God with everything all the time. As one commentator has said, God's wholehearted love must not be answered in a half-hearted manner. When God loves, he loves completely. When he gives, he gives his son. He gives him up and spares him not. Greater love than that is impossible. And so there are a number of questions that I want to look at arising out of this text points of application. And the first one is, I want you to turn to Revelation two, verse four and five and ask you the question, have you lost your first love? If we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, strength. Have you lost your first love? Now, Christ is going through various churches here and he's complimenting him in some areas and then he's given them a kick in the backside in other areas. And he comes to this church of Ephesus and he says to them, nevertheless, I have this against you in verse four, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. And here's the antidote to losing our first love. Repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. So there we have the antidote to a lack of love. We in verse five, we are to remember. Do you remember what it was like when you first became a believer? I became a believer at the age of 18, so I I know what it's like to see that stark contrast between living for the world and then wanting to live for God. And so we need to be reminded sometimes of what that was like when we first fell in love with Christ, our Savior, and to fall in love with him once more and then repent. We are to repent. We are to claim first John one nine. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and then do the first works. Do you remember how active you were in Christian service when you became a Christian, how active you were in the study of God's word? You couldn't get enough. And in prayer and in evangelizing and in in wanting to see others come to Christ, perhaps your loved ones. So that is the remedy. We remember, we repent, we do the first works, we get involved in service, we share our faith, we study God's word and we pray. And so I ask you, have you lost your first love? I pray that you have not. Another thing that we can do is meditate upon the gospel, the great riches that we have in Christ. And if you want a good passage for that, 2 Corinthians 5, 14 to 21 is a great passage to go through and just think on what we have in Christ. And it ends with that great verse, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We need to see afresh the riches that we have in Christ. And I hope that never has become old to you. I hope you've never fallen out of love with Christ, but Sadly, it does happen from time to time and we need to be reminded. Verse 37 of Matthew 22, we'll go back there. Verse 37, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind. There is an implicit question that arises out of that text. And the question is this, who are you living for? If we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, Who are you living for? Are you living for self or are you living for God? We are to seek to live for God's glory and not our own glory. We are to seek to honor Christ in all things. We are to love God with everything that we have all of the time. We are to seek to love God with all that we are, with every fiber of our being, including our time, our talents and our treasure. Who are you living for? So if we are to to love God with every fiber of our being, including our time and our talents and our treasure, how are we spending our time? Is that showing that we are in love with God? How are you spending your time? As I mentioned earlier, I was saved at the age of 18 at Bible camp. I'd gone to Bible camp for years. I was raised in a non-Christian home. But I went, my mom sent me to Bible camp from time to time. I went as a 17 year old and I could feel the Lord was starting to put this pressure on me, starting to convict me of sin. But I tried to push it away and deny that. And then the next summer at the age of 18, this happened again and I couldn't deny it any longer. And I had to submit to Christ. But one of my reasonings at 17 for not wanting to accept Christ was I still wanted my sin. I was in high school. I wanted to live it up. I wanted to eat, drink and be merry. But that was foolish of me because I had no guarantee. That later on in life, I would have that opportunity to then accept Christ graciously. God did save me. God did open my eyes. But I hope that is not your condition here tonight, that you are thinking, well, I'm going to put that off to a later date. I'm going to wait till I'm out of school. I'm going to wait till I'm married and I'll settle down. I'm going to wait till I'm dying and I'm on my deathbed. Then I'm going to accept Christ. There's no guarantee that that is going to happen. Proverbs 27 1. Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth. And we can we can concur with the writer to the Hebrews that now is the day of salvation that we need to heed that warning that we do not harden our hearts. And it is pointed out to man wants to die. And after that, the judgment, there will be no second chances. And if the Lord is working on your heart, you must confess your sin and come to him while there is yet time. So we must use our time for service to God and to others. And we are admonished in Ephesians 5, 13 to redeem the time. We are going to be held accountable for how we use our time, and I hope that you are using it for God's glory and not living for self. And then secondly, how are you using your talents? If you are a Christian here tonight, I can categorically say that you have been gifted in a unique way by God, by the Holy Spirit to enhance this body of Christ. If you were to look at Ephesians 2, 8 to 10, you don't need to turn there. I can read it for you. But it's a it's a very I find verse 10 to be very startling because verse eight and nine are very familiar. We know these verses for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. But verse 10, perhaps you've never read this one. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has prepared a work beforehand that we should walk in them. I don't know what God has prepared you for or God is preparing you for. I don't know what work he wants you to do. I don't know what that is, but I do know that he is uniquely gifted you for that purpose and that purpose often is initially worked out within the context of the local church. You know that Paul often uses the illustration of the body in his writing. So not all of us are a right arm. or brawny shoulders or legs. Some of us might be a baby toe or some other part of the body that might seem to be insignificant. But what happens if you drop a hundred pound weight on your baby toe and it's no longer functioning, it's broken? That causes a lot of pain. It causes you to limp along. Right. I had knee surgery last fall and still sometimes I limp along because it still bothers me. So what happens in the body of Christ if we decide to take our gifts and pull out and not be involved in the body? just limps along and it's not running on all cylinders and being all that it can be. So God has uniquely gifted you to be using your gifts. And again, you will be held accountable not only for how you use your time, but how you use your talents. And I trust that you will not bury those talents, but you will be active in service. And this means at least two other things. No one is useless in God's kingdom. Have you ever felt that way that I'm just little me over here? How can I be of any any service to to anyone? But we are not to think that way. We have to let God's word govern the way that we think and hold every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. We. are of use to God because we are Christians and we have been gifted with some measure of gifting in some way. And then secondly, there's no room for self-pity or excuses. Do you ever make excuses, maybe like Moses in Exodus? where he makes excuses that he's not eloquent, that he talks funny. How can how can you use me? So God says, OK, well, we're going to we're going to use Aaron as well. But he makes all kinds of excuses. He at least three excuses he has in that one chapter there early in Exodus. So there's no room for self-pity or excuses. God has gifted you. And we must come to the place where we say with the Apostle Paul that by the grace of God, I am what I am and get on with it. So I don't know what God has called you to do, but I do know that you need to be active in using your gifts. And one of the one of the ways that you do that is to get involved in the local church and to be active. Maybe you don't know. Maybe you're on the discovery of trying to discern what your gifts are. How can I be used? Well, that's where the elders come in. You go talk to them. Perhaps they've identified some some areas that you might be proficient in, or perhaps they have different things that you can do to get involved and to be active, to discern your gifts, to see and to work in that way. So we are to love God with all that we are and all that we have, including our time and our talents and our treasures. How are you using your money? Is it for the advancement of God's kingdom? Or are you are you storing up treasures here on Earth when we should be storing up treasures in heaven? Now, there's a second implicit question arising out of this text in verse thirty nine. When Christ says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the first one in the first command was, who are you living for? And the second one concerns our horizontal relationship with other people. We are to love our neighbor as ourself. And the question that arises there is, how are you living? So who are you living for and how are you living? You are to love your neighbor as yourself. Now, we know that we are to love all people in all places, everywhere. That's the essence of the command. But I want to apply this specifically and personally to your fellow believers and specifically to this body of believers. If you count this as your church home, that you would that you would Apply this here and now, and I want you to think of your fellow believers in this church. How is your love for them? Do you realize that this is the greatest witness to the world that you have? It's your love for one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples. If you have love one for another. John 13, 35. Paul often talks about whether one another and. How are you doing at one another? And here's a few examples from various epistles. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor, giving preference to one another. That's Romans 1210. So we are to be devoted to and give preference to one another. Romans 14, 19, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. So we come here not to just soak in the great preaching that Cam and Pastor Jim give us, but we come here to edify each other, to encourage each other. Romans 15, 7, therefore, receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. We are to be merciful and accepting of others because God has shown mercy to us in the person of Christ. So there's a gospel motivation for us to love each other. Romans 12, 25, there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. So we're not to be divisive, but we are to care for each other. And Galatians 5, 13 and 14, for you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another for all the loss fulfilled in one word. Even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And we could go on and on. So how are you doing at one another? How are you living for and how are you living for? This really is talking about how we deal with each other, how we talk to one another, how you talk to your spouse or your children, these types of things, how we communicate. Are we communicating what God has communicated to us? Love, grace and mercy and forgiveness. Or are we communicating anger and impatience and annoyance and indifference? Every time we open our mouths, we are communicating something. Think about your church for you for a second when you're mingling out there. This is a great opportunity to practice the one another's that scripture talks about to love one another, to pray, to encourage, to forgive. Ephesians 4.32 has been kind of a theme verse around our house. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. So again, there's the gospel motivation. We've been forgiven so much by Christ, by God, and so we need to be forgiven one to another. We can get very practical with these types of things. Our brother Steve just mentioned the fruit family and all of the trials they're going through. And we could be a great encouragement to them by just picking up the phone, letting them know we're praying for you. Is there anything else we can do? What do you need? These types of things we can get very practical. It's not just for pastors or for elders or leaders in the church. This is part of the mutual care for one another, the mutual ministry in the body that each of us has to take responsibility for. So how are you living? Christ wants us to know who he is, that he is God. He wants to know how we are living in relationship to other people, and he wants to know who we are living for. Are we seeking to honor Christ in all things? Are we consumed with a passion for the glory of God? Now, I have two goals here tonight. And I'll close with this one is that you would know God personally. If you do not know Christ, please do not leave this place until you have submitted your life to him. And then secondly, if you do know God, that you would desire to pursue him passionately, that you would desire to to live for him, that you would desire to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul and with all of your mind, and that you would pursue him with a passion. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the riches, the benefits that we have in Christ, that you have blessed us so greatly. And Lord, we just we grieve for those who may be here that that do not know you. We just pray, Lord, that you would open up their hearts and their minds, that they would desire a relationship with Christ. And Lord, I thank you for my brothers and sisters here that do know you, that do want to pursue you with passion. And I just pray, Lord, that you would help them in their daily lives, whatever they are struggling with or that you would help them, that they would seek to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. and seek to live for God and not for self. Lord, save us from ourselves that we would not keep our eyes on ourself and grow discouraged and despondent, but that we would look to Christ. We would look to your gospel and that we would see the riches that we have stored for us in Christ, that we would see our position in Christ, that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. And so, Lord, we just pray that you would bless us, that you would go with us into this week and that we would live with all of your might, with all of our might for your glory. We thank you, Lord, and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.