Keep the Main Thing, the Main Thing

All right, folks. We’re going to start coming back to our seats for meet and greet. We’ll go ahead and come start coming back to our seats for meet and greets. Like Miss Carolyn was just talking about, we’ve got these bracelets with VBS names on them. We’ve been doing this time May y’all we’re chatty today. This is great. Fantastic. Summer’s happening. We’re feeling a little looser with our rhythms and our rules. There we go. Okay.

All right. So, like we’ve been doing every Sunday morning, we’re going to spend some time this morning just praying and praying once more for Vacation Bible School. We did something last month whenever Becca, Al, and myself took the students off to camp, we put all the names of the students on these wristbands, and y’all were awesome and y’all prayed for the students all week. I just want to say something. When we were at camp, three students gave their lives to Christ. Isn’t that incredible? I remember talking with one of the couples of our church. The husband got one of the boys. The wife got the girl. And all week they were praying for those two students, and God used their prayers, y’alls prayers, and our prayers to save those two students. So, man, I I fully expect for God to do the exact same thing through Vacation Bible School this week. So, I I I’m really serious about this. I am asking for everybody to make at least a one-week commitment to wear these wristbands. So, if you don’t have a wristband yet, can you just go ahead and raise your hands? The boys have some more wristbands. All right, boys, I trust y’all. Y’all just go and disperse those wristbands.

What we’re going to do for the next few moments is we’re going to pray for the names on our wristbands. We’re going to ask that God would get a hold of them in some capacity. I trust that many of the names that you are wearing already know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So, your prayer for them, if you know them, might be God, would you just use VBS to encourage and deepen their faith? For the other ones that you’d say, I’ve got a hold again on my wrist. You’re like, God, please get a hold of this this child and we also have the names of the students that are volunteering with VBS. So, you might recognize that you’ve got a teenager on your wrist and your prayer for them would be God, use them this week, encourage them, help them also to have a great week. So, what we’re going to do, you’re going to just buddy up with the neighbor. You’re going to pray for VBS. You’re going to pray for the name on your wrist. Ask that God would use VBS in their in their lives and I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. So, you guys take it away. Pray for your wristband. Thank you.

Holy Spirit, I want to say thank you. Thank you for all the prayers being offered right now for these wristbands. Thank you for the folks that are They’ve already been working so hard to make VBS happen and they’re just going to they’re going to put in a really good full heart week as they teach music, as they prepare food, as they do Bible studies and teach about missions, as they lead crafts and everything else. God, I pray that you would just reward the volunteers who are going to work really hard for this. I pray for these kids that are going to come. Lord, help us to be really good stewards of them. Help us to do everything that we can to introduce them to the saving son of God, Jesus Christ. God, for all the kids that do know you, I pray, Lord, that you would help them to come to love you more and more deeply. And for those that don’t know you yet, God, please use VBS to transform their souls. Lord, we love you and in your great name that we pray. Amen.

Amen. Awesome. Well, I want to invite my buddy Jonathan Stafford up to the the podium this morning. It’s been a funny summer timing wise with how all of our guest preaching has been going, but you guys get a real treat this morning. When I was a student at CSU, humanly speaking, there were two people that God used to radically transform my life. I married the first one. I could not marry the second one, but here’s the second one. So, Jonathan, he was a resident advisor on my hallway. I met him when I was a freshman. I think I met him my first year or my first week of my first year of college, and immediately he became just an older brother in the faith for me. A lot of the best parts about me don’t just come from Becca. They also come from Jonathan, and this is one of the few relationships, as you guys can understand, that has really stood the test of time. I’ve known him now for half my life. Our kids—yeah, our kids, their kids—it’s like a cousin relationship, aunt, uncle sort of a thing. So, this morning he’s going to bring the message from God’s Word, and my request, my invitation to you guys is that y’all will receive it from him just like you received it last week from Clarence, like you do from Al, like you did from Jake a few weeks ago, and like you would do for me any other morning. So, Jonathan, man, have at it. Thank you so much, buddy.

Jeremy, thanks, man. Hey, good morning, church family. Like Jeremy said, my name is Jonathan. I am a pastor up in Greensboro, and so I’m just really grateful to be here. You guys—I’ve met and talked with a few of you. It’s been super kind, just super welcoming to me and my whole family, and so I’m grateful to be here. Like Jeremy said, man, we go way back, and so we really started walking each other whenever we first started walking with the Lord. We knew each other then. And so we’ve been through a lot of life transition, seen a lot of things. He’s been an incredible friend to me. And here’s what has always impressed me most about Jeremy: is that he has always been able to stay fully committed to the mission of God. Right? He just has a tremendous faith about him. And his faith has really enabled him to just be able to say yes to what God has put in front of him. And what’s been so cool is, as Jeremy has said yes to what God has called him to, everything that he has touched, everything that he’s put his hands to, he’s just seen fruit, and it’s grown, and things have become more pleasing to the Lord. And so as I’m here today, and as I’ve heard him talk about you guys, I just want you to know that he loves this church. Like he lights up when he talks about you. And I agree with him that the Lord is really, really moving here. And I’m just so grateful that I can be here today and be a part of what God is doing here, and that I would even be asked to be here. So I’m really excited to continue the Living Water series that you guys have been in. However, I kind of feel like, you know, with everything kind of going on up here, I kind of just—I missed my sermon, right? It should have been a totally different sermon here to be a bit more on brand. But I hope that this will be encouraging. So as we continue our Living Water series, it’s just good to remember there’s a deep drive in all of us to chase things in life. But unfortunately, many of those things that we chase, they just fail to deliver on what they promise, right? But Jesus, on the other hand, promises to be the living water, and even more so, He transforms life as we know it and actually provides us true life in Him. You see, the life lived for Jesus actually has the most joy, satisfaction, and peace. And so we’re going to continue thinking in that way here in Matthew 22. So go ahead and open your Bibles and turn to Matthew 22, if you haven’t already. You know, it’s a passage that we’re all familiar with. Even if you don’t immediately know the reference of what it says, man, you know it. You know what it says. You’re familiar with it. And I love it because it’s just so simple. It’s so direct and to the point and simple. You see, Jesus is going to cut through all of the noise of our life. All the sideshows, all the distractions, all the things, and He’s just going to show us the purpose of all of this. Like, what are we doing here? Like, what’s the main point of my life? What’s the main point of your existence? Your purpose in each and every single moment. You Know, it really reminds me of a story of a lady called her name was Trudy Ederle. You see, a few years ago, a movie came out about her life and just her accomplishments, and she was the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Okay? So, in 1926, Trudy successfully swam 21 mi across the English Channel. That meant that she swam for 14 hours and 31 minutes. In the water the whole time. She she had to eat and drink in the water and and just do she was just in the water swimming for 14 hours. Like, an unbelievable accomplishment. If anybody can swim in this room half a mile, I consider you a top-tier athlete. She did it for 14 hours and 31 minutes.

What’s more than that is that she, as she swam, there were countless distractions, countless discouragements, all sorts of reasons for her to quit. And she had to deal with freezing temperatures. She’s in the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s cold. There’s waves that are throwing her off course and she’s trying to navigate in the open ocean, like, where to go and how to keep going in straight line. There was jellyfish stings. There were members of her boat crew who around her who just kept discouraging her, who did not want her to succeed. And they were asking her to quit and they even began to poison her. And she’s in the water trying to figure out and deal with all of these different things. Members of her own family didn’t want wanted swim. Like, she had no support from her family to do this.

Not to mention all of this, we forgot about the whole part, 21 miles in the open ocean, the physical exhaustion, the physical toll that this has taken on the body, just salt water just eating away at your skin. And all of this, at most of this being at night, in the open ocean, imagine what’s going through your mind as you’re swimming in the dark. It’s just terrifying. But yet all of it, despite all of this, she persevered. She ignored the distractions. She ignored the pain. And she focused. She showed determination. And while she was swimming, she just kept the main thing the main thing every moment. Not focusing on the distractions, the discouragements, and the words that are coming her way, but focusing on the next stroke, the next stroke, then the next stroke, then the next stroke, then the next stroke.

And here’s how it applies to us. You see, our lives are extremely complex, aren’t they? Is anyone busy in here? Man, I hear it all the time. Hey, how you doing, brother? Well, man, I’m just wide open, busy as always. And it’s like that’s how we greet each other, and that’s just common. All of us have a lot going on. Man, in our lives it’s and it’s difficult to keep the main thing the main thing, to stay focused on what we’re supposed to focus on day to day, moment to moment. And you see, this passage brings us back to the center.

And so this is a simple passage, it’s going to be a simple sermon, and so there’s really one thing that I want you to get out of today. There’s one big idea, there’s one primary thing I want you to remember today. And this is what we’re going to chase through the rest of the of the morning. Is that the main point of your life is to love God and to love others. The main point of your life is to love God and love others. Super simple, right? But it’s just not easy. It’s not easy because of the amount of things that we have in our lives that are just pulling at us, that are distracting us, that are pulling for our attentions, distractions that siphon off our attention and overwhelm us.

You know, I I this conversation all the time with people at my church or just people in life. I’m having a conversation with a younger guy, maybe he’s not married yet, maybe he just got married, doesn’t have kids yet, and he’s just, you know, kind of stacking up a lot of these things in his life trying to get things in line. And we’re having a spiritual conversation, we’re talking about spiritual things, and they just without fail, they always seem to say, “Now, I just it’s just so hard to consistently read my Bible. I I just I’m so busy. I just don’t I just have too much going on. I just don’t have enough time.” And as a father of four kids, I I’m thinking in my mind, “Dude, listen, I have four kids. They all have increasingly busy schedules, and I’m busting them from place to place to place. I have a full ministry job, too. I got my own situation that I’m dealing with and all these different things.” And I’m like, “And you’re And you’re too busy?” You know, and I don’t think I I think that. I don’t say that because I’ve grown in maturity, right? This is good news.

All right, so then I’m mustering up every ounce of sympathy and empathy that I can possibly get out of me, and I just have to look at him, and I’m like, “Man, listen, I hear you. But right now, in this very moment, this is the simplest that your life will ever be. Right? It only gets more complex from here.” And it’s true for all of us, though. Life just grows more complex. There are urgent things, there are important things pulling at all of us that we have to deal with.

You know, some of you might be looking at work and career issues. Concerns and longings that you have just consume you, they eat you up. And it’s hard for you to not work, right? Like you’re here right now at church, it’s a sacrifice for you to be here, and it’s just all you’re thinking about. You’re just thinking about what’s coming Monday. And you’ve got financial worries, things aren’t adding up, are we going to be okay? You’re carrying the burden of your kids and their decisions, and maybe even the results of those decisions, and it’s just eating at you right now. It’s what’s running through your mind. And you have marriage troubles, and it just seems to be the primary focus of everything. No matter where you’re at, no matter what you’re doing, it’s just this massive elephant in the room. It’s all that you can see.

And maybe you have dreams and aspirations that you’re constantly chasing, constantly going for, always trying to achieve and strive after. Or maybe you’ve reached those dreams and you’re saying, “Pooh, what in the world? Like this is this is just not what I thought it was going to be.” And we are a a busy and distracted people now more than really any other time in history. But what if what if all of this busyness, all of these things that we devote the majority of our time and energy and efforts towards and are really just sideshows? And what if, think about it, what if it’s kind of like we’re climbing a ladder only to get to the top to realize that the ladder was leaned against the wrong building, right?

And so here’s what I love here is that Jesus in this passage is calling us back to the main point. Yes, I know. Life has a lot of different angles, a lot of different things that we got to take care of. Sure, I get it. I know. But don’t get distracted. These are not the main thing. The main point of your life is to love God and to love others.

So I’m going to read Matthew 22:34-40 again. And let’s let’s see how Jesus explains this. I’m going to read the passage. We’re just going to walk through it verse by verse, okay? Matthew 22:34 says, “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 and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’” This is the word of the Lord.

So here at the jump, Jesus is having a back and forth with different religious leaders, okay? He’s addressing one side of the aisle, and while He’s doing that, this other side begins to gather. Verse 34 tells us that they begin to gather together and to brainstorm against Him, right? So, like do you see what’s happening here? As Jesus talking to one group over here, there’s another group beginning to gather together and circle up and begin to talk about Him behind His back. Right? Put yourself in Jesus’ shoes for just a moment here. Right? You’re doing your thing, but then you can kind of tell that there’s something happening over here. There’s a huddle happening kind of behind you. There’s people gathering, they’re beginning to chatter, they’re beginning to talk. It’s an isolating feeling, right? It’s Hurtful, isn’t it? And I think that this is why I want to nail down on this, and this is why it matters so much, because words spoken to you are often the primary thing that distracts you from the main thing. Words spoken to you are often the primary thing that distracts you from the main thing. One theologian says it this way: is that words create worlds. Proverbs 18:21 says it this way, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” And so, whether positively or negatively, the things and the words that we receive or even the words that we say, they have this ability to craft realities and create and create worlds for people, to bring life or to bring death.

And many of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve experienced this. Is there anything more capable of removing your focus from God than what your co-workers are saying about you? Right? Or what about your family members or other close close friends or what they’re saying about you? Right? You hear the words that they say, and then all of a sudden you can’t see that God is on the throne and is carefully orchestrating every specific event of your life for His glory. All you can see is someone else’s words. How dare they say that about me? They they don’t they don’t understand me. They don’t even really know me. But hey, man, if if they think about if they think that about me, if my boss thinks that about me, like what a what now? Like what’s that what does that mean for me? What about my future? If my family thinks that about me, what about the relationships? Like, how are we going to move forward here? And now, all of a sudden, we aren’t even including God in our worldview because of somebody else’s words.

And again, I think it’s so important for us to see this and so important for us to understand how quickly we can fall into this, how one word can just send us spiraling, how fickle we are, and how prone to wonder that we are. Get this. When you aren’t centering yourself on who God is and what He has done for you, then you are becoming self-centered in the most practical sense.

And you know, there’s another side of this. Maybe you’re the one, like Jesus, having to deal with people talking behind your back. But maybe your struggle is that you’re the one talking. Right? Gossip doesn’t seem like gossip in the moment. It just seems harmless. It feels harmless, just a harmless word being spoken. It feels like we’re just discussing what happened or what’s wrong with this person or what they did wrong or just like sharing a prayer request or something like that. In the moment, we never really see the result of our words. We just don’t. But James 3 reminds us and tells us that our words can actually start a forest fire in somebody’s life. Your words are rarely neutral. They always have a bigger impact than you think. Remember, life and death are in the power of the tongue.

And Jesus knows this, and which is what makes it all the more amazing as to how He responds here. Right, in verse 35, finally, one of the Pharisees finally gets up and finally speaks up to ask Him a question. And when as you And again, as you read Jesus’s the account of His life in the Gospels, you see that this is a common thing. Man, they’re always trying to gather together and get Him to trip up. They’re always trying to stump Him with some type of question. They’re always trying to ask Him a question and get Him to respond a certain way so then they can twist His words. They’re always trying to catch Him. And so, here is their grand question: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Personally, I love it. I love this question. For me, details can just feel like dead weight that just bog me down and kind of slow me down. And I really always wanted to just personality-wise, I just want to cut through all the details. Like, what’s the thing? What’s the main thing that’s going to influence all the other things? And right like my This happens all the time. My poor wife. We’re having a conversation or I’ll say, “Hey, you know, how was your day? How was the conversation with your friend?” “Well, you know, I was talking to her and I asked her and then well, she responded this way, but that’s because, you know, really her husband, you know what’s going on.”

with her husband and his work. Well, this is what’s going on in his work. And then I’m almost like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Like, what the Back to the main point. Back to the question that we were talking about.” And that’s ex- kind of what this guy is doing here.

So, what is the greatest commandment in the law if you think about it? At that time, the Jewish law had 613 commandments. And these weren’t just commands for practical advice. They were like a sense of of of identity as an as a people, as a nation. So, it wasn’t just practical. So, like, “Hey, keep the Sabbath holy.” It’s not really about, “Hey, if you just don’t run yourself into the ground, if you have a good habit of rest, then you’re going to be more successful and do better.” It’s much more than that for them. It was, “Hey, we’re orienting everything about ourselves before the Lord. It is not our work, but it is His work that we trust in.” And so, that’s It’s like all of these laws are more about their identity than it is about practical advice.

But in particular, the the Pharisees loved laws and commands so much that they begin to add on other laws. They begin to add on like a fence before the law. So, that you you can never break the law, you would hit the fence. And so, you know, they consider they and they would consider that these laws were just as important and just as practical as the actual moral law of God Himself. And so, for example, many Pharisees regarded if you ate before you washed your hands, that that’s on par with like murder. And the result needed to be the same. It was so egregious to them. And it’s like, that doesn’t not washing your hands before you eat murder. It’s like that none of this really makes any sense. And so, for anyone trying to make sense of that moral confusion is nearly an impossible task. And that’s really what the Pharisees are getting at here.

But Jesus steps into this moral confusion. He steps into it then, and He steps into the moral confusion of our day. Where right is called wrong, and wrong is called right. And this is really really good news for us. Because when in this world, when you don’t know what’s right and wrong, and you’re not sure what to do in a particular situation in the upside down world that we live in, Jesus does. You see, only Jesus can bring clarity and kindness to moral confusion. And that’s exactly what He does whenever He’s answering this question.

So, what So, what does Jesus say is the greatest commandment? What’s the most important? What’s the main thing? Verse 37. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And Jesus here is pulling out maybe the most well-known passage for His Jewish audience. This is something that everybody knew. It’s from Deuteronomy 6. It’s called the Shema. I’m going to read it for us, and then I’m going to explain why it’s significant. But everybody knew this.

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. And these words 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 and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.

And so, in that passage, you hear what Jesus is saying, but also I hope you notice that it’s an instruction. Hey parents, teach this to your kids. Which means that everyone that Jesus just said this to already knew it. From a very early age, their parents were teaching them. They recited it. They knew it all of their life. And here’s what’s crazy to me. Here’s what thing that’s like blew my mind about this whole passage. Is that if you would have asked the Pharisees if they knew this command, and if they kept it, they would have said it. Yes, absolutely. Every day, all the time. They would have said, “I’m an expert in the law. I know all the things. I know all about it. I have known this all of my life. Look at all of the things that I do. Look at all of the laws that I keep. Of course, look at how I’m dressed. Of course, I love God with all my heart, mind, and soul.” You See what they’re doing here, right? You see they’re doing—they’re what they’re doing is that they’re equating a love for God with what they do. For the Pharisees, they believe that loving God happens on the external, what they do. And for us, it kind of looks like this today. We would say, “Of course, I love God. Look at how many books I read. Look at the things that I’m involved in. Look at how committed I am. I lead the things. I served at VBS, even. Right? I go to church. I’m here today, right? I do all of the things.” And these are all good things. I’m not knocking it. I’m not saying anything’s wrong. But it’s—we just got to recognize—it’s just not what Jesus said. Jesus didn’t say, “Do good things. Do a lot of good things.” Instead, He said, “Love God.”

Think about it like this. Think about the husband who does good things for his wife, but fails to show affection for her. Say you got a husband who works hard and provides. Good job, good life, good house, all the good things. Works really hard. He’s responsible. Yeah, all of that. Maybe he even comes home and does the dishes, right? That’s pretty great. And then every week he’ll bring her flowers, put them in a vase, and set them on the counter. And whenever she needs it, he’ll buy her a new car, no questions asked, right? But—but he doesn’t really talk to her. But he doesn’t really engage her in conversation. He’s a little bit aloof and unaware on how she’s doing and how she’s feeling. Now, do you think the wife feels loved? I mean, there’s a pretty significant limit to how she feels loved.

And let’s apply the same logic to our relationship to God. To love God is much more than just being involved in religious activity. For us to love God, it’s much more than being involved in religious activity and doing things. And this is exactly why Jesus routinely called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs. Right? On the outside they looked clean and they sparkled and they looked great. But on the inside, there’s nothing but death and decay. In order for us to love God rightly, I mean, we need a different type of faith than the Pharisees. We don’t need a whitewashed tomb faith. We need an empty tomb faith.

And here’s what I mean by that. Martin Luther called this the dilemma of the Great Commandment. And if you think about it, this really is a dilemma because Jesus is commanding us to love. Like, how do you command someone to love something? If I don’t already love it, then you commanding it won’t really make me love it anymore, right? But if I already love something, I don’t really need to be commanded to love it. Like, think about it. For me, you don’t have to command me to love steak. I love steak. You ask me, when would you like a steak? At any point in time in the day of the 24-hour clock that we occupy? Yes, I would—I want one right now. Medium rare, please. And I’m always ready for a steak. No matter—I don’t need a commandment for that. I don’t need anybody’s advice for that.

But on the other hand, you know, I’m really not a big fan of animal food. Right? Like, I’ve never been tempted to eat my dog’s food. Right? And so if you—I don’t love it, and so if you put a bowl of dog food in front of me, I’m not going to eat it. Right? This is not really a thought in my mind. Now maybe if you, like, tortured me and, like, physically threatened me and, like, you were also big enough to back it up, like, I might possibly eat it. I probably would eat it. But I’m never going to love it, right? You understand? And so commanding you to love God does not really make you love Him more. And you can’t just try harder. You can’t just do better. Do more things and expect your heart to love God more.

You see, the solution to the dilemma of the great commandment, Luther tells us, is really just the gospel itself. You—so Jesus is not saying here in Matthew 22 to just try really hard to love God. Instead, He’s saying the greatest commandment of all of the Bible, of everything that God has ever said, is that you love God with everything in you. All of your life, all parts of you, everything. And you can’t do that. You fail all the time. You see, I don’t have a Time to do a full—to run a full diagnostic on your life. But let’s just think about the past week here. Okay, did you get angry at some point this week? Right? Like did you doubt God’s goodness and really like lack faith in who He is and what He said He was going to do? I mean, were you judgmental towards someone and you just had this air of pride and self-righteousness just kind of welling up in you? I mean, the point of the great commandment is to show you that you need someone to stand in your place to fulfill it. I mean, that’s why Jesus came to Earth. He was like us in every single way. He struggled just like you were, just like you are. He was tempted just like us. But He never gave in. He lived the life that you were supposed to live. And in every way that you failed to keep God’s laws and to love God, He stepped in and held them. And He did love God. Then He hung on the cross in your place. He was separated from God in your place, bearing the weight of God’s full wrath that was meant for you in your place. So all—and I love how 2 Corinthians 5 says this. He says, “Although He knew no sin, He became sin for you so that you might become the righteousness of God.”

You see, in order to love God, you first have to see the great love that you’ve been given. And again, the love of Christ changes everything about you. Now you begin to love God because you want to love God, right? Now you begin to—you start to obey God because you love Him and you want to obey Him, not because you’re afraid of Him or afraid of the consequences or something like that. Everything changes. There’s no more guilt. There’s no more, “Am I—am I doing enough? Am I doing this enough?” Or checking the boxes. I mean, when you realize what it cost Jesus to save you, it changes you.

I mean, I’m sure that you all have heard this before, but the size of the debt that someone pays for you really kind of determines how you feel about them, right? So think about it. Like you go on this trip, vacation, summertime, we’re all going on vacation. And you go on a vacation and you get back and your neighbor says, “Hey, I got your mail for you. I—I—I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to like be nosy or look, but I just happened to see that you got a bill and—and—and I paid it for you.” Okay, your response is going to be, “What bill? Like what—how much was it? What was it?” And they say, “Well, hey, whenever you were on vacation you sped through the toll booth. I paid the $35, you know, E-ZPass, whatever, you know?” And you—what would you say? You’d say, “Oh, man, thank you. Like that is so nice. I owe you one. Like that’s a good neighbor right there.”

But what if—what if the debt was a bit bigger? What if it was the dreaded letter from the IRS that said, “Hey, over the past 10 years we in the IRS have made massive mistakes and now you’re going to pay for all of it.” And—and it’s like tens of thousands of dollars. It’s a debt that’s just going to dramatically change your life. It’s going to—it’s going to ruin you. It’s going to really mess you up. And they’re like, “I handled that debt.” How is your response going to be different? It’s going to be dramatically different. So when you see the debt that has been paid for you, you respond with love towards the one who paid the debt.

And so Jesus goes on here, “And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Don’t miss what He just said here. He said first the most important thing is that you love God. And the second commandment is like it, to love others. Loving others is like—is similar to loving God. And here is why. We love God first as the main focus of our life. And as we do that, it produces in us a love for others. Meaning if you truly love God, it just happens, it just pours out, it just bubbles out of you. It just pours out into other people. It’s like fruit that comes from a tree. The quality of your horizontal relationships depend on your vertical relationship with God. The quality of your horizontal relationships on the vertical relationship with God. This is why my first piece of advice to couples whenever we’re doing like a marriage counseling thing and they’re having a hard time is always the same. You know, they always start by saying, “Well, well, well, he said this and and well, no, no, no, she said this and they did this and well, now whenever he says this, I’m going to do this now and I she just don’t she doesn’t respect me and now I’m not even going to talk to him.” I was like, “Okay, right. We’re here now.” So my first question is always, “Well, all right, great. Do y’all Do you read your Bible? Like tell me about what’s your personal time with God look like?”

And I’m not trying to trivialize different struggles in marriage or anything like that, but the reality is that pursuing a relationship with God immediately produces change in how these couples interact with each other. And so what does it look like for us to love others as ourselves? And this is going to be much more than just doing good things, right? We’re not going back there. You see the call here is to love as you have been loved. Right? Jesus Christ left heaven to go on a rescue mission to save you, to find you, to save you. And that’s why we sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” You see, this is so much more than just forcing yourself to be nice to other people or serving them out of obligation or just cuz you have to or just cuz it’s the right thing. Jesus is saying a lot more than just treat others the way that you want to be treated, although that makes a lot of sense. He’s saying, “Remember where you came from. Remember who you were. Remember that what you were like before He found you. Remember how you were stuck in your sin, headed nowhere, headed towards absolute death and destruction. Remember that in the sinful state that you were in, that’s when He first loved you.” Now, therefore, love others in that same way.

You see, there is an unbreakable bond between the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Matthew The Great Commission’s found in Matthew 28. It’s Jesus’s last words. It essentially says, “Go therefore into all the world, making disciples of all nations, everywhere, everyone.” So, in the same way that the Great Commandment is for all of us, is for every believer, the Great Commission applies to every follower of Jesus as well. And this means that you are now aware of of those around you, right? That are in desperate need of Jesus. It means that you’re willing to walk across the street and strike up that conversation with that neighbor. It means that you’re willing to invite your coworkers to church and stay take that step. It means that you’re willing to engage with the parents on your kids’ sports teams rather than just sitting on the bleachers or the sidelines. It means that you’re willing to go on a mission trip and leverage your life for the gospel whenever those opportunities arise.

And but listen, I get it. I I know what a lot of you are probably thinking cuz I would probably I’m I think the same thing in my own life. This is a big ask. Like pastor pastor, are you saying that I need to go talk to people and like stick my neck out there in a world that doesn’t really want to have anything to do with Jesus? I mean, I can I can like really offend some people and I might even lose some friends over this. I mean, like the people that I know were probably going to say no, so like maybe I shouldn’t even try in the first place. Man, I just want to say that makes I get it. I understand completely where you’re coming from. But I just want to promise you something. I can promise you this, you can take it to the bank, bet your life on it. It’s for sure. Each person has gospel uniqueness to take into the world. Each person, each one in this room, each person in this room has a gospel uniqueness to take into the world. You say you’re not good at talking to people, right? Well, that’s going to give you a humility that’s going to make you very easy to listen to. You say you don’t know how to talk about spiritual things. I’m just never not experienced in this. I don’t know how to talk about spiritual things. Well, they don’t really know how to listen to spiritual things. It’s going to be great. You say, “I’m just a simple person. I’m not complicated. I’m not a deep thinker. I’m just a simple person.” Perfect. Sounds like you won’t overcomplicate it. You know, like this is going to be great. Each person has a gospel uniqueness to take into the world. You see, God has designed you with precision, and that is exactly what the world around you needs. Think about the intentionality that God has in placing you in the location that He has you, in the time in human history that He has you, around the people that He has you. You see, you were made for more than just to live a fun life and just make it till tomorrow. Right? Love your neighbor as yourself. You have been loved by God when you didn’t deserve it, when you don’t deserve it. Every day you make a case against yourself, and yet His love never changes for you. Get this: He doesn’t love you because of what you can do for Him. He doesn’t love you because of what you can bring some sort of return on the investment that He’s put in you. I mean, you should love others as you have been loved by God with the same type of love. And loving others means going to them.

You know, as we kind of come to the final turn and begin to close this thing down, the application, again, super simple: keep the main thing the main thing. The main thing in our life is that we love God and that we love others. Keep the main thing the main thing. We all know it. It’s all simple. Or it’s all—yeah, it’s all simple. But that doesn’t make it any easier, right? Life is tough. Life is complicated. There are things that happen. We all have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things pulling at us. And church family, I just want to encourage you: you must remember to keep the main thing the main thing. You must fight for and organize your lives in such a way that loving God and loving others is the main thing. This won’t come naturally. And so if you find yourself constantly saying, “Well, I just don’t have time,” that’s a problem, right? You need to do less. You need to say no so that the main thing can be the main thing.

If you find that the stress and worries of your work fill your mind at every hour of the day, and it’s just kind of this ongoing hamster wheel that just kind of keeps spinning, then there’s an issue going on. The value that you’re looking to gain from work, or what you’re looking for work to provide you, is just out of proportion. It’s out of sorts. And so you need to reset your mind on who God is and His mission. If you find yourself putting pressure on your kids to succeed in school or in athletics or anything like that, you’re just getting distracted. That’s a sideshow. God has not primarily called you to be successful, or for your kids to be successful, or for you to make a lot of money. He has called you to love Him and to make Him the primary pursuit of your life. And when you get that out of order, everything else gets out of order. Life gets out of order.

You know, I’ve heard that a sermon is not really a sermon until you bring in C.S. Lewis. And so here you go. C.S. Lewis kind of talked about it like this. He gave us this idea of first things and second things. First things are, man, love God, right? That’s the first thing. Second things are having a life full of joy, of satisfaction, of peace, of just generally enjoying life, right? Which is what we all want. And he points out that if you put second things first—if you say, “The primary pursuit of my life is to—I just want to have a good time. I want to be joyful. I want to have peace in life. I want to have satisfaction in life. I want this. I want that. I want everything else”—that you actually won’t get the second things that you’re pursuing, and you will also lose the first thing. But if you flip it and you pursue first things first, you will get the first things. You will get God, and then you will also get the second things. And so I want to call you today to remember how God Has loved you, and respond to that accordingly. Maybe some of you maybe have never personally responded to that. You see, Jesus hung on the cross for you, thinking of you. He saw all that you are right now, and He said, “That’s that’s worth it. That’s why I’m going to do this. I want that person. I died in your place.” And He’s calling you to say yes to Him today, and to for you to make Him the main thing of your life.

And others of you, you’ve been walking with Jesus for a long time, and Jesus is calling you right now to just cut out the distractions. Get away from the side shows. Don’t let them fill your mind. Don’t let them be what you prioritize. Don’t let them be what you obsess and argue about or care about. Be focused on first things, not second things. Be consumed with loving God today and with taking His gospel to those around you and to the ends of the earth. This is our main purpose. This is your main purpose.

Would you all pray with me? Father, we just come before You. We are grateful for Your love for us. We’re so thankful for sending Your Son Jesus to die in our place, although we didn’t deserve it, although we weren’t looking for it. God, You sent Him, and You saved us. God, I pray that as we respond to this today, God, that You draw us in, that You give us a way to respond. God, help us to eliminate the distractions. Help us to keep You the main focus of our lives, no matter what people are saying, no matter what people are doing, no matter what our desires are. God, give us a larger and bigger desire for You and for Your glory. God, may we see Your gospel go to the ends of the earth, and God, may You just motivate us and push us out to take it. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.