THE GREATEST COMMAND
AND SPARROWS

I thought it timely to remind you of two great truths. We need reminding of them because we so often, readily, and easily, forget them. Worse still, we tend to disorder them. I will commence by looking at the lesser of the two great truths which has to do with sparrows. I hazard a guess that you haven’t thought much about sparrows yet today – but my writing to you is not intended to shame you about this neglect. Rather, it is meant to prod you to be wonderful about why Christ would draw our attention to these incredible birds. 

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-7

Jesus said that in His day, two sparrows could be purchased for ‘a penny’ (Matt. 10:29). These seemingly common and very cheap birds were considered to be of very little worth – yet, He goes on to say, And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your (Heavenly) Father (knowing about it). This is how much God cares and sees. But, and it’s a significant but, “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:30). 

Whenever you feel insignificant, unnoticed, uncared for, consider what Christ has just taught us about our Heavenly Father: He knows you; He notices you; He cares for you; He knows what you need!

This is the second great truth I felt that I need to remind you of now. Ponder this truth well. Let it fill you with wonder so that you become wonderful about your Heavenly Father. This pondering may sound like, as many people have twisted it to be so, that this is about how great you must be. But it isn’t. It is about how great our Heavenly Father is. It is about how loving, caring, generous, and protective Heavenly Father is! 

¶ See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
First John 3:1

THE GREATEST COMMAND 

When Jesus was challenged by the religious elites of His day, He was asked by a religious lawyer, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matt. 22:36) 

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.”
Matthew 22:37-38

The very thing we need – the very thing we want most; Christ said was the greatest commandment: love! Deprive a person of love and it will cripple them. Deny someone the opportunity to love and it will ruin them. Convince someone that love is determined by their feelings – or even more wicked still – convince them that they cannot choose or control these feelings, and it will seduce them into a trap so deep and so dark that the result can ever be the kind of confusion and disappointment that makes experiencing real love near impossible!

Loving God is so important that He has designed for us to experience facsimiles of it from the moment we are born. When our mothers embraced us to their breasts in those first few moments of touch when air had just rushed into our lungs, we were experiencing love. When they whispered to us in our first seconds of embrace what to everyone else was like mere sounds) we understood perfectly and knew we were loved. When our fathers picked us up and wrapped us in a blanket and cuddled us, we felt his protective strength and knew that we were loved. These experiences of love are designed by Father God to be a sample of, and to introduce us to, His love. It should be the most natural thing in the world then for us to love Him in return, except for the introduction of sin into the hearts of every member of the human race. This is why we need to learn how to love – and especially so when it comes to obeying the greatest command.

HOW WE LOVE WHEN COMMANDED

Love makes the command to love our delight! Because I love my wife, if she commanded me to love her, I would be delighted to do so. When we have a heart to love God, His command to love Him is our delight! The loving relationships we enjoy, or at least observe, here on earth, are the training ground for loving God. I know how my wife would feel if I never spoke to her. Because I love her, I speak with her warmly and politely. To love God similarly involves sharing our hearts with Him in prayer. Because I love my wife, I make it my priority to come home for dinner each night. Because I love God, I make it my priority to be in His House when it’s dinner time to be seated at the family dining table to feast on His preached and taught Word and be reminded of the power of His body and blood as I participate in the Communion. This is what I feel to remind you of especially at this time in your life that the God who sees sparrows sees you and loves you and gives us our greatest command which as it turns out is our greatest need and delight anyway – to love Him.

We love because He first loved us.
First John 4:19

In love,

Pastor Andrew

A COMMANDING LOVE

WHEN COMMANDING IS AN ADJECTIVE NOT JUST A VERB

Jesus was asked, "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?" (Matthew 22.36)  There's many things He could have said, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, defend the rights of the oppressed, and while all of these are commandments in the Law of Christ, none of them are the greatest! 

'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ Mark 12:30

What I find fascinating about the New Testament documents is that for all the difficulties that the apostles of Christ faced toward the end of the first century, doctrinal heresies, declining church attendance, sexual misconduct within the churches, increasing moral decadence outside the church, increased persecution from the State, and a rise in evangelistic apathy among believers, all of them appealed to this greatest commandment in their closing letters. 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE GOD?

Love comes in a variety of forms and even though in English we really only have the one word which can apply for all forms, there is quite a distinction between them. We love a good cup of tea. We love it when our team wins. We love our mothers. We love our brothers and sisters. We love our children. We love our sweetheart to whom we are married. We love God. I have deliberately attempted to progress up the scale of love with these examples of how in English we use the one word ("love") to describe these various delights. Corresponding to this upward scale is another upward scale going from "Virtually involuntary" to "I chose to, because I benefit" all the way up to "A voluntary choice even when I do not benefit and it actually costs me". 

This correspondence highlights that the deeper and higher the form of love, the greater and more costly the commitment required. It also shows that the greatest love is not based on whimsical involuntary things such as how I feel at the time, after all, who doesn't love a good cup of tea or coffee? My love for a nice cup of coffee requires very little effort or commitment from me. Unlike the greatest form of love, this kind of almost involuntary love requires very little from me whereas the highest form of love is not determined or maintained merely by how I feel. This is why: 

Decisions create Actions and Actions create Feelings.

If you want to feel love for someone, then you must first decide to, then secondly, do loving acts for that person. 

The who has been redeemed by God has received a complete change of heart and mind. Their will has been healed from the ravages of sin's evil lurings. They now chose to love the One who has redeemed them.

"Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Luke 7:47

When it comes to the highest love, loving God, it requires the most important decision, the highest commitment, and the most devoted action. It was the Apostle John who outlived all the other apostles. He witnessed the persecution of Christians across the empire. He saw many believers forsake Christ for the love of the world. He wrote one of his last letters on behalf of Christ to the church at Ephesus with supreme pastoral tenderness and reminded them of the essence of what it means to call oneself a "Christian" -

"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first."
 Revelation 2:4

John had previously written to the Ephesian believers and told them plainly how to love God. What he said sounded uncannily like the second part of Christ's answer to His questioner. 

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
 Mark 12:30-31

John put legs on this command of Christ by explaining how believers were to show their love for God - 

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
¶ For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
 First John 3:10-11

John used the word brother to speak of the believers brothers and sisters in Christ. While the believer is called to love all people, we are called to especially love our fellow brothers and sisters.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
 Galatians 6:10

 And this is why followers of Christ are told how to love God by the anonymous author to the Hebrews, especially as the pressure from the world increased - 

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.  Hebrews 10:24-25

Understanding that the deepest, highest form of love is a totally voluntary, completely devoted to, and selfless serving act, it is then possible to see how God can command it. For the believer, God's commands are not a burden (1John 5:3), rather, they are a means of grace. That is, there is power within the Word of God for the believer to obey the Word of God. The love of God which Christ calls His followers to is a commanding love. Thus, Christ is commanding love. In this sense, it is a verb (something He is doing). But it also describes the kind of love that God calls for. In this sense it is an adjective (a description, and a quality).

To help His followers to keep this great two-part command, Christ said, "I will build My Church!" (Matthew 16:18) This is why attending the House of God each weekend is not merely about being religious, or even traditional - no - and a thousand times "No!" It is about loving Jesus! When we all gather on the Lord's Day to worship God together, to share in Communion together, to receive instruction from God's Word together, and to pray for one another together - we are loving Jesus! When Saul the Pharisee was waging persecution against the Church he was struck from his horse on the Road to Damascus and questioned by Christ, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" (Acts 9:4) To love Christ is to love His Church and especially the local church of fellow brothers and sisters where He has placed you in His body. This is why it is for the love of Christ that I go to church this Sunday, and I invite you to fall in love with Jesus afresh this weekend in His church, your church, as well.

Pastor Andrew.