Matthew 22: The Greatest Commandment According to Jesus

Introduction

"Do you know what the greatest commandment is?" With this question, Samuel Mabboux, pastor of Assemblée de Dieu de Nice Ariane, opens the Word at an evangelism meeting on a Friday evening. The church had already studied this text on love, but he wanted to take it up "in another way."

The passage is found in Matthew 22:34-40. A teacher of the law asks Jesus a question to test him: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" For the pastor, what each of us thinks about the question matters less than what Jesus himself thinks.

His answer fits in two sentences: love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. The message follows these two commandments, then goes on to the hardest part: loving those who do not love you, and forgiving.

Outline of the Message

1. A Question Put to the Teacher

The Pharisees hear that Jesus has silenced the Sadducees. They gather together, and a teacher of the law questions him to test him (Matthew 22:34-36).
Jesus answers: "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" (verses 37-38).
"There is no commandment greater than this one." If you want to please God, there is nothing more important on earth than seeking to live it out.
Jesus is speaking to religious men, men who spent their days studying the Torah and knew it by heart. And it is to them that he says: love God.

2. "The Lord Your God": Loving Deeply

If you ask who loves God by a show of hands, everyone raises a hand. Most people believe in God. But Jesus does not stop there: he says "the Lord your God." There is a sense of belonging. Is he your God?
Many believe in God without loving him, without knowing him, without having accepted him into their lives. Others turn to him in a superstitious way, only when an illness, a difficulty or a need arises.
Jesus emphasizes three deep and personal elements: the heart, the soul, the mind. "There is nothing more sensitive than our heart," nothing deeper than the soul, nothing more personal than our thoughts.
God is not "the Lord of appearances," nor of the façade smile. The pastor mentions the Nice carnival: you can wear a mask with a big smile, and the Lord also knows when you come home in the evening and cry on your pillow.
Loving God does not mean going to church because you have to, nor being a Christian by heritage, a "non-practicing Catholic" or a "non-practicing Protestant." What matters is not the label, but whether the Word of God is founded in your life, in your priorities and in each of your choices.

3. The Model: The Love God Has for Us

The model for our love for God is not the way others love him, nor society, nor our relatives, nor even a spiritual heritage. It is the love God has for us. He loved us first (1 John 4:19); even before we were, in our mother's womb, he knew us.
Christ made himself a servant out of love and gave his life out of love (Philippians 2:7-8). "Without God's love, brothers and sisters, we would have no church."
People often act out of self-interest. God has no interest in loving us: his love is perfect, selfless and pure. "God doesn't have love. He is love" (1 John 4:8).
God loves the sinner as much as his child. When you come to Jesus and ask for forgiveness, it is not God's love that changes: it is the closeness. You are reconciled with the Father.
Jesus is no longer in the manger, nor on the cross, nor in the tomb, which is empty. He is alive, at the right hand of God, and he is preparing a place for us (John 14:3).
God's love is not anarchy. It does not mean doing everything we want: it also governs our lives.

4. Your Neighbor as Yourself

"And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (verse 39). You cannot say you love God, or call yourself spiritual, if you do not love your neighbor. Whether or not he loves you, "that's his story": the Bible asks us to be at peace with everyone, as much as depends on us (Romans 12:18).
The desert island example: if there is only one steak, without the Lord, people push others aside to go and eat it. With Jesus Christ, we have been changed, and we say: "Go ahead, you first." The Bible asks us to consider the other as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).
The pastor commends the brothers who spontaneously give up their seat in church and go to follow the meeting on the screen in the basement.
"On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets" (verse 40). If you have never read the Bible, these verses sum it up entirely. People had not succeeded in keeping the ten commandments: it had produced religious people, superstitious people, people who acted out of fear of God without their hearts changing. God simplified the law into two sentences.
His advice: write these two verses on a sticky note and put it on your fridge. "You will be a good disciple of Christ if you manage to do it."
When it is hard, he asks the Lord for "his glasses," to see others as he sees them, and the love that leads to the cross: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

5. Love Fulfills the Law

Romans 13:9-10: the commandments "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not covet" are summed up in this saying: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love doesn't harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law."
When you love your neighbor, you do not take his wife, you do not kill him, you do not rob him, you do not covet what he has. There is no need to keep asking "can I do this?": love God and your neighbor, and the Spirit of God who lives in you will lead you.
Pray for more love, to love people who are not lovable, even the one who cuts you off in traffic.
It is the same with God: if you love him, there are things you will no longer do, because sin separates you from him and you do not want to hurt him. The Bible says we can grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30).
As in a couple, where you give up certain things to preserve the relationship, there are things you will stop doing and others you will start doing to nourish your personal relationship with God. We are the bride of Christ.
God, who needs nothing and no one, created us knowing what humanity would become. He agreed to suffer and to humble himself on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. His perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18) and gives us assurance and peace.
Golgotha is "the worst and the best event in the history of humanity": it is out of love that Jesus fulfilled the law.

6. Loving Those Who Do Not Love You, and Forgiving

"Excuse me, I'm bumping into you. You're used to it. I've been here for 3 years now". "The Gospel is not just singing little songs," nor only reading psalms. "The Gospel is loving the one who is not lovable." Jesus showed it by washing the feet of Judas, who was about to betray him (John 13:1-5), and by praying for those who crucified him: "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).
"The Gospel is deeds." Right after the Gospels comes the Acts of the Apostles.
That very morning, before preparing the message, the pastor took time to bless people who had caused him suffering, who had sometimes made him cry. "I felt so good blessing those people." He hopes that those he has hurt also pray for him.
Matthew 5:43-44: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you." It is the rule of the world that he overturns.
Loving your nephews and nieces whom you have not seen for months is easy: they can walk all over you, you love them. But when an indifferent stranger brushes past you in the metro, irritation rises. "You lack love and I lack love," says the pastor, who also acknowledges the pride in his own heart.
He tells of a young girl he met at a camp with the young people of Nice. Abandoned by her mother, she said she had trouble feeling God's presence. "Have you forgiven your mother?" She could not. "But do you want to?" When she agreed to forgive, she was overwhelmed by God's love, filled with the Holy Spirit, and was able to be baptized shortly afterward.
Colossians 3:14-15: "Above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful." Put on God's love, and peace will come; in peace, there is forgiveness.
1 John 4:7-8: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love."
Forgiving does not mean that what was done to you is not serious, nor justifying it, nor forgetting it. Forgive "for yourself and for God." Some things, like violence against children, abuse or murder, are humanly unforgivable, but nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37).
The message ends with a prayer of forgiveness, said in a low voice, naming the person: "Even if this person has never asked me for forgiveness, I now decide to forgive." Then a call to come forward for prayer: "Choose to forgive."

Key Takeaways

The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, deeply and not just in appearance.
The model for our love for God is the love he has for us: selfless, perfect, given on the cross.
Loving God and loving your neighbor go together. These two commandments sum up the whole law and the prophets.
Love fulfills the law: it leads us to give up what hurts our neighbor and what grieves God.
The Gospel is lived out in deeds: loving those who do not love you, blessing your enemies and choosing to forgive.

Personal Application

Is God simply "God" to you, or is he the Lord your God?
Does your relationship with God rest on habit, heritage or the need of the moment, or on a love that engages your heart, your soul and your mind?
What things have you stopped doing, or do you need to start doing, to preserve your relationship with God?
Who is the neighbor you find hard to love right now, and how can you bless him this week?
Is there a person you have not forgiven? Are you ready, even if you cannot yet do it, to want to forgive them?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the greatest commandment according to Jesus?

In Matthew 22:37-38, Jesus answers a teacher of the law: "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." He adds a second one, like the first: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." For Samuel Mabboux, these two sentences sum up the whole Bible.

What does it mean to love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind?

It means loving him deeply, and not in an outward, religious or superstitious way. Samuel Mabboux reminds us that God is not "the Lord of appearances": he wants to touch the most personal part of us. The model for this love is not tradition or spiritual heritage, but the love God has for us.

Why forgive someone who does not ask for forgiveness?

Samuel Mabboux clarifies that forgiving does not mean that what was done to you is not serious, nor does it mean justifying it or forgetting it. We forgive for ourselves and for God, because God asks it of us. Some things are humanly unforgivable, but if you want to forgive and cannot, the Lord will give you that ability.