What Is the Main Thing?

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Matthew 22:34–40 ESV 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 a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” CONSIDER Today we come into the stretch run of the end of Matthew, the first phase (of four) of the Tour de Gospels. You noticed a word from Jesus here I want to lift out as something we never want to hear him say to us again. It's in the spirit of his favorite question, "Have you not read . . ."  Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." (Matt. 22:29 NIV) Now to the main thing. We've all heard the phrase, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing," and we all would agree. But what is the main thing? Is it knowing the Scriptures and the power of God? I would say that's certainly a good thing, but it's not the main thing. If you ask me, today's focus text unveils the main thing for us with perfection.  It is also a good example of how something good comes out of something bad. The religious leaders were trying to test Jesus, to make him stumble or say something wrong. The Law contained 613 commandments. These lawyers pressed Jesus for the priority. They wanted to know what he thought was the main thing. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” He was ready. 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 a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The main thing is love. Of course, Jesus chooses a quite unique term to power the more generic English term of our translation: ἀγαπάω, pronounced ag-ap-ah'-o. It means, in short, divine love. The command is to love God with the kind of love that only comes from God; to love God and others with a love that is not possible to exercise without the presence and power of God.  It rings true doesn't it. The main thing is the love of God. And this love is most eloquently and emphatically expressed through the person of his son, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.  Ask the apostle Paul for the main thing. He will say: And yet I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor. 12:31b–13:3) Ask the apostle John for the main thing. He will say:  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7–8) You have time for one more. This is a witness from history much closer to us in time and yet ancient as the Bible in substance: [Y]ou should be thoroughly [aware] of this—the heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else; if you look for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, “Have you received this or that blessing?” if you mean anything but more love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way, and putting them [on] a false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing more but more of that love describe in the thirteenth [chapter] of [First] Corinthians. You can go no higher than this, till you are carried into Abraham’s bosom. —John Wesley The main thing is love. You must see the P.S. today to know from whence this last word comes.  PRAY Lord Jesus, thank you for not only teaching us the main thing but for being the main thing. You are the love of God and in you I can become this love. I'm sorry for the ways I have wanted to make it about something else. Praying in your name, amen.