Love God, love others

Introduction – Isaiah 45:15-25

As God speaks to his people through Isaiah, they are in a bad place.

Far from home and under Babylonian rule, they sometimes feel as though God is hiding himself from them, v15.

But feelings can be very misleading, and God reminds his people who he really is.

Vv15-17 – he is the Saviour – he is the God who rescues people from the shame & disgrace of worshipping dumb and empty idols.

When God finally reveals himself to the whole world, those who have given their lives to worshipping man-made idols rather than the living God will feel very stupid.

For, v18, there is only one true God – the creator. Only one who existed before the cosmos, only one who created the cosmos, and filled this earth with life – He is the LORD and there is no other.

And this God doesn't leave us to thrash around in the dark trying to find him. He is also the God who speaks, v19: the LORD who speaks the truth and declares what is right.


The religious pagans have idols that have so little life or power that they have to be carried about, v20, and when they pray, they pray to gods who cannot save them.

But the LORD God, he is quite unlike these idols – he has created, he has spoken, he has rescued people from this idiotic idolatry.
And therefore, v23b, one day every knee will bow before him – he is God and there is no other.

Now, with that in mind, let's hear what Jesus says in Matt 22...



If you used to listen to Chris Evans' evening Radio show, you may remember how listeners would try to outfox the fox - Rebecca 'Foxy' Pike – by sending questions like:

Why are batteries named after letters of the alphabet?
Where did scotch eggs come from?

But Foxy wasn't often outfoxed.


2000 years ago, the Jewish leaders played a similar game with Jesus – only it wasn't a game:
they asked him if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar in the hope that he'd anger either the Romans or the patriotic Jews – either way he'd be lynched.
then they asked him about marriage in heaven in the hope that he'd make a fool of himself.

And Jesus outfoxed them every time. But they didn't give up, 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?'

Of course, this was a trick question. But Jesus' answer takes us to the heart of a true relationship with God:

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment, he said, And the second is like it:`Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

Of course love couldn't have been further from the Pharisees' minds as they question Jesus about God's laws. In fact their minds are focused on how they can get rid of him – permanently.

But as Jesus answers these hate-filled religious law-keepers, Jesus tells them that love should be their first and second laws.
Love is at the top of God's 613 OT laws, because all the others are simply particular expressions of love.


So, more than anything else, God commands you to love him * with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
The God who saves, the God who creates, the God who speaks – the God who says, 'I am the LORD and there is no other' – this God commands you to love him – with your whole being – heart, soul and mind.

It's not that he's lonely; it's not, 'Oh please love me, I'm all by myself up here in heaven' – no, God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit love each other with perfect, complete love – there is no loneliness, no unhappiness in the Trinity.

God doesn't need us to love him, but it is right that we should love him.
No-one and nothing is more worthy of our love than God.
It's therefore right that we love him, and so he commands us to love him.

In Isaiah 45 reminded us, if we love and worship anything less than this LORD God, we'll be put to shame and disgrace.

Just imagine that final day of judgment - the whole world bows before the majestic, righteous, awesome glory of the Lord God almighty, and you're, sitting at your desk in the office finishing off your powerpoint presentation; you're unpacking your new ipad; you're online booking your holiday to New Zealand; you're swotting for your finals.

And you look up, and see the awesome, blinding, brilliance of God's glory and realise that you've been loving the wrong thing...


In Romans, Paul puts it like this, 'Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse... They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is for ever praised.


Our problem is that we constantly put created things – people, objects, holidays, career, education – in God's place.
We say to ourselves, 'I just need a holiday, then I'll be happy'
'I just need a husband, then I'll be happy'
'When we have children, then life will be complete'

But none of these can stand that weight of expectation because none is worthy of your first love.
As much as anything, it's not fair to expect a spouse or a child to satisfy all your needs.
No wonder marriages fail.
No wonder our children buckle under the weight of expectation.

But Psalm 90:14 * tells us Satisfy us in the morning, O LORD, with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Loving God is not only right, it's the only thing that will ever satisfy our hearts, and he is the only person who will never let us down.

God created us to love him, and until we do, we simply cannot be all we were meant to be.

Only God is big enough, powerful enough to satisfy you.
Only he can bear the expectations of your life – and he can do this because he is the LORD God – the creator God – the righteous saviour.
He's not an idol of plastic that you carry around in your pocket.
He's not a metal-box idol that needs four wheels & an internal combustion engine to move it around.
He's not a sinner.

He alone can say, 'I am the LORD, and there is no other.'

That's why Jesus says that the greatest commandment is 'Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'


Let's pause, and express our love and worship to this God in the words of Psalm 96, and then the hymn, 'My God, how wonderful you are'.





If the first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, the second is to love your neighbour as yourself.

God commands us to love others *

This second command flows out from the first because, as John says, This is love for God: to obey his commands.

So as we obey God's command to love others, we are demonstrating our love for God. *

Loving others is not an optional extra because, If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

But what exactly does it mean to love others?

Jesus has to be our model here.

Picture the scene: Jesus and his disciples are gathered together in the upper room for the passover supper.
When it was time for the meal to be served, Jesus got up, tied a towel round his waist, and filled a bowl with water.
Then he knelt down in front of one of the disciples.
He took of the disciple's shoes, and began to wash his dusty, dirty feet.

And he washes Peter's feet – Peter who was about to deny him.
And he washes Judas' feet – Judas who was about to betray him, and hand him over to be beaten and killed.

Imagine that you can see into the hearts of your friends as Jesus can.

You see there, in your friend's heart that they're about to stab you in the back – to slag you off – to tell blatant lies about you.

And your phone rings. And you see from caller display that it's this so-called friend. Would you even answer the phone?
And if you do, and they ask you to help them out, what do you think about them?

OK, so that's extreme – but that's the love Jesus shows to you and me, and he says, Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should was one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

And Jesus doesn't mean that, on Maunday Thursday, we should bring a bowl and a towel into church and wash each other's feet here.

Jesus means that we should serve each other, and do the most menial, disgusting tasks for each other, even when we've been insulted and betrayed and stabbed in the back.
We carry on loving as he loved us.

You see, Jesus didn't wait until we loved God before going to the cross. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us.

And so we love when we're not loved in return.


And the power of a church that loves like this is immense.

Once Judas had fled the upper room, Jesus tells his disciples that he's going to the cross.
Only he puts it like this, Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.

As Jesus demonstrates the full extent of his love for us – as he goes to be slandered, punched, spat on, whipped and crucified – so he demonstrates the full glory of God.

And so he says to the disciples, A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

So loving each other within the church is evangelistic – it proclaims that we are disciples of Jesus – we love as Jesus loved and people recognise something extraordinary – they see something they don't experience in their lives.

But for this to happen, our love for each other will have to be really extreme because non-Xns do love each other.
Members of the golf club or the bowls club or the freemasons do care for each other.

But the love we give and receive in the church must therefore be at a different level – with a different power – than that of the non-Xn.

And our love can be different;
First, because we have experienced the love of Jesus for ourselves.
We know what it is to be forgiven for terrible sins – so we too forgive.

And second, because we are empowered by the HS, and he will produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
This fruit is not available to the non-Xn in the way it is to us, so they will see something special when we demonstrate Spirit-empowered love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, non-Xns.


But the question is, how will non-Xns see our love for each other?

We cannot restrict it to a Sunday, we can't limit it to these four walls.

St Peter's must exist, not just here, but in our homes as well.

We'll be coming back to this question next week, but let me give you some homework.
How do you think we can structure and shape church life so that our love for each other can be seen by our non-Xn friends outside of these four walls?


Of course we know that we don't always love God with all our heart, soul and mind; and we don't love our neighbour as ourself.
But we do know the Christ loved us and laid down his life for us so that we could be forgiven and constantly renewed in his power.

So let's pause for a moment and then seek his forgiveness.