Do We Love as God Loves?

Well, I was frightened when Tom started speaking, and he started talking about Matthew 22. And yet there are a lot of different things in Matthew 22, so he wasn't going to directly talk about what I wanted to talk about today. But it's always wonderful to be able to be up here with you and be able to listen to the Word of God spoken and be able to share some of that with you as well. Well, I think all of you realize that the Apostle John, when we think about the people that Jesus knew quite well, and people that he seemed to be very, very close to, John at least is indicated to be one of Jesus' very, very close friends. And we later will find that John, as an Apostle, will live longer than all the rest. He ultimately will write the Gospel and then the epistles of John in the book of Revelation, and die with an old age, in an old age, closer to 90 or 100, whenever it was he died. And yet John is, from what we see him writing, and perhaps he was even related to Jesus. I don't know that for sure, but certainly he was very close to him. We see him extending to John. Jesus extended to John a care for Mary, which seemed to indicate a good level of closeness and trust. But also, I think Mary and another lady, John's mother, might have been related. And so it would appear that he had a very close relationship with John. And as we read the books of John that he wrote, he's spoken of as the Apostle of what? The Apostle of...

Nobody wants to say.

Faith, hope, or love? Love, of course. John is thought to be, and he writes about the love that God has for us, the love that Jesus had for all of us, the love that Jesus directed the disciples to live with. And he actually writes about the topic of love in almost all of his writings. But I want to begin here in looking at 1 John chapter 2, because in a sense he shows that we obey God, out of love. That's why we obey and respect and honor the great God. Here in 1 John chapter 2, it's an amazingly complex chapter even. Even, I guess you could say, the whole book is pretty complex, because he talks a lot about love. He talks about love and how that relates to our relationship with God. But he also points out how that it's indicated by obedience and by our responsiveness. Here in 1 John chapter 2, he says, My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you will not sin, or that you may not sin, but if you do sin, you have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And so here actually, John indicates God's concern not only for those who would read what John wrote and who would understand it, which clearly he was writing to people who were a part of the Church of God, then and down through the ages to all of us today. But he says God has concern not only for us, but also for others. And in verse 3, he says, By this we may be sure that we know God, that we know Him, if we obey His commandments. And so here he makes a connection between not just obedience because we need to or have to, but because we want to and because we want to please God. We love God. And it says we may be sure that we know God if we obey His commandments.

He goes ahead in describing whoever says I've come to know Him, come to know God, but does not obey His commandments is a liar and such a person the truth does not exist. And in verse 5, whoever obeys His word. And so here he describes obeying His word with keeping His commandments, He connects both of those. And so you would think that this should be a little clearer to most people. And yet, actually, that's not clear. That's clear to you. It's clear to me. It's not clear to most. You know, they read right over that. And yet it clearly says that whoever obeys the words of God truly in this person, the love of God has reached perfection.

And by this we may be sure that we are in Him. Whoever says I abide in Him ought to walk just as He did. And certainly that's why we do read about the life of Jesus, to see exactly what He did, how He acted, what He said, how He responded. He was the perfect example of what God is like in a human form. And of course, that's wonderful that we have so much information to read through and to glean from how it was that Jesus dealt with others, but how it was He related to His Father. You also find in what I'm sure would be the most quoted verse in the world, one that perhaps again people don't fully understand. God so loved the entirety of the world that He sent His only begotten Son, and whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. See, it's through Jesus Christ that we are going to be able to have everlasting life. But see, the focus there in John 3, 16 is the fact that God loves all of us. He loves people who make up a part of the body of Christ. He loves us. He has been merciful to us. He has drawn us to an understanding of a relationship with Him and to an incredible potential of that, but most would never even fathom to comprehend. And yet it says He loves the whole world. He loves everyone, and ultimately all will come to believe through Jesus Christ. So I mentioned this about John being an apostle of love and about how he writes about God loving us and loving the world. And so I asked, do we truly love as God does? Do we truly love as God does? Because it's obvious that God's love is limitless. He is perfect in that love. He far more knows what He's doing than any of us. And yet whenever we study what He says, we need to ask ourselves, can we be fully assured that we know Him and love as He does? And we read that in 1 John 2, that we can be sure that we know God, and we can be sure that we are honoring God as we keep His commands.

See, that's what I wanted to come to here in Matthew, chapter 22. Because, you know, loving God and loving our fellow man is summarized here by Jesus in Matthew 22. Again, we're very familiar with what Jesus had to say, and again, He was being tested. He was being...they were trying to trick Him, as we've already heard in the sermonette today. But in Matthew 22, verse 34 of the Pharisees, when they heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, which I'm pretty sure they were happy to see, they were glad to see that, you know, He'd been able to put down some of the ideas that Sadducees had. But they gathered together, and one of them who was a lawyer asked Him a question in order to test Him. And so Jesus was interacting with the religious leaders, or people who thought they were religious anyway. And they said in verse 36, teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest. So you find other questions being asked at different times. What do I have to do to have eternal life? He says, keep the commandments. And then He even elaborates on that. That's back in Matthew 19. But here in this case, they're asking Him, well, you know, of all the commands, which one is the greatest? And clearly Jesus said, well, the greatest commandment is, you shall love.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

In verse 38, and this is the greatest in first commandment, in verse 39, the second commandment is just like it, or it's very similar is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And on these two commandments, hang the law and the prophets.

So it's very obvious that God loves humanity. He has a vision for mankind that is truly incredible. He opens our understanding to help us to know what that vision is, at least to whatever degree. See, I think I understand that better today than I ever have in the past. Now, I kind of knew what it was about 30 or 40 years ago, kind of, because I know that my understanding of it was limited. And yet, over the years, it's becoming more clear, and I would think that God has to be working with people over decades of time, and not just to see how long we'll obey, but to cause us to grow, to have his mind and his heart, and to have his love. So whenever we read Jesus' summary of loving God, and loving our fellow man, why do you think Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments in that way?

See, that's something often people will read and say, well, that means I just need to love people, and it doesn't mean I need to keep the commands. Well, we've already shown that that's not what he's talking about. You know, we can learn a lot about how God loves by what Jesus defines here as putting God first in our lives, loving the Lord our God with our heart and soul and mind, and learning to love our neighbor as ourselves.

See, I know all of us realize that the first four commandments that we're familiar with guide us in how to love God. See, it's not just a matter of saying, well, I do love God, or I love God, but I want to do what seems right to me. You know, we love God because, you know, he shows us something in these first four commands. I want us to look back in Deuteronomy 5, Exodus 20, and of course Deuteronomy 5 are summaries of the Ten Commandments. We have them originally written down and then repeated here in Deuteronomy 5.

But you see a repetition in Deuteronomy of, as the Israelites were about to go into the land of Cain, and Moses was reiterating what it was that we have to know. And of course, in verse 6, he begins to, and I'm going to read between verse 6 down to verse 15. I'll only read parts of those because I know you're familiar with these. But I'd like for you to think about what do all of these have in common about loving God? Well, the first one in verse 6, you shall love where I am, the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

You shall have no other gods before me.

Now, what does that tell us? Well, that God has got to be first in our lives. God has got to be, you know, someone we think about every day, someone or being that we think about every day.

He is an individual that's got to take the highest priority in our lives.

And it tells us that we are to worship and love God.

And yet the description that we have here, and he's not describing it here in these verses, but we can see this elsewhere, that we are to love our Creator. To love the one who created us, the one who was the designer of everything, the spirit realm, the physical universe, human life.

He's the Creator. He can always be viewed as the Creator. We're told by Jesus to pray to the Father, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. And so we also see references to Him being our Father, our Heavenly Father, but see, our first commandment directs us to love God by acknowledging Him as the Creator. I've mentioned to you before, that's one of the things that's pretty obvious, Lucifer forgot. He knew that at one time. He had to realize that I didn't exist at one point, and yet I was brought into existence. I was created, and I was created in an incredible manner, and yet ultimately even being given great power, great ability, great talent, great capacity. Now he neglected to remember, I'm simply a created being. And so the first commandment directs us to worship and love our Creator. The second commandment in verse 8, you shall not make for yourself an idol in any form. Verse 9, you shall not bow down to any idol or worship them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.

Now why does God say that? Why does He tell us?

Why does He tell us? He wants us to be reminded that He is our Creator, and that He is the one that deserves our attention and our worship and our love. We're told in John again, you know, God loved us, and so we should love Him. And yet here in the second command, you're not to bow down or worship any type of idol. A false worship involves setting up an idol, something that becomes important to me, something that I bow down and worship. You know, you have a lot of Christmas decorations that we'll be seeing more and more of. Of course, they've been out for a number of weeks. A lot of deception that goes on, even in a very pretty setting. They create quite a scene. I know I've got, you know, it's interesting up and down my street. I've got the holiday family that live to the right of us, to the left of us, I guess, if I'm looking out the front door. I call them a holiday family, not because that's their name, but they're notorious to promote every holiday, everything. You know, throughout the year, there's some holiday to celebrate. Thanksgiving gets a kind of a dose. They had a, what is it, I don't know what they are, plastic balloon turkey, you know, so that was out there. But of course, he's much more elaborate than most of the other holidays, and I know he's very well meaning. He's really a very nice man. He picked up all my leaves the other day, which was very, very nice. Josie would love to have somebody come up and pick all her leaves up. Let's say he decorates for the whole string of houses that don't do anything like us and our other neighbors on the other side. They actually go to the Nazarene church, and so they're quite, you know, even though they're, say, religious, they don't, you know, make a big show of a lot of the phony stuff about Christmas. And yet, down the street, there's not very much. There's a little bit. But see, those kind of decorations, as we watch those, see, that's all a false image. That is a part of a worship system that is assumedly honoring Jesus and his birth, whereas the Bible doesn't tell us actually to do that. The Word of God and the commands of God tell us we're going to love God, and we need to do what he says instead of, you know, what an idol, you know, may project. In Jeremiah 10, you have a description that I know we've connected to what could be thought of as a Christmas tree in the past. And yet, in Jeremiah 10, it really is talking about making some type of an idol and then worshiping it. But I want us to look at this and see why this is wrong. Jeremiah 10, hear the Word of the Lord. To the house of Israel thus says, The Lord, don't learn the ways of the nations. They heathen, or be dismayed at the signs of heaven. For the nations are dismayed by them. For the customs of the people are false, they're vain. The tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of an artisan, and people deck it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.

But there's idols. Those idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. They can't speak, and they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. So do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good. Now we often read that section. We can see that, well, this is talking about a creating of an idol, and it certainly looks as if, you know, a similar description you could make for setting up a Christmas tree. And in some way, even though most people are not going to be bowing down to them and thinking that they're worshipping them, they really are. They are going through the motion of a custom that is not godly. And yet, what it says here in verse 5 is very important.

The idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. They can't speak. They can't walk.

And so don't be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good. See, they're simply a man-made image. And see, the second command says, don't make an idol, and certainly don't bow down to it, and don't worship it because this is false.

I think it's interesting to see that this is contrasted with a description of God as the Creator God. Who is it that we worship? Who is it that we love? Well, we're to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul and mind, and yet we are to love our Creator, the one who made us, the one who has every desire to help us and to encourage us and to cause us to grow and to become like Him, to reflect His image. That's what we want. But see, the contrast here is to an idol that can't do anything. And actually, in a sense, you can almost say that, you know, the idols are a self-image of man, man setting up what they think or what they want to do. But it says in verse 6, there's none like you, O Lord. You are great. Your name is great.

Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? Verse 10, the Lord is the true God. He's a living God, an everlasting King at His wrath, the earthquakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation. In verse 11, then shall they say to them, the gods who did not make the heavens and the earth are going to perish from the earth. See, those idols who can not do anything, and they're only set up by men, they are going to perish.

But in verse 12, it talks about the Creator. It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. And when He utters His voice, there is a tumult of water. He makes the lightnings. Down in verse 16, those who are idols and useless are not like these, is the Lord. The portion of Jacob, for He is the one who formed all things, and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance, the Lord of hosts is His name. So not only do we not worship idols and don't build our own idols and serve them, but we're reminded that, well, we are to focus on the Creator.

We are to focus on the one who has real power. And of course, we see God revealing Himself through Jesus Christ and through the Father and the Son, and we see that repeatedly throughout the Bible. We're also told back in Deuteronomy 12 that we don't want to follow the ways. This is as, again, Israel would go into the land.

Deuteronomy 12, verse 29, when the Lord your God is cut off before you the nations whom you are about to enter and dispossess, then when you have dispossessed them and live in their land, take care that you are not snared into imitating them after they have been destroyed before you. Don't inquire concerning their God saying, how do these nations worship their gods? I want to do that as well. Verse 31, you must not do the same for the Lord your God, because every abhorrent thing that the Lord hates they have done to their gods.

See, again, another warning. You see, actually, Israel warned over and over about against idolatry. But I bring this up solely, you know, just to keep in mind as we are into a season of the year that's going to focus on a celebration of the birth of Jesus as they would view it. All of us have for certainly decades not involved ourselves in a Christmas celebration. We're not, in a sense, affected by it, except we see it everywhere.

We can't get away from it. We can't get away from the decor. It's everywhere. And yet, as we read Luke chapter 2 and Matthew chapter 2, we have two different accounts, one by Luke and one by Matthew. What we see in this false celebration of Jesus' birth is a conglomeration of all the stuff you can see in Luke and in Matthew and no understanding of the fact that, well, these are two different accounts, one of them, the one in Luke. I'm not going to take time to read all of these, but you can read this short section in Luke that talks about Jesus' birth and about, at that time, there were shepherds in the field.

And those shepherds came and they were directed by God to see this amazing birth. And it says it was a joyous occasion because clearly God in the flesh coming to the earth was a joyous deal. And so that would clearly be something to be grateful for, but it had nothing to do with December 25th and all of the reasons why that is the timing of the celebration that is a false celebration that people go through today.

But you see the shepherds there, they come and acknowledge, this is what God has revealed to us. But you also then later, and you actually see what appears to be eight days later Joseph and Mary going to the temple and Jesus being circumcised, or being circumcised at least and then named as Jesus, and then 40 days later a period of purification. I mean this is in what looks to be the chronology of what Luke is writing, and later seeing Simeon and Anna.

See, those are really not celebrated much, you know, almost not even known about. But see, that account is an account that you can read and understand how God was focusing on the birth of Jesus that he had predicted long ago.

But when you look back to Matthew chapter 2, you find again another account of some wise men from the east coming. It appears quite a long distance following a star that was leading them, and they come, apparently they don't know exactly where they're going because they come and inquire, well where are we looking for this king of the Jews? And they ask Herod, and of course he's getting very excited because he's not wanting to have anyone identified as the king of the Jews because that might be threatening to him. But of course you read this whole account about them coming to Herod and about them interacting with Herod and learning. Oh, he's supposed to be in Bethlehem. He's supposed to, that's where Micah 5 says he's going to be born in Bethlehem. And so they go on down there and they actually find the stars again leading them, which you know would be, I would assume, an angel. I don't know, but it would appear that you have stars referenced as angels. And yet they're led, again not to the setting that we find in Luke 2, but in a house where the babe or the child there is with his parents. And again these kings worship Jesus. They give gifts to him. And then, of course, they run off. They don't go back to tell Herod. And you see an additional account of what would have appeared to have occurred after what we read in Luke. And then Joseph is told, go to Egypt. Go to Egypt and stay there until I tell you to come back. And see, I don't know exactly the timing of, you know, the deaths and life and death of some of the leaders there, but that didn't happen overnight. That didn't happen over several weeks. It happened over months or years for them to go down to Egypt for him to come back. And as Joseph was directed to bring Mary and Jesus back, you find that he was still a little apprehensive. He didn't really like the new guy who was set up and he was told that's okay. It's going to be all right. And so he goes up to Nazareth where he actually had been from.

Jesus is not going to be known as Jesus of Bethlehem per se, but Jesus the Nazarene, the one who grew up in Nazareth. And you find a reference in Luke 2 to Jesus eventually getting to Nazareth. And that's where he grew up and that's where you find additional information, what little there is, about his young years. And yet the accounts in Matthew and in Luke are certainly not the conglomeration that people think of. I mean, whenever you see a, what is it, a creche or what's the right name for this? A nativity scene, I guess, would be a better description. When you see that, you've got everybody in your brother. You've got the donkey, you've got Mary and Joseph, and you've got a little baby, and you've got the sheep, and you've got the goats and the donkeys and the kings, and and, you know, eight, several angels. I mean, it's just all conglomerated together, giving a false impression, giving a false understanding. And of course, you know, Jesus obviously did begin a human life as a tiny baby, and he ultimately would live more than 30 years and be the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. And so clearly, loving and honoring and worshiping him and his father is right. Let's see, how does God want to be worshiped? Well, he says, I want you to keep my commandments and keep my words and not be deceived, not be confused. So it's quite when you think about, you know, not creating an image, a false image, and then you know, worshiping that. That's what people do whenever, you know, they are yet to learn exactly what it is to love God, what it is to love their Creator.

If we go back to Deuteronomy 6 again, the third command says not to take the name of the Lord in vain. You know, what's that? What is that indicating? Well, you know, whenever you read in Isaiah 57, I think it is, that the name of God is holy. It needs to be respected. It needs to be honored. And He is the one who is our Creator again. I want to go to Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6, I guess it's Deuteronomy 5. I've got them written down here wrong. Deuteronomy 5 is where we were reading the Ten Commandments. This is interesting about what it says here. Now, all of us know what it says. What does it say? It says, starting in verse 12, keep, or Deuteronomy 5 verse 12, keep, or observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. And again, the whole description of how it is designated. See, what does this command actually acknowledge? It doesn't say, decide for yourself when you think a Sabbath should be. It says, and of course in Exodus it's a little more clear, remember the Sabbath day, because it's already been designated by the Creator. He's already designed what the Sabbath is. He already is achieving that, and so He is the one who tells us, you know, when the Sabbath is, but it tells us not only to remember it and keep and observe it, but it says, observe that day and keep that day holy. See, what it talks about is, again, if we're going to respect the Sabbath, if we're going to honor the day that God has designated Genesis 2, it talks about the Sabbath being designated and being blessed and sanctified. These are all the things that, you know, God the Creator would do. See, that's why whenever we think about these first six, there's first four commands about how to love God. You know, it's a matter of looking to God as our Creator, the one who created us, the one who is to have the focus of our attention and our time, the one that we're not to replace with any kind of idol, not to bow down to something else, but to bow down to the Creator, to honor the Creator's holy name and to remember what the Creator set as a day to worship. And He tells us to remember it, to know when it is, and to keep it holy. See, the Sabbath's going to occur whether we like it or not. Every Friday evening as we get to the time of sunset, you know, it's going to start. It'll start and run through the remainder of the next, basically, 24 hours. And yet our directive is observe it in the right way. Keep it holy. How can we make it holy? We don't make it holy. God makes it holy. He's the one who designed it. The Creator is the one who designated it, and we are simply observing it in a holy way. We are trying to keep from desecrating of ignoring and forgetting to love God during that day. So you have the first four commands, of course, deal with how to love God. How to love God the Creator of all. And that is an important aspect, I think, to keep in mind. The last six of the commands, as you read here in Deuteronomy 5, the last six show us how to love our fellow man.

And yet, I think you can see when we look through these, that this expression of love toward our fellow man is actually based on respect. Respect for other people. Respect for others.

You know, what do we say in verse 16? Honor your father and your mother. See, what is that? That is showing respect for your father and for your mother. It's a basis of love toward other people. Showing respect to our parents. What about verse 17? We're not to kill.

Well, that also, as we know in Matthew and other places in the New Testament, involves not just killing, not just murder, but anger and hatred. So what is verse 17 saying? Well, it's respect for human life. Respect for other humans and for the potential that God has given all of us. See, whenever God says, you know, I sent Jesus to the world and I sent him as his sacrifice for sin, because I love, you know, the entire of the world. God so loved the world. He loved the entirety of his creation. Mankind. And so men should then not kill in many different forms if we do that today. They should not kill out of a disrespect for God's creation.

So this second command has to do with respect. Don't commit adultery. How about respecting God's institution of marriage? God's institution of the family. See, this is all about respect, respecting parents, respecting life, respecting institutions from God, marriage and the family. Verse 19, not stealing, respecting personal property, respecting the belongings of others, not stealing those. Verse 20, not bearing false witness. Well, that's respecting the truth. Respecting being truthful. Speaking truthfully, getting rid of the deceit that we too often struggle with. Paul told, you know, the people in congregations that he worked with, he says, don't lie to one another anymore. Quit doing that and speak the truth. Speak the truth and love. See, that's what all these commands are directed to, having the respect for human beings and for God, of course, but this can easily be directed about loving your neighbor as yourself. And of course, verse 21, don't covet. Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's house or field or servant or animals, anything that belongs to your neighbor. Again, a respect for other people. Not coveting, not committing, in a sense, idolatry, because Paul describes that as well. It says, whenever we're covetous and not, in a sense, content with what God has blessed us with, and we're covetous toward others, then we're making that an idol. We're making that a false image. And so, you know, all of these commands, you know, we see are given in describing how it is that you love your neighbor as yourself. You love your neighbor out of respect. You love God because he's a creator. You love your neighbor because God wants us to respect one another. You even see other descriptions of that as Jesus goes into...see, what does he say in John 13, verse 35? John 13, verse 35, he tells his disciples, you need to love one another. You need to love one another. And he says, you'll even be known as my disciples if you learn to love one another. And in a sense, since we are trying to love one another, you know, that's somewhat easy. You know, we get some give and take. We get some reciprocation. What does it say here in Luke chapter 6? Luke chapter 6.

Verse 31, it says, due to others, as you would have them do to you. Verse 32, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners love those who love them. See, there is a description of the fact that, well, loving others who love us, you know, that's rather easy to do. There should be a certain level of mutual brotherly love. And sometimes we even have to work on that. But see, that's a part of what love your neighbor as yourself is all about. And yet, Jesus goes beyond that, of course. In Luke 10, he talks about how it is that we should love other people. He goes through an entire parable about the Good Samaritan. And he points out how that, well, the religious leaders didn't really show love for this man who was injured. And yet, the Samaritan did. And when he asked at the end of that, well, who really was a neighbor to, you know, this man who was injured? And he says, well, the one who took care of him, the one who had mercy, who saw someone in need and who took care of them. So beyond loving one another, you need to love your neighbor. And finally, of course, here in Luke 6, again, we're told to love our enemies. Verse 27, I say to you, listen, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. See, now, that's beyond human capacity.

That takes God's help. It takes His involvement in our lives to be able, you know, to actually have a love for those who you would describe as your enemy. And yet, as we know, you know, even as Jesus was being put to death, you know, He was clearly aware of who was killing Him.

And yet He said, Father, forgive them. They simply don't know what they're doing. You know, His desire or His ability to, He wasn't trying to prevent what was going to happen. He was simply saying, you know, Father, be merciful to them. They don't know what they're doing.

And if we read in Matthew 5, Matthew 5 is a little more descriptive about this same, this same out topic. Matthew 5, verse 43, you've heard it was said, you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say you should love your enemy.

And you should pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. See, we want to be the children of God. We want to reflect God's image and His thoughts and His mind and His love. That's what we want to be able to reflect. And so when we read through, you know, the commandments about loving God and loving our neighbor, you know, that's the that's the direction that God wants us to go. Because when we do that, then we become like God. We become like our heavenly Father in our glorious Savior at His right hand.

You know, people ignore the very beginning of what we went over, that if you come to love God, then you're going to keep His commandments. If you ignore that altogether, how can you achieve God's purpose? How can we be molded in God's nature in His character if we ignore His instructions? Well, that's impossible. You just can't do it. But again, you know, this is something that, you know, all of us want to consider as we think about how much God does love not only us, but the whole world. He loves other people. He wants us to learn to love others as well. In Mark 12, you have another summary statement of what Jesus said to the question about what's the greatest command. Mark 12. Here in verse 28, one of the scribes came near, said, which commandment is the first of all? So this appears to be a little different focus, but again, the same answer. Just by the way, it's stated the greatest or the first of all. And Jesus said, the first is here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So he quoted out of Deuteronomy 6. He told them, well, you need to come to understand the divine nature of the Creator God and learn the type of respect and unity and harmony that he wants you to have for one another. And he says, in this account, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. You should love your neighbor as yourself. He adds a little more to that. With every fiber of your being, do we want to love God because that's the type of love that he has for us.

So here, as we conclude in 1 John chapter 2, where we started, let's again read what he says about how God wants us to love like he does.

Here in 1 John chapter 2 verse 3, we may be sure that we know Him if we keep His commandments. And in verse 5, whoever obeys His word truly in this person, the love of God has reached perfection. And by this, we may be sure that we are in Him. See, this shouldn't be something, you know, that we are unsure about. It should be something we're very sure about, that we understand God's love for us, and we want to return that love in every way possible. But that's based in understanding, you know, that we are worshiping our Creator, and that we are learning to respect our fellow man like God does.