Living Right-Side Up Again (Matthew 22:34-40)
Here’s my sermon from April 6th, 2025. You can listen to the audio here.
Maybe you’re like me. Scrolling through social media, getting really depressed. I turn on TV news - or watch videos on YouTube - and suddenly I’m really angry. Family members fighting on Facebook, unfriending each other. Politicians calling out - and tearing down - their opponents across the aisle. College athletes are getting death threats online for just having a bad game! People identify with their team - athletic, political, or otherwise, and demonize the opposition. I remember as a child, laying on my bed, hanging my head over the edge, and looking at everything upside down. It was interesting for awhile. Until the headache set in. We’ve gotten too used to a view like that. And the throbbing we feel here in our brain’s frontal lobe. That comes from seeing everything upside down. And everything all backwards. But there’s got to be a better way. In fact, there is. And one we see here in this passage.
We’ve been walking through this book, the gospel of Matthew. And here in chapter 22, we see the religious leaders trying to play “gotcha” with Jesus. They bring Him a number of questions. Two weeks ago, the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus on taxes. Last week, the Sadducees attempted to riddle Him with the resurrection. Today, the Pharisees want back in on the fun. Verse 34 says they hear Jesus had “silenced” their rivals. Those “Sadducees.” So they come back together. A very unholy huddle. And they try to one-up those guys, those sell-outs, those suck-ups. As experts of the Scriptures - who try to keep every word - the Pharisees seek to corner the King. Expose Him as lax regarding God’s law. Bait him into teaching something that’s wrong. One of their best and brightest steps forward, asking him a question.
Their Questions - And Ours
But before we get there, I want us to think about our questions. Verse 35 says, “And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.”
Now the Lord certainly wants us to bring Him our doubts. He wants us to approach Him with our burdens, our concerns. Hear me say: we all have them. It’s better to acknowledge them. And share them with our community. And bring them to the Lord - our questions.
But so often our motives are just like this crew. Our hearts aren’t truly open. Our heads are already made up. We’re not really neutral. No matter what we say. We say if He’ll just satisfy our minds, then our hearts will then follow. But in actuality, we’re looking at things upside-down. Seeing everything backwards. Our hearts are doing the leading. And we’re only going to see what it is we want to see. We’re really only trying to justify ourselves. Because, we’re coming to Him with glaring sin in our lives. And it blinds us.
Here’s my question: will we really humble ourselves and hear what Christ says? Will we really listen - when we bring Him our questions? Or will we just try to “test him,” like these Pharisees here? Now that’s a question worth asking, and trying to answer.
A Question About the Greatest
But let’s get now to their question they ask. Whether they’re sincere or not, Jesus sure is. And we have the opportunity to hear what He says. Who’s the GOAT? Is it Jordan or Lebron? Who’s the greatest band that’s ever taken the stage? We love those kinds of questions. And so did people back then. But depending on your interests, you find yourself debating different topics. And the rabbis and their followers asked questions like this. We see it in verse 36: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Now what we call the Old Testament is filled with commands. Over 600 in the first five books of Moses alone. And although, every rabbi would say - they all had to be obeyed - they still debated which ones were most important. Which ones felt the heaviest. Which ones were really great. So they ask Jesus to weigh in. And hope He’ll trip in His answer.
Love is Why We’re Here
But in His response, we learn some really big truths. About why we’re here. Why everything’s so wrong. How we can get turned right-side up. We learn about love. And how we can love in the right direction again.
But before we jump in, and dig into His answer, just a bit about love. What do we mean, when we talk about that word? Well, there are two main ways we can turn. That need to be held in tension. Hollywood tells us it’s all about the feelings. About the rush. The butterflies, the vibes. Love is a sentimental thing. That overcomes us. And moves us. It’s primarily a matter of the affections.
But we can also go a different direction and make it all about our actions. We may not feel anything. Perhaps that’s even better. It’s what we do. Love is a choice. When we don’t want to serve. We don’t really want to help. But how would this play with my wife over there? “Hey babe, I brought you flowers. Because that’s what good husbands do.” But at the same time, my feelings have to lead to deeds. Or it can’t really be called love much at all. Isn’t it both? Affections and actions? What we feel and what we do?
Here’s let’s jump into how Jesus responds. And see how that love should get directed two ways. And therein learn why we’re put here on earth.
The First, Great Command
We see the first part of Christ’s answer here in verse 37. The Lord says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He mentions first who it is we love. Right? “The Lord your God.”
Now these words come from what’s been called the Shema, straight from Deuteronomy 6. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” There weren’t too many words more important in Israel. Than these that would have constantly been on their lips. Words recited and prayed in the morning and at night. The first creed, the first cry, that they’d all teach their kids.
They’re to love “the Lord.” Yahweh - the covenant name God gave. OUR “God.” The first part of the Shema would have been assumed in their minds - He is “one.” As Danny Akin explains, “This is a powerful statement of uniqueness and exclusivity.” There is no god like Him. There is no God but Him. That is who - and who alone - we’re to love.
But how is it we’re to love? That’s found in the rest of verse 37. “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,” Jesus says. “Heart.” “Soul.” “Mind.” Now I’m not going to say there’s no difference between those words. But we get off track if we focus too much there.
Because they express our calling to love Him from our core. From the center of who we are. In the Hebrew mind, those words all overlap. Michael Wilkins explains it well when he says, “Heart, soul, and mind are not rigidly separated compartments of the human existence but reflect that the entire person is given to God.”
But this also seems to communicate something else. Our passion, our fervor, in how we follow Him. How much do we love Him? Not with part of our heart or soul or mind. But with all of it. Kent Hughes writes, “It does not take much of a man to be a believer, but it takes all there is of him!” Or as Sinclair Ferguson puts it, “God is never satisfied with anything less than the devotion of our whole life for the whole duration of our lives.”
From the center of who we are - and with everything we’ve got - we’re made to love our Lord. And again, that includes both our affections and our actions. How we think and feel when we look upon our Lord. And the difference it makes in our lives. It transforms how we live. Or it’s not really love at all.
Here’s our problem. We put other things first. Other things move us in the center of who we are. We give other things our energy, our passion, our time. We break this command, the one Jesus calls great. We also break the first commandment - of the 10. And put other gods before Him. We build our identities on things other than God.
Christ’s point here is this. His desire is that we would turn our eyes. We’d look upward, not downward. Get our eyes off the ground and lifted to the sky. Instead of worshipping things He’s made, His creation, looking down - we’d turn our eyes toward heaven, look up, and love Him. That’s where it all starts. That’s why we were made. To live for the One who made us. Who despite our sin redeemed us. To love Him.
In Augustine’s famous work, The City of God, he talks about two cities. Yes, one, the City of God, has God at the center. With people there, who are marked by humility. But the other, the City of Man, puts us in the middle, and we’re eaten up by pride. Jesus says, direct your lives to Him. And have that change everything about you. We’re meant to love - and in the right direction. Or everything gets turned upside-down.
The Second Great Command
With that, let’s move to the rest of Christ’s answer. See again first who it is we’re to love. Listen to verse 39: “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Now these words come straight out of Leviticus 19. A list of how God’s people are to treat one another. Don’t rob, oppress, slander, or curse your brother - things like that. And then the Lord says, here in verses 17-18:
Leviticus 19:17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
“Love your neighbor,” Jesus says, drawing from that verse in the law. Now that would have started - certainly - with those living right next door. But it goes further than that, even here in that Leviticus passage. Down in verse 33, where the Lord says this:
Leviticus 19:33 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Notice the wording. “You shall love him as yourself.” Clearly the stranger, the immigrant, is our neighbor, too. Same wording, right? Jews. Gentiles. Citizens. Sojourners.
And notice how it’s grounded. They should know how it feels, as they were once strangers themselves. And it’s clear the Lord is serious. Because, see how He wraps it up. “I am the LORD your God.”
We, of course, learn much more, as we move from Old to New. There’s the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. That deals with this same question. What’s life all about? Jesus gives another lawyer there these same two answers. Love God, love neighbor. And then tells him a story. That makes this point. Our neighbor is anyone we see in need. Right? Even our enemy. Because the Samaritan ends up being the hero of parable. And that was a people group the Israelites hated.
As Jesus says, elsewhere, back in Matthew chapter 5, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” So we look like our dad. When we love, we resemble Him. As Ligon Duncan has put it: “Loving our neighbor is how we express the image of God. When we love our neighbor as God prescribes we proclaim to the world, ‘God is like this.’”
But let’s turn again here now to how we are to love. What does Jesus say, again, there in verse 39? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” As yourself. Hmmm. Now some have tried to say, “Hey, Christ is commanding self-love.” And it ends up reinforcing what our culture tries to push. Toward a fixation on ourselves. And that moves us away from this command. But I think it’s more like this. We’re going to care for ourselves. It’s just what we do as humans. And as especially as human sinners. Jesus is saying, “Look out for others in the way you naturally look out for self.” As R.T. France explains, “‘As yourself’ assumes, rather than commands, a basically self-centered orientation, which Jesus requires his disciple to overcome.”
Did you hear that? We’re to overcome that and serve others! Here’s the problem. It’s that we put ourselves at the center. We fixate on self. We build that city of man. Where it’s all about us. And it’s fueled by pride. We curve inward, as Augustine put it, ravaging ourselves and those around us.
Here’s the Lord’s point. He’s trying to move us far away from that. To again radically change the direction of our love. To get us to move from looking inward, to setting our eyes outward. To who around us is our neighbor. And how we can show them love.
Again, back to affections and actions. We first have to look out with the compassion of Jesus. Our hearts must be moved, or something’s really wrong. And then those feelings have to move us into action. We actually have to do something.
But I want us to think a bit more about what we mean by love. A couple of definitions from two very different theologians. First, Scot McKnight explains it this way: a “rugged, affective commitment of presence, advocacy, and direction.”
A rugged, affective commitment. There’s that heart that won’t give up. That’s moved. That’s committed. And he says it looks like this:
Presence. We get near. We walk in their shoes.
Advocacy. We have their back. We work for their good.
Direction. We’re intentional. Guiding them toward Christ.
Here’s how we love our neighbor. We’re with them, for them, and unto their Christlikeness. That’s how he explains it.
Here’s another one from author Paul Tripp: “Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.”
We’re giving of ourselves to others. Because He’s moved in our heart.
We’re seeking out their good.
We don’t require that they give us anything in return.
And we do it regardless of what we think they deserve.
That’s how Tripp says we’re to love our neighbor. Two very different, but great definitions. Two ways to help us see how to love. But think also of this. Don’t they also describe the way the Lord loves us? Yes, indeed. And His love serves as the motivation for our love. If we’re gripped and changed by what He’s done for us - how can we not share it with neighbors? And without His love as the foundation, everything collapses. Because we’ll put ourselves as the center. And as Tripp says elsewhere, others become “either vehicles to help us get what we want or obstacles in the way of what we want.” It’s hard to move outward, when we’re curved up inward.
I’ve been reading Charles Marsh’s biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And the German pastor/theologian actually spent some time back in the states. In my second favorite city, New York. He found himself frustrated and annoyed at the start. Because Americans just wanted to talk about the practical, where to go, what to do. He missed his German buddies with their heads in the clouds. Talking theology. Debating philosophy. He had very little patience for the pragmatic Americans. But then he spent some time in a Black church up in Harlem. He built a strong friendship with an African-American student. He learned the plight of his people in our land. He actually fell in love with the music of those churches. And took it back home to his friends in Europe.
But he began to connect the dots from theology to practice. And it’s something he needed as he entered back into Germany. Where there was this massive disconnect between their beliefs and real life. Where German pastors were debating who God was, while their neighbors were being taken by train to gas chambers to die. And so many there were unwilling to speak up. Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried to rally the church. To the idea that love for God resulted in love for neighbor. To get them to stand against the Nazis. To say no to Hitler. But he could only do so much. And it ended up costing him his life.
Check out the diagram on the screen. The Lord wants to turn us from curving down, curving in, to loving as we were made to love.
The Jesus Creed and America Today
Here’s where we tragically find ourselves today. In what feels like “the upside-down” if you’ve seen Stranger Things, the show. Like we’ve been sucked into some alternate dimension. Where things look somewhat the same. But it’s darker. It’s scarier. And we can easily lose hope.
Author Mark Sayers has argued that one big result of the breakdown of the family, of a loss of faith in institutions like the church, is a loss of community added to a lack of meaning. We’re lonely. We’re aimless. To fill up that void, people are running to groups of people. They’re chasing all of these crazy pursuits. They’re idolizing the wrong things. They’re demonizing the other side. And it’s led to chaos. Tribalism is tearing apart our land. We’re running after things other than God. We’re finding our family there. And then we’re turning and tearing apart everyone else.
What saddens me is that that has so much spilled into the church. And everything has tragically gotten turned upside-down. Instead of looking upward, and loving God first, we’ve aimed our heads to the ground. And tried to lift ourselves up. Running after money and possessions. And pursuing a place of power.
And that’s led us to focus inward. On our needs, our wants. Of taking care of our own. For grabbing after our rights. And not looking outward, in love, to our neighbors. That’s why author Anne Rice sums up what so many around us think. “Christians have lost credibility in America as people who know how to love.”
Not sure if you caught this, but I’ll always take the opportunity to give a hard time to our rivals to the east. But Illinois basketball recently retired a jersey, of a questionable character, that’s for sure. But at the ceremony at the game, they raised the banner, everyone looked up to the rafters, and did you see what happened? The jersey they raised was completely upside down. Friends, that’s what we’ve also done here in America. And even in the church. We’ve elevated the wrong people. With all the wrong values. Whose priorities are upside-down. And, as we do, we’re giving people the wrong idea of what Christianity is.
Our kingdom, what Jesus brings, seems very upside-down. From the values of our world. Jesus came in a cradle. He died on a cross. One day, yes, He’ll come down with a crown. But until then, He asks us to get down small and to give up our lives. The Pharisees here wanted a king of power. Who’d bring their prosperity back. But He wouldn’t be forced into that mold. And then they ended up putting Him to death. And thereby fulfilling the plan of God. To build an upside-down kingdom. A kingdom built on love.
To love our God, to love our neighbor. That’s our calling. What Scot McKnight calls “The Jesus Creed.” And as we’ve learned here in this gospel, as that author explains, “One loves God by following Jesus.” And that means that we follow Him in love. To love His heavenly Father. But to also love others. It’s the litmus test that displays whether we truly have love for God. And it’s the mark of Christian growth, as we learn to serve with compassion.
Loving God and Neighbor in the Real World
I want to spend some time thinking about how this works out in our lives. How do we love God and neighbor in the real world? How do we love in the right direction? Let’s take formation, vocation, parenting, and politics.
First, formation. We all fail to love in these ways we see here. And that’s why we run to Jesus. And He rescues us from sin - from the vertical against God - and the horizontal against our neighbor - by faith. But then by His Spirit, He’ll begin to make us look like His Son. He’ll form us into His image. But we work with our God as He brings about that change.
One of our main problems is that we’ve lost sight of this. We think we just believe the right things, and we’re good. But Jesus invites us into a relationship. Where - as John Mark Comer explains it - we’re with Him. We become like Him. And He turns us into people that live as He did. Friends, we need rhythms, practices, like sabbath and solitude and prayer and fasting and scripture reading and others - things God will use to form us into people who love.
Second, vocation. Think about our jobs. Jesus is our first love, what we’re all about. Not our career or our position. As Keller has said, if we make it all about our self-fulfillment or self-realization, it will crush us. But, if we fix our identity on Jesus, it frees us up to love. As he once put it,
“The question regarding our choice of work is no longer ‘What will make me the most money and give me the most status?’ The question must now be ‘How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God's will and of human need?’ (Tim Keller)
This week, I was moved to tears, as Seth Freeman, who works in medicine with the university, was sharing the difference our vocation can make for Christ - in a cutthroat, competitive environment. By just creating a place where it was ok to ask questions - to even make mistakes - it can make all the difference. If we don’t worship our work, and serve it like it’s our god, we can be free to serve and love others.
Third, parenting. Soon, we’ll dedicate some little ones to the Lord. Church, imagine if we were able to live this out together. And to pass this onto our kids. Did you see what was there - after the Shema - in Deuteronomy 6? “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
What if we put God first? And pursued Him with our whole hearts? And didn’t bow our hearts to idols? And sought to love our neighbors - and involved our kids in that? Imagine if that was the tenor of our home, the air we breathed together? Imagine what God would do! If we taught this to them. And modeled it with our lives. Put God at the center. And lived lives of humility. Who didn’t curve our hearts inward. But looked outward to the fields. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see how God worked? And what if we didn’t put our kids first in our hearts? Because that’ll destroy their lives.
Fourth, politics. Friends, what’s our primary tribe? Are we Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, or Conservatives? Or are we followers of Jesus, first and foremost? What’s our primary identity? What’s our main community? One thing we’ve learned over the last several years is that people of faith in America have let their politics drive their faith much more than let their faith drive their politics. And we’ve let Satan shove us toward a side instead of standing on scripture with our Savior.
If we build our hope and identity - if we find our main community - in any of those places, we’ll end up demonizing our opposition. We’ll be marked by hate, for more than love. And we’ll stray far away from the ways of Jesus and the kingdom He builds. We have to love God first. And then we’ll love our neighbor. And hear this: we’ll also support politicians and policies that have kingdom values in mind.
Love is What the Bible’s About
Now here in Christ’s answer, we learn again why we’re here. We’re put here on earth. To love God and neighbor. I love the way Ray Ortlund puts it:
“The Bible is clear. Our lives should be preoccupied with love. Love is the primary reason why we’re on the planet – not productivity, though that can be loving, not correctness in our opinions, though that can be loving, not even doing the right thing, though that can be loving. But the primary reason why we’re on the planet is not success or popularity or anything else but loving God and loving our neighbor. Only God himself should be dearer to me than my neighbor. That’s what the Bible clearly and repeatedly says.” (Ray Ortlund)
That’s our purpose, Karis. It’s what Jesus says. But we also learn what our Bible’s all about. About its point. Do you see? Look at verse 40: “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
We’ve already seen talk like this here in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount. The leaders here are trying to catch Jesus in some way tearing down the law. But the Lord says back in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets” - that refers to the whole Old Testament again - “I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” All of it points to Jesus - in the love He brings and gives. Over in chapter 7, verse 12, Christ gives us the “Golden Rule.” “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” - sounds quite a bit like love. And then Jesus explains: “for this is the Law and the Prophets.” The Bible’s point - it’s theme - is all about love.
This sounds a lot like what Paul says over in Romans: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Or what He says in Galatians: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
What’s the central message of God’s revelation to us? Love. Love vertically for God. Love horizontally for others. It’s what the Bible’s all about. It’s where it points us. It’s where it leads. As Michael Wilkins puts it:
“The kingdom life that Jesus inaugurates fulfills the deepest inclination of humans created in God’s image. Kingdom life enables his disciples to live the way God intends us to live, which means living responsibly in relationship to God and others. As such, the entire Old Testament hangs on love for God and others and truly brings to fulfillment the Law and the Prophets (cf. 5:17–20).” (Michael Wilkins)
Or, as Michael Green puts it simply, “With God first and neighbor second, all else in the law is commentary.”
These two commands help us to love in the right direction again. To get our lives turned right-side up. How about we dig in God’s word together - and learn to love?
Their Response and Ours
Now we don’t have a record of the Pharisees’ response. It seems like they’re speechless; they’re put in their place. They'd likely only hear what it was they came to hear. What about us? What will be our response? It seems like Matthew wants us to answer it ourselves. Will we receive Christ’s words? This invitation to love?
Next week, they’ll come at him with yet another question. This time about the Christ - about whose son he is. And Jesus gives them an answer to that one that shuts them up for good.
So church, what’s wrong with our world? Why is our nation so messed up? We fail to love in these ways. We turn from our first love. We look out just for number one. We’re like toddlers, getting madder and madder, as we’re trying to shove a square block into a round hole. And then another kid walks up and tries to take it from us, and we smash them - as hard as we can - with that block. We’re looking at things upside-down. We’ve loving in the wrong direction. And that’s why there’s so much hatred and anger in our world.
But there’s another way. Here, if we’ll really listen and embrace the words of our Lord. Jesus tells us why we’re here, and what the Bible’s all about. What will we do with it? Will we join Him in love, Karis? And will we lead the way to others? Let’s pray.