You Say You Love God… But Do You Really?

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We need to understand that the Pharisees, literally about 15 verses prior, have been plotting to get Jesus to trip up on His Word so that they can arrest Him. So this whole time, every time you see the Pharisees, the Pharisees are actually never genuinely curious. They have Nicodemus, who's genuinely curious. But when it's referencing the Pharisees as a whole, they don't care about Jesus as well being His physical well-being. They literally want to find a way to throw Him in prison. So much so. I don't know if you remember, but in the account when people are throwing all these slanderous accusations out about Jesus, none of them are true. But they're throwing out accusations just because they want a reason to arrest Him. So when we get to verse 34, you have another attempt of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which are the religious leaders of the time. These guys are supposed to be the guys that really know the scriptures well. And verse 34 says, "But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together." All right. So what happened? The Pharisees and the Sadducees, two different religious groups, said, "Well, Jesus responded to the Sadducees in such a way about the resurrection. They were so blown away by His response that they had no rebuttal." So the Pharisees are like, "Well, the Sadducees couldn't do it. So now we got a gather together." So they gather together and this is in verse 35, one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Now, this is very, this is very important that the man asking this question is a lawyer because a lawyer is going to understand the law fully, right? That's why when, or God forbid, if you get into some legal trouble, you're going to hire an attorney because they know the law better than you do. They understand the ins and the outs of loopholes. That's why when the IRS comes knocking on the door, who do you call it? You don't do your taxes yourself. You call it CPA because they know the law better than you. So they know a little few extra things that they can write off, blah, blah. You get the point. The lawyers are asking this question. So you got to think, this is like someone who knows what they're talking about is asking Jesus a question about their expertise, trying to trip him up and he goes, "Well, teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" Now I can imagine the lawyer in this scenario is very smirk, very gritty. He's like, "Oh, man, I'm really getting Jesus. Why?" Because there's 613 laws and 10 commandments. All of them equally important in Old Testament, Levitical Law. Therefore, if Jesus were to say, "Oh, well, this law is better than this other one," then they could catch him for blasphemy, trip him up or rest him and ultimately have him tried and get what they want. So the fact that this lawyer is asking Jesus, "Hey, out of all 613 laws and 10 commandments, which one is the greatest?" It's so important because this lawyer and his expertise is trying to trip Jesus up in verse 37, such a gangster, gangster response, we'll talk about why it's gangster. Jesus says, "This is what 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, Paul's right there. Did Jesus just invent some new commandment? Yes or no? No, he did not. Hey, quick pause. I have to tell you about something I've been looking forward to all year. It's called Open Heaven and it's the biggest live event we've ever done. It's happening November 8th at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas. Picture a live podcast experience, real conversations about faith and purpose and the stuff we actually talk about on this show, but in a room full of people altogether. And it's not just talk. We've got a live worship band that's coming alongside, being led by Aaron Tedesky and Upper Room Worship. If you know, you know, it's going to be a night full of faith and power and we really believe that Jesus is going to be in the room. I think it's our on sale right now at BryceCrofford.org/tour, links in the description. Just do me a favor, only buy through the official site because there's a ton of resellers and scammers out there. So make sure you get your tickets at BryceCrofford.org/tour. All right, back to the episode. When Jesus says, Jesus looks at these religious leaders, "Looks this law, you're dead in the face. It has the greatest commandment you asked me here it is. You shall love the Lord your God with your heart, with your whole soul and with all your mind." Jesus didn't just pull that out of a hat. Jesus didn't just randomly invent it. Aaron was like, "Oh my gosh, it's the most amazing thing ever." Go look at the law. You have the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. What's in Deuteronomy? Chapter 6, verse 5, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul and mind." It says in Deuteronomy 6.4, "Here's the Lord your God. He is one, love him with all your heart, soul and mind and strength." So Jesus is quoting the law to answer his question. Furthermore, not only is he quoting the law, he's summarizing all 613 laws and 10 commandments under the one truth. If you love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul and mind and strength, you will naturally obey his commands. I have found in my own life that when I try hard not to sin, that's when I sin the most. When Bryce tries in his own strength, the white knuckle life, and in his own scrawny little arm will power to figure out how to conquer the morality of life, that's when I blow my whole life up worse. But when I focus my gaze on Jesus and I'm loving him with every ounce of my being and he is my own, it doesn't matter what the comments say, it doesn't matter what that person down the street and how they reacted if I accidentally cut them off in the street. You know, it doesn't matter how people react. If my gaze is here at Jesus, he's all loving him, pleasing him, serving him as everything that I want in my bones. It doesn't matter about trying hard to conquer my sin issue or trying hard to do or not do things I will naturally obey Jesus. You don't listen to your dad because you have to. You listen to him because you want to because you love him. You know that your dad has had years of experience more life than you've lived. He's been through some things. He's seen some stuff. There's a partial truth in saying that with gray hair comes wisdom, the order you get, there is a partial truth. Like the order you get, you've seen more life. You've seen a lot more stuff. You understand it. Like there's wisdom with life. In the same way, we love Jesus not because we have to, but because we want to. So Jesus says, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with your whole heart. You know what the greatest commandment is it? The greatest commandment isn't building a big ministry because that's what's going to please God's heart. If we thought that was going to please God's heart, then the letter to the church of emphasis would have been completely different. Paul literally wrote to the church of emphasis and says, "Hey, I love your great ministry. You're doing some great stuff." But if I could choose for you to have one or the other and it was either A, you have a great big ministry that has great impact for the gospel or B, no ministry at all, but you have a pure soul intimate relationship with Jesus. I would immediately without the shadow of doubt. Cut out the ministry that you're doing so that you could have this great pure relationship with Jesus. It's like the whole premise and purpose of the gospel is intimate love and relationship with the Lord. That's it. That is the gospel is his death and resurrection on the cross, not only atones for your sin, but men's the bridge of relationship with him. So we're invited into this thing called communion with God. Loving the Lord your God with your hearts for money, strength is the greatest commitment. And Jesus practices the greatest commitment so much. We are so focused on building something great and building something for ourselves more than we are loving him. And all throughout the scriptures, you see time and time again, great crowds come to Jesus, great crowds come to Jesus. They want more miracles from them. They want more fish and love. They want more sick heal. They want more blind eyes open. And Jesus is seen running from the crowds more than he is running to the crowds. He's seen isolating himself with the Father because his dependency on the Lord is more important to him than building a ministry. If Jesus is most important, it's was building a ministry than he wouldn't have waited until he was 30 years old to start ministry. The greatest commandment is loving Jesus. That is it. And we love our sin more than we love him. We love our money more than we love him. We love our fame more than we love him. We love our financial status more than we love him. We love our sports more than we love him. We love the blade more than we love him. We love the pill bottom more than we love him. We love the 12 pack of beer more than we love him. We love so many things. things other than him but for some reason loving him seems to be so difficult, but choosing the port again after it's let you down for the 10,000 time doesn't seem that difficult. We have this double standard when it comes to what we choose to love. And where you invest your love, that thing will be leading you. You don't believe me, check your screen time. Oh yeah, I love God, like God's my everything, man, he's really, like I love Jesus. Your screen time is 10 plus hours on TikTok Instagram and YouTube and that's what's leading your life. Yeah, but I love God, man, like I do like a 15 minute devotional in the morning. It's like, okay, yeah, but the thing that's influencing your decisions and your friendships and your relationships is not Jesus. It's what you're seeing online. Like that was a whole, yeah, I just, it's so crazy to me. To think that we're willing to love other things so easily, but then when it comes to loving Jesus with our whole heart, we have a reservation towards it. Let me ask you this, why do you have a reservation towards loving Jesus with your whole heart when Jesus knows everything about you already? You can give 99% of yourself to God, but if you withhold 1% from an all knowing God who already knows everything about you, who wants relationship with you, the whole reason that we have prayer and the scriptures and worship is to build relationship, but he knows everything about you. You withhold the 1% from God. You're still unknown from him. You see, like time and time again, they're like, what, why are you eating on the Sabbath, Jesus? And the Sabbath was made for man, man, not for the Sabbath. It's like, you don't choose to Sabbath because you're trying to do out of your own strength. You choose to Sabbath because you value the Lord so much and you were trusting and love him so deeply that what he has said to be true is what's best for your life. Loving the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength is the greatest net positive to existence of all time. And then Jesus falls it up with this. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and all the prophets. If you read Hebrews 11, it talks about the legends of the faith, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ray have the prostitute. How did she get in there? You know, it highlights these legends of the faith in Hebrews 11. Not because they did all these great things, but it's because they had faith and trust in Jesus that they loved the Lord most. That's what meant most of them is that they loved him the most. He was the prize in their life. The Lord was the prize in all of the faith legends, the cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 11. Yep. They loved him the most. And then Jesus says, yeah, the second follow up is loving your neighbor as yourself. You know why? You know why the second greatest commandment is loving your neighbor as yourself is because when you love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength, then you are trusting that everything he says doesn't matter what the world says. You're trusting that everything he says is perfect. Christ is just true and best for your life and the way that Jesus views you, when you love him with your whole heart, then you begin to see yourself the way that God sees you. And when you see yourself the way that God sees you, you realize he sees everyone else the same way. And so the price tag that God puts on your own life is the same price tag that he puts on everyone else's life. And that's what his own life, Jesus values your life. And everyone else's life watching and listening to this video, no matter your skin color, no matter where you grew up, no matter how you erased, no matter if you have a mom or a dad, no matter if you play sports or not, Jesus values every human life the same unto his own life. Jesus lived this thing out. That's what makes Jesus the goat. Jesus is the goat because he didn't just talk to talk, he walked the walk. He says, Hey, you know, the greatest commitment is loving the Lord with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength. I do that with my life. Look at my life. I do that. I love the Lord. I value intimacy with the Father more than I value the crowds in the stage and the platform and the microphone. Great. Love your neighbor, add yourself. Yeah. I love you so much. I'm willing to lay my life down for people that are never going to receive me ever again. He's a man of his word. If you were someone that is so afraid to love the Lord, God, their hearts will mind and strength. Like, I understand. I was at a point in my life when I was 17 years old in Waffle House and and I got encountered by Jesus. I was a little hesitant because I had been let down by everything else. And Jesus was like my last resort. My saving grace. And I was so afraid that he might let me down. But we don't have to be afraid. If you're afraid, Jesus is going to let you down because everything else is let you down. The proof is in the pudding. Jesus has existed and lived his life for us, dying on the cross for our sins, dying on the cross for humanity, dying on the cross for you. So he's not going to let us down. He's already finished it. He's not going to leave us in the dust. He's already paid for your sin. He's not going to change his mind about you. He knows the mistakes you've already made and you're going to make. He's lived this thing out and the greatest commandment is arguably one of, if not the most crucial aspect to the Christian faith, because what does 1 Corinthians 13 say? You know, we love to talk about love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envy and boast, but those are great. But the verse is leading up to its starting and verse one is like, if I speak in the tongues of men, Paul says, but I have not love. I have nothing. Paul says, if I have enough faith to move an entire mountain of obstacles, problems in my life, but I have not love, I lack at all. Because the love of God out of your whole heart stems from who? Jesus. And Jesus gives the greatest commandment of loving Him with your whole hearts, whole mind and strength. He's not giving in an impossible empty task, rather the scriptures would tell us that if anyone does not know love, they don't know God because God is love and we are able to love others and love him because he has loved us first. Jesus is the standard. Jesus is the fuel. Jesus loves, fuels us to not only love him, but love others. And I want to pray for you because this language, the language of love that Jesus speaks is a universal language that has no literal ethnic barrier, no distance barrier. That is the language of the greatest commandment and it will literally change your life. And I want to pray for anyone watching or listening to this if you were struggling with loving Jesus that you would fully surrender at all because one of the main reasons that we struggle to fully love Jesus is because we are holding on a shame, holding on a guilt or we're too afraid to give it all to him because we've been led down by everything else and I want to pray for you. Lord Jesus, we thank you. We love you. We're so grateful that your greatest commandment isn't that we have to slave away to some possible task, but it's to love you and that our love is fueled by your love for us. It's the Lord to anyone who is hesitant with guilt and shame to approach you, God, would they just drop it when they bring their guilt and shame to you, they leave it on the altar where your love consumes it with an overwhelming fire that transforms us, where we love you. We thank you. Jesus Amen.