THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT
- Pastor Daniel Duce
- Aug 16
- 13 min read
Jesus came so that we might have Life…and have it abundantly.
21 times in the NT, Jesus said, “Follow me.”
Jesus said, “Come to me…and I will give you rest for your souls.”
Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Life with Jesus is a life devoted to Jesus.
A life committed to Jesus.
Following Jesus.
Serving Jesus.
Obeying Jesus…
Because obeying Jesus…is how we show Him that we love Him.
Mark 12:28-34 ESV
The Great Commandment
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another,
and seeing that he [Jesus] answered them well, [he] asked him [Jesus],
“Which commandment is the most important of all?”
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is [this], ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one,
and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he [Jesus] said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him [Jesus] any more questions.
“There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Anything strange about that sentence?
It should read:
“There are no other commandments greater than these.”
“There is no other commandment greater than this.”
Jesus is combining these 2 commandments into one
He is saying that they are the same commandment
How you love your neighbor…is how you love God.
How you treat people…is an indicator of how you’re doing loving God.
Do you see that?
Jesus said that this is the greatest commandment.
Therefore, I believe Him.
I would encourage you to memorize it.
It is worth your time.
I would encourage you to meditate upon it.
& that is what we are going to do today.
I like to come back to this verse at the start of each school semester.
For many of us…
In August, it’s a new school year.
In January, it’s literally a new year.
Some of us want to establish new habits
Get rid of the bad habits
New schedules
New rhythms
New spiritual disciplines
New bedtimes
New wake-up time
New goals
New diet
New exercise routine
It’s a great time for a personal review
A check-in
I think that God gave us these verses as a gift for our personal review
Jesus said it’s the greatest commandment in all of Scripture.
That means that it's the greatest!
It’s the most profound
The most powerful
The most completely comprehensive
The most helpful
The most instructive.
The most practical.
The most useful.
Dare I say, the most fruitful.
It’s the greatest!
How do I know this?
Because Jesus said so.
I believe that this commandment is the most powerful discipleship mechanism given to us by the Lord Jesus.
It’s why we wheat pasted it onto wood
And framed it as a piece of art that’s hanging in our KIDS hallway
Check it out
It’s also why I like to do an entire sermon series about this commandment twice a year
It’s so helpful, y’all!!!
I want these next 2 weeks to be so helpful to you.
I want you to be encouraged & challenged & hopeful
& changed!
I want us to be different
Not just different…
I want God to make us more & more conformed to the beautiful image of His Son, Jesus
I truly believe that this is the most important commandment in the Bible
Mark 12:30-31 ESV
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
How do we obey this commandment?
That’s usually where we want to start, right?
What does it look like for me to love God with all of these different facets of my humanity…
All of these individual components that make up who I am as a human being made in the image of God?
How do I love God with all of my HEART?
With my emotions
Feelings
Desires
Longings
How do I love God with all of my MIND?
This is my mental capacity
My mental faculties
My intellectual ability
Thinking
Reasoning
Solving
Creating
How do I love God with all of my STRENGTH?
My physical body
My energy
My talents
My abilities
My power
My physical strength that is able to make things
Produce things like → good & services
Using my STRENGTH is how I am able to acquire things
Resources
My possessions
How do I love God with my possessions?
ALSO, for how long will my physical body be alive?
This is our time.
How do I love God with my → TIME, TALENT & TREASURE
And finally…
How do I love my NEIGHBOR as myself?
My relationships
Spouse
Children
Family
Parents
Coworkers
Friendships
You prolly noticed that I skipped over:
Love the Lord your God with all your SOUL
The soul is the spiritual part of who we are
It is our eternal nature as humans made in God’s image
It is our essence
The SOUL encompasses all of these other parts of who we are as humans
HEART
MIND
STRENGTH
RELATIONSHIPS
So, what does this look like?
How do we do all of this?
How do we obey this great commandment?
How do we love God with all of our HEART
And all of our MIND
and all of our STRENGTH
And love our NEIGHBOR as ourself?
This is the question that we want to answer, right?
This is the HOW
HOW do we obey?
I desperately want to get to the HOW answers…
But first I’d like to discuss the WHY
Next Sunday will be very practical
Spiritual disciplines
Things to do and not do
Dos and Don’ts
Next Sunday will be the HOW
Today, I want to talk about the WHY
Why is this the greatest commandment?
Why should we obey?
Mark 12:30-31 ESV
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
1 → This is truly the most comprehensive & complete commandment in all of Scripture.
God created us.
He designed us and then formed us & then gave life to us.
He knows what we are made of…
& how it all fits together inside of us better than anyone in the universe
He knows we are emotional beings
He knows we are eternal, spiritual beings
He knows we are intellectual beings
He knows we are physical beings
He knows we are relational beings
He knows how we were made…
Down to every atom & every cell & every single, genetic detail
If anyone knows what is best for us in this life…it is God!
God wants the best for us.
God wants abundance for us
He wants us to thrive & to flourish & to prosper
He wants us to live with purpose. His purpose.
He wants us to live life with contentment & fulfillment & JOY
Life with Jesus
God knows that we were created love Him
To worship Him
To serve Him
To love Him
This commandment is a tool to help us along in this sanctification process
I’m using this as a framework for my own personal review & growth.
How am I doing?
Am I loving God with my EMOTIONS?
Angry?
Bitter?
Is there unforgiveness in my heart?
Do I find myself speaking harsh words?
Grumbling. Complaining.
Impatient?
Am I loving God with my THOUGHTS?
We cannot control the thoughts that fly into our MIND.
But we can control which thoughts we choose to dwell upon
We can control what we do with those thoughts.
We can control whether or not we will act upon those thoughts.
Make no mistake…we are engaged in a spiritual battle
A spiritual war…if you will.
And our enemy does NOT want us loving God & obeying this greatest commandment
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ESV
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
Romans 12:2 ESV
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
What we put into our MINDS matters
What we think about
What we watch
What we listen to
What we choose to allow our minds to dwell upon
We are either being conformed according to the pattern of this world
Or we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds with truth
Am I loving God with my MIND?
Am I loving God with my STRENGTH?
With my physical body
What we do with our physical bodies matters
How we view our physical bodies matters
Do you thank God for the way that He made you, physically?
It’s really hard to love God with your physical body…
If you don’t even like the physical body that you’re in!
Am I loving & honoring God with my physical body?
What I put into my physical body matters.
How I treat & care for my physical body matters.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
What I do with my body matters
How I spend my time matters
Am I spending my time in a way that honors God?
Working hard
Serving God & others
Taking care of my family & my responsibilities
Honoring my commitments
How I spend my money matters
Am I spending my money in a way that honors God?
Am I loving God with my TIME, TALENT & TREASURE?
Am I loving God in all of my RELATIONSHIPS?
Am I honoring God with how I treat my spouse?
My children
My extended family
The people that I work with
My church community
My friends
People that live around me in my neighborhood
Strangers
People in traffic
How we behave in traffic is a great indicator of how we’re doing loving our NEIGHBOR
HEART
Mind
Strength
Neighbor
This pretty much covers it all
What a great commandment?!!
This is such a helpful tool.
Lemme encourage you…
Use this framework to help you do a personal review
Be honest with yourself about how you’re doing
In the areas that you need to work on
Maybe ask others for help in how to get past those things that are keeping you from growth & progress
Use this commandment to help you grow in your love for God & others
Another reason
Why I believe this commandment is especially worth obeying…
2 → This commandment will help us to ENDURE
Friends, I want you to endure
I want all of us to finish well
I want all of us to get to the end of our lives…
And to be able to say, like Paul:
I have fought the good fight
I have finished the race
I have kept the faith
This is what this Life with Jesus is…
It’s a fight
A battle
A spiritual war that we are engaged in
It’s like a race
A really, really long race
The framework given to us by God within this great commandment
Will prove so beneficial to us in helping us to run our race well
It will help us to endure
Endurance is the key to running a long, difficult race
The word ‘Endurance’ occurs 32 times in the NT
Why is it so important that we endure?
Because this life is hard.
This race is hard.
You will encounter obstacles
Hardships
Trials
Suffering
The story of God is about the people of God who go through trials
They experience suffering
Job
Lost all of his wealth
Lost his health
Lost all of his children
Abraham
Endured suffering
Wandering
Waiting
Loss
Trials & testing
Isaac suffered
He was lied to & betrayed by his own wife & son
Jacob suffered
Jacob suffered & waited for years to marry Rachel
Jacob literally wrestled with God
His name was changed to ‘Israel’
Which was the name given to the people of God
Israel means → wrestles with God
The people of God will experience hardships
Joseph
Moses
Joshua
Elijah
Samuel
King David
The prophets
All throughout the OT we read of people that experience trials & suffering
And Jesus
Jesus experienced more unjust, undeserved suffering than any human being in history
Jesus endured it perfectly
No one in history has endured so much…and done it so well.
Let’s be honest…
Everyone will experience relative suffering in this life.
Especially the people of God
1 Peter 4:12-13 ESV
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
When you encounter suffering, which you will…
Don’t you want to go through it with Jesus?
Don’t you want to endure it with someone who not only loves you…
But who also knows better than anyone how best to endure?
1 Peter 4:19 ESV
19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
This is Life with Jesus
Life with Jesus is trusting Jesus
Entrusting ourselves unto Jesus
Continuing to love Him with all of who we are:
Heart
Mind
Strength
Relationships
Continuing to do good
Do the right things
Honor God with our lives
Love God with all of who we are
Luke 21:19 ESV
19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.
This life is like a race
A long endurance race
Every day we are not only running the race…
But it’s like we are training for when the true tests come upon us
Time trials
Olympic Qualifiers
When we go through suffering…
When we experience trials & hardships…
This is truly when our love for God is revealed.
Do we love anything more than we love God?
Suffering reveals what we really love
What we’re trusting in.
Where our confidence lies
What we’re truly hoping for
Suffering & trials & testing…
These are God’s refining fire
This is how He makes us better
This is how He helps us to love Him more
These seasons of testing…
This is when all the work pays off
When you lose your job…
When you go thru a season of poverty & debt
When your marriage seems hopeless
When you get sick
When you experience loss & grief
When you endure abuse & trauma
& you lean into Jesus
You trust in Jesus
You do your best to love Jesus with all of who you are:
Heart
Mind
Strength
Neighbor
All of those spiritual disciplines that you practiced
All of those days you did the right thing when it would’ve been so easy not to
All of those little right decisions that you made in your striving to love God
They prove so worth it
All of the bible reading
Devotions
Prayer
Fighting sin
Confession
Repentance
We are able to go thru the testing fire of suffering
We pass the test
We endure through to the end
Lord-willing, We are able finish well
James 1:2-4 ESV
2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Jesus wants the best for us
He wants to produce endurance in us
He wants to make us mature & complete & whole
& healthy
So that we can thrive & prosper & be fruitful
He wants us to live life abundantly
This is Life with Jesus
James 1:12 ESV
12 Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God[d] has promised to those who love him.
I want so bad for us to endure
This great commandment is a gift to us to help us to endure
Continually striving to love God with all of who we are is what we were made for
It is also the mechanism by which we are able to endure
It is how we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus
Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our griefs and hopes to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
Jesus Savior is our ref
Take it to the Lord in prayer
Are we weak and heavy laden?
Cumbered with a load of care?
Jesus knows our every weakness
Take it to the Lord in prayer
Blessed Savior, you have promised
All our burdens you will bear
May we ever Lord be bringing
All to you in earnest prayer.
I will close with this
Perhaps the best reason why this is the greatest commandment
Why this commandment is worth obeying
3 → This commandment is impossible to obey.
We will never…on our best day…be able to love God perfectly
No one…even the best person…could ever love God perfectly.
Only one man has ever loved God perfectly.
He did it every moment…of every day…in every way…with every part of who He was.
His name is Jesus
Only Jesus could love God perfectly
This is the gospel
Jesus lived the perfect life that we could never live ourselves.
He lived it for us.
He dies for us in our place took upon Himself our sins & our punishment
And he bore our sins in His body on the tree
And now when we receive Him and believe in his name
We are covered by faith in His blood
And God reconciles us back to Himself
We cannot love God
In fact, no one loves God
No one seeks God
No one wants God
But God loved us so much that He sent His one & only Son to save us
So that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life
This gospel is the power of God
God cleanses us
He regenerates us
He makes us completely new creatures
New hearts.
New minds.
New desires.
We are transformed
And now as we spend our lives seeking to love God with all of who we are
We are being conformed more & more into the image of His son.
The one who loved God perfectly
The one who loved others perfectly
The one who fulfilled the law perfectly
The one who obeyed the greatest commandment perfectly
What a friend we have in Jesus
Mark 12:30-31 ESV
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
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