CHBC Connect for November 1, 2024
The Great Commandment:
Capitol Hill Baptist Church exists to glorify God through the equipping of the saints, the exalting of Christ, and the extending of the gospel to the ends of the earth. The ultimate goal of the church is to develop fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ who live by the Great Commandment and who fulfill the Great Commission.
Have you thought about the Great Commandment lately? Matthew 22:36-40 says,
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And 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.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
This command of our Lord is great because it is a perfect summary of the laws of God. It is great because it comes from the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. This commandment is great because it is so profound – “on these two commandments depend the whole law and the Prophets.” This commandment has weight for our lives and bears the weight of all our understanding.
Love God and love your neighbor. These two things are so tightly woven together that they must not be separated. Any attempt on our part to separate our love of God and our love for one another is a matter of complete dishonesty. 1 John 4:20-21 says, “20 If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” It is worth reading the entire context of 1 John 3-4 to deeply appreciate the weight of the Great Commandment.
Church we are called upon to love one another as we love God. Developing disciples will work at increasing love vertically toward God and horizontally toward one another. The local church is the greatest exercise for love. Being in close proximity with a diverse group of people, who have different backgrounds, different theological positions, different ideas on politics, different approaches to family life, different ethnicities, different preferences of music, … you get the idea. We are different. And that is good because it exercises our love muscles.
Fully devoted disciples love God and love one another. And love is not sentiment, it is activity of the mind, will, and body. 1 Corinthians 13 is often read at weddings, but it was written to a church struggling through division. It should be read often in the church, by the church, to the church.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails;” (1 Cor. 13:1-8)
A fully devoted disciple will take these verses apart day by day and savor each word in an attempt to love carefully and fully the brothers and sisters in Christ with whom they have been put in communion within the local church. In a culture that is quick to cancel one another, let us stand as a bastion of forgiving love. This attitude was so threatening to the religious and to the secular that they joined forces to crucify our Savior. This approach by Christ’s church does not promise a peaceful existence with the world or with the religious. But it does promise the precious assurance of belonging to Christ.
Press on by faith, dear church, press on!
By His Grace, and For His Glory,
Pastor Mark
