Our sermon series, "The Upside-Down Kingdom" will close this week with one of the most powerful, practical, essential, simple, difficult, and important things that Jesus ever said:
“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself."
These commandments are not hard to understand, but they are so difficult to truly follow. It's as if Jesus knows that we will have to spend our life dedicated to this task of love in order to truly follow it. These commandments are not static; it takes an attitude of love each day in order to follow them. For the disciples and those questioning Jesus, these commands replaced the laws of sacrifice in order to appease God. For us today, these commandments shed new light on our practices and beliefs. These commandments become the essence of the Christian life.
These are not laws but rather an invitation to live according to God's grace and love for us, which will bring us joy and purpose in our lives.
The kingdom is upside-down, this is true from these verses as well. The kingdom of heaven represents the truism that we are filled up with God's love not when we absorb it all for ourselves, but give it back to God and to those around us. But we should not forget that Jesus also expects us to love ourselves well, saying "love your neighbor as yourself." We need not give and love so much that we don't know and experience God's love for ourselves.
See you on Sunday!
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