A Question About Love

This Sunday, February 14, love will be in the air as the world celebrates Valentine’s Day. In God’s providence we have come to the section in Luke which defines Who we should love the most and how we should love Him. The greatest of all commandments is to love God. We are also exhorted to love one another as the second greatest commandment.

This passage has been misunderstood by many people. Some people try to use our passage to teach the importance of self-love. A careful study of the text will show that there is no imperative/command to love yourself. Some, including the expert in the Jewish Law in our text, think that it is somehow possible for us to love God and neighbor well enough to justify ourselves. Others rightly point out that the impossibility of meeting this standard should drive us to seek God’s grace which comes to us through Christ. But some of these then make the error of neglecting the command to love by saying that all that matters is that Jesus fulfilled these commandments for us. We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

Please read Luke 10:25-37 before listening to this sermon.