Matthew 22:34-46 - Abundant Relationship with God
Welcome to Home Church
Welcome back to another week of home church. As we get started, I would love to read this passage over us as a call to worship. It comes out of Ephesians 3:
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:14-21 (NASB)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; [and] that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him [be] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Church, the focus of today is the love of God. As we enter in, may we be a people reminded of a good, faithful God, and that we would experience His love in us and through us.
Welcome to The Well Community Church. We are so glad that you decided to join with us here—whether this morning, this afternoon, this evening, or at midnight. Whenever you’re hanging out with us, we’re grateful that you are here. If I haven’t met you, my name is Eric, and I’m one of the pastors here at The Well. If you are new with us on our home church platform, we would love for you to connect with us using the Connect tab. If you’re on any other platform, visit our website at thewellcommunity.org and click on the “I’m New” tab so we can reach out to you this coming week.
If you’ve been coming to The Well for a few weeks or months and you are looking to get into deeper biblical community to discover what it means to be part of a local church, we have great news. Next Sunday, May 31, we are hosting our online active membership class with our lead pastor, Brad Bell. He will be answering questions about what it means to live in biblical community on mission for Jesus—helping people connect to God and to each other in every neighborhood. Sign up on our app or on our website.
Also, if you are looking for an outside-the-box way to serve, this upcoming Wednesday, May 27, we are hosting a blood drive at both our North Campus and our Fig Garden Campus. Please sign up at thewellcommunity.org or on our app.
Let’s pray together before we dive into God’s Word.
Father, we come to You recognizing that we don’t have what it takes, but You do. Even in the midst of trials, temptation, and tribulation, God, You are faithful and You are with us. Lord, though our hearts are prone to wander, we ask that You seal them for Your courts above, that we might walk intimately with You here and now, and spend eternity with You. We love You, Lord, and we praise You in the name of Jesus. Amen.
A Quick Heads-Up on Communion
It is so good to be with you this week. If you have your Bibles, turn to Matthew 22.
While you are turning there, I want to share a quick observation. Last week, I had the privilege of sitting with my family and hearing Mike teach. He did a fantastic job in the text. But sitting there with my family, watching home church and having discussion afterward, we started thinking: What would it look like for us to add an element into our home church gatherings that we haven’t had before—communion?
So this is a heads-up that next week, we are going to enjoy communion together in your homes, or wherever you find yourself watching home church, as an expression of worship to God. You will be able to lead your family, your roommates, or yourself in a time of communion before the Lord.
Here is the deal: you are going to need to mask up this week and get some supplies. If you have always complained about church-issued Welch’s grape juice, the good news is you get to buy whatever fruit of the vine you want. If you are tired of butter crackers and want to go with authentic matzo bread, you get to buy that. Do your shopping this week, because next week in home church, we are going to lead you through a time of communion together.
The Ultimate Tag Team Match
I don’t know what your childhood was like, but my childhood was heavily shaped by the WWF. I know that dates me a little bit, but I remember growing up watching the great tag team wrestling matches—convinced they were completely real, by the way. Whether it was the Hart Foundation, the Junkyard Dog and George “The Animal” Steele, or the British Bulldogs, I loved the tag team dynamic. One guy would be getting beaten within an inch of his life, reaching out his hand, while the partner on the apron was straining and screaming, “Come on!” And you were yelling at the TV, “Make the tag! Make the tag!”
In fact, I enjoyed it so much that when I was in high school, myself and our heavyweight wrestler, Mark Smith (who actually went on to become a big-time professional wrestler in Japan), set up an exhibition match against two wrestlers from Clovis High back when those were the only two high schools in Clovis. It was a Friday night fundraiser for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. We had a full ring and choreographed the entire thing—suplexes, dropping elbows off the top rope, the DDT, everything. In that match, we simulated that exact drama: one guy getting pummeled, reaching out desperately, trying to make the tag.
In Matthew 22, if you have been with us over the last couple of weeks, what you are seeing is a religious tag team match. In verse 15, you see the Pharisees. In verse 16, the Herodians step in. In verse 23, the Sadducees enter the ring. And then in verse 35, we are introduced to an expert group called the lawyers, or scribes.
By way of quick review: the Pharisees observed strict religious piety according to the law of God—they were “obedience above all” people. The Herodians were a Jewish political party sympathetic to Rome. The Sadducees were the wealthy religious elite who denied the resurrection; as we learned last week, they understood neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. In verse 33, after Jesus silenced the Sadducees, the crowds went away astonished at His teaching.
It is as if the Pharisees got beat up, tagged the Herodians, who tagged the Sadducees, and the Sadducees just got thoroughly embarrassed. So in verse 34, the Pharisees gather together to regroup and bring in their closer:
Matthew 22:34-35 (NASB)
But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him [a question], testing Him,
In this culture, a “lawyer” didn’t practice civil law; he was an expert in the Old Testament Scriptures. They send him in to test Jesus, and in verse 36, feigning respect, he asks, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Matthew 22:36 (NASB)
‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’
Traditionally, the rabbis held that there were 613 individual commandments in the Mosaic Law—365 negative commands and 248 positive commands. This lawyer is asking, “Out of all 613, which one is supreme? What is the greatest?”
The Heart of the Shema
Jesus responds by quoting the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:5. It is named after the very first word in the Hebrew text: Shema Yisrael—“Hear, O Israel.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NASB)
’Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! ’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
If you grew up in the Jewish faith, you quoted the Shema every single morning and every single night. It was your highest expression of worship: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
Those categories—heart, soul, and might—overlap. The Hebrew word translated “might” is me’od, which is technically an adverb meaning “to the highest degree” or “to the utmost.” The Shema essentially says: love God with all your heart and soul to the absolute maximum.
In verse 37, Matthew records Jesus’ answer:
“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.’”
Matthew 22:37 (NASB)
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.’
Matthew’s predominantly Jewish audience understood this as a direct rendering of the Shema. In Mark’s Gospel, written to a Gentile audience, Mark translates the full scope of me’od by writing: “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
Mark 12:29-30 (NASB)
Jesus answered, ’The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; 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.’
Jesus is not merely saying, “Love God a lot.” This is an all-encompassing, comprehensive, total devotion. It is an invitation to love God unreservedly as preeminent over your entire life.
The Treadmill of “Above-the-Line” Religion
When I was in graduate school at Dallas Theological Seminary, I worked as a personal trainer at the Brick House Gym in Denton, Texas, to pay my way through school. The cardio equipment was positioned right near the front counter. You could hear whenever someone hopped on a treadmill and began bumping up the speed—beep, beep, beep.
One afternoon, I heard someone hit the speed button: beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep! She cranked it all the way to maximum speed before even stepping onto the belt. I watched her stand on the side rails while this treadmill was screaming. I thought, This is going to be a train wreck. I cannot wait.
Admittedly, it was not my finest pastoral hour. I should have warned her that pride goes before destruction, but instead, I just watched. The machine was roaring so loudly that guys doing bicep curls stopped and stared. She decided she was going to jump straight into a dead sprint. The moment her foot touched that belt, her feet flew out from under her. She face-planted directly onto the moving track, and the machine ejected her backward into the drywall two feet behind the treadmill. Because the space was so tight, she was pinned halfway on the belt and halfway against the wall, taking severe road rash while the belt kept spinning at full speed.
Not only was that completely unproductive; it was destructive.
What Jesus is confronting in Matthew 22 is that exact same religious treadmill. It is the kind of religious activity that constantly demands: Try harder. Do better. Be good. Stop doing that. Try harder.
Have you ever noticed that you cannot try hard enough in your own strength to be good enough? In the flesh, it is never enough. It is unproductive, exhausting, and destructive. How many people do you know—or maybe this is your story—who have spent years on a religious treadmill? You were told to behave, and out of guilt, you ran as fast as you could. Eventually, you stumbled, hit the wall, suffered severe spiritual road rash, and walked away from church saying, “I’m never going back,” because you were so embarrassed by your failure.
Jesus is directly confronting what I call “Above-the-Line” Christianity.
Above-the-line Christianity operates purely in the realm of mind and strength:
- Know and Do.
- Believe and Behave.
- Orthodoxy (right thinking) and Orthopraxy (right action).
It assumes that following Jesus is simply about acquiring knowledge and modifying behavior, with zero connection to what is happening “below the line.” It acts as though Jesus rescued us by His grace and filled us with His Spirit simply so we would become polite, moral rule-followers.
As a pastor, it breaks my heart to realize how easy it is to promote above-the-line Christianity from the pulpit—teaching truth and expecting people to execute it, without ever addressing the heart and soul below the line.
Digging Beneath the Hardpan
Look at how Jesus breaks this down:
- Heart: In biblical terms, your heart is your inner control center. It is the seat of your will, your desires, and your affections.
- Soul: This is your self-conscious eternal essence—the reality that God has set eternity in the human heart and created us in His image to reflect His glory.
- Mind: Your thought capacity, reasoning, and processing—how you evaluate truth, wisdom, and understanding.
- Strength: Your bodily power, physical capacity, energy, effort, and intentionality.
Real love for God must flow from the heart and soul through the mind and strength. You cannot sustain above-the-line spiritual expression without below-the-line spiritual life. If the only fuel driving your Christian life is your personal willpower to be good, you will inevitably burn out.
Jesus continues in verses 38-39:
“This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:38-39 (NASB)
’This is the great and foremost commandment. ’The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
Leviticus 19:18 (NASB)
’You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.
When Jesus says the second is “like it,” He means it carries equal weight. Loving God with all that you are naturally produces love for your neighbor. If you want the CliffNotes summary of the entire Old Testament, this is it: Love God, and love people. All 613 commandments, including the Ten Commandments, hang on these two hinges.
Luke 10:27 (NASB)
And he answered, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:40 (NASB)
‘On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’
Why is living below the line so challenging for us?
Think about the sidewalks in Fresno. If you walk through older Fresno neighborhoods, you will frequently see concrete sidewalks buckled and cracked into the air. Why does that happen? Because when the developer planted the street trees, they ran into Fresno’s infamous layer of hardpan—a dense layer of natural clay and cement about eighteen inches down. Instead of doing the hard work to break through the hardpan, the workers dug a shallow hole, dropped the tree in, and walked away. Because the roots couldn’t penetrate the hardpan, they grew sideways right under the surface, eventually destroying the sidewalk.
If you want to plant a tree in the Central Valley that lasts, you have to dig a deep trench and break through the hardpan. Once the taproot gets down deep beneath the hardpan, it finds rich nutrients and deep water sources that sustain the tree for decades.
Christianity works the exact same way. Mind and strength sit above the hardpan; heart and soul sit below it. Many of us find it awkward to go below the line because we don’t naturally speak that language. If you ask the average guy, “What does it mean to love God with your heart and soul?” he might freeze and say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I read my Bible and I try to do what it says.”
That is the treadmill. That produces exhaustion.
Going below the line means asking deeper questions: What do I truly love? What are my deepest affections attached to? What does it mean to delight in the presence of God? What does it mean to let the Word of God saturate my inner being until my desires are genuinely transformed?
The Knockout Question
In verses 41-46, the dynamic dramatically shifts. Jesus has been absorbing blows and parrying questions. Now, He steps forward and goes on the offensive.
I am old enough to remember prime Mike Tyson fights. People paid huge money for pay-per-view events only for Tyson to knock his opponent out in fourteen seconds flat. Tyson would enter the ring wearing a plain white towel with a hole cut in it, black shorts, black shoes, walking out to the sound of clanking chains. In the ring, he would slip punches with cat-like reflexes, back his opponent into the ropes, and unleash an overwhelming combination.
Jesus now backs the Pharisees into the corner:
“Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: ‘What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?’ They said to Him, ‘The son of David.’”
Matthew 22:41-42 (NASB)
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: ‘What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?’ They said to Him, ‘[The son] of David.’
The Pharisees expected the Messiah to be an earthly, human descendant from the royal line of David, fulfilling the Davidic Covenant of 2 Samuel 7.
2 Samuel 7:12-16 (NASB)
’When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. ’He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ’I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took [it] away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. ‘Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.’‘’
Then Jesus delivers the decisive blow:
“He said to them, ’Then how does David in the Spirit call Him “Lord,” saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet’”? If David then calls Him “Lord,” how is He his son?’“
Matthew 22:43-45 (NASB)
He said to them, ’Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying, ’THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, ’SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES BENEATH YOUR FEET ‘’? ’If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?’
Psalms 110:1 (NASB)
A Psalm of David. The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’
In ancient Jewish culture, a father never called his son “Lord.” The ancestor was always superior to the descendant. Yet in Psalm 110, King David—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—refers to his own descendant as his divine Lord whom he worships. How could the Messiah be David’s son and simultaneously David’s Lord?
The answer is that Jesus is not merely a human heir; He is God incarnate. He is both David’s son according to the flesh and the eternal Son of God according to His divine nature.
“No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question.”
Matthew 22:46 (NASB)
No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question.
Jesus completely silenced every critic—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, and the scribes. Tag team over.
From “Almost” to “Enough”
What does this mean for our everyday lives?
Jesus is inviting us off the religious treadmill and into an abundant relationship with God. Walking with God is not about anxious behavior modification; it is about life-giving intimacy with our Creator. It is meant to be refreshing, joy-filled, and soul-restoring.
Above-the-line religion fails us in three distinct ways:
- It is short-lived. It relies on emotional highs and willpower. It is like the spiritual resolutions we make in January that evaporate by March, or the emotional high of summer camp that disappears the moment temptation strikes.
- It is powerless against the flesh. Setting up rigid external rules creates the illusion of wisdom, but as Paul writes in Colossians 2, external boundaries have no value in restraining fleshly indulgence.
Colossians 2:23 (NASB)
These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, [but are] of no value against fleshly indulgence.
Romans 7:18 (NASB)
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good [is] not.
- It creates rule-followers, not lovers of God. It may polish external behavior, but it leaves the heart cold, self-righteous, and devoid of supernatural joy.
Years ago, when I went through our church’s regeneration ministry (ReGen), they asked us to write down the word we believed God spoke over our lives. Even after serving as a lead pastor and being in full-time ministry for over twenty-five years, the word that surfaced in my heart was “Almost.”
Deep down, my above-the-line wiring told me: You’re almost there. God almost loves you. If you pray enough, read enough, and lead well enough, you’ll earn His favor. But if you stumble, He is disappointed.
By the end of ReGen, God completely dismantled that lie. The word that sits on my desk today is “Enough.”
In Christ, we do not perform to earn God’s acceptance. Through Jesus’ perfect life, death, and resurrection, He has already secured everything we need.
Ephesians 1:3 (NASB)
Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ,
Hebrews 12:2 (NASB)
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus did not just come to give us more rules. He came as our Savior, walked up to the religious treadmill, hit the emergency stop button, and said, “You can step off now. I have already finished the work. Now come, walk with Me.”
Closing Prayer & Dismissal
Let’s pray together.
Father, thank You that on the cross, Jesus cried out, “It is finished!” We do not have to perform to earn Your love; Your love has been poured out abundantly upon us in Christ, and in Him, we are enough.
Teach us what it means to love You below the line with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Free us from the exhausting cycle of self-reliant religion. Satiate our souls with Your presence, transform our affections, and let the joy of knowing Jesus overflow into love for our neighbors. We worship You as our King and our God. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.
Church family, as we close our time together, let’s carry this challenge into our week: to love the Lord not merely above the line in intellectual agreement and mere rule-keeping, but deep below the line—with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. May God empower us to put His goodness on display in every neighborhood. Have a wonderful week!