We are here to recap the 3rd week of Visionary, our Youth Group series we explore some tough questions related to our Vision Statement (Worship God / Follow Christ / Do Good).

Week 3 – “Everybody Gotta Serve Someone”

Scripture Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:35-40, NIV)

Bottom Line Real love means really loving others.

Tension No one needs convinced that we need to Do Good; instead the question at hand is how do we do the best good? Sometimes serving others is really a disguise for serving ourselves. It turns out that the best way to do the best good is to love God first, love others, second, and love our life third.

Truth When asked about the most important commandment, Jesus threw us a curveball: loving God is so completely tied to loving others that all of the Old Testament is dependent on those two ideas. We can think about it this way: our love for others is an X-Ray that reveals our love for God.

Application If love for others is rooted in love for God, then worship has to be fuel for the journey. In worship we learn humility and mission, two keys for serving others well. Following Jesus will take us to the people God cares about most: those at the bottom and those on the outside. And when we follow Jesus we want the best for them, a relationship with God. We make the love of God real through our actions and the hope of Christ real through our words.

Landing When we do all that we discover something incredible: that we were meant to do good. In Ephesians 2:10 Paul reveals that we were created to do good works. When we pursue that with everything in us we find fulfillment that enables us to really enjoy and love our life.