Reordering Our Loves: Love God and Neighbor First

Aug 14, 2026

Devotional

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Sermon Clips

55s
#OrderYourLoves
“``what if he's right? What if the question that was being asked in the fourth century that's still being asked today, why do we have so much difficulty having our lives produce the kind of peace and joy and hope and courage that we desire? What if he was onto something? That it is not that we need better schedules or better, bank accounts. What if, really, the crux of the matter is that we have our loves out of order? none of our rethinking, replanning, reorganizing will amount to much unless we focus on the first duck, the top duck.”
60s
#LoveFirstNotLaw
“Here's why I, put these two sentences together. This is why it's so hard, I think. Instead of starting with the law, which asks the question, is this sin or not? Whatever the this is. Jesus says, start with love and ask, is my action loving or not? See, this one, what does love require of me, is often an obvious answer that I can't squirm out of by asking a whole bunch of tricky questions. This one, we could have debates and, you know, all sorts of things. But I think why they didn't dare ask any more questions is because he was gonna get even more clear on how simple it is of what God requires of us. What does love require of me?”
54s
#GraceThenObedience
“And maybe even questioning the premise that he started with. Remember the premise that the teacher of the law asked the right question? It was we know that we must obey the laws of God in order to receive his blessing acceptance. And I think the wheels are turning. And he's like, what if that's wrong? And even as I say that, I think some of you are like, well, how could that be wrong? And I think that's what Jesus is driving at here. That you don't, by your obedience, earn God's blessing and acceptance. You are given that blessing, acceptance, and then asked to obey God out of that.”
61s
#DisorderedLoves
“The question was, if nobody sets out to be miserable, we'd probably agree with that. Right? Nobody sets out to be miserable. Why are so many lives characterized by conflict, frustration, and unfulfilled longings? So this is the question that sort of, sparked the idea that comes up with the the theme that we're talking about. And when I when I look at that question, I think this is in sixteen hundred years ago. And I think, golly, people are still trying to answer that question. And if nobody sets out to be miserable, why are why are so many lives characterized by these things? Well, Saint Augustine said sixteen hundred years ago that the answer was disordered loves.”
53s
#LoveIsTheLaw
“It's the the most important thing for us to get right are these two commandments. You can't separate them, and you can't separate loving God and loving people, and you also can't separate love and the law. So this is not Jesus saying, forget about all the commands of God, because he says in this answer, every law is basically about love. It it is basically about how much you care for other people. And if it's not, you've misinterpreted the law. If you use God's standards in an unloving way, you might as well not even have known the standard.”
52s
#LoveToGiveNotGet
“And so I think, and and I'm glad to let him go first, I think that he's really face to face with his own motives. Maybe it's because I feel like I know him a little bit. I think he's thinking what do I really love the most? I think he's loved God's approval more than God for some years, and it's beginning to dawn on him. I think and others like him come to grips at some point With even when I act lovingly, sometimes it's for the right wrong motive. I'm loving to get rather than loving to give.”
56s
#AskTheRightQuestion
“if we're gonna begin our quest to get our ducks in a row, it's gonna start with this. Number one, ask the right question. And this is the right question. And understand why this question always comes up and always has to come up. There's good reasons and bad reasons that it always comes up, and let's, investigate our motives for asking it. The question boils down to what's the most important thing in God's eyes? What's the top duck? If we're gonna put them in order, who gets to decide the order? And Jesus is saying your heavenly father has already told you how to order what your heart is attached to.”
52s
#ReorderYourPriorities
“So whether you're thinking about reordering, rethinking, replanning, what is gonna be at the top of the list. I I would say this, that that your schedule is super important. Where you're gonna spend your time and your money and your gifts and your talents, super important. Family, your job. But probably, there's one duck that we need to get right in order to make all the other ones make any sense. The the one thing that might make the biggest impact, the top duck might be reordering our loves, and that may not even be a topic that you've ever thought of.”
40s
#LoveGodLovePeople
“this is a critical juncture in our journey to get our ducks in a row is understanding that that you can never separate these two answers that Jesus gives. Jesus gives an answer. What is the most important thing in the eyes of God? And he says, love God and love people, and never separate the two. Now that that might be so familiar to us that it just it it doesn't even, make an impression on you when I read it.”
50s
#SeekGodsPriorities
“But this is the right question. And it's the right question not because we want to, in in some way, make what we're good at the standard that we believe God cares about more. You've seen that, right? That that I pick whatever the thing is that I don't struggle with and I say, well, that must be the thing that's most important to God. Why? Because it makes me feel better. It's the right question if we ask it from the perspective of what does God want for us, not from us. And so, the first thing we have to do is ask the right question. What is the most important thing in God's opinion? And second, we gotta get the right answer”
45s
#JoinTheQuestToLoveRight
“And here's my invitation to everyone listening right now. Let's do that. Let's, no matter where you are in the Jesus journey, Let's go and take up the quest of figuring out how to make sure that we love the right things in the right way, in the right order, for the right reasons. It might be tough. It might it might cause us to rethink some things that we've thought, we've known for a long time, but that's where, that's where the good stuff is.”
35s
#DucksInARow
“if we wanna get our ducks in a row, I think we gotta start here. One, ask the right question. God tells us what's the top duck. And then get the right answer. And understand that it's never one answer, it's two answers, love God and love people. And then third, see the right response. And the right response almost always includes rethinking things that we thought we already knew.”
44s
#StartWithJesus
“you're invited. Over the next three weeks, the fall schedule descends upon us, join me. Join me in asking God to help us reorder our loves. Well, where would we start? If if we wanted to undertake this, this exercise, where would we start? Well, we'd start with Jesus. Because as I said, he had a lot to say about the power of loving the right things and loving the right things in the right way and in the right order.”
35s
#ReorderLoveSeries
“This series over the next three weeks, ducks in a row, is all about reordering the way that we love things. And I'm going to try to describe why that is so important. It's so important, one, because of the power of love, but two, because Jesus talked about it with his disciples, and they passed it on. And the scriptures talk about the power of loving the right things first.”
65s
#MoreThanRituals
“And so his response, it shows he's rethinking something that he thought he was sure about. When he brings up the, the burnt offerings and the sacrifices, is him saying, look, we are to be obedient to God, but nobody's obedient all the time. And so when we're disobedient, what do we do to, close the gap between what's expected of us and what our reality is? And the practice that he was very familiar with, he had taught burnt offerings and sacrifices. You do religious things. And I think I think that his response shows he's adding it up in his mind, and he's come to the conclusion, I don't think that makes any sense anymore.”
76s
#WhichCommandmentMatters
“It's a fairly common religious question, and and and not much has changed. When we think about religious debates in our day, a lot of it boils down to this question. Somebody says this command is more important. Somebody says this command, this sin is worth than this, which still goes on today. But in this scene, the teacher of the law says, basically, look, we know that we have to obey god in order to receive his blessing and acceptance. Right? which are the really important ones? Because, again, let's be honest. There's 613 of them in the Old Testament. They can't all matter the same. That just doesn't make any common sense. So if we're gonna whittle it down, if we're gonna try to get to the heart of the matter, this teacher of the law, and I would suggest many people in our day have to ask this question, what is the most important one? Which one matters the most?”
80s
#NoMoreQuestions
“So Jesus puts these things together, and this is, I think, why they responded the way they did. We'll get to verse 34 right at the end, but I'm gonna jump ahead just for a second and say, they said, no more we're not gonna ask Him any more questions after Jesus gives this answer. And there's a debate that I read a bunch of different opinions about why they said no one dared ask another question. I mean, that's a strong statement, isn't it? Where the whole chapter there asking him, tricking him, trying to get him to say stuff, and then he says, love god, love people. That's it. And then they said they didn't dare ask another question. Man, that's interesting. And I think, at least this is the most satisfying answer to me, is that they were afraid if they kept asking questions, he was gonna get clearer on what he did on what God demanded from them. And he'd gotten they were plenty clear already. Right? It's, the idea, the more you understand, the harder it gets. So much harder, so much more convicting.”
40s
#JesusChallengesLeaders
“One of the places that Jesus talks about that is in Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12, is a chapter in which Jesus is making people uncomfortable. He has a way of doing that, with people who think they have all the answers. And in this chapter, we're gonna pick it up near the end, but I wanna give you some context as we launch into it. He has had several different conversations with several different groups. See if you notice, a theme that they all had in common.”
46s
#ReligiousLeadersDebate
“So so far in Mark chapter 12, the chief priests want to arrest him. The Pharisees want to debate him. The Sadducees want to trick him. And if I was gonna ask you what is the common theme with all of these groups of people, maybe you know a few of them. The truth is that they're all religious people, that they're all, in their day, the people who others looked to to explain faith, to guide them in their spiritual journey. Now they disagreed with each other a good bit, but they were all disagreeing with Jesus.”
83s
#GreatestCommandmentQuestion
“And so whether they're debating or or whether they're trying to trick him, Jesus is, making them feel uncomfortable. And so we pick up the story in Mark chapter 12 verse 28, and someone else who's called a teacher of the law comes up and asks Jesus a question. So, Mark 12 verse 28. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating, noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer. Hold on. Jesus is debating and, you know, talking to these people, frustrating them. Well, the last answer that he gave was to this group called the Sadducees. one of their opposites, if you will, in the religious leadership scheme of things were teachers of the law. So the teacher of the law overhears Jesus giving an answer that he likes. And so he said Jesus had given them a good answer. And he asked him, of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
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