Love before Duty, or Duty before Love?

Good evening. Great greetings to you all here this evening. It's good to be here. It's good to be here again.

One of the things that fascinates me about the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 people is what would it have been like to be there? What would it have been like to be the disciples when you're given a handful of bread and you go hand it out to some people, you turn around and you come back and there's more there?

There's an endless supply. And I think another part of the lesson that I learned from that is that no matter what the situation is, no matter the difficulty that I am in, no matter where I'm at in life, there is an endless supply with Christ. An endless supply of love, of grace, and help.

So for those of you who are at St. Thomas last Sunday are going to get a little bit of an expanded version of my devotions last Sunday. But I think we're going to go for it here. There's been a couple of one-liners that I've heard recently that have caused me to think and to ponder.

Some fairly simple lines, but at the same time, they can get a little bit complicated too. I think most of the time they get complicated because we tend to complicate them. And here are the two one-liners. Does love come before duty or does duty come before love?

Now, you may wonder what I mean by what is love and what is duty. Unfortunately, in the English language, love has gotten pretty broad and pretty muddled.

You can say that I love pizza or you can say that I love my wife or I love my spouse. And if love means the same thing in both of those situations, I'm sorry for your spouse because to love your spouse at an equal level as you love pizza is a pretty sad thing.

So I'm going to open here with defining what duty is and what love is. And then we'll explore a little bit of how all these terms are used in the Bible and scripture. And then we'll try to maybe I don't want to say it's a problem, but we'll address the two one-liners. If love comes before duty or if duty comes before love.

Miriam Webster defines duty as such. It's conduct due to parents and superiors. So another word, another synonym would be respect. It could be an obligatory task, conduct or service or functions that arise from one's position as in life or in a group. It'd be responsibility. Duty and responsibility are also synonymous with one another. It could be an assigned service or business that you are currently in.

The military uses the term to talk about when you're when a serviceman, a soldier is on duty or off duty, like a period of being on duty or a period of being off duty. It can be a legal term, a moral or legal obligation, and the force of moral obligation.

The Old Testament scripture does not have a word specifically for duty, but there are some words that they used that are fairly close and are most often translated as either hear, to listen, or to obey. We're going to look at that a little bit.

The Hebrew word is shema. And if that sounds familiar to you, it's because that is what Deuteronomy 6:5, I believe, is called. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

And it is most simply translated to listen or to hear. And as one commentator that I was reading says, it's more than just listen. It's to listen twice.

Whenever the children of Israel get to Mount Sinai after they're delivered from slavery in Egypt, they come to the foot of the mountain and Moses meets with God. This is before the 10 commandments. And God kind of sets in place the conditions for the children of Israel and the covenant that he's going to make with them. And he says, if they will obey my voice, if they will listen, listen to my voice, then we can move forward. And they respond, all that the Lord has said, we will do.

It gives the idea that duty or obedience is what you choose to do based on what you have heard and been instructed to do.

I find a little bit of irony in that, especially in the Old Testament, is that Israel heard. They heard firsthand what they were supposed to do. And five minutes later, they're doing exactly what they are not supposed to do. And it's more broadly throughout the Old Testament, the whole story of Israel is of a people whom God chose to be his special people and gave them special instruction, a special law to follow. And they repeatedly fail to do it over and over again to the point where they are exiled.

And it also gives the idea that no matter what we do without God's help, we cannot do it on our own. So here are some examples of how to listen or how shema is used in the Old Testament and some in the New Testament.

Let's turn to Exodus 19.

Exodus 19. And we will start at verse two just so we're not breaking in too much in the middle. And this is what I referred to just a little bit ago. It says that they set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai. And they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain while Moses went up to God. And the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed shema my voice, obey my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.

For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel." So there it is God's instruction to humanity, God's instruction to Israel in this case.

That was their duty. Israel's duty was to be obedient to what God had instructed them. It could be a person's instruction or advice to others. And in Deuteronomy 6:5, what I just quoted was Moses giving the instruction to the people of Israel to, above all else, to obey, to love, and to serve. I'm just going to read that. This is Deuteronomy 6:4-5.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord 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. And these words that I command today shall be on your heart.

So Moses was giving the instruction to the people of Israel to do their duty and to be obedient to God and the law that he had given. It can be the responsibility given to someone. Duty can be the responsibility given to someone. In Genesis 2:15, it talks about how God had created the Garden of Eden. And he placed a man in the garden to work and to keep it. They were given a task to do something with their time there in the garden.

They were to work it and to keep it. And it also can be referred to shema can also refer to one's military duty. We'll turn to 1 Samuel 26.

In verse 15, now a little bit of the backstory here. David has been chasing I'm sorry, Saul has been chasing David out of sheer jealousy for who David was. And this is the case where the camp Saul and his men had encamped during the night. And David and one of his mighty men went down into the camp. And David's mighty one of the mighty men who were with him said, "Here's your opportunity. You could be king over Israel, take Saul's life, or I'll take Saul's life for you. And then you will be king." And David says, "No, I'm not going to touch the Lord's anointed." He takes his spear and a cruise of water. And afterwards, he shouted out to the people of Israel.

And he chides Abner for not fulfilling his duty to protect. This is in verse 26, verse 15. It says, "And David said to Abner, 'Are you not a man who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept?'" And that word kept is the word shema. "Watch over your Lord the king, for one of the people came in to destroy your king, the king, your Lord."

So to listen to shema is to keep something that you have been charged with. And in this case, it was military duty. In 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy that no man who wareth entangleth himselves with civilian affairs. Some translations say no soldier on duty entangles himself with civilian affairs.

If you're on duty to do something, then that is what you are responsible to do.

To listen and obey is rarely, if ever, just a mental exercise. It almost always produces action.

So what are some motivations for duty? Why would I feel the obligation or why would I feel the need to do something? What would motivate me to do it? Here are a couple of possible examples. Maybe it's for recognition.

Maybe at your job, there's potential for a promotion, for better wages. And so you do your duty out of recognition to try to get your boss's attention so you can get the promotion or get better wages, get a raise, whatever it may be.

It could just be out of sheer responsibility that you feel the need for duty. A parent to children, a relative to relative, family members, or a friend to a friend. Just out of I have the responsibility as a father to take care of my home, to take care of my wife, to take care of my children, to teach my children. And that is my duty as a father.

It may be out of obligation. You did something for me, so I'm going to do something for you or returning a favor or just out of sheer loyalty because I'm a part of this group of people or part of this community. I feel an obligation to do my duty to them or for them.

So that's a little bit of a definition of duty and how it is used in scripture. And now let's look at the word love. This is a bit of a bigger topic. And I'm not going to exhaust it by any means tonight.

But we'll look at what we can hear. I could use Miriam Webster's definition. But as I was looking at it, you kind of had to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling because the definition had gotten so broad.

Like I said earlier, you can say that I love God. You can say that I love ice cream. I love my spouse. I love football. Love in each of these cases means something different and is manifested and manifests itself in different ways in the English language.

And it seems that as time goes on, these definitions just continue to get broader and broader and broader until at some point, you wonder what love really is. So we're going to look to scripture to define love. In Hebrew, it is the word ahavah.

And in Aramaic I didn't write this down. Let's see if I can remember it. Achmah, if I remember correctly, would have been in Aramaic, which would have been the language that Jesus spoke. And then it gets translated in the New Testament most of the time as agape love. There are other words in Greek for different kinds of love. There's phileo love, which would be a brotherly love. Then there's eros, which is a physical love.

So let's look at some examples of love in scripture. And let's turn to Genesis 22. I'm going to be turning to a fair amount of short references here and there. So if you want to follow along, you can.

Genesis 22:1-2. It says, "After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, 'Abraham.' And he said, 'Here I am.' And he said, 'Take your son, your only son whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.'" So here we see that love is defined as a parent's love for their children, Abraham's love for his son Isaac.

It can refer to a person's love or care for their spouse. Genesis 24:1. It's the long chapter that tells the story of how Eleazar went and brought Rebecca back to be Isaac's wife. And it says he took Isaac, took his wife, and he loved her.

So a person's love or care for their spouse. It could be a person's love for their fellow man, a platonic love. 1 Samuel 18. Let's turn there.

Verses 1-4. This is soon after David had defeated Goliath. And it says, "As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt."

And if I remember right, there's another place. This is whenever David and Jonathan kind of split ways because of Saul's jealousy over David. David tells Jonathan that his love for him was greater than the love of women. So ahavah love can refer to love from one for love for fellow man, from one man to another.

And John, the Gospel according to John 13:34-35.

Jesus is speaking here during the Last Supper. And he says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

Ahavah love can refer to a collective love for an individual. 1 Samuel 18:16 talks about how all Israel loved David. It's the same word. It can also be a political affiliation. In 1 Kings 5, David has died. Solomon has been established to the throne. And Hiram the king of neighboring country comes and says that he wants to do something for Solomon because of his love for David.

It was a political affiliation. And I think this could be taken multiple ways. But the verse where it talks about Solomon's when Solomon gets so wealthy, he gets so full of himself that he starts to turn away from God. He says he loved many strange women. And while I think that was referring to a physical love, I think it was also a political love as well because he was trying to make allies with neighboring countries through marriage.

Love can in scripture can refer to God's love for his people. Let's turn to I'm going to have several references here. The first is in Deuteronomy 7.

Verses 7 and 8. Actually, I'll start at verse 6, verses 6-8. It says, "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the people who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you are the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."

So there it's referring to God's love. God had made a covenant with Abraham. He had made a promise to Abraham. And he was going to keep that. And that was what motivated his love for the people of Israel.

Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah 31:1-5. Read something like this. "At that time," declares the Lord, "I will be the God of all the clans of Israel. And they shall be my people." "Thus says the Lord, the people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness when Israel sought forrest. The Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again, I will build you. And you shall be built, O virgin Israel. Again, you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again, you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit."

This is God has been prophesying through Jeremiah that they're going to be exiled. But that is not the end. Jesus or God is going to bring them back. And he's going to establish them because of his eternal love for his people.

And turning back to Isaiah 65.

Go to read verses 7-14. Actually, I'm going to just start at verse 6. It says, "Behold, it is written before me, I will not keep silent. But I will repay. I will indeed repay into their lap both your iniquities and your father's iniquities together," says the Lord, "because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills. I will measure into their lap payment for their former deeds." "Thus says the Lord."

I'm trying to remember if this is my correct reference. Hold on here.

Oh, here. Let's go back to chapter 63. Sorry, I had a typo in my notes. Chapter 63:7-14. It says, "I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord has granted us and the great goodness to the house of Israel, that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. For he said, 'Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.' And he became their savior. In all their affliction, he was afflicted. And the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore, he turned to be their enemy and himself fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths?

Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. Like livestock that go down to the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name." So here we see God's love for his people in leading them out of bondage, out of slavery. And at times, it seems like Isaiah sees that it's hard to recognize God's love at that point in Israel's history. And so he recalls to what God has done to mark the love for his people.

Love can refer in scripture to God's love for his son. Let's turn to the Gospel according to Mark 1:9-13.

"In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased.'

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness." So there we have the story of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan and God's open declaration of his love for him.

Love in scripture can refer to Jesus' love for mankind. John 3:16, very familiar verse. "Oh, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son, his only begotten son into the world to redeem it so that we might have eternal life. It's out of his love for mankind that he came."

Romans 5:8 says, "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It's because of his love that Jesus came and gave his life for us. 1 John 4.

I'm going to read verse 7 through the end of the chapter in John 4. And this is referring to another referring of God's love or of Jesus' love for mankind. And also how we are to respond in love. "Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us. And his love is perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him. And he in God. So we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love, abides in God. And God abides in him.

By this, is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother." So there we see John laying out the argument that God is love. And it's out of that great love that he came to deliver mankind from sin. Our response is to love him and to love each other.

Ahavah, love in the Old Testament and Agape love in the New Testament rarely refer to a physical love. It is implied when referring to marriage.

Hebrew uses a different word to describe that, as does the Greek. And it also rarely applies to one's love or like for an object, with the exception of those who loved idol worship, which that is still somewhat on a spiritual sense.

A biblical love is almost always relational. And biblical love is a choice, a choice to seek the good of others, especially those in difficult situations, above myself, even though it may not be reciprocated.

So now that we have set a definition of the two terms, let's attempt to answer the first question. Which comes first, duty or love? I'm going to use I'm going to use Judaism versus what I would consider modern Christianity as kind of two opposing things in this argument of duty or love coming first.

So let's take a little bit of a look at Judaism. I am not an expert on the topic. I'm just taking from what I've heard and read. And it's fairly condensed. But Judaism goes something like this. God created mankind in his own image to represent him and to partner with him here on earth.

And God created man with a free will, which implicates that all humans have the capacity for great good and the capacity for great evil. The human's job is to do the right thing, is to do the command that is right in front of you right now.

This will shape how you view God, yourself and others, as well as your belief in God. You may not initially recognize what the constant obedience to the command is doing to you.

But because you're doing the same thing over and over again, it's very ritualistic, you're cultivating virtue through action, is how they would argue with it. You're creating a virtuous way of life by being obedient to the command over and over and over again. You reach good by doing the right thing.

And it's very, very specific. I don't know all the specificities of it. But one example that I did read of is that Jews tie their shoes in a certain manner. They put the right sock on and then the left sock. And then they put the right shoe on and the left shoe. And then they tie the right shoe. And then they tie the left shoe.

And whenever they're taking them off, it's a reverse process. And it's the big things in life all the way down to the very small things in life.

You do the thing, you do the command. Therefore, you believe the thing. You believe what is giving the command. And you eventually get to the point that you love doing the command and the one who gave the command or where the command originates from.

Harry Argo tells the story of how when he was a cadet at West Point in boot camp, one of the things that they were required to do is they put on a big rucksack that's got, I don't know, 80, 100 pounds in it. And you go hiking. And you're pushed really, really hard. And it's just awful hard work. And you're shot. And you hate it. You just absolutely hate it.

He said it didn't take him long. He gave a timeline. I don't remember what it was. I don't know if it was several months, if it was a year of doing that. He said he would find himself calling his buddies on a Saturday afternoon when they're off duty. He's like, "Hey, you want to go throw 120 pounds on your back and go trekking several miles through the wilderness?" He got to the point where it's something, because it was something that he repeatedly did over and over and over again, that he loved to do the thing that he once didn't understand what it was doing to him.

In Judaism, your access to God and holiness is through your obedience to the command.

And so in their view, duty always comes before love. So it'd be a very, what we would call a legalistic way of living, a way of believing.

Christianity, let's take a look at that. Some of the basis to Christianity are very similar. But there are some things that are different. We as Christians believe that God created man in his own image. And that we are to be his representatives here on earth. We have a part to play as his creation.

And we believe that God created man with a free will. And that we would all agree that we have both the capacity for good and the capacity for evil. But we believe that human evil and sin is so pervasive in our world that no amount of doing good or no amount of obedience can gain us favor or justification with God.

Therefore, we believe God became human and took our evil upon himself so that we are justified through Jesus' obedience to the Father. We are justified through his blood. It is our response should be to that, to accept the gift of salvation that he has given to us.

And because it seems so simple, modern Christianity would say, and I think we would agree, that one's access to Jesus is much lower because we don't have to build ourselves up to try to gain favor with him. He paid the debt of our disobedience to God's command.

He paid that with his blood. And he gives us his Spirit that should animate us to follow his commands and to be obedient.

Sadly, it seems in Western culture at least, Christianity seems to stop that we accept his gift of salvation. And then we are saved. And there doesn't seem to be any feeling of obligation to be obedient to Jesus after that, it seems.

So the difficulty is that after we make that initial decision to follow Jesus, the transcended moments, that moment of surrender to Jesus Christ and his Spirit coming into our lives, those moments can come and go. We have good times. We have bad times.

So how do we keep ourselves animated? Or how do we continue to be motivated to be obedient even in times when we don't feel close to God? Even in times of struggle, in times of trial? After Jesus returned to heaven, Christianity did kind of re-ritualize many things. People still went to church even though you might not feel like going to church that Sunday.

They practiced various rituals even though they may not have been feeling like doing those things. It seems to me, and this is my brief history of Christianity and the little bit that I have seen of history, it seems that in the last 50 years or so, modern Christianity has a lack of duty, of doing what God has commanded, what Jesus has commanded us to do. It's just all about love.

It's just... And it seems to be shallow because nobody seems to know or try to understand what love really is. And so it got to the point where the church that once stood for eternal values today seems to be hardly recognizable from the world it tries to proselytize.

In the '60s and '70s, it seems like a lot of church denominations decided to make concessions to the culture, to the rebellious culture around them that was going against God. And now today, it's... You walk into Walmart, somebody may call themselves a Christian. But you have no idea if we're looking at them if they are a Christian or not.

I find it kind of interesting that from what I understand in the past few years ago, some of the conservative denominations, and I'm not specifically talking about plain people, but some of the more conservative, larger denominations have actually seen a growth in numbers because it turns out that over a period of time, people don't want to be left to themselves to do whatever they want to do and to make all the decisions on their own. People have... I mean, we are built with that innate desire to belong to something bigger than ourselves.

When we try to define our own truth and who we think we are, we become empty because in and of ourselves, we are failing humans. And we cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Who I think I am is far less important than how I interact with others in my family and my community or in society.

Rarely do people think of me the same as I think of myself. It seems that people are so lonely today, especially here in Western culture. And it seems it's getting to a point where people are starting to turn outside of themselves to look for truth. I don't think it's always going in the right direction. But I think people are...

Some people are starting to understand that I cannot define truth for myself.

I believe this is the reason that people are starting to see value in churches, in institutions that hold to eternal values. Muslim or the Islam religion continues to grow. It's because they have a set of values. And if you're a part of those values, you are a part of the community. Judaism is the same way. Judaism seems to be growing right now because they have a set of values that define who the people are in there. And I think we need to do the same ourselves.

So what's the solution to all this? Well, there are some truth in Judaism's view of obedience.

I discount it because it's entirely legalistic and relegates God's view of me to how well I perform or obey. If so-and-so is more obedient than I, then that person is closer to God. It's also very religious. It's just a way of life and can have little to no spiritual value. I heard from a friend recently who does some work, construction, electricity. And he gets into rural New York City areas. And he said there's these Jewish communities that they're practicing Jewish. They do all the right things. But they profess no belief in God. They are entirely atheistic.

Also, in the modern Christian view, if it's just about love, then there's no incentive for me to obey, it seems. It seems that there's very little... We see very little substance in how the culture around us defines love. And it seems that daily, their definition of love continues to move.

And they try to define love for themselves. I can keep living how I want to. And it doesn't matter since the blood of Jesus and his grace covers it. It seems to be how many Christians view their faith. And it sounds good. And that is a part of our faith. Yes, if we do fail, his blood and his grace is there to cover us. But that doesn't mean that we can do just whatever we want. There's four whole books of the Bible that are given to us to teach us what Jesus wants us to do.

I think it's a solid combination of the two, a combination of love and a duty. Asking which comes first is kind of the whole... It's kind of like the whole thing about which came first, the chicken or the egg.

While I believe the root of Christianity is love before duty because God is love, it's only from his love that we have the capacity to love and that we have the capacity to exist. We must never discount the duty. We have to follow Jesus and to obey him. I'm going to read a few verses here from Deuteronomy chapter 10.

Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 12 and 13 says this: "And to now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God and to walk in his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord which I am commanding you today for your good." And while this is applying to the Old Testament, I know I think they are still relevant for us today. It is our duty. We are to fear. We are to walk. It's both a belief. And it's an action. We are to serve. And that is how we show our love for God.

The initial step we take to accept Jesus as Lord and Master should be motivated out of love because we should see his great selfless love for us. Growing up in a Christian home, I was taught from a very young age that God is love, that he loves us, and that we have a responsibility to be obedient.

But I still had to come to a point in my life that I had to see that no matter how well I could perform, no matter how well I could obey, I am still a sinner. And that it's only God's love for me that I can be justified and have a right relationship with him.

And now that since we claim him as Lord and Master, how is he Lord and Master if we don't obey him? Remember, at Bible school just this past April, Harry Argo was talking about how he sees people who say they're Christian.

And he says, "Well, what are you doing? If you say you're a Christian and you claim Jesus as Lord and Master, how is he Lord and Master if you're not being obedient to him?" In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says, "Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord,' is going to enter into the kingdom. But it's those who do the will of him who sent me. Those are the ones who enter."

No, obedience alone cannot save your eye. Scripture makes this abundantly clear. But a life of faith without obedient outworking to the resurrected life or to the new man is a very shallow one. And it will be revealed. First Corinthians chapter 3, verses 10 through 13, the Apostle Paul says that in the time of trial and testing, we're going to find out what kind of foundation you built on, whether it was wood or straw or whether it was something of better substance like gold or silver or iron, something that is more substantial.

Did you build your house with sticks and straw? Or did you build it on the rock and built it with concrete? That's going to stand the test of time and the trials that we face.

Jesus' whole ministry on earth was to demonstrate what he wanted his followers to do. If I'm going to put on the new man in Christ, then my life should absolutely show that Jesus is my Lord and Master.

I believe that the duty we have to follow Christ should be out of utter obligation to him because of what he has done for us. We read there in First John 4:19 that God so loved us, God loved us first, and we love him in return.

To use a practical example, as parents in raising children, we don't just teach principles without teaching application. They have to go together. If you only teach principle, it doesn't give the child a firm grasp on how to behave. And if you only teach behavior, it can become harsh. And the child can develop a mindset that they're only accepted if they behave properly. And then they feel like, well, they can't always behave properly. And then they get frustrated or they can get frustrated. But if they're taught in conjunction with one another, it creates a virtuous behavior that is durable over time.

This is, I think it was in 2017, Joe Rudolph had one of the topics here during Bible school that year. And the title of his topic through the week was called "God's Law: Delight, Duty, or Drudgery?" And if I remember right, he based his topic off of First Peter. I think it was chapter 1. But Peter lays the argument that we are to be obedient.

And the one thing that he said that has always stuck with me is that there are many times that we have to obey purely out of duty. I may not feel like doing the right thing right now. Or I may not even want to do the right thing right now. But I choose to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. I have a duty to do the right thing. I have a duty to be obedient.

And the whole thrust of his message that week was that he wants us to get to the point where our duty becomes our delight. Psalm chapter 40 says, "I delight to do thy will, O my God." Psalm 119 is 160 verses of the psalmist saying over and over and over again, "I love your law. I delight to do it. I love to follow you.

And I want to do it." It wasn't out of a... I have all these 611 or 613 rules that I have to follow plus everything that came out of that in the Talmud or the Mishnah. No, that psalmist's desire was he saw the good in what those things were trying to teach him. And that is where God's heart was. And that's what he delighted to do.

So it is cyclical. Love should produce duty. Duty should produce love over and over and over again.

Sometimes it is my joy and pleasure to be obedient to Jesus because I understand his great love and sacrifice for me. Other times, I must still obey and plod along even when life or truth or God is hard to understand. Even though I may not understand, I must still obey and trust that God will carry me through no matter what my circumstances are and what the outcome may be.

It is important to do my duty as a Christian, not for selfish gain or recognition, but out of a heart of love since Jesus has loved me and has given himself for me. And the evidence of a Christian is how he treats others, is how he loves other people, those who are around him.

A Christian's love for God and a Christian's love for their fellow man, especially those who are down and out, are two sides of the same coin.

God's love should be manifested in our lives and how we do our duty as Christians.

So does love come before duty? Or does duty come before love? To that, I answer, yes.

God bless you as you go about your work fulfilling your duty as a Christian.