This past Sunday Cheryl and I attended worship at St. Paul Lutheran, The Grove, Texas. It is a country congregation where a friend of mine, John Heckmann, is the pastor. The church was packed, the members enthusiastically sang out the hymns and liturgy, and the pastor shared a Christ-centered, gospel-filled message. It was a wonderful worship service. He was preaching on this passage.

John 13:34–35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

He shared that we had a hard enough time trying to keep the 10 commandments we already had, so we didn’t need another one. Then he pointed out that we really only needed two commandments. He was not suggesting that we could pick and choose which commandments we wanted to obey, but was referring to what Jesus said in Matthew 22.

Matthew 22:37–39 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.’

Pastor Heckmann then suggested that maybe we should call ourselves “The Church of the Two Commandments.” He quickly added that the confirmation class/catechism students would love having to only memorize two commandments instead of ten!

He reminded us that we don’t have the commandments so that we can earn our way into heaven. Jesus already did that for us. It is because we know and believe that Jesus paid for our sins and gives us forgiveness that we have a desire to live according to the commandments – ten, eleven or two – to show God how grateful we are for His grace, mercy, compassion and redemption.

Paul summed up the life we should live in response to God’s goodness even more succinctly.

Romans 13:10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.