11/15/23, 11:43 PM A Supreme and Selfless Love (Matthew 22:37–40) - Radical

A Supreme and Selfless Love

(Matthew 22:37–40)
BY DAVID PLATT | OCT 11, 2020

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“And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord

your God with all your heart, with all your soul
and with all your mind. This is the great and
first commandment. And the second is like it.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On
these two commandments depend all the law
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11/15/23, 11:43 PM A Supreme and Selfless Love (Matthew 22:37–40) - Radical

and the prophets.” 

– Matthew 22:37–40

As we pray during these 31 days leading up to Presidential

Election in the United States, these verses from Jesus’ mouth in
Matthew 22:37–40, may be the most important verses we could
read and pray according to because they inform everything.

Would a supreme love for God and a selfless love for others
steward the way that we interact with the world.

As we think about voting, I talk about the sermon before you

vote, but we don’t have command in the Bible to vote mainly
because old Testament, New Testament times, God doesn’t speak
to democratic elections like we are experiencing in the 21st
century. But that doesn’t mean that we just treat voting lightly,
instead we think through how to steward our vote with love for
God and with love for others as ourselves. So how do we steward
our vote to express love for God? And how do we steward our
vote to express love for others?

Our Affection Belongs to God

I’m not saying that automatically makes it easy to know how to

steward your vote or who to vote for, but this is what drives us.
This informs the way we vote, the way we do everything we do.
And even our perspective in the middle of an election to say my
devotion, my affection is definitely not to this or that candidate,
to this or that party. My affection belongs supremely to God, and
I want to love others as myself. I want to lay down my life and love
for others.

When that is evident in our lives, it totally changes our

perspective on the country around us. And then is there not a
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11/15/23, 11:43 PM A Supreme and Selfless Love (Matthew 22:37–40) - Radical

greater need than these two verses to mark more and more and
more of our hearts and more and more people’s hearts in our
country. Our greatest need is to be restored to God. We need his
mercy. We need spiritual awakening to who God is, his love for us
and what it means to love him with everything we have. This is
what we’re created for. We were created to love God with all our
heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Matthew 22:37–40 Encourages Christ-

Like Love

And then what would it look like if we loved each other like this?
What would social media look like if we loved everybody else as
ourselves? What would our interactions and our communities
look like in our cities? So many different issues that we discuss
around an election. What would they look like if we were truly
selflessly, sacrificially, loving others as ourselves. So Jesus, we pray
that these two commandments would inform, transform, drive us
in every way during these days.

Lord God, we pray that you would help us to grow in love for you
during these days. We pray that on November 4th, we will love
you more than we do today. And we pray that you would help us
to love people around us as ourselves. God teach us, help us
transform our hearts, that we might love selflessly and sacrificially.
We would love our family in this way, that we would love friends in
this way, that we would love coworkers in this way.

Loving Our Enemies

And God that we would love our enemies in this way. Just like you
command us to, God. We pray for super natural love for others.
Selfless, sacrificial love for others that flows from your sacrificial

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11/15/23, 11:43 PM A Supreme and Selfless Love (Matthew 22:37–40) - Radical

love for us. God, we are so amazed, odd, grateful, humbled that
we have the privilege of being in a love relationship with you.

God, even as I’m praying this right now, I’m just freshly
overwhelmed by this reality. I pray this for every single person
who’s listening right now that we would realize in a fresh way that
we have been created, designed to live in love for you, in light of
your love for us and God, we pray. We pray for the spread of your
love in this way across our country. God we pray that you would
bring many, many more people in the United States, other
countries that are represented. And those who are praying right
now to know your love, God, among unreached people.

Matthew 22:37–40 Prays for God’s Love

to Reach All the Nations

As we pray every day for people in the world who have yet to
hear of your love in Jesus. God we pray for Somali, men and
women, millions of them. God may they know your love for them
in Jesus. May they experience life and loving you with all their
heart and soul, the mind and strength. God, we pray for spiritual
awakening in America. God we pray for hearts awakening to their
need for you. We need to be reconciled to you, to repent of sin
and to experience a love relationship with you.

So God, we pray for love. God we pray for supreme love for you
and sacrificial love for others to mark each of our hearts to drive
us and how we steward our vote and how we live on a daily basis.
And we pray that this love, this kind of love, this supernatural love
would spread in our country for your glory and for the good of
others. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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11/15/23, 11:43 PM A Supreme and Selfless Love (Matthew 22:37–40) - Radical

   

David Platt
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C.
He is the founder of Radical.

David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist

Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold
Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something
Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the
multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition
Commentary series.

Along with his wife and children, he lives in the

Washington, D.C. metro area.

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11/15/23, 11:43 PM A Supreme and Selfless Love (Matthew 22:37–40) - Radical

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