Love Commanded

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Mark, chapter 12. Mark, chapter 12. I heard on the grapevine or on the internet that you guys are in the book of 2 Timothy, but we're not going there. We're going back to Mark. Mark, chapter 12. Mark, chapter 12. And we'll be looking at verses 28 through 34. Mark chapter 12, beginning at verse 28, page 896 of your Pew Bibles.

You're now God's perfect word. Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, he asked him, which is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

So the scribe said to him, Well said, teacher! You have spoken the truth, and there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now when Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. But after that, no one dared to question him. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. And we pray now that you would give us wisdom, that your Holy Spirit would teach us truth and how to apply this to our hearts. Lord, I plead with you that you would give me wisdom in opening up this word and that you would do a heart surgery in us this morning, that we would indeed love you and love our neighbor and see Jesus in this passage. And we pray this in Jesus's name. Amen.

Sermon

Well, you know, I'm so glad to be back in Iowa. It's wonderful to be home. And yet, every once in a while, you kind of romanticize about the people of a place, and how wonderful a place is, and then you get smacked with reality. That, no, there's still sinners who live here, too. And, well, my wife knew that, because I never left her.

But the point is, I was at a grocery store yesterday. And as I was at the grocery store yesterday, I went into the grocery store, and as I was coming out, I was driving my car, and there was, you know those people who get the grocery carts? There was one of those guys getting a grocery cart, and I've never seen this before.

This lady's unloading old lady. She's pretty frail. She's getting all her stuff kind of slowly out of her grocery cart. And he's got that orange vest on, and he's sitting there cross-armed, looking at her, waiting. And I'm serious. She got the last box out of her cart, and he went over and snatched it.

He started taking it back, and I thought, whoa, that's kind of aggressive. And I was just kind of... while I'm driving by real slowly and my windows rolled down, I just kind of looked at him like, what was that? He said, get out of my way. I was like, whoa, dude, what is going on here, man?

And there was a choice in that moment when I pulled in and I was just kind of, I had just gotten there and so I was going to go into the store and I thought, I'm going to let him have it. Man, I'm going to go tell him and I'm going to go tell his manager And I realized, hold on, maybe he's just having a bad day. As these words were ringing in my ears, working, I gotta tell you, the first impulse of my heart in that moment was, I'm gonna go let him have it. Instead of thinking, I wonder how I would feel.

I don't know what's going on in this guy's life. And how should I respond to him? I'm not gonna tell you how I responded to him, we'll talk about that in Chalk and Talk, that's a teaser, welcome to the story. But the question is, How do we think about God? And how do we treat our neighbors? Jesus has been the assault of multiple people. The scribe has been sitting in, and he's been watching Jesus just get plastered, just get pummeled down.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Question, question, question, question. Setting a trap, setting a trap, setting a trap. People trying to trap Jesus in his word so they could attack him, so they could kill him, so they could get him out of the way. And here comes a scribe, and he's like, Whoa! He's answered all of them. As we come to the passage today, we find something that isn't said anywhere else in any other gospel. A scribe speaks well of Jesus. One of the lawyers, one of the experts in the law, this is the only example in all four gospels of one who perceived that Jesus had answered them well. That's what verse 28 says. And it's out of that part that we get the first person who comes to Jesus with a sincere question.

Everyone else who's come to Him and asked Him, teacher, didn't actually want to be taught. Everyone else who had come to Jesus in the temple courts asking Him these questions didn't actually want to hear His reasoning, but they wanted to trap Him. But this scribe comes and he actually wants to hear from Him. And he asks him, which is the first commandment of all? The sincere scribe has a question, and it's a pretty common question to be honest with you. This is a question that people would bring to the rabbis because they were trying to figure out which is kind of the key that unlocks all the Torah.

As you're looking, the Torah is the first five books of the Bible, so Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Mark, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. As you're going through the five first books of the Bible, you look at all the different commandments, which one's the most important? The rabbis had them all enumerated, 613 of them. 365 negative, 200 plus positive commands.

Which one is the most important? Because if you're able to rank them, then you're able to categorize them. Then you're able to say, okay, is it the ritual laws? I am holy, therefore you shall be holy. Is that the key to understanding all the other ones? Or maybe it's one of the laws about the Ten Commandments, right? Maybe it's covetousness. Maybe we have to think about it in a different way. And so if we're not covetous, we'll be good with our God, and we'll be good with our neighbors, and we'll be good with our wives.

This is what the rabbis would argue about back and forth. So much so that there's a story of a rabbi, Hillel, he's right around the time of Jesus, roughly, and there was a Gentile who challenged him, he said, Convince me to be a proselyte teach me the whole law and if you could teach me the whole law while I stand on one foot Then I'll then I'll become your follower and Hallel answered him this way. He said what you hate for yourself Do not to your neighbor This is the whole law. The rest is commentary Okay, so he says if you don't want it to happen to you don't do it to others That's it I don't know if the Gentile became a follower of Hillel or not, but that's the story how it goes.

And so this is the type of question that people would ask rabbis. And so the scribe, this lawyer, wants to ask Jesus, what is your hermeneutical key? What is your interpretation? What is the greatest, the first, the most important of all the commandments from which everything else cascades? And Jesus' answer is in verse 29 and following. The first commandment of all is the Shema. Shema. If you go into a synagogue today, that's what you'll get. Shema! Shema! Shema! Listen up! Listen up! Hear!

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. Every morning a Jewish boy would wake up, a Jewish girl would wake up, and they'd recite the Shema Yisrael. And you go on and on and on. You would say this every morning and every evening. You would recite the Shema. This was like your pledge of allegiance.

And Jesus says that's the most important one. That you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. See, God is one. This is what Deuteronomy chapter 6 was saying. God is one alone. There's none next to Him. Every other God is an idol. Baal is a figment of imagination. Asherah is a false god that her pole should be burned. Molech is detestable. None of them are real. I'm it. This is why everybody hated the Jews. They wouldn't worship anyone else.

But Jesus expands this, notice in Deuteronomy chapter six, it says that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. But here Jesus expands the idea of soul, psyche, this is where we get the word for like psychology from, is this idea that your soul and your mind are connected.

Your heart, your mind, your soul are connected. We want to think in Western culture that everything that we think is up here, just in that gray matter between your ears. But in a Hebrew mindset, what you think about starts in your heart. And what your heart is filled with is what's going to fill your thoughts.

And so this is what Jesus is getting at when he expands this. He doesn't, you know, add to the scriptures. He's giving essentially a fuller interpretation of it. Jesus says, you gotta love God with everything you are. And it starts with who God is. Notice he doesn't skip out the first part, the Lord your God is one. No, He's very careful in verse 29. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

He needs them to know that this is the same God as the covenant that was established at Sinai. The same God of the covenant who showed Himself to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob. The same God who revealed Himself and loved the patriarchs and loved their fathers. The same God who is in covenant with them still that day.

He had redeemed them. He had made them promises. He had saved them. God had loved them first. And they were His people. And in response to God being who God is, they ought to love Him. Verse 30. So what does loving God look like? Well, God talks about what loving Him looks like. Loving God looks like fidelity. What does loving God look like? It looks like fidelity. This is why the very first part of the commandments, right?

The Lord's not going to share His glory with any other. You're not allowed to have any other God. Just me. It looked like having their affections. Loving God looked like not coveting what their pagan neighbors wanted to go worship. Not having idols in other areas, but it had to be God alone. He wasn't going to have any other gods beside Him. Loving God in this covenant relationship looked like worship.

Would they show that God was the creator of heaven and earth by weekly, every seven days, stopping and worshiping Him? Would they remember God's redeeming them from Egypt by stopping one whole day in seven to rest and worship Him? This is what love played out looked like. But it also looked like obedience. But loving God, this was the whole point of the law. It was a demonstration of their love for God. Would they stay away from making for themselves any graven images? Would the Israelites keep His name holy? Would they show their love for God by keeping His holiness code? Would they keep dressing differently?

Let me ask you, if somebody randomly came up to you and you said, you know what? That polyester cotton shirt? It's gotta go. No more mixed fibers. Sorry. Why would you keep that? If somebody said to you, you know that bacon you love? Nope. Unclean. Can't have that anymore.

You know how you like to plant your fields, and after you plant them, you put in all the sweat work, you've toiled, you plowed the ground, you planted, you covered, you packed the dirt, you prayed for the rain, all that. When the harvest comes, you're not allowed to glean twice. You're not even allowed to harvest the corners. You have to give it to the poor.

Why would someone do that? The question was, were they loyal to their Redeemer? Did they recognize who He was and love Him so much that they would change their lives, conform their lives to what He had commanded? Would they treat the poor differently? Would they not mark their bodies for the dead like all their neighbors? Would they keep themselves pure in their sexual relations with their wives? Would they be faithful to God and towards others, this had to have come from a heart of love to obey.

Jesus says that's the first and greatest commandment. You asked what the first and greatest was, that's it. But Jesus goes beyond what he asked. He said, now I'm going to give you the second one. You only asked for the first, but there's a second. Verse 31. And the second like it is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. He's quoting Leviticus 19, 18 here.

And when Jesus says this, again, we have to ask ourselves, well, who is our neighbor? Jewish rabbis are plagued with this all the time. Well, then who is our neighbor? Is it just Jewish people who live next to us? Is it Jewish people and proselytes? Is it Jewish people, proselytes, and sojourners? You know, strangers who are just passing through Jerusalem? Who do we care for? Who do we love? Who's your neighbor? Well, Jesus is the one who makes it very clear it's anyone you come into association with.

Whether it's in your home, your wife, your kids, your in-laws, your work, whether it's your boss, your co-workers, people who work for you or with you, Whether it's in society, the guy who grades the gravel, the person who sweeps the streets, the man or woman who's bussing your table and bringing out your food, the plumber who's helping you with the job that you know your wife wouldn't let you do, the garbage man who you think is kind of stinky at times and you might not want to associate with him while he's at work, or the pig farmer who seems like he comes in and he smells right away.

Yeah, that's your neighbor. Or when you go for recreation. Whether it's your teammates, who you're supposed to be working with, or the opposing team who you're supposed to beat. Yeah, that's your neighbor. Or even, now this is a hard one, even the referees. They're also your neighbor. But it's even nationalities. It's not just the Jewish people. Jesus shows us this with the Samaritan. And we talked about that when we talked about the deacon election a few weeks ago.

And to love your neighbor doesn't matter if they're Chinese, doesn't matter if they're Israeli, doesn't matter if they're Palestinian, doesn't matter if they're Egyptian, doesn't matter if they're Turkish, doesn't matter if they're Scottish or Irish.

I know some Scotch-Irish people who might think, ooh, everyone's my neighbor. Yes, everyone is your neighbor, no matter what nationality they might be. Okay, you might say that's fine, but even people of the other political party, even people who are like libertarians, Democrats, Greenpeace, or rhinos, yeah, they're your neighbors too. This is what Jesus is getting at when he talks about who your neighbor is, even when it comes to other religions. Whether you come into contact with somebody who's Hindu, or Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Roman Catholic, yeah, they're your neighbor. Congratulations, you have a whole bunch of people to love.

The scribe hears this, and he says something a second time. Before, in verse 29, it was, He perceived that Jesus had answered them well, but now in verse 32, he says, so the scribe said to him, well said teacher. He's impressed by this with Jesus. He sees that what Jesus is commanding is far greater than this internal debates that he's been hearing all the time. He essentially quotes back to Jesus the Shema, but then he gives something greater.

Look what he says. You have spoken the truth. And there is one God. And there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as one's self, everything he says up to this point is really orthodox. And then he's going to say something that's going to get him in a little bit of trouble. is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Where are they having this discussion? I mean, I'm talking about where are Jesus' feet right then as he's answering this man? They're in the temple courts. As all the rabbis would sit there and debate, well, is it the burnt offering or is it the whole burnt offering? Is it a sin offering or is it Yom Kippur? Which offering is the most important one?

And this man realizes, you guys can have all the vain rituals you want in the world, but if you don't love your neighbor, all of this is worthless. All of it's worthless. I don't know. I don't know how those conversations are going to go when he's with his scribe buddies at dinner. if they heard this and were gonna go, you know, I'm gonna give this guy a name, Asher. Did you really say that to Jesus? Are you like really believing that this is true? You actually believe that, that loving God and loving your neighbor is more important than all the sacrifices? Well, Jesus sure thought he was right.

Because Jesus saw that he answered wisely, verse 34, And he said to him, you're not far from the kingdom of God. This is a great commendation for him, encouragement for him. Keep on going down the path you're going. Where you're going, you're gonna get there. But see, there's something that he's not far from the kingdom of God, but as he became or would become a disciple, we don't know what happens to the scribe, by the way. What we do know is that as the disciples learn more and more about the law of God, what they came to find out is that Jesus answered them rightly.

If you kept all these commandments, right? If you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and you loved every neighbor you came into contact as yourself, right? If you did those perfectly, guess what? You would go to heaven. That's the covenant of works. Do all these things and you shall live, right? You would get eternal life. What do you think? Good news?

That's terrifying news to me. Absolutely terrifying. Because I don't think any single one of us can do this. If you've ever decided that you wanted to go do chores, play video games, talk to someone, get some extra sleep, rather than praying to the Lord, you failed. If anytime you've seen a homeless person on the street and you've turned your head and you just didn't want to bother with them, guess what? We fail.

When we come to this passage, it's easy to go like, oh yeah, this is great, and this is how we should live our lives. Yes, we should live our lives according to what Jesus has taught here, because it does teach us. We believe in the threefold purpose of the law. It convicts us of sin. It restrains sin, and it also teaches us of the righteousness of God and the path that we ought to walk in light of His righteousness. It does have what theologians call a pedagogical effect. It does teach us. the way we ought to live, but if we take the law and we think that we're going to live by the law, we've misunderstood Romans chapter 7. But a law is a letter of death.

If we're honest, we would say, I don't love God like I should. We know we don't love God as we ought to because we're not filled with fidelity. To be honest with you, there's times I love God's gifts far more than I love God himself. We love the creation. We really love the things and the stuff that God gives us, and sometimes we don't love Him. We love to get what God has given us, but if we're honest, sometimes we covet because we don't think He's given us enough or hasn't given us what we want. We haven't loved Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, but we've seen our atheist friends living down the road and thought, their life is better than mine. Why do they get the good stuff?

To be honest with you, there are times that we don't like the Sabbath. We don't like the fact that the Lord gave us six days to do all of our work and then we get one day to rest. I know from my own experience, there are times where I'd just rather go play a game, do chores, get ahead on life. If we're honest, sometimes we come into worship, we sit in the pews and we're bored because we don't love Him.

Because our hearts aren't prepared. Because we're humans. We don't obey Him. We'd rather just look like the rest of the world. We fall short in loving our God and we know it. He's the one who's told us to eat differently. He's told us not to be gluttons and we like to do it. He's the one who's told us to not bear false testimony and yet how often do Christians speak false lies or white lies?

We like to criticize people for their lack of moral standards. And then when the pressure is on from our bosses or the administration to give a little bit with morality or we'll lose our jobs and positions, Christians often falter. Why? Why do we do this stuff? Why do we fail? Why do we falter? Why are we not perfect? Because we don't love God with all of our hearts and we forget who our Redeemer is. This is the sad thing. I think I'm beating a dead horse here, but I think you get it. I haven't even gotten to the second greatest commandment yet. How do you treat the poor person around you? How do you treat the busboy? How do you treat the waiter? How do you treat your spouse? How do you treat your parents? How do you treat your children?

Does your business look just like all the other businesses around? We know that we don't love our neighbor as much as we should. And if we think we do not love our neighbor as much as we should, I just want to sit down with you and your wife and let's just talk it out. And we'll find out if that's true. The reality is we don't. We fail at this. So what hope do we have? What hope do we have? We can't keep the first commandment, we can't keep the second commandment, so what do we do? The answer is standing right in front of the scribe. He says, you're not far from the kingdom of God, because the embodiment of love himself was standing in front of him.

Because Jesus Christ was loving his God with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength. See, what you could never do in fidelity, obedience, worship, and loyalty to the Father in heaven, Jesus did every single waking moment of his life. What you failed at with loving your neighbor as yourself, Jesus did every waking moment of his life. And even unto the day of his death. As Jesus tells the scribe, looking in his eyes, you need to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And you need to love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus knows that he's going to love this scribe so much that he would hang on a cross and die for him. Because that was the extent of Jesus' love. That he had made an agreement with the Father that he would bring redemption for God's elect. And He would accomplish that redemption with the final act of His love. For love knows no greater than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.

And Jesus did that. So when you come to this passage, I hope that you're not filled with self-righteousness, but I hope that you are filled with love for Jesus Christ. That you are filled with such joy that He would love you That He would care for you, that He would redeem you, that He would call you His friend. And He would not just say that you are close to the kingdom of heaven, but He would bid you come and enter into its gates. For He would pay the price. Our Savior has paid the price. So come to Him. You who are weak and failing and feeble. He'll give you strength. His yoke is easy. His burden is light.

Closing Prayer

Love the Lord. Love your neighbor. But do it because Jesus has done it first. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the finished work of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you would please impress upon our hearts our need for the work of your Son. And that because of what Jesus has done, Lord, we pray that your spirit would spur us on in love and good deeds. We can't do it by ourselves, Lord. And so we plead with you that you would please help us. In Jesus' name we pray.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.