Be Committed

Introduction

The text today is about devotion, love, and commitment.

Many times we are like the scribe in verse 28 and we ask what is the most important commandment?

What can I do to get by and not be in sin or too far into sin?

I find this series of questions interesting because this is not something we would ask our spouses.

If you asked your wife or husband just how far you could go before she or he considered it cheating, you would be looked on with distrust always.

We do not ask our spouses these questions because we do not want to cause a disruption in our relationship. If we are in the relationship for the right reason we will not ask these questions either.

It seems we ask these types of questions because we want aspects of a relationship, but do not want to be fully committed to the relationship.

You see, asking this type of question betrays a sense of desire for something outside the relationship.

If we are forever asking God, or another, what is too far so we do not do that, we are not genuinely committed to God.

We may be saved, but we are not giving ourselves fully to Him and we are not loving Him to the fullest we can.

When we are in a relationship that is loving and committed we devote ourselves to one another.

We do not seek loopholes and ways around things so we can do all we want but also have this relationship.

We are sold out for each other and seek to demonstrate that love and devotion at all points.

That is why Jesus answered this scribe as He did in Mark 12:28-34

Mark 12:28–34 ESV

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

We will focus more on verses 30-31 but I do find it interesting that this scribe tells Jesus He is right.

This man comes to Christ and asks Him what is the greatest commandment when more than likely all he was doing was trying to trick Jesus into saying some aspect of the law was.

Looking at the context around this passage we see that some of the religious leaders had been trying to trick Him, so this seems probable with the scribe.

Don’t we do the same too at times?

We go to Scripture with a question and seek to find what we want it to say even at the expense of taking it out of context.

This is what these leaders seemed to be doing and when Jesus answered correctly, amazingly huh, the scribe says so but then responds back what Jesus said. Only adding that it is more important than sacrifice.

This is true though. In Scripture we see many times where it says the Lord desires devotion and commitment over sacrifices.

When we are committed to the Lord, we are doing what He desires over anything else we do.

One reason is because when we truly love Him and are committed to Him, we will serve in a proper manner over doing it for something else.

Which this leads us to our first observation in this text...

Deep Devotion is Commitment

In verse 29 we see Jesus telling the scribe, and other listeners, that the Lord is one.

This verse is taken straight from Deut. 6:4

Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

This phrase “Hear, O Israel” could be rendered as,

Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (9048 שָׁמַע)

take heed, pay attention, hear, believe information and respond on the basis of having heard

This was very important to the Israelites then, and it is critical to us now.

It was critical to this scribe to hear and all those listening.

We must, and I repeat, must know that there is only one God and that this God is the one who created us and everything and that He revealed Himself in the flesh through the second person of the Trinity who is telling these scribes and people that there is only one God.

We must hold fast to this because this world and the people and events in it will try and make themselves as our god.

We can fall into saying we worship the one true God, but allow many things to overshadow Him as our god.

That is why Jesus says next that we are to love the “Lord your God” with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This encompasses every aspect of us.

I want to really focus in on our minds right now.

I believe if we commit our minds totally to Jesus, we will love Him with our hearts, souls, and strength.

Think like this, if you are trying to get strength what do you do?

You feed yourself healthy nutritious foods and exercise.

Loving the Lord with our minds is eating healthy and exercising.

Think about these questions.

Do we dive deeper into His Word and study more of it?

Do we only allow another to teach us and expect that to be enough?

Do we fully engage our intellectual abilities or do we just say stuff was over our heads and give up?

Do we know why we believe Christianity is true?

Can we give an earnest defense of our faith without having to fall back to saying “I just believe?”

To love the Lord with our minds means we must engage fully and totally.

We must commit to doing more than once a week.

We must spend time with Him and want to know Him more.

When we love someone or something, we devote tons of time to them or that passion.

When we want to rope and get good, we rope all the time.

When we want to paint and paint good, we paint all the time.

When we want to play instruments good, we play all the time and learn as much as we can.

If not we will be like this here. Like me.

I have decided that I am a guitar player.

I pick it up and strum away.

Sounds awful, but I am a guitar player aren’t I? I am playing it, just not good.

I could stay in this position right here all my life and still be a guitar player but I would be a pitiful one.

You see, it takes work and devotion to become good at something.

Like Justin here. That is good playing there. He has practiced and worked at it.

As believers, yes we are saved in a moment and are secure for life, but our love and devotion to the Lord should make us want to know more about the man who saved us.

I know of story after story of people who have saved others and those who were saved by them searched and searched until they found their hero so they could honor them.

We know our hero, His name is Jesus.

He is right before us everyday in this book we call the Bible.

Our love and passion for Him should drive us to study and read and love Him with our minds completely.

Because if we put so much effort into learning to play an instrument, rope, paint, do leather work, a career, or anything we devote time to, that does not love us at all, we can devote time to the one who does love us and died for us.

Once we engage our minds and begin to grow it our hearts will become fully engaged in what we do.

Like working out. It takes a mental devotion to it before the heart gets involved.

Once we engage in a routine, then we desire that routine.

Our heart loves it then our soul engages and once we have those three: mind, heart, soul, our strength will follow and grow.

So, we need to engage our minds and stop letting things go over our heads, stop using that as an excuse because God has given you an amazing mind with capabilities beyond anything you can imagine.

Saying you can’t learn this or that or that something is too deep for you is saying God failed. He didn’t He gave you and me the abilities to learn so much more than we think we can.

We can learn and grow and love God with our minds if we seek Him in all we do and trust the Spirit, our guide into all truth, to guide us through and grow our minds.

Remember God has gifted you with abilities beyond anything you can imagine, it is in us but we must seek to attain it.

This means we must challenge ourselves and not settle for the basic.

Like something I have heard said.

“If we only read books we understand, we will never learn anything new.”

Stretch your mind and learn more about our amazing God and savior and what all He has done. When we do this we will begin to love God with our all and when we begin to love God with our all we will begin to Love and do as we like because what we like will be from the Love of God and the knowledge of God and we will love like God loves us.

Which leads to the next observation....

Commitment to God Guides our Love of Others

After we learn to love God as we should, we will love others in an appropriate manner.

We will no longer hate people, but feel for them.

We will be able to forgive wrongs and offenses because we know what love is.

We will begin to care for others and stop looking down on people.

Part of our love of God will come out in our love of others.

If our relationship with God is skewed, then we will not love others as we should.

You see, if we are not engaging with God regularly, our love will grow cold. We will fail to maintain proper love with Him and fail to love others.

We will grow bitter against people because we have failed to see the love God has for us.

We fail to see how wretched we were when He saved us and the love He had and has for us.

When we lose sight of that, we will see others as nothing more than stumblingblocks or obstacles in our path.

When we love God as we should, we will also love ourselves as we should.

This means we will not think too highly or too low of ourselves.

We will not practice false humility or asceticism that is against what Scripture teaches.

Like “Oh I am not that good, I am just average” when you are truly good. You say thank you when complimented rather than saying things like that.

Also, you do not not do things because you think it looks better. We can take vacations, have nice things and eat good foods.

We do not need to cut out all these things just to look good because that is failing to love ourselves.

No, when we know God’s love for us and we love Him, we will know how to love ourselves and then take that same love to others.

If we do not know how to love ourselves right, we will never be able to love others as we should.

That is why our commitment to God is so critical in our love of Him, selves, and others.

Once we know what love is, we can then begin to feel that love and give it to others.

This section can be broken down into a simple summary.

God’s laws are not burdensome. They can be reduced to two simple principles: Love God and love others. When you love God completely and care for others as you care for yourself, then you have fulfilled...all God’s laws. Let them rule your thoughts, decisions, and actions. When you are uncertain about what to do, ask yourself which course of action best demonstrates love for God and love for others.

Bruce B. Barton, Mark, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1994), 357.

When we do this we will be different and the world will see and wonder what makes us this compassionate, loving, and sacrificial. They will see Jesus in you and that will help draw them to Christ.

Application

How do we apply all of this.

Well to begin with don’t settle for the basics.

Seek to study more, read more.

I know many do not like to read but when we read the Bible and study it and then read some solid books on theology, we learn more about God and begin to love Him with all our mind.

So, if something goes over your head, ask questions.

I promise I will explain anything that may have confused you if you just ask.

Also, if a word is confusing, write it down and look it up to see what it means.

Never just settle for not knowing, we have an amazing brain from our great God and creator, let us always use it.

Next, when it comes to loving those who are hard to love, look back into what Jesus, the disciples, and Paul did.

They demonstrated love and compassion to them. They did not affirm sin or failures, but they loved the people.

Even in the rebukes they gave, they did them in love to restore those who had stumbled or fallen.

Remember this great comment from Warren Wiersbe,

“If we love God, we will experience His love within and will express that love to others. We do not live by rules but by relationships, a loving relationship to God that enables us to have a loving relationship with others.” Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 153.

We are in a family relationship with the Lord and that relationship is built off of His love for us, and we exhibit His love to us by loving others.

Apply love to others and see what happens this week. I bet many relationships will change and grow if we just follow the simple little outline of ‘Love God with your everything and love others as yourselves.”

This little outline will make many things right again if we just seek to know it and live it.

Love for Loves Sake

When we love the Lord with our everything and learn as much about Him as we can, then we can see how and why He loves us so much.

We will see how we can love others that do not even like us much less love us. When we do we can be like this young boy in this story,

Little Chad was a shy, quiet young fella. One day he came home and told his mother, he’d like to make a valentine for everyone in his class. Her heart sank. She thought, “I wish he wouldn’t do that!” because she had watched the children when they walked home from school. Her Chad was always behind them. They laughed and hung on to each other and talked to each other. But Chad was never included. Nevertheless, she decided she would go along with her son. So she purchased the paper and glue and crayons. For three whole weeks, night after night, Chad painstakingly made thirty-five valentines.

Valentines Day dawned and Chad was beside himself with excitement! He carefully stacked them up, put them in a bag, and bolted out the door. His mom decided to bake him his favorite cookies and serve them up warm and nice with a cool glass of milk when he came home from school. She just knew he’d be disappointed; maybe that would ease the pain a little. It hurt her to think that he wouldn’t get many valentines—maybe none at all.

That afternoon she had the cookies and milk out on the table. When she heard the children outside she looked out the window. Sure enough here they came, laughing and having the best time. And, as always, there was Chad in the rear. He walked a little faster than usual. She fully expected him to burst into tears as soon as he got inside. His arms were empty, she noticed, and when the door opened she choked back the tears.

“Mommy has some warm cookies and milk for you.”

But he hardly heard her words. He just marched right on by, his face aglow, and all he could say was:

“Not a one … not a one.”

Her heart sank.

And then he added, “I didn’t forget a one, not a single one!”

Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1501 Other Stories (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2016), 358–359.

What a glorious way to be.

He had no one who cared but he was set on giving these people something.

He loved them as he loved himself.

That is what a committed life to the Lord will do for you too.

It will give you peace and love when it is chaotic and hate all around.

So today I implore you to commit your ways to the Lord. Love Him with your minds and all else will follow.

And when all else follows you will love others as yourself and therefore fulfill the commandments. Let us love those who do not love us not because we can but because Christ working in us can and will when we let Him rule the roost.