Developing a Love for God (Mark 12:13–34)

CPT: Jesus teaches that love for God is the most important duty of man.

Purpose: To encourage godliness in the church which comes from a heart of love.

CPS: A love for God is the greatest need of man today.

Introduction

Attention

Welcome to Back to Church Sunday! Back to Church Sunday started in 2009 as church attendance in America was declining. Church leaders began looking for ways to involve their congregation in reaching out to friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Since then, the third Sunday in September has been set aside as the day to encourage everyone to attend a Bible-based church in their area.

Nationally, we’ve seen a decline in church attendance, and part of that is an over-correction in the culture. People saw things in history they didn’t like, and decided that they would throw out old things out. But church has always been something that has held communities together, and has been a foundation in society. We have a need to gather together and be a part of a community.

But more than our need to be in community, we have a need individually to know God. The greatest need for humanity today and everyday is believe in and know the love of God in your life. The more you get to know God, the more you love him.

My wife has been developing quite a green thumb. She’s into plants. We have a glass sliding door that goes out to our backyard. She is lining up plants by the glass door.

We’ve learned that each plant is different. She goes to learn about the different plants from YouTube. I’ve tried to help with the plants, and went to water them. She told me that we had to water some of them differently. Some of the plants are sensitive.

I saw her cutting one of the plants, and I thought it was a good part of the plant. She then put that cut into a vase, and it is now growing new roots. At first I thought the plants were simple. You put them in dirt, give them light, and water them. But we’ve learned there is so much more to know and to learn.

Loving God is like that. At first, you trust in Jesus, and you develop a love for God. But the more you know about God, the more you find out there is so much more to know and to learn. The more you love God, the more you want to know him.

Problem

Despite what culture will have you believe, when you poll people, the majority of people believe that God exists. However, believing that God exists is not the same thing as loving God. The greatest need today for people to know God and to love him. How can we develop a love for God?

Scripture Reading

We are going to take a look at developing a love for God through three scenarios in Mark 12 between Jesus and religious leaders. We will be in Mark 12:13-34, which is on page 900 of your pew Bible.

Scenario #1: An attempt to trap Jesus through authority struggles (Pharisees and Herodians - Religion vs. Political)

Mark 12:13–17 CSB

13 Then they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to Jesus to trap him in his words. 14 When they came, they said to him, “Teacher, we know you are truthful and don’t care what anyone thinks, nor do you show partiality but teach the way of God truthfully. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” 15 But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” 16 They brought a coin. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked them. “Caesar’s,” they replied. 17 Jesus told them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.

Scenario #2: An attempt to trap Jesus through weak theology (Sadducees, misunderstanding eternity)

Mark 12:18–27 CSB

18 Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and questioned him: 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife behind but no child, that man should take the wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers. The first married a woman, and dying, left no offspring. 21 The second also took her, and he died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. 22 None of the seven left offspring. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be, since the seven had married her?” 24 Jesus spoke to them, “Isn’t this the reason why you’re mistaken: you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised—haven’t you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God said to him: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? 27 He is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are badly mistaken.”

Scenario #3: An attempt to stump Jesus through the Law (scribes, so close)

Mark 12:28–34 CSB

28 One of the scribes approached. When he heard them debating and saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which command is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. 31 The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, teacher. You have correctly said that he is one, and there is no one else except him. 33 And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is far more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one dared to question him any longer.

Pray

Three different scenarios, three different attempts to trap and stump Jesus. In all three of these different scenarios, Jesus points to one thing, the need for people to truly love God. He says it in three ways.

The first is this, that we should:

Love God by giving him what is his.

As a church, we have been going through the Gospel of Mark. Where we are now, we are in what is known as passion week, the week leading up to the cross. The people in religious power in Jerusalem are turning up the heat on Jesus.

In this first scenario today, Jesus is confronted by Pharisees and Herodians. The Pharisees represent the religious establishment in Israel. They were a group that was very strict to the Jewish law. On the other hand, the Herodians represented a political party within Israel. They were sympathizers to the Herodian dynasty, and therefore, Rome.

So if there is anything that can bring up a hot-button topic, it’s religion and politics. They are asking him a question that’s a catch-22. They are trying to catch Jesus in a no-win scenario. It’s like many sensitive topics today. You take a position, and in essence you end up getting some side upset.

The way they start is interesting. They give him a complement / not complement. They ask him in Mark 12:14:

Mark 12:14 CSB

14 When they came, they said to him, “Teacher, we know you are truthful and don’t care what anyone thinks, nor do you show partiality but teach the way of God truthfully. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”

The statement, “You don’t care what anyone thinks,” has more to do with them then Jesus. In his ministry, Jesus' harshest criticisms came against religious leaders.

They ask him this question to trap him: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” This was a no-win situation. However you answered this in first-century Israel, you were making someone upset.

If you said, “We should not pay taxes to Caesar,” then you are making the Romans upset. They are the ruling class in society. You were directly defying Rome. If you said, “We should pay taxes to Caesar,” you were making the Jews upset. You were taking the side of the oppressive regime. You were not a friend to Israel.

There is this cool meme online with the fish faced character from Star Wars that says, “It’s a trap!” That’s what’s happening here, a trap being laid for Jesus.

But the Lord, he knew their hypocrisy. One thing that stands out from Jesus’ ministry is that he knew what was in a man. John says this in John 2:25, that Jesus “did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.” Jesus knows the heart of man.

Jesus says in Mark 12:15 “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” A denarius was a Roman silver coin, the equivalent of a typical day’s wage. Likely at this time, the face on the denarius was the image of Emperor Tiberius. On the denarius would be a statement calling him the “Son of the Divine,” making both a political and religious statement. This made the denarius even more complicated and contentious.

They bring Jesus a coin and he asks them who’s face and inscription is on the coin. They say, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then teaches them something powerful. He says in Mark 12:17:

Mark 12:17 CSB

17 Jesus told them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.

At the same time, Jesus says, “Honor the authority structures that you live in.” Live well within the authority structures that God has you in. Live well within the government that you exist in. Live well within the family structures and career structures that you live in. As far as it is up to you, live peacefully under the authority structures around you.

But don’t forget that you are under the authority of God. Ultimately, you are under the authority of God.

The Bible has a different perspective on the position of a human than culture. Culture will tell you that you are an individual with personal autonomy and a personal freedom, that nobody can tell you what to do. That you can express your freedom by being a rebel, refusing not to conform. Culture will tell you to live the life you want to live.

The Bible says that you are already conformed to something. The Bible says that, apart from him, the autonomy and rebellion that you think you are expressing is not freedom at all. It’s slavery. You are bound to one thing or another thing.

There is something within the human condition called sin. As humans, we were created perfectly but fell into sin, and sin has plagues humans since the fall. In essence, you are a servant to one of two things. Either, you are a servant of sin, or you are a servant of him.

When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you shift positionally from being a servant of sin to a servant of him. The Bible describes it this way in 1 Cor. 6:19-20:

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 CSB

19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.

“You are not your own, you were bought with a price.” When you put your faith in Jesus, there is a regeneration that happens within your soul. The Bible calls it being born-again. God does a work within you. That change came at a price, a price that was paid by Jesus on the cross.

Therefore, as Christians we love God by giving him was was his in the first place. It’s all his. We love God by giving him our lives, giving back to him was is his.

Imagine your close friend gets a brand new, luxury car. He’s a good friend, and he loans you the car for a week. It’s a beautiful car. You take excellent care of the car during the week. You keep it clean, drive it carefully, get it waxed, and fill up the gas tank.

At the end of the week, your friend comes to get his car. You hand your friend the keys. Your friend sees that you’ve taken good care of his car, and you both say thank you.

Now, would you tell your friend, “Since I’ve had this car for a week, and I’ve taken care of it, it’s rightfully mine now. You can’t have it, it’s mine.” No, and you know you won’t try, because it was never yours in the first place. In fact, you took such good care of the car because you wanted to thank your friend for his generosity.

Apply

With God, everything that we have is his. Give to God what is God’s. As we grow in our love for God, we realize that all we have is God’s.

Love God by giving back to him what is his.

Second,

Love God through knowing more about him.

In the second scenario, Jesus is confronted by another group of people called the Sadducees. We know about this group in Israel through the New Testament, but we don’t know much about them. They were another school of thought in Israel.

They certainly had different convictions and disagreed with the Pharisees. One of those disagreements was based on resurrection. According to the New Testament and some other ancient documents, the Sadduccees did not believe in a life after death. (1) They believed that the soul dies with the body, and that’s it.

So they come up with a scenario to attempt to justify their position. They quote from Moses, describing a law in Deut. 25:5, where if a man dies and leaves a wife behind with no child, the man’s brother should take the wife raise up children for his brother.

So they come up with a scenario hoping to expose a contradiction. They say that one brother dies, then a brother takes the wife and he dies, then another, then another. There are seven brothers in this scenario. This is the unluckiest woman in the world! It’s their scenario, not mine.

In an attempt to express a contradiction in the law, they ask Jesus in Mark 12:23:

Mark 12:23 CSB

23 In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be, since the seven had married her?”

This group reminds me of people today who know just enough Scripture to attempt to justify themselves and get things terribly wrong. You’ll tell them that you’re a Christian, and they may not know a lot of Scripture, but they’ll know Matthew 7:1 “1 “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.”

Or people who come up with statements that are not actually in the Bible, and treat them like they are. They’ll say things like, “God helps those who help themselves.” In case you’re wondering, that’s not in the Bible. Or as a sister brought up recently, a lot of people at funerals will say, “They’re looking down at us now.” While that might feel comforting to say, biblically speaking, that’s nothing in the Bible that would cause us to believe that people are looking down on us.

That is not knowing the Scriptures and misunderstanding the power of God. Why is that? Because we don’t need people to look down on us. God looks at us. He knows each of us individually. He sees us.

That is exactly what Jesus says in response to the Sadduccees. Look at how he says this in Mark 12:24:

Mark 12:24 CSB

24 Jesus spoke to them, “Isn’t this the reason why you’re mistaken: you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God?

Jesus says to the Sadduccees, “You know why you don’t believe in the resurrection? Because you don’t know God. You profess to know a lot, but you don’t know God’s Word. You don’t know his power. You are fooling yourself.

There is wisdom in loving God by knowing him by faith and through his Word. Paul describes this through a letter to a young man named Timothy. Timothy was a man who was raised up by a godly mother and grandmother, two people who taught him about faith. Paul says this to him in 2 Tim. 3:15:

2 Timothy 3:15 CSB

15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

How do we begin to correct faulty thinking? Through God’s Word. God left us his Word to communicate to humanity and point us to the solution for man’s greatest need, salvation in Jesus Christ. People are mistaken because they don’t know the truth of God in his Word, and they don’t know the power of God to change a life. One thing I see over and over is that people underestimate the power of God to change a life.

In essence, the human soul needs a resurrection, a new life. When you put your faith in Jesus, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit does a work inside you. God changes your life. God fills you with his love.

When you know the love of God, you want to know more of him.

When I started dating my wife, we were together all the time. It was puppy love. I would be on the phone with her for hours. I wanted to know her more. Anytime you saw me, you saw Jeannette. We were together all of the time. We were in love.

We have been together for thirty years, and have been married for twenty-six years. We are still learning things about each other. We are still in love. I still want to know her more. Somehow, through amazing acts of grace, she still puts up with me.

Apply

When you love someone, you want to know them better. When the love of God works in your life, you want to know him more. We grow in him through knowing him in his Word and knowing him by faith in Jesus.

Love God by giving back to him what is his.

Love God through knowing more about him.

Last,

Love God by opening your heart to him.

We get to the last scenario. In this scenario in Mark 12:28, one of the scribes approach Jesus. Scribes were people who were experts in Jewish law. They were employed for ability to read and write, and they spent their time copying biblical manuscripts and perhaps teaching the Law.

It says that one of the scribes heard Jesus debating and how he answered them. So he goes to Jesus and asks him a question. Given the previous questions, this may have been a question to try and stump Jesus. It also may have been a question with genuine interest. It may be a question where the scribe says, this stumps me, and I wonder if it will stump him. But if he does have an answer, I’d like to know!

So he goes to Jesus and asks him in Mark 12:28 “Which command is the most important of all?” The Jews had tons of laws. There are the ten that most people are familiar with, the ten commandments, but there are also a lot of other laws and procedures for sacrifices, offerings, etc.

Even if you just take the ten commandments, you might look at them and wonder, “Is there something I should really focus on?” You’ll say, okay, there is do not have idols, that seems important. There is honor your father and mother, not stealing, not giving false testimony… what should I focus on?

So the scribe asks Jesus, and this is how he answers him:

Mark 12:29–31 CSB

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. 31 The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”

Jesus says, “Let me sum up all of the commands for you. What do they all point to? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

All of the scenarios boils down to this. Remember the Roman coin and giving to God what is his? That happens when you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. How about Jesus’ words to the Sadduccees about their need to know the Scriptures and the power of God? When you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, you know him more.

But on the question of loving God. Where does that begin? Does that begin with you trying really hard to love God? Here is the interesting thing about loving God. Loving God does not begin with us loving him. We love God as a reaction to the fact that he has already loved us. Take a look at Romans 5:8:

Romans 5:8 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The cross is God’s love letter to humanity. Yet many of us fail to understand the power and love of the cross.

As many here know, I grew up in New York City. In my preaching class in seminary, a student who heard my sermons said, “At some point in Jason’s sermons, you will take a trip to New York.” Here we are.

New York City has tons of tall buildings. You can walk in Manhattan in the middle of the day, and spend most of the time walking down the street in a shadow. The tall building block the glare of the sunlight.

In fact, when we moved to San Diego, one thing I had to get used to was the glare of the sun. Here, many of the roads are wide, and the buildings are not tall. I’ve had to get used to having sunglasses around with me because of the glare of the sun.

I think of God’s love like a tall, beautiful building. The building is there. It is tall, it is beautiful, it is obvious. It is right there for everyone to see.

Yet, for many, they never go into the building. Instead, they are satisfied to sit in the shade, but they never truly understand it. See, the shade is just a shadow of the building. It’s not the building itself. When you’re in the shade, you might try to recreate what the building is like, you feel like you see the contours of it, but you’ll never understand what being inside the building is like because you’re not inside it.

But, in front of the building by the door, there is a man waving you in. He says, “Let me tell you, there is a cost to being inside. But I’ve already taken that cost for you. You don’t have to stand in the shade. You can come in and know what it’s like to be inside God’s love.”

There is a beautiful verse that many of us know, but it never fails in its power because it tells us about God’s love for us in the cross.

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

The amazing thing about loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, is that it doesn’t start with us. It starts with him. He is the one that loved us first. God sent the Son of God, Jesus, to the cross, not because we deserved. Not because we earned it. God sent his Son to the cross because he, in his grace, loves you.

He went to the cross so that you don’t have to be someone who knows God’s love from the outside. You can know God’s love on the inside. When you know God’s love on the inside through faith in Jesus Christ, it will change your life.

He will give you a new life. As you grow in him, you will love God by giving back to him what is his. You will love God by knowing more about him. You will love God by opening your heart to him.

Our greatest need is to know the love of God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is my prayer that you will run to Jesus and know his love for you.

Apply

Conclusion

Love God by giving back to him what is his.

Love God through knowing more about him.

Love God by opening your heart to him.

Conclude

Prayer

Last Song

Doxology

Numbers 6:24–26 CSB

24 “May the Lord bless you and protect you; 25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’

Jude 24–25 CSB

24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

You are dismissed. Have a great week in the Lord!

Das, A. Andrew. “Sadducees.” Edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016. https://ref.ly/logosres/lbd?art=sadducees.sadducean_teaching