What we should and should not be

Introduction

Last week we looked at the two greatest commandments. The first was to love God with all that you are and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. These commandments summarize the 10 commandments and are things that we need to live our lives by.

Today we are going to see that the scribes fall short of these commandments but there are some who uphold them. We can look at it this way, last week we saw some teaching and this week we are going to see it in practice.

In your Bibles you will probably notice that we are covering three divided up sections of scripture. Each of these sections covers a part of this commandment and the contrast of who is following it and who is not.

We need to remember that Jesus does not separate our devotion from our moral conduct. How we live must reflect who we serve. This is true of the scribes that we will read about and it is true of the widow. Let’s start tonight with reading straight through this section then we will come to each of them individually.

Mark 12:35–44 ESV

And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’ David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly. And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Jesus starts out with how they understand an important Old Testament passage and points to them having a confused view about it. The top leaders of the day that held the Old Testament as their authority could not even read the simplest of passages. It is no wonder that they had so many issues. After Jesus confronts this issue he he warns the people of them. He points out how they walk high and mighty while being terrible to the people that they should be most concerned about. He then turns to someone that is contrasting them, he turns to a lowly widow. Jesus was watching people as they went about their business in the temple complex and he sees a widow that obviously did not have much. In this day widows were the lowest of the low and they had to wear certain clothes which is how Jesus knew she was a widow. Even though in comparison her giving was nothing to her she gave everything. In this we see her live out the greatest commandment, she gave God her all financially and because of that we can assume that she gave him her all in every area of life.

The scribes don’t get it and we should be warned of them and their ways, rather we should consider people like the widow that truly follow the greatest commandment.

As we work our way through this passage we need to ask ourselves if we are like the scribes or if we are following the greatest commandment? Do we get behind people like the scribes or do we hold to the words of scripture? Realize that the scribes had right belief, you can say the right things and agree with my teaching all you want, it’s in the practice. The scribes knew the greatest commandment, they had most if not all of the Old Testament memorized, they just failed to practice it. You can agree with all of the teachings that I and others bring from the Bible, you can agree with every command of the Bible, but if you don’t practice it you too will receive this greater condemnation that Jesus promises to them in the end of verse 40.

Let’s pray then we can start looking at the first section of this passage of Mark.

The poor understanding of the scribes

Mark 12:35–37 ESV

And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’ David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.

The first thing that we see Jesus call out is the scribes poor understanding of the scriptures. Here he quotes from Psalm 110 which was a well known passage by all and says that they do not even get it. They say that the one who is to come is the Son of David but they never say that he is the Lord over David. This is neglecting an important part because technically Joseph was a son of David as were many at this time.

How we understand the scripture is important. There are many false teachers out there that claim to use the Bible. Many will even read out of it but they are still very wrong. Take for example Mormons, they claim the Bible, but they are still so very wrong in how they understand it.

What is fundamental to us in this is what we call the inspiration and authority of the Bible. In this the Bible was divinely inspired which means the Holy Spirit guided the writers so that it truly is the word of God. In regards to authority, since the Bible is the literal words of God it has authority as such. Lets illustrate this real quick, in history the president has had authority. When they sign an executive order it is their words and whatever it is must be done because of that. I can write something very good down but it carries no power because I do not have that authority.

So the Bible is the word of God and it carries power and we must rely upon it alone for our understanding. It cannot be added to and it cannot be taken away from. Many have tried to add and take away from it over the centuries but none have succeeded.

Knowing and understanding the Bible will help us to see what is true and what is false.

The warning from Jesus

Mark 12:38–40 ESV

And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Because of their understanding of the Bible the scribes do a lot of things that do not line up with the Bible. It is because of this that Jesus gives this warning. There are many just like this today.

Take for example a man named Joel Osteen. He calls himself a pastor in what he calls a church but I would say that neither of those are true. He often starts his talks off with something that I think is good, he holds up his Bible and says “this is my Bible I am what it says I am and I have what it says I have”. The issue is that after he says that he might as well toss it behind him. He goes around spreading a feel good message to thousands that are headed straight to hell. He lives in luxury and makes millions. Not to far off from the scribes who claim the Bible but do not teach it or live by it. And for the same reasons they don’t understand it.

These things are serious things and they should not be seen among the leaders of the churches that we are a part of. They should also not be present among us. We should seek to understand the Bible for ourselves and we should seek to live by it in all of life. We should seek to live by the greatest commandments and not just simply hear it and know it.

So often we separate our following God from how we act. These two things should not be separate but should act as one. We should not let the culture affect how we think and how we act. Think about this, 200 years ago many, not all, churches advocated for keeping slavery. We look back on this and see how tragic this is. They were blinded by the culture and not properly understanding and following the scriptures. We could look at this and talk bad about them but think about this, what will they say 200 years from now about us? Not here at this church but at many churches they advocate for things like abortion and gay marriage. This to is tragic. Those churches are blinded by the culture and not properly understanding and living by the scriptures.

This is not what we should be.

The better example

Mark 12:41–44 ESV

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Though we can learn much in what not to do by the scribes we can also learn a lot of what we should do here from this widow. This woman is here in contrast with the scribes. She came to give her offering of 2 small coins. Think about it this way she could have given one but she gave both. The monetary value was small in comparison to the others that were giving around her but compared to what she had it was the largest gift.

She was following the greatest commandment to love God with all of herself, including all of her money. This is based on a proper understanding of scripture and actually living it out.

This example applies for far more than giving but in every area of life. We should be more like this widow in this way and stand in contrast to the scribes.

Conclusion

Our devotion should not be separate from our moral conduct, in other words our belief should be reflected in how we act.

This prophecy that the scribes had misunderstood was eventually fulfilled on the cross. On the cross the Lord who fulfilled all of the prophecies died as a payment for sin. This payment will cover your sin if you ask for forgiveness. You do this by putting your faith in him and turning away from your sin. If you want to have the right belief and act upon that belief you have to have faith. You have to be saved.

If you have never put your faith in Jesus do that tonight, do not wait.

If you have put your faith in Jesus then think about what you believe and what you do. Ask yourself do these two things line up?