The Most Important Thing

Introduction

If you could get one thing right in life, what would it be?

Most of us are trying to do what feels like 100 things at once. At the end of it all, we’re often left wondering, did I get the most important things right?

Parents, you’re trying to raise kids who love Jesus, are kind, confident, safe, and successful, while at the same time you’re keeping up with your job, bills, laundry that seems to never end, and 47 different school emails a day.

Students, you’re told these years are going to determine your future. Your grades, sports, friends, and decisions you are tasked with each day feels like it all carries permanent consequences.

Some of you are just tired adults. Work doesn’t stop, your responsibilities aren’t shrinking, and there is always the underlying question in the back of your mind, am I doing enough? Am I getting this right?

For some, you’re in a different season where the house is quieter now. The kids are grown or out of the house, and the question isn’t “how can I keep up?” but “did I do it right? What matters now?”

No matter the stage of life, most of us are asking the same question. With everything that is on our plate, am I doing what matters most?

If you could get one thing right in life, what would it be? Being a good parent? Having a stable career? Being in the best shape and staying healthy? Being a decent person? Not messing up your kids too badly?

Our world often feels like it throws an endless number of priorities at us. But in Mark 12, someone asks Jesus a question that cuts through all the noise in the world.

What command is the most important of all? In other words, what matters most? If I miss everything else, what should I not miss?

Jesus’ answer is both simple and yet thought provoking. He doesn’t give them a task list, he gives them a relationship.

Here’s where we’re going this morning: first, we’ll take some time to just walk through the text and answer any questions that may come up to understand exactly what is happening, then we’ll take some time to see what loving God actually looks like, and finally, we’ll take some time to ask ourselves about what loving others might look like.

Open up your Bibles and let’s set the stage

Explain

We’ve come from the string of questions that Jesus has been receiving as he’s entered into Jerusalem, and the religious and political leaders have continued to try to trap Jesus. Their intent all along has been clear: to try and find a way to get Jesus arrested and killed.

Standing in the back as Jesus stumps the Sadducees comes forward a Scribe, a scholar of the scriptures, and a lawyer to argue his cases of judgement based on disobedience to the scriptures. He asks a question that seems fair compared to the rest of the questions that have been asked by others.

V. 28

What is the most important commandment? In the rabbinic tradition, they held to 613 commands in total. 365 of them were negative “don’t do…” and 248 of them were positive “do…” Some were lighter and seemed to be less demanding, while others were heavy with extreme repercussions for not obeying them. So it seems like a fair question.

If you’re going to make sure you follow one of them…which one will you pay most attention to? Which is most important? Which command supersedes all of them? In other words, out of everything God has said, what matters most?

V. 30

Jesus goes on to answer the question directly. He quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5. This was also what the Jewish people called the Shema, which was a prayer that was recited twice a day. This wasn’t just any command in the Old Testament; this was one that any and every jew knew, as it was so prominent in the everyday household.

V. 31

The second half of Jesus' answer is another quote from scripture, which comes from Leviticus 19, which is jam-packed with commands that have to do with how to treat others and live life among other people.

V. 32-34

The response of the Scribe is interesting as we read this. First, the Pharisees would argue that the ceremonial law carried just as much weight as the commandment to love, which is equal to the ceremonial law, and thus the Scribe veers from his tradition here.

Second, every other interaction Jesus has had has started from an intent to get him trapped in his words. Here, the question feels genuine, and even in his response, the Scribe agrees with Jesus, and it doesn’t seem to feel like there is any conflict at all. But Jesus closes their interaction by telling the Scribe that even though his answer is correct and they agree with one another, the Scribe is still outside of the kingdom of God.

What do we do with that? Commentators are slightly torn on the exact meaning of this. Some argue that the question and answer are genuine from the Scribe, but in Jesus’ answer, he’s explaining that while the Scribe may have the answers right, his heart is still far from him.

Others will argue that the Scribe is actually rebuking Jesus in his answer. In Matthew’s account of the interaction between Jesus and the Scribe, it says that he is there to test Jesus. Therefore, in the response of the Scribe, there seems to be an emphasis on God being one, and the reason he emphasizes this is that he is rebuking Jesus’ claims to be the Son of God because God is one, not two. But in his misunderstanding of the Trinity and who God is, it leads him to have a correct answer, yet not comprehend the truth about who Jesus is and why he has come.

Regardless of which one it is, the main thing that we take away from this passage is that Jesus is instructing us that if there is one command that is greater, that supersedes all others and helps us actually see what it means to be in the kingdom of God, it’s those who love God and love their neighbor.

The big idea here is that if you actually are a citizen of the Kingdom of God, you are someone who loves God and loves your neighbor. It’s one of the most common sets of verses that is quoted everywhere, and a poorly interpreted set of verses that comes with cherry picking across the board when it comes to people. So let’s take some time to actually see what it means to love God and love your neighbor.

Application

Love God

As Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, he’s not necessarily saying that we as people have some sort of different parts to who we are, and we must try to make sure every part of us is loving God, but what he is saying is that loving God is a life that actually worships him entirely. It feels too easy to understand, and yet complex to figure out how to “do it” exactly.

Here’s the encouragement before some practical questions and application. This isn’t a to-do list that is set out for us to answer the question of “this is the 5 steps to make sure we love God perfectly,” but these are applications and encouragement to evaluate where we are in our posture and life when it comes to worshipping God.

Worship Him with Your Heart & Soul

While the phrasing of the Shema and Jesus quotation is a holistic life of worship, it’s still helpful to unpack them in some different areas to evaluate ourselves.

First, what does our worship look like? Your heart and soul paint this inward picture of what is true on the inside of you. It’s what is not necessarily seen from the outside world, but it’s what's true of what is going on in you.

But while our heart and soul worship God, it leads us somewhere.

Psalm 8:3 “when I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him”

Psalm 19 “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day they pour out speech.”

Both of these and psalms, which show us that when the psalmist sees God’s work, when they inwardly process who God is, it moves them to actually praise God. If even creation shouts with how wonderful God is, shouldn’t we be moved to worship him with shouts of joy?

What’s your worship look like? As you notice God in your day, are you driven to respond and worship him? Or are you passively callous to his work?

When you come to worship with other believers on Sunday mornings, what is your posture? Is it a religious duty? Do you listen intently to the scripture read, the sermon preached? How do you respond in song? Is it just halfway singing, or does your heart pour out in response to actually give God the worship he deserves?

Psalm 42:1 “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God.”

Worship God with Your Mind

In the Shema, the mind isn’t included. It’s because the Hebrew audience would have understood the heart to not just be emotional but also intellectual and so when Jesus does this and Mark write his audience includes Greek who need the extra explanation.

But if we think about how we love the Lord, how do we individually love God with our mind? The easy question to ask ourselves is, are we taking the time to think about, read, and learn about God? What’s our heart posture when it comes to reading the scriptures?

RC Sproul gave an illustration of a man who is away at war. He’s separated from his wife as he’s at battle but when he returns to camp, there on his nightstand is a letter. As he goes to see who it’s from, he notices that on the front it shows it from his greatest love. In receiving the letter he rips over the envelope to eagerly open and pour over the contents of what she writes to him.

God has gifted to us his word, his great revelation of his love for us and how he desires to relate to us through his scriptures. Do we long to meditate day and night on his word? Do we delight in spending time consuming the scriptures?

Do you intentionally take the time to study the scriptures, understand the text or simply claim to only relate to God through nature or music, or beauty.

What do you feed your mind all week? Endless scrolling? Anger-inducing content? Comparison to others? Fear-driven news? Or truth that helps you love and trust God more?

Deuteronomy 6 “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”

Worship God with Your Strength

I’m not sure that anyone really truly understands what this means, but praying through it I considered how our strength is our priorities, our effort, obedience, things that are difficult and result in something.

Is there anything God has clearly asked of you that you’re delaying, avoiding, or negotiating with him about? Loving God with our strength means doing what he says, not just agreeing with it. It’s following him and being humble to confess, repent, and follow him.

What has following Jesus cost you lately? Time, money, comfort, status, convenience? Loving God is a living sacrifice is what Romans 12 says. If the answer is “not much” then it may be worth asking why?

Do you approach your spiritual life with intentionality? We plan workouts, vacations, pick up and drop offs, career moves. Do we ever plan how we will grow in obedience, prayer, service?

Our growth and walk with God is not just something that magically happens, but we co-labor with God. We actually walk with him to move from milk to solid food. From infancy in the faith to maturity.

Love Your Neighbor

Leviticus 19

Jesus quotes from Leviticus 19 to demonstrate what it means to respond to God and the second part of what the greatest commandment is. I thought it’d be helpful for us to just look at that chapter and see, what is actually in there? What did loving their neighbor look like to them then so that we can understand what that means to love our neighbor today for us. Flip there with me and I’ll just highlight the verse number with a summary of the command.

Before reading through these, you cannot do any of these unless you actually love the Lord first. These don’t come as a priority before loving God, these are an overflow of loving God. If you focus on people, but never focus on actually yourself spending time in loving God, you won’t love people truthfully.

V. 3 Honor your parents. V. 10 care for the poor & immigrant. V. 11 don’t steal, deceive, or lie. V. 13 don’t oppress, steal, honor payment of employees. V. 14 care for the deaf & blind. V. 15 act justly during a case, don’t be partial to the poor OR to the wealthy, judge all fairly. V. 16 don’t slander, don’t jeopardize your neighbor's life (that one’s for all the soccer moms driving), v. 17 don’t harbor hatred, rebuke your neighbor directly rather than complaining about it to others, v. 29 don’t debase your daughter to prostitution, v. 32 honor the elderly, v. 33 don’t oppress the alien.

There’s two verses in here that feel prominent in our world right now. Here what I say, not what I don’t say.

Story of 5th grade Alex sharing about deportation…

There is a lot in there. Jesus summarizes it all in what’s smack dab in the middle of the chapter. To love your neighbor as yourself. Each one of those carries weight of how we interact and treat other people who are all image bearers of the living God. When you love God, he does something in your heart to not just impact your relationship with him, but he actually transforms how you look at others and interact with them.

Here’s the reality of that command in itself. You love yourself more than anyone else. If you’re married, you’ve found it out after a couple of weeks of living together. If you have kids, you learned it when you just wanted a full night of sleep but were woken up multiple times. But the call is to love others as much as we love ourselves.

I think there may be three ways to consider how we actually love our neighbor.

Love people who are different

Leviticus 19 V. 10, 14, 15, 33 all have to do with people who are different than you. People who are similar to us, have the same background, share ideas and principles, are not difficult to love. They’re easy to be in a relationship with and engage in ways that we will drop and care for them.

But when it comes to people who are different than us, we sometimes view them as enemies. We make it out to look at them differently and call them bigots, dumb, incompetent, irrational. But the scriptures call us to something different. This isn’t saying we have to agree to their ideas, lifestyle, or actions. But what this shows us that loving others is difficult. It takes real effort to treat others with compassion love and a desire to care for them even when it feels like they’re unlovable.

Don’t love for what they can do for you

It’s often easier to love people who can do things for us. Whether they are wealthy and can do something financially, they can network and gain us status, they may make us appear differently to others or they’re just unselfish and love to serve you. We don’t use people and manipulate them simply for what we can gain from them.

When looking at other people and loving other people, we shouldn’t be caught up in what they aren’t doing for us or what they can’t do for us, we get to actually approach them the way that God looks at us. We are unable to do anything apart from him. God chose to come to us. We can respond in the same way pursuing to love people not for what they can give to us, but for what we can serve them with. How we can love them. How we can pour out to them. How we may be able to actually give of ourselves.

Love the body of Christ

Finally, loving the body of Christ. Many of these scenarios given are to people on the outside, but most of these are how they deal with themselves in their jewish community. That is why we too get to give of ourselves and love those in the body here. We have such an opportunity to bless one another.

Whether it’s giving up time to make coffee, be here all morning running sound, using our talents to lead in worship, give up comfort of not being a teacher and discipling the children, opening up your home to host a city group. God has given us a body not to just be served by, but to respond in giving of ourselves too.

Encouragement

Church, I just want to take the time to say thank you as well. This list of loving neighbors may seem like a lot and you may ver well be convicted by this, which is a good thing and you should respond to that conviction by acting upon it.

But at the same time, you have been so faithful to love your neighbor. From our participation in the baby bottle drive with the pregnancy center to spending time with foster families, to feeding the poor during the SNAP benefits being halted. You guys have seriously stepped up to loving people in different ways that aren’t in great situations or circumstances.

I’ve also seen you love one another relentlessly. From buying people cars, building fences, meal trains galore during difficult times and new births, to stepping up to take each others children so marriages can have date nights, giving people rides, letting others borrow your cars, raising money for hospital bills. I’m honestly floored to see how you respond to love one another.

If you’re sitting in this room and this inspires you but you feel on the outside, i want to welcome you to the invitation to participate. Get in a city group, connect with each other. Build one another up, give of each other, sacrifice for one another, rejoice with eachotehr, weap with each other. Make the time to pursue relationships with God’s people and see how God desires to not receive from others, but how he desires to use you for others.

Gospel Conclusion

Loving God and loving people feels like an immense weight. We don’t just evaluate and ask if we’re doing this thing right with all of our duties and calendars. You might even being doing it right now as you think through your relationship with God.

Here’s the thing, you won’t be able to actually do this perfectly. You will fail. You will choose yourself over God. You will sin. You will not always love him perfectly. There will be times when you wrong people even if you weren’t meaning it. You will fall short.

But the good news is that there is one who lived out this command perfectly. There is one who whole heartedly gave his life to loving God and loving his neighbor. Jesus Christ the King of the Kingdom of God fulfilled this to just to demonstrate to us what it looks like, but he fulfilled it to make us whole. That in his righteousness, we too can respond to him with great gratitude for the work he’s done.

And it’s by his grace that as we walk with him, we not only receive his righteousness in our salvation, but we receive his Spirit. It’s by the power of God that is in us that we can actually meet with God and love him. Its by the power of the Spirit that dwells in us that moves us to love people even when we desires to love ourselves. The entire reason any of this is possible is because he loved us first.

And it’s in loving him first that we too can answer the question that we can’t do it perfectly, but He did. By his love we don’t just receive it, we’re transformed by it and display it.