The Great Commandment

Sermon Notes Oct. 20, 2019 The Great Commandment Sermon Series: Marching Orders - #5 Mark 12:28-34 Rev. L. Kent Blanton Review • “What’s our purpose as humans?” This is the central question in our fall sermon series, Marching Orders. • Scripture reveals that our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever (Is 43:6b-7; 1 Cor 10:31) • To glorify God means to feel, think, and act in ways that reflect God’s greatness • We should glorify God for at least two reasons: 1. God is the absolute pinnacle of perfection in every respect. He rightly deserves our praise. 2. Because Jesus, God’s Son, glorified and continues to glorify God the Father in everything. We are called to follow Jesus’ example. • God’s desire for glory doesn’t mean he’s on an ego trip • To create us to give glory to him is the most authentic and loving thing that he could do for us. • In designing us to glorify him, God has made possible our highest joy and fulfillment. How so? Because joy can only be consummated with praise. • Our enjoyment of God can only be fulfilled in fullest measure when we praise him, when we glorify him. • In the two weeks immediately prior to Thanksgiving, we began exploring another question: How do we glorify God? • HBC Mission Statement: 1. To introduce people to Jesus . . . • God wants you and me to glorify him by following the example of Jesus’ disciple, Andrew, who introduced and kept introducing others to Jesus. • Introducing people to Jesus is important because Jesus is the only way to know God and the only way to God. 2. To become fully devoted followers of Jesus. • Jesus must be more important than security or competing loyalties like work, family, and pleasure (Luke 9:62) • HBC Vision Statement: • To glorify God by fulfilling the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Exposition (Mark 12:28-34) • What is the Great Commandment? • A scribe, a legal expert and teacher of Jewish religious law asked Jesus this very question (v. 28). • Context is a multi-faceted debate between Jesus and several different Jewish religious groups. These religious leaders opposed Jesu and wanted to entrap him. They desire to discredit him in the eyes of his followers and the crowds or to successfully cite him as an insurrectionist to the Roman authorities who would imprison or execute him. • Mark tells us several things about this teacher: • He’d been listening to the debates between Jesus and the religious leaders (v. 28) • He noticed that Jesus provided thoughtful, sound responses and rebuttal (vv. 28, 32-33) • Unlike his counterparts, he is not attempting to entrap Jesus, but asks him a sincere question (v. 32-33) • He addresses Jesus as a colleague and accepts him as a participant in a serious theological discussion (vv. 28, 32-33) • He chooses to ask which of all the OT commandments is the greatest, the most important (v. 28) • The question asked by the teacher reflects a debate at that time between Jewish rabbis over which commands in the Law were most weighty. • Jewish rabbis had identified 613 different commandments in the OT law. 248 were positive commands (do this). 365 were prohibitions (don’t’ do this). These positive and negative commands were further subdivided into commands deemed more important or less important. Different rabbis taught that certain commands were more important than others. • The teacher isn’t asking which commands need to be obeyed. All the Jewish religious leaders understood that all God’s commandments were to be kept. The teacher is asking, “What is the fundamental premise of the law on which all of the individual commands depend?” In other words, what commandment best captures the purest essence of all the commandments? • Jesus responds (vv. 29-30) first with a quotation from Deut 6:4-5. He quotes the Shema. This creed summarized the cornerstone of Jewish faith and practice and was repeated twice daily by all pious Jews. Nature of the Shema (Deut 6:4-5) • What is the Shema? It begins with, Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. • The Shema first focuses upon God’s nature. God is one. God has a singular identity. He isn’t like the plurality of gods found in most pagan religions. Judaism is a monotheistic faith. So is Christianity. We worship one, and only one, God. • The Bible tells us that all other gods are false gods. Yahweh, alone, is God. As such, he demands complete allegiance. Worship of all other gods was, and remains, absolutely prohibited. • The Shema also focuses upon the personal nature of God. It says, the Lord our God. Yahweh is not just any god. He is Israel’s God. He has a name – Yahweh. He chose to enter into a covenantal relationship with the Israelites. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you, too, have entered into a covenantal relationship with God. Yahweh is your God. You are Yahweh’s son or daughter. • The Shema also focuses on the rightful response of God’s people toward him. The Israelites were to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. What does it mean to love God? • Loving God involves much more than acknowledging his existence. It’s more than an emotional attachment. Loving God means to make him the most important thing in your life. • These descriptors (heart, soul, mind, and strength) are a way of saying we are to pursue God with our whole being. Submission to God’s will and bringing glory to him is to be our supreme desire and undertaking in life. • The descriptors Mark uses about loving God are similar, but slightly different than, those found in Deut 6:4-5. Mark includes a fourth descriptor, with all our mind in Jesus’ reply. • Two likely reasons for the inclusion of the phrase with all your mind in Mark’s account: 1. Some versions of the OT at the time Mark wrote contained this word in the verse in Deuteronomy. Consistency with the OT version with which Mark was most familiar. 2. Mark wrote his biography of Jesus for a Gentile audience. The Gentiles understood the human personality a bit differently than Jews did. For the Jew, the word heart included the mind. In Jewish thought, the heart was the command center of one’s being, where decisions are made and plans are hatched. The heart controlled one’s feelings, emotions, desires, and passions. For Gentiles, the mind was thought of separately from the heart. By including the word, mind, Mark ensured that his Gentile audience understood the phrases as they were originally intended . . . to indicate loving God with one’s whole being, including one’s mind. A New Twist (v. 31) • After Jesus quotes the Shema, he says there’s a second commandment that must be coupled with the first (vs. 31). He quotes Lev. 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” • The teacher asks for one all-embracing command; Jesus puts forth two. • Originally, the verse cited from Leviticus applied to fellow Israelites, but by the first century, this command to love your neighbour like yourself was widely understood to refer to all human beings regardless of ethnicity or religious persuasion. • The novel quality in Jesus’ reply was the combining of the command to love God with loving one’s neighbour. The commands are not #1 and #2 of a long list of commands. Together, they form the primal command or the great commandment. • Jesus says this double commandment of love transcends all other commandments. Together they reveal the heart of the entire OT Law. If these two commands are fulfilled, all the other commandments will be fulfilled. The Scribe’s Reply (vv. 32-33) • The teacher of the Law repeats what Jesus said and commends Jesus’ answer as astute. He also combines the phrases with all your soul and with all your mind with the less abstract phrase with all your understanding. This demonstrates he understands the essence of this commandment. • The teacher then adds his own comments by asserting that these commands to love God supremely and to love one’s neighbor as oneself are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. In other words, these commands are more important than the laws concerning the temple sacrificial system. • The teacher isn’t repudiating the worship and sacrificial laws. He knows they’re important. But he keenly understands the significance of Jesus’ response. He follows in the biblical tradition of OT passages like 1 Sam 15:22 and Hosea 6:6 where God told his people that obedience was more important than sacrifice. • In other words, the scribe understood that loving God through obedient living was more important than religious rituals that could be performed without a heart that matched the act of worship. Jesus’ Response (v. 34) • Jesus sees that the teacher has responded wisely. Jesus had been evaluating the teacher’s comments and has noticed significant spiritual insight. Jesus then says something quite interesting, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (v. 34) • These words were a compliment. In fact, this is the only account in the NT of Jesus commending a Jewish religious teacher. It’s evidence that not all NT Jewish religious leaders were hypocrites. • Jesus response was also an appeal. The teacher’s recognition of the importance of loving god and loving people placed him near the kingdom of God. He had come a long way. • The term “not far from” indicates the teacher must choose to go further. He must accept God’s rule and reign in his own life. He must do more than acknowledge God and biblical truth. He must personally choose submission to God as king, and to the kingdom’s prince, Jesus the Messiah. • Mark does not reveal to us whether or not the teacher chose to take this next step. Application • How can you and I glorify God? By choosing to obey the Great Commandment. By choosing to love God will with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength . . . and by choosing to love our neighbor as we love our self. How do we love God? • But how do we love God? By choosing to submit to his rule and reign with our whole being. Our love for God should be a response to his undeserved love for us. We love him because he first loved us. (I John 4:19) We are called to give our whole life to a personal God who demonstrated his love by sending Jesus to die for us (Rom 5:8). • To love God with all your heart has to do with affection. Loving God with your heart means to make Him your greatest treasure. Jesus said where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matt 6:21). Loving God with all my heart means valuing my relationship with God, with Jesus, over anything and everything else in my life. • Loving God with all our heart has to do with affection. Loving God with all our soul has to do with devotion. To love God with all my soul means loving God with my attitudes and intentions, my emotions, my thoughts and feelings, and my body. • The soul is the source of vitality in life. It’s the motivating power that provides strength of will. Together with the heart, the soul determines conduct. • Loving God with all our soul means making godly choices. It means pursuing obedience to God’s Word. It means pursuing a life of humility in our attitudes and speech. • Loving God with all our mind involves employing our intellect and reason. God doesn’t want us to check our minds at the door when we embrace kingdom rule. For instance, God calls us to move beyond “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayers. • Thinking about our faith isn’t something to fear; it’s a requirement - Study to show yourself approved by God, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Tim 2:15 MEV • God has little use of lazy minds. The early Christians not only outlived and outdid their enemies, they outthought them. They read, studied, wrote, and served God with all their mind. • We are called to not be conformed to the world’s thinking (Rom 12:2), but we do little to advance the kingdom if others can easily dismiss us as ignoramuses. We need to commit our minds to God so that we can offer intelligent and rational reasons for our faith. • Loving God with all our strength refers to putting our love for God into action. It involves our physical capacities. It involves serving Christ’s Body and using our gifts and talents as good stewards in kingdom ministry. It also involves choosing to use the financial resources God has entrusted to us for kingdom purposes, including faithfully bringing our tithes and offerings into his NT ministry hub, the church. Who is our Neighbour? • Who is our neighbor? Everyone you know is your neighbor! Jesus taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) that our neighbor is anyone we rub shoulders with who has a need. • Every person you know has one or more needs. Your friends, your co-workers, the people who live next door and down the street, the exercise enthusiasts you share time with at the gym, the families on your kids’ soccer team, the people in your civic club, they all have at least one need --- a spiritual need. • They’re spiritually lost, without Jesus, and without real hope. They need someone to introduce them to Jesus. How do we love our Neighbor? • By responding to the needs we encounter each day. Spiritual needs, relational needs, emotional needs, physical needs. • How do we recognize these needs? By opening our eyes and observing, by investing time and energy in getting to know those around us, by being a friend, by engaging in simple acts of kindness and service, by praying for those we rub shoulders with, by asking God for opportunities for spiritual conversations in which we can share our spiritual stories and the good news of Jesus. (pause) Summary • How can you and I glorify God? By choosing to obey the Great Commandment. By choosing to love God will with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength . . . and by choosing to love our neighbor as we love our self. • Did you notice the word choose in each of those statements? It’s one thing to know what I was created to do, and another thing to choose to do it. What choice, or choices, is God presenting to you?