Profound love of God

Sermon series catch up: So this week and next week mark the closing of our sermon series as we look at profound love of God and profound love of people.

(show stops again). Explain.

They go hand in hand because these stops are interdependent....you do not get get to profound love of people with profound love of and for God. And yet, as we love people more we are in fact growing in our love of God.

Furthermore they are really not “stops” along the way, or seasons like the others are....I personally see them more as a way of life and a consequence of having walked through all the others to that point.

Through the stages of broken by God and surrender and submission we struggle with, and walk away from, the three S’s....Self, sin, society. preach these out a little

Barna rights about stop 9:

One of the most startling transformations evident to observers is your contentment with life. You are no longer a contestant in the rat race, always trying to get an advantage or carve your own niche in the world. Your niche has been carved for you in Heaven, and you are released from worry and anxiety on earth. This is not the same as giving up or believing in fatalism; you simply know beyond a doubt that your life is now controlled by God and you trust Him enough to believe He knows what He is doing and will take care of things if you obey His will. You are content. Temptations seem fewer in number and less appealing.

That brings us to our text today. Here we find Jesus answering all sorts of questions from all sorts of people. The Pharisees, the Jews, the Scribes; one after another are bringing these challenging words and questions to test Jesus here in Mark’s gospel. It’s like an biblical senate hearing....or I guess what it would look like if Jesus was trying to be ordained in the United Methodist Church....sorry still recovering from that process.

Most of these interactions are intense and full of vitriol. This one has a lighter tone.

Mark 12:28–34 NIV

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Pray.

Introduction

I was spending some time with a mentor recently and I was talking to him about his ministry and the public nature of it. He is an author and scholar, professor, and spends his time working with denomination controversy. I mean I see him get torn a part in blogs and tweets and you name it.

Asked him how he does it.

I myself am a recovering people pleaser, so I was particularly interested in his answer.

He told me… I try to make sure I am full of God’s love.

I thought to myself…get out of here, I could have gone to my Jesus calling devotional for that answer.

I think noticing my dissatisfaction.... he clarified.

“I have to fight to stay in love with God and for God, because if I don’t then I look for it in places that will not provide. But if I stay in love with God, I can do hard things. I can suffer. I can have peace.”

Profound love of God..... The scribe is searching for this meaning.

Scribe and Jesus

In Jesus’ time scribes were more than their title would infer. They are a class of scholars at this point who teach, copy, and interpret Jewish law for the people. They had power simply by being able to read and write but later with their access to scripture and their power given by societal judgment authority. They were religious. They were religion experts.

The author of Mark’s gospel has done something intentional here. For the last several chapters Pharisees, scribes, and religious teachers were accusatory of Jesus and they did so as a people challenging Jesus. Yet, this scribe comes forward not in content but in curiosity and he comes alone.

So this scribe seeing that Jesus has given good answers thus far, he brings a big one....

the greek word for good here is Kalos....denotes whole, satisfying, correct answers…the scribe is pleased and even inspired thus far. He asks a bigger one, perhaps not to try and trap but to plumb a little deeper.

“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

The scribes concerned themselves with proper exposition of the law and earned a reputation as experts in its interpretation (see further on the scribes at 1:22). The rabbinic tradition counted 613 commandments in the Torah, 365 prohibitions, and 248 positive commands. Among the commandments, rabbis differentiated between what they called “heavy” and “light” commandments. The latter made less demand on one’s will or possessions, whereas heavy or weighty commandments concerned life’s uncompromising essentials. Heavy commandments were accorded utmost seriousness and, when broken, were assessed the severest penalties.

1 Edwards, J. R. (2002). The Gospel according to Mark (p. 370). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.

Essentially, the scribe asks what is the most important? How do you sum it all up?

Jesus answers with some scripture that would be well known. He brings together two commandments from the Torah....

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 NIV

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Leviticus 19:18 NIV

“ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Then the scribe responds with something more than approval....he essentially acknowledges something that is beyond expectation for this expert of the law.

He says yes....loving God with everything and loving neighbor…that is greater than any burnt offerings and sacrifices. This is greater than religion.

That is when Jesus gives the most peculiar response, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

I have heard so many sermons on what it means to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, to love your neighbor. And we will talk about all of this but to zoom out just slightly and look at the nature of this conversation I think speaks volumes.

Why would Jesus respond in this way?

How is it that this scribe’s answer brings him close to the kingdom of God?

Moving from Religion to Relationship

In this moment, the scribe moves from religion to relationship.

Against all that he is. Against all of his training, education, career, identity, he chooses to see relationship to God over any form of religion. Even if this move might cost him his job. The scribe, maybe for the first time, does not choose self-justification, but he chooses relationship. It is bigger than going to church, it is bigger than serving in that mission, it is bigger than being in a sunday school, it is bigger than cutting a check once a month, this might be about something more....

Hear this today: One draws near to the kingdom of God not with right answers or actions of religion but by drawing near to Jesus.

Loving God is not restrictive but abundant

Growing up I fell away from the church for a few reasons, but one of those is because I just kind of stunk at it....and in many ways it was pushed on me like this kind of morality.

See this scribe for his whole life has been following all of the laws. Hundreds of them. He is trying to be as religious as he can…and here in just a moment Jesus is going to say, this is what it was all pointing to.

And listen, we do not know what the scribe does after this. He could have looked at Jesus and thought this was one more thing he needed to add on, completely missing the point.

He could have walked away in denial.... “no way it is that simple.”

Listen to me today, friends. It is that simple. Do not complicate it.

Is it hard????? ....heck yes. It is hard because we are so twisted up. But it is not complicated.

And it is not, one more thing to do. All of the warnings, all of the do this, dont do this....they all point to this one thing. Love God. Love others.

Loved People Love

Some of you cannot love God because you do not feel loved by God.

Serving with students years ago, I realized quickly there was this obstacle that would come up as we were sharing the gospel with some. Worshiping God the Father, language about God as a loving father was difficult to grasp for those that had experienced pretty broken homes. At first, I thought that was actually an easier jump… “in all the ways that your dad might have fallen short, God never does.”

But think about it. If someone leaves an abusive relationship.... a lot of times, even if they are with someone that is the exact opposite, they project that behavior on anyone else around them. Their trust is broken. And if they are fully loved, they dont receive it.

I dont know where you are today. but the first step in having profound love of God and profound love of people is believing you are loved in the first place....

Jesus:

feeling too sinful, too far from God or ashamed of your life story? See Jesus meet the woman at the well...

Wrestling with pride, innoculated with a lifetime in the church but too prideful to get to this submission place? Jesus meets the righteous Nicodemus in the middle of the night.

unworthy? Jesus calls a bunch of working class no bodies to build the kingdom.

feel like you have nothing to give? Jesus says let the children come to me

Our love is not self-originating. As we experience God’s love for us, we have an overflow of love for God and for others.

If the scribe knew who it was that he and others have been trying to trap in a lie.

If you knew today what Christ thinks of you.

this is why we sing songs like Waymaker… “That is who you are!”

“I am grateful I do not have to love—I have to allow love to love me into loving.”—E. Stanley Jones

ok, What does it look like?

Going through discontent and brokenness and surrender I want you to see what is on the other side.

Evidence of this love

Fruit of this stop:

Complete peace with God

John Wesley: “We are able to know a tranquility of Spirit that evades those who do not have such a relationship

Nonstop conversation (prayer)

Absence of fear (there is no fear in love…love drives out all fear…verse 18)

Sense of being Home:

“When you are with family and friends who accept you for who you are and will do their best to bless you, you are home.

Near effortless pursuit of his will

“Because the love relationship has become so fully reciprocal, doing the will of God becomes the most desirable objective in your life

Constant joy—and heartbreak

Eagerness to share His love

Closing.....

You are not far from the kingdom....Getting to the point of acknowledging that it is about loving God and loving others. That is bringing you right there.

There are so many that don’t see Jesus, do not know him if he is standing in front of them, or worse....just live with this truth without applying it.

We dont know what the scribe did. and the question we should ask ourselves is what does it take to not just be close to the kingdom of God but to be within it.

I think Mark leaves this open-ended for the reader. For us....