The Most Important New Year's Resolution, Part 1

After church about a month ago I was talking to Stephen Overholt and I told him that I’d be back preaching January 2nd. He looked surprised, and apparently he’s much more realistic than I am.

We had Jude Eric Durso December 24th, then Ashley’s dad got COVID pretty bad, was hospitalized, and then our kids got COVID, and then we got COVID. So this is maybe the longest we’ve ever been away from church in our married lives, and we didn’t like it one bit.

I’m thankful for Michael and Mark who filled the pulpit while I was gone, and I’m thankful for you, our church family, for continuing to faithfully serve one another.

I sometimes like, at the beginning of the year, to pull out of the series we’re in and to take some time recalibrating and reconsidering the big idea of what we’re doing here. Everybody’s already in the New Year’s Resolution mood, so why not let God’s Word help us recalibrate as we consider another year? This year, I’m actually going to take the next section in Mark - because it’s perfect for beginning a new year.

Because usually when you’re making resolutions, you’re thinking about the things that really matter. You’re thinking about the biggest priorities. You’re thinking about all the important things you never got to last year because you got so busy.

This passage is about the most important part of your life. In our text this morning we encounter the greatest call upon our lives. Our highest obligation. Our most noble calling. Our ultimate responsibility. In this text one of the biggest questions is answered: What is the most important thing God requires of us? And the answer is love.

The title this morning is, “The Most Important New Year’s Resolution.” Read Mark 12:28-34. Remember, this section of Mark contains the historical account of the last week of Jesus’ life. He’s in Jerusalem. He entered on Sunday (described in chapter 11), he cleared the temple on Monday, and he’s teaching in the temple courts on Tuesday. The last month or so we’ve been studying his interactions in the temple.

He just spoke with the Sadduccees who denied the resurrection. Before that is was the Pharisees and Herodians. Before that it was the chief priests, scribes, and elders. In other words, just about every political and religious power has confronted him, and Jesus has demonstrated his superiority over them all.

Now, we get a little bit of a reprieve from the antagonistic attacks of those groups, and we’re told of an individual scribe. This man would have been a scholar, responsible for transmitting the writings of the Old Testament and other Jewish writings. He was well-educated, and apparently he arrives while Jesus is answering these various disputes.

He liked Jesus’ answers, so he decides to ask a question of Jesus. “Which commandment is the most important of all?” The rabbis of Jesus’ day debated this question regularly. There were, in the Pentateuch, a total of 613 distinct commandments. Some scribes, like this one, were interested in prioritizing them. They considered some laws, “heavy” laws, others were considered “light;” some were essential, some were not essential.

And sometimes, Rabbis would try to summarize the entire law into great principles. One famous account tells of a Gentile man questioning the famous Jewish rabbi Hillel: “Make me a proselyte on condition that you teach me the whole law while I stand on one foot.” Hillel replied, “What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbor: this is the whole law, the rest is commentary; go and learn.” That’s not a bad summary, and it’s similar to Jesus’ expression of the golden rule.

Here they’re asking Jesus for the greatest commandment. Which is the “most important” God has given to man?

Our sermon this morning will have three parts. First, the primacy of love, in which we’ll look at Jesus’ answer to this question. Second, the cultivation of love, where we’ll step out of Mark and consider how to grow in our love for God and neighbor. And third, substitute love, where we’ll take note of the scribe’s response, and be warned by his insight.

First, the primacy of love. Look at verses 29-31. Here’s the answer. “Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus alludes to Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Jesus points that out and puts it front and center: this is the greatest commandment: to love him and him alone with every aspect of your being, and connects it with Leviticus 19:18, which commands to love your neighbor. The highest thing a human being can do, the most noble function, the most fundamental good - is love. First, love for God, and overflowing from love for God, a love for neighbor.

The greatest command Mohammed gave the muslims was to “submit.” Jesus gave us a different answer: Love. The greatest commandment isn’t about knowledge. Isn’t about education. Isn’t about a career. Isn’t about philanthropy. Isn’t about success. It’s about love.

By God’s standards, the best lives are lives of love. In fact, think about 1 Cor. 13:1-3 with me. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Let me paraphrase: “Without love, heavenly angelic speech is annoying. Without love, theological knowledge and philosophical brilliance helps no one. Without love, powerful, risk-taking faith is meaningless. Without love, giving generously to the poor is unprofitable. Without love, even laying down your own life is pointless.”

Maurice Roberts writes, “In these familiar words we possess one of the most central principles of the Christian faith. It is this. No religious act is of any value in God’s sight if it does not accompany and flow from Christian love.”

Church, the deeds you do that are not expressions of genuine love for God and neighbor are worthless. Formalism - external-only Christianity - is so dangerous!

There are some Christians who go years without ever grasping the centrality of love! Have you realized that the evaluation of your life will be a measurement of your love? Not the size of your bank account, the breadth of your popularity, or even the recognition of your ministry.

Let’s look at the text more closely. “Hear O Israel!” This is an announcement, a declaration for God’s people. “The Lord our God” - he is our God, he is our Lord. And it says, “the Lord is one.” He is not one of many gods, he is One. He is Unique. He is set apart.

Here we see the primacy of love for God. Agapao. To have affection for, to adore, to admire, to cherish, to delight in, to take pleasure in. We are to love, delight in, rejoice in, cherish, and treasure God himself. Not primarily his gifts, but himself. Not primarily our service to him, but himself, for his own sake. We are to love God because of who he is.

We are to love God with all our hearts. The heart is a person’s command center. From the heart a person thinks, evaluates, considers, feels, judges, decides, rejoices, grieves, chooses. The heart is the inner you. Your heart - your mental and emotional faculties - ought to be fully engulfed in a love for God.

We are to love God with all our souls. The Greek for soul is psuche, where we get psyche. It is the life-giving principle within you, your spirit. Your innermost being should love, adore, treasure, and delight in God.

We are to love God with all our minds. Your mind is the mental, thinking, contemplating, reasoning aspect of your being. All your thinking and reasoning faculties are to be set to work toward loving God. All the brainpower you have is to be used in service of love for God.

We are to love God with all our strength. If God has given you strength to walk, let every step be made in love for God. If God has given you strength to speak, let every word be aligned with love for God. If God has put strength in your hands, let all your work be an expression of love for God. While you have breath, every ounce of strength you have should be aimed at loving God.

And in case this isn’t clear enough, there’s another little word in there, 4 times in verse 30. “All.” Holos. It means “whole, entire, complete, everything.” All your heart. All your soul. All your mind. All your strength. Jesus claims entire ownership of every single aspect of your being - body and soul, mental and physical. All of who we are is to love, adore, and cherish the living God.

Love for God ought to be the defining feature of our lives. The kind of thing they’d put on your gravestone: “He loved his God.” “She Adored Her God.” God was her treasure; God was his delight. Consider it; what do people know you by? What do they think your delight is? What would they say at your funeral?

What Jesus is saying here is that the most important thing for us to hear; the one thing we should be most concerned about in 2022; scratch off everything else off your list of resolutions, pare it all the way down, and live for one all-consuming passion: to love God with all you’ve got.

It is more important that you love God than you make money, it is more important that you love God than you have an easy life; it is more important that you love God than you accomplish your goals; it is more important that you love God than you establish a career or live a healthy and safe life.

Of all the things you’ve thought about as you begin to plan your year, I wonder if you’ve thought, “How can I cultivate a deeper love for God this year?”

And notice how Jesus connects this idea of love for God to love for neighbor. He affirms the idea that there is a way to summarize and encapsulate all of the Old Testament commands. Except, he understands something profound: it is impossible to separate love for God and love for neighbor. They are so profoundly interlocked that one cannot be said to love God if one does not love neighbor: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

To love your neighbor means that “we want for them the same treatment we would want for ourselves, if we were in their place.” We should want our neighbors to be

If a good is in your power to hold for yourself or to give to your neighbor, the Christian should give it to their neighbor.

Church, we would be the best neighbors in our communities because we actually love the people God has put around us. We actually are willing to care for them as much as we care for our own families.

Do you love your neighbors? Maybe we should back up: Do you know your neighbors? Are you concerned about their concerns?

Christians burst with love for God and it flows out toward their neighbors. This is the great goal of their lives. This is the grand priority, the biggest obligation, the point of their lives. Don’t get it wrong, church: this is why you exist: to love God and to love people.

Substitute Love. Look at verse 32. The scribe responds “You are right, Teacher.” You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other beside him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

He essentially reiterates what Jesus said and states his agreement. He adds one more thing though at the end of verse 33: that love of God and neighbor is “much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

A burnt offering and a sacrifice was a religious practice that God required of his people. They were meant to be expressions of faith and devotion and love of God. The problems occurred when God demanded their hearts and they made sacrifices. God called for their love and they made a burnt offering.

That’s what Israel did; that’s what we do. God wants our hearts, he wants our love. And we think that religious exercises will do. He wants our affection, and we commit to more rigorously go through the motions. It’s like a wife saying to her husband, “I just want you to love me,” and the husband works longer hours. Wife: “No I just want you to love me, to delight in me.” And the husband buys a bigger house. “No, I want you to love me.” And the husband sends her away to a beautiful resort. These externals can never replace actual love for God.

We do a bunch of Christian things. One of the most dangerous things one could do in response to this sermon is dedicate himself or herself to more religious activity, reading, praying, fellowshipping, serving, ministering, evangelizing - without addressing your heart. Because if the heart is not motivated by love, it’s worthless activity.

So you ask, “What should I do then? How can I make sure my response is not just formalism?”

If you look at Revelation 2, Jesus confronts the church in Ephesus for their lack of love. They’ve got some good things going for them in verses 1-3, but verse 4 says, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Verse 5 gives three steps to restore our love. 1) Remember therefore from where you have fallen. 2) Repent. This is a change of mind, change of heart, resulting in a change of behavior. It is a posture of humility before God, a recognition of your own failures, and an embrace of God’s grace. And 3) Do the works you did at first.

Remember. Repent. Do.