Love God and Neighbor – the Big Ones

Mark 12:29

November 2, 2003

 

It is interesting to take note some of the things that prompt people to ask questions in a public setting. Leading into the passage before us this morning appears to be a public debate. A teacher of the law seems to be listening in on the debate. It’s a heated debate between Jesus and the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes. Three groups are engaged in debate with Jesus. Their intent was to trap him, to hurt him, to embarrass him, and to derail his mission. Yet Mark says “one of the teachers of the law who was there did three things:

 

1)     He listened to the debate. Some people love a debate. Obviously this was an interesting one. Mark says, “He came and heard them debating.”

2)     Second, he made an observation an insightful observation. His observation was that Jesus had given them a good answer to their trap question. He acknowledged that Jesus was sharp in the answers he gave them.

3)     Third, he asked Jesus a question: “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” He was prompted to ask that question based on the good answer Jesus had given the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. He raised a question that was of obvious interest to many. “Of all the commandments, which is the most important one?” There were lots of commandments. The Jewish record indicates that there were some 613 commandments. Of these there were 248 positive, and 365 negative commandments. It’s hard to imagine such large number of commandments. Had I lived during those days I certainly would have been delighted to hear the scribe ask this question, “Which is the most important one?”  The wonderful answer Jesus gave is what prompted this scribe to ask his question. I pray that you too are prompted to ask Jesus questions about important things in your life. He still provides the best answers. You can trust his answers for your life. I don’t know that you are struggling with today. I don’t need to know. But I do need to tell you that whatever it is you should behave life this scribe and ask him your question since he has the best answers to life questions.

 

Now, listen to Jesus answer to the question about the most important commandment. “The most important one, Jesus answered, 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.”

What an answer to their question! What insight! What wisdom! What divine message for them and for us. He took 613 commandments and boiled all of them down to love. He was not caught off guard. He didn’t need to take some time to do a little research. He didn’t need to say, “Let’s pray about it.” He gave them an on-the-spot answer to his question about the most important commandment. The key to all the commandments is love.

 

Now, I think we need be address some baggage in our background in the church regarding what it means to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. Here is the baggage as I remember it growing up in the church. The accepted and standard way to show one’s love for the Lord was by getting happy in the Lord. To get happy in the Lord was to demonstrate just how much you loved the Lord. If you shouted during the unending singing of the refrain by the choir or congregation, you showed that you loved the Lord our God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Another part of that baggage was to show that you love the Lord our God by your passionate testimony. In the church I grew up in we placed a lot of emphasis on personal testimonies. How often I heard members saying that they loved the Lord. They often sang a song: “I love the Lord he heard my cry and pitied every grown. Long as I live and trouble rise I’ll haste around the throne.” Testimonies like that were clear indications that you “loved the Lord our God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all our mind and with all your strength.”

 

Another part of that baggage was busyness. Doing stuff in the church was suppose to be a clear indicator of those that loved the Lord our God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind and with all their strength. They did everything and became stumbling blocks to others that wanted to serve in God’s kingdom.

 

As I hear Jesus answer in Mark’s Gospel, I am not convinced that emotional catharsis, passionate-personal testimonies, and busyness meet his requirement of loving the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. No, by no means does it measure up to what he is calling for from his followers.

 

I believe Jesus is calling for his followers to love the Lord our God with every fiber of their beings. It cannot be a half-hearted love of God. Here 99.5 will not do. It is all or none. It’s got to be from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. It’s got to be real, real, real!

 

Now, I must say based on my observation of the love I see between we don’t know how to love God or man. We talk love. But we don’t love God or man, as I believe Jesus is calling us to love. So how do we love God the way Jesus says we are to love him.

 

First, I want to urge you to pray and ask God to teach you to love him and to love your brothers and sisters. I hear people praying about lots of things in churches. But I think we need to pray to God and ask him to teach us how to love him and how to love one another. We need to get it right. When you don’t know how to do something, God wants us to ask him. I am reminded what Solomon did when he didn’t know how to lead God’s people. He prayed and asked God at Gibeon to give him wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people.” He prayed and asked God. I believe we need to do the same. God teach me how to love you with all our heart. Lord teach me to love all of my brothers and sisters. I encourage you to pray that prayer to God.

 

Second, hear what the Scriptures says about why we are to love God with all our hearts… God gave us his son who died for us. Scriptures teach that throughout the Bible. We can never match the depth of love that God gave us. We cannot pay him back; we cannot do anything equal to what he did for us. Why should we love him so much?

 

1 Cor. 6:20  “You were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

1 Cor. 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

Ephesians 5:1 “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Col 3: 12-17 “12Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

 

Third, Jesus tells us how to love him and the Father. In John 14: 23 and 24 he says:

 

 23Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. "

 

He commands us to love one another. The second most important commandment is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” I just wonder if Christians remember that the scripture is in the Bible. This is the second most important commandment. We are to love one another. In another Scripture Jesus says that the only way that men will know that you are my disciples is that you have love one for another. Again, the Bible says, “Owe no man anything but to love one another. The scribe adds a significant emphasis when he responds to Jesus’ answer. He says, “to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Burnt offerings were those animals that we were completely consumed by fire on the altar. Sacrifices were not fully and completely consumed by fire.

 

Lord I want you to teach me to love you with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind and with all my strength. I want to love you because I realize that you gave your life for me. I want to love by being obedient to you. I want to love you so I can live with you. I want to love you because you are the one and only God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” I want to love my brothers and sisters because you told me to do so. I want to do it even when it’s hard to do so. I want to do it because you made it your second most important commandment. I want to love them because they are yours.