Love God And Love Your Neighbor : 1st Commandment Series

Open your Bibles to Mark 12 today as we begin our Summer Series entitled “Love God and Love your Neighbor”

We are going to examine the 10 Commandments while focusing on Jesus is summary of the commandments found in the Gospels. We will answer the questions: What role does the law play in the history of redemption? Understanding that we need a rescuer and we are unable to save ourselves by keeping the law. Why did God demand obedience to his law, if it could never serve to bring us to Him? We will learn that the law was given to us by God in the Old Testament to points us to what was to come. Jesus would fulfill the law not only my keeping it perfectly for us, but also by clearly defining it. Jesus not only obeyed the law perfectly, but the way Jesus lived and the things He said shines a new light on the law. It is through Jesus’ life we see the truest meaning and depth of the law.

We will begin in Mark 12 verse 28. Hear the word of the Lord.

READ FROM THE BIBLE

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides 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.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

(Mark 12:28-34)

PRAY

The big truth is: Jesus is the one true God over all creation and He alone deserves our worship.

It is important to understand that the bible is several true stories telling one, over arching story.

Every good story begins with an Author. God is the Author of all scripture. Under the complete influence and direction of the Holy Spirit, God used man to communicate to us in a language we could understand. God uses Moses to write the first 5 books of the bible. God’s story begins in Genesis with the story of creation. How He spoke and created the earth, sky, sun and moon. He spoke and filled the earth with water and vegetation. God spoke and He created all the animals and live stock. Then the crown of His creation was man. Man was created differently then all the rest of creation. Then God said,

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

When God was finished He said that His creation was good. Man’s purpose was to worship God and care for and have demotion over His creation. In Genesis 2 we read of God’s goodness and provision.

…out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

In the garden was also the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)

God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

And the He commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17).

God looks down at His creation and proclaims it is good with one exception. He saw that it was not good for man to be alone. So God created the woman, a perfect union, that beautifully completed and complemented the man perfectly. God saw everything that he had made, and declared it to be very good. (Genesis 1:31)