See From God’s Heart
03/30/08 AM
Reading: Mark 12:28-34
Introduction
There is no other commandment greater than these - Matthew reports Jesus as saying that all the rest of the law and the prophets hinges on these two laws. (Matthew 7:12) This is the teaching of the laws of Moses in a nutshell. The whole massive complex of Jewish rules and regulations could be boiled down to these two principles. They are simple enough for a child to understand, short enough for anyone to remember, sweeping enough to include every possibility, and strong enough to stand the test of time. God requires nothing less of his creation; these are the greatest commandments.
32 The scribe said to him, Right, Teacher; you have truly stated the HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM; 33 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 HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. The man recognized the important difference between God’s eternal principles and the earthly institutions he had established for man’s use in serving him.
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” - i.e., sensibly. Jesus not only observed the man’s intelligent response and his positive inclination toward Jesus, but he also saw that the man had considerable insight into spiritual things.
But not everyone sees things as did this scribe: read Luke 10:25-29
29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
This expert in O.T. Law had a clear grasp of the Law’s central requirements. But he was also aware that he fell short of fulfilling them. There are only three ways a person can react when that awareness dawns:
1.We can acknowledge we are sinners and appeal to God for mercy. (Not the option human nature will usually take.)
2.We can concentrate on the things we do well and pretend we do not fail in others. (This was the failing of the Pharisees in Jesus’ time Matthew 23:23.)
3.We can cut the Law’s requirements down by reinterpreting them, so we can live up to what are essentially lower standards.
It’s this third approach this Lawyer took. He wanted to define “neighbor” in such a way he could claim he had kept the commandment. This question was an attempt to limit the demands of the Law by suggesting that some people are neighbors while others are not. The lawyer was looking for minimal obedience while Jesus was looking for absolute obedience.
The perspective of this Lawyer was indicative of the Jews as a whole at the time of Christ. They were self-centric and legalistic in their spiritual view. Jesus tells the story of the “Good Samaritan” and at the end shifts the perspective of the Lawyer’s question by asking: v36-37 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”
I.We need a new perspective
A.A worldly perspective limits our ability to see.
1.The world’s perspective promotes the self-centric viewpoint seen in the second scribe.
a.We often evaluate from a personal worldly view of “what’s in it for me?”
b.We assess all in our lives based on the amount of comfort, or contentment, or pleasure, or accomplishment, or prestige, or power that we can derive from the events, things, and people to which we are exposed.
2.In viewing all that God has given to us through this worldly lens we miss the potential value, the very goodness, in His gifts.
B.This may be especially true when it comes to people.
1.We tend to rate most people not very high on the “potential worth to me” scale of the worldly perspective. We see them as aged, or diminished, and flawed and in our earthly opinion we gauge them as inferior and seek to minimize, marginalize, or if possible eliminate them from our lives completely.
2.And so we miss the goodness that God may have intended them to bring to our lives.
3.To change this pattern we need to learn to see from a new perspective. We need to retrain ourselves to evaluate our world and our lives from a different set of values.
4.We need to develop the ability to see God, ourselves, and others from the perspective of God, to see from God’s heart.
II. Seeing God: Loving Father
A.To begin to see from God’s heart we must acknowledge who God is – the great I AM.
1.Dueteronomy 6:4 “Hear, Oh Israel, The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” This is the OT verse quoted by Jesus.
a.He is not just any god. He is not an option or alternative. He is the one and only Lord God.
b.He is God Almighty, the Creator of all things, the sovereign Ruler and Authority over everything!
2.There is much written in the OT concerning the majesty and sovereignty of God but perhaps none as focused as the dissertations found throughout the book of Job.
a.Especially in Chapters 38-41 where God states His power through the examples of all He has created which leads to Job’s confession (read Job 42:1-6.)
b.Job had his perspective changed and now sees God from God’s heart. He acknowledges God as Sovereign to all.
B.But God is also Abba Father
1.When we see God and humbly submit as Job did we are ready to realize another aspect of the Father:
Romans 8:14-16 “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,”
III. Seeing Self: Beloved Child
A.The Greatest thing we will ever do is love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength.
1.We will experience the greatest joy and peace when we we seek after the knowledge, wisdom and understanding of His ways as our highest priority.
B.But the second greatest commandment is to love others as ourselves.
1.Before we can love others the way God desires us to love them, we must perceive ourselves as God sees us – His own beloved children.
Romans 8:16 “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God…”
2.Our God is a loving, merciful, gentle, and good Father, who wants a relationship of trust, love, and obedience with His children.
a.God desires good things for His children. Jesus illustrates this while speaking of prayer:
Matthew 7:11 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
3.To recognize that everything that comes from God comes from and by His goodness requires us to see from God’s heart.
a.1 Corinthians 2:12 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,”
4.We must overcome a world perspective that has made us self-protective and self-promotional and self-centered.
a.The world tells us in ways subtle and overt that we have to look out for number one, to take care of ourselves first and foremost, to trust only in ourselves.
b.When we were infants we had no problem believing that we deserved to be loved and cared for, regardless of whether we were hungry or satisfied, clean or dirty, happy or fussy.
c.But life and circumstances conspire to evaporate that spirit of trust and the world bombards us with its message of insecurity and selfishness.
5.When we experience the love of our ABBA God we can regain that spirit of trust, that feeling of security and can see ourselves from the heart of God as His beloved children.
IV.Seeing Others: Beloved Family
A.God loves each of us because we exist
1.God loved us before we knew Him, before we loved Him because we are His creation.
a.When we feel and come to trust in His love it frees us to see others from His heart.
B.We can see others for what they are
1.We see others for what they are, beloved and desired by God.
a.Some are part of our family, children the same as we; others are lost and in need of rescue but all are loved by God.
b.To see others from God’s heart is to realize that we are all a part of God’s plan and therefore a part of each other.
c.We can acknowledge that God has created us for the purpose and privilege of glorifying Him and loving Him and being loved by Him.
2.When we see from God’s heart we can share God’s intention for each other; to love and be loved.
3.And we can fulfill the second great commandment.
C.We can love as God loves us
1.1 Corinthians 13:1-7
2.Love is all these things but is not blind.
a.He did not condemn the woman brought before Him accused of adultery (John 8) but turned the perspective of her accusers and then He told her to sin no more.
b.Jesus does not turn a blind eye to our mistakes and sinfulness but He offers us redemption instead of rejection.
c.To see from God’s heart is to accept the worth of another in love and so also their weakness, their frailty, and their needs.
D.Accepting what we see from God’s heart
1.Changes the “me” to “we” and the “I” to “us.”
2.The night before His betrayal, Jesus’ thoughts and prayer were that all Christians would come to fully accept and love one another.
John 17:20-21 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
Conclusion:
Jesus tells us that the first commandment is to love God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul, and all our strength and to love others as ourselves. There are no commandments greater than these.
Invitation
