The Greatest Thing
Mark 12:28-34 28 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?" 29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 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: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." 32 "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 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." 34 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.
Intro: What is the greatest thing a person can do in life? Save a life? Win a Nobel Prize? Invent a cure for cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, diabetes or the common cold? What is the most important achievement someone might attain today? Bringing peace to the middle East? Discovering a new form of energy so we do not have to spend $3 a gallon on gasoline? We’d all like that. How about solving the world’s hunger and poverty problems? That would be pretty great! How about coming up with an effective solution for all of the crime and violence and waste of human life? Pretty noble aspirations, wouldn’t you say? Well, an intelligent teacher approached Jesus and asked Him what was the greatest of all the commandments that God had given to man. The answer Jesus gave him, in a nutshell, is the main truth I’d like to examine today – which is this:
Prop: The greatest thing we can ever do is love God with everything we are.
Interrogative: Now, you might be thinking, “Thanks, Pastor. I already knew that. Can we go home now?” Well, I hope you will stick around for awhile, because I think it will help us if we look at what it really means to love God with all that we are. How can we love God in this way?
TS: I would like to focus on four characteristics of the kind of love we should have for the Lord our God.
I. Love’s Appropriate Affection (Love the Lord with all your heart and soul)
-Vv. 29-30 are found in Deut. 6:4-5. These verses were recited by the Jews (and still are by many). The Jews call this the Shema, which is the Hebrew word for hear or listen, and is in fact the first Hebrew word of Dt. 6:4. Now, it probably would not serve us well to badmouth the Jews for following the ritual of reciting the Shema each day. We all have rituals we follow as well. Nevertheless, if the ritual has no connection with the heart, then it loses its power and significance. For example, weddings ceremonies are rituals that remind us how sacred marriage is. However, if we had a nice ceremony, but our heart was not really in the marriage, then the ritual of the wedding would have been a grand waste of time and money. Besides that, we would have been lying when we made vows to love, honor, and cherish one another till death do us part.
-So, we are to love the Lord our God with our heart and soul. By the way, when you see the word, LORD, in the OT, in most versions it stands for the special covenant name of God: Yahweh. The Jews viewed God’s name with such reverence and awe, they did not want to speak it or write it in any way that might be considered common or without the proper focus of worship. Eventually, most of them discontinued its use altogether, for fear of breaking the 3rd commandment- Do not take the Lord’s name in vain. Perhaps they erred on the side of caution, but sometimes I wonder if we do not also err on the side of over familiarity or disrespect. That is just something to think about.
-Now, what kind of love is the Lord our God worthy to receive? Well, at the very least, the Lord our God is worthy of the affection that comes from our heart and soul. The Hebrews regarded the heart as the seat of affections. We generally view the heart as the place where our emotions are. The heart is where we feel joy and sadness, anger and peace, fear and courage, love and hatred. We were created with the capacity to do at least 3 things: feeling, thinking, and doing. We should not live our lives based solely on our feelings, but they are part of who we are, and they are important. The Bible tells us what to do with our affections: Set them on things above, and love the Lord with them.
-We need to guard our hearts against anything that would take away from our affection for the Lord. If we become enamored with other things, we may find ourselves with a cold heart towards God. Listen to what the Bible says in 1 John 2:15: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” So, let’s not get so into the things of the world that the world gets into us. Let’s get into loving the Lord our God with all of our affections. We should feel strongly in our love for God. It should be a passion that wells up within us, compelling us to do things we normally might not do.
-Love’s proper affection includes loving God with all of the passion that is within us.
TS: Next, how we can love God with the mental capacity that He has given us?
II. Love’s Deeper Understanding
A. Love the Lord with all your mind
-Love the Lord to such an extent that you hang on His every word, the Torah (OT), the New Testament- study, memorize, meditate, personalize, etc. Be a thinker! Ponder the things of God. Ask questions. Be a learner (disciple). Develop the mind God has given you so that you might understand and know that He is the Lord. Just because His thoughts are far above our thoughts does not mean that we should never seek higher thoughts or develop in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. I believe the Jews in Moses’ time and following would have understood this part of the Shema to be a specific call to study the Torah, God’s revelation/instruction to them through Moses. Later, the Torah came to include all of what we call the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets.
-What do we do with this information about Jewish understanding? How does this fit into our daily lives? Well, for starters, read your Bible. However, don’t just read it because you think it is your Christian duty, read it because it helps you know the Lord more. Realize that as you study God’s word (both the OT & NT), you are loving Him with the mind He has given you. You are seeing Him, hearing Him, and experiencing Him in a new way each time you read His words. Do not neglect filling your mind with the bread that man cannot live without- every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
-There is more involved in love’s proper understanding. In order to love God, we must understand the necessity of loving man, whom God created. I believe that is one reason Jesus put this word right on the heels of the first and greatest commandment.
B. Love your neighbor as yourself
-This part of Jesus’ answer also ties in with love’s proper understanding. It comes from Leviticus 19:18. What does the phrase “Love your neighbor as yourself,” mean? Most of us have probably always heard that it meant “Love your neighbor the same way you love yourself.” That seems fairly logical, but what if a person has a low self-image? Does that mean they do not need to love their neighbor very much? A careful study of the language reveals that the idea here is probably “Love your neighbor who is like yourself.” Your fellow man is as you are – “as yourself.” He is like you.
-Loving man is one way of loving God. We should love our neighbor because he is like us – created in the image of God. Do you love God? Then you should love those created in His image. Animals were not created in God’s image. However, many people don’t seem to have any trouble loving animals. It is people they have a problem with. But remember; only humans were created in God’s image. We must learn to appreciate every person, if only on the basis that they have some remains of the image of God in them. If we despise other people because they are not like us on the outside, then we are failing to recognize and acknowledge God as the sole Creator and Father of mankind. Racism has no place in the life of a Christian. Social prejudice has no place in the life of a Christian. All people were created equal in the sense that all bear the image of their Creator. That image may be hard to recognize sometimes, due to sin. However, God wants to restore His image in every believer from every tribe, tongue, and nation. - -That is why we are called to be like Jesus in all that we say and do. Romans 8:29 “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” One way we can help restore God’s image in us is by loving God’s image in our fellow man. That means loving them through God’s eyes. We must learn to love people as they are, but also for who they can become in Christ. Loving and accepting people as they are is very important, but it is not enough! Do we love them enough to help them become who they were created to be? Do we love them enough to share Christ with them and then disciple them, so that the image of God might be restored in them?
-TS: That leads us to the next characteristic of our love for God.
III. Love’s Best Effort (Love the Lord with all your strength)
-In keeping with what we just talked about (loving our neighbor), we may need to be reminded that love requires effort. There are some people who are so easy to love. For example, I have no trouble loving my little girl, Zoe. I mean, what’s not to love? She is cute, she’s smart, she’s gifted beyond belief, she is amazing! And what’s more, she loves me back! She gives me these tight little hugs and kisses. You can’t tell that she’s got me wrapped around her finger, can you? Some people are so easy to love – they see things the way I do, they agree with me on everything, they laugh at my jokes, and tell me what a wonderful person I am. Some people are so easy to love!
-Then there are what I’ve heard called the EGR people. They see things differently than I do; they disagree with me often; they don’t laugh at my corny jokes, because they’re not all that funny; they miss perfectly good opportunities to stroke my ego and tell me what a wonderful person I am. They just don’t seem to get it the way I think they should.
-By the way, EGR means Extra Grace Required. There are people out there somewhere who will require extra grace on your part. You will need to draw from resources greater than your own to love these people the way God wants you to love them. However, God is more than willing to give you that extra grace to give to them. Last time I checked, God wasn’t having a shortage on grace. It is the one thing that has not doubled in price over the last couple of years.
-My point, though I have been facetious, is that love for people will often require a lot of effort and inconvenience. But, we need to remember, the way we love people reflects our love for God.
-Now, knowing that it will require our strength and effort to love our fellow man, and that this is one way we can love God, what else does it mean to love the Lord our God with all of our strength?
-Aside from simply being descriptive of the totality of love, I believe it may have to do with our obedience, our work and our worship, which may be more related than you would think.
-When Moses gave this word to Israel after 40 years of wandering in the desert, it is possible that he was contrasting Israel’s past life in Egypt with their future in the Land of Promise. In Egypt, what were they forced to do with all of their strength? They were forced to labor, working day after day for Pharaoh. They were oppressed and were forced to give their strength to Pharaoh.
-However, when God delivered them from Egypt, He not only told them to rest on the 7th day, keeping the Sabbath holy, but because they were now free from the tyranny of Egypt, He wanted their strength directed back to Him where it belonged. However, no longer was it under duress that Israel would serve and work, but it was a labor of love for their God. Whatever their work in the land of promise, it was to be done as unto the Lord.
-Paul emphasizes this principle in the New Testament: Colossians 3:22-23 “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” I truly believe that we can love God with all of our strength- even when we are working on our jobs.
-A Christian should give everything his or her best effort. There is no excuse for sloppy, half-hearted work from a believer. We may not enjoy our current job, and the grass may be looking very green elsewhere, but until God opens a different door, be and do the best that you can where you are.
-However, this is not just limited to our jobs: Paul says in Colossians 3:17 “And 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.” Our worship should reflect the strength of our love for God. We already talked about passion, but strength or intensity further characterize how we express our love to God, whether we are singing, praying, or worshipping in some other way. God deserves our best!
-TS: That leads us to the final point, which is brief, but important.
IV. Love’s Proper Proportion (Love the Lord with all…)
-That little word, all, says so much! The proportion of our love for God should reflect the proportion of His love for us. We love because He first loved us. We are able to love Him (and others), because He first loved us and gave Himself for us. 1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” In response, how great should our love be for our Father, who has given us every good and perfect gift from above?
-Any affection that we hold back from God that makes it less than all is misplaced affection. Any willful lack or neglect of understanding who God is and what He says to us through His word indicates an unwillingness to love Him with all of our minds. Giving less than our best effort with the strength and abilities that God has given us freely shows a failure to recognize Him as Lord – the One who is the source of our every breath and our every heartbeat.
-What difference might we make in this world if we took seriously this word to love the Lord with all! I stand convicted before you that I have not and do not always love the Lord the way He deserves to be love. However, rather than excusing ourselves by saying, “Nobody does that,” or “Nobody could ever do that,” I believe the Lord is calling us to examine ourselves and ask Him how we might love Him more. Ask Him, “Lord, how can I love you with more of my affections? How can I love you with more of my mind? How can I love you with more of my strength?” Understand, we must commit ourselves to Him wholeheartedly, but He may speak to you about some specific actions that you need to take in order to begin to love Him with all. “The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Conclusion: How’s your love life? Are you loving the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul? Are you loving Him with all of your mind and getting to know Him through His word? Are you giving your relationship with Him your best effort? Are you investing time and resources into serving and loving Him? What proportion of your life is really His? Does He have all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength? How about the neighbor part? Are you loving your neighbor who is like you?
-If you come up short in any of these areas, the good news is that God will help us change. Maybe a lot of what we talked about seemed a bit strange to you, because you do not have a loving relationship with the Lord. You may not be far from the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus told the teacher who approached Him, but being close to it is not the same as being in it. Will you start a relationship with Jesus today? He is the only One who is worthy of all your affections and commitment. I’d love to speak with you after we pray if you want to being a relationship with the Lord.
-If you already know the Lord, but need His help today in loving Him better in one of these areas, would you just take a moment and ask Him for His help? He wants to help us become who we were meant to be.
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