The Heart of True Religion
Mark 12:28-34; James 2:14-17
If you could ask Jesus just one question, what would it be? Would you ask about your future, whether you’ll be happy, rich, poor, long or short life? Would you ask about heaven and maybe loved ones who have gone on before? Or would you want a certain problem solved that you’ve worked on for a long time and still haven’t been able to get the answer? Well, in Mark, chapter 12, a Scribe came to Jesus with a question that I think is probably the most important question of all. He asked, Mrk 12:28 …"What commandment is the foremost of all?" Of all the 613 commandments in the Jewish law, which one is the most important?
Now, remember what has been going on before he asked this question. The Lord had been dealing with confrontations from the religious leaders. The Pharisees and Herodians, two enemies who teamed up and combined forces to trick Jesus, tried to sweet talk Him with flattery to manipulate Him into saying something against paying taxes. The Sadducees tried to weave a ridiculous “what if” scenario in their effort to disprove the idea of a resurrection, and then this Scribe stepped forward with his question concerning the law.
1. Love God with Everything
In His sovereign wisdom, Jesus distilled the entire OT into two inseparable commands that supersede all other commands. Mrk 12:29-31 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; [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."
Now, I don’t think the Scribe was trying to trap Jesus with this question because we can see from his reaction that he didn’t recoil, argue, or walk off in a huff at being bested. What he did instead was affirm what Jesus said. Mrk 12:32-33 The scribe said to Him, "Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that 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."
So, the Scribe agreed and basically reiterated what Jesus had said, and because his response was honest, the Lord told him, Mrk 12:34 …"You are not far from the kingdom of God." You’re not there yet, but you are close. You see, the problem is that in this sense, “close” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. You can be “close” to the kingdom but still be miles from it. Beloved, intellectual assent to truth, even profound truth like this, stops short of the transformation that entrance into the kingdom requires.
Jesus boiled everything down to Love God and Love Others. The greatest commandments, and it sounds so easy, doesn’t it? It’s simple, yet so incredibly difficult. Living this out is where the challenge is.
The Greek word for love that’s used here, the love we are to have for God and our fellow man, is agapao. It isn’t a mere sentiment or fleeting emotion, it’s sacrificial, willful devotion that reorients the entire life. In other words, it means God first and anything else second. The Lord’s answer began with the Shema, which is a prayer that every faithful Jew would recite twice daily. Deu 6:4-5 "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! [5] "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Heart, soul, and might (or strength), but when Jesus is quoted in Mark, the Lord adds “with all your mind” which is the inclusion of the intellect, the understanding, your thoughts. It means you think about God, you study His word, and you meditate on His truth. Your mind isn’t filled with worry, anxiety, or this world’s messages, but with God’s promises and His character.
And the others, heart, soul, might; well, the “heart” is the center of your emotions, affections, and desires. When you love God with all your heart then God is first place in your affections. He is the one you long for. Like David wrote, Psa 42:1 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.
Then, “with all your soul.” That’s your essence, your very life force. It’s means your identity is rooted in being a child of God. Your identity isn’t found in your job, your achievements, your relationships, or what others might think of you. Your identity first and last is Christian, child of God.
I’ve already mentioned the “mind”, so we’re left with “strength” or “might.” This is your energy, your actions, your physical life. It’s how you spend your time. How you use your body, and what you do with your hands. All your strength is directed toward loving and serving God.
But the truth is that we struggle with this, don’t we? One moment we love God, but the next, we’re focused on whatever this world throws at us. Our hearts get divided. We love God on Sunday, but Monday afternoon, we’re anxious at work, worried about test results. It’s so difficult for us to remain focused on God because we live in a world that is constantly, and without let up, competing for our attention and affection. Our phones beep or buzz with notifications, and our calendars and schedules overflow with all the commitments that we’ve piled up. So, God gets pushed out to the margins.
Friends, loving God with everything is not about perfect performance. It’s about *passionate pursuit. It’s about saying, “God, I want You more than I want comfort, more than I want success, more than I want to be right, and more than I want my own way.” The kind of love that Jesus is talking about—the kind of love that David wrote about, is a desperate, thirsty, all-consuming love that says, “I need You. Nothing else will satisfy. Only You, Lord.”
Beloved, when we love God with everything, it changes everything. Our priorities shift. Our fears diminish. Our joy increases. Our purpose becomes clear. When God is at the center, everything else falls into its proper place. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He didn’t stop with only loving God. He connected the first commandment with the second one.
2. Love Others as Yourself
Mrk 12:31 "The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
Understand this…the first and second commandments are inseparable. They’re connected. In the same way that you cannot have the Son without the Father, and you cannot have the Father without the Son, you also cannot truly love God if you don’t love your neighbor, and you cannot love your neighbor without loving God.
The apostle John put it even more bluntly. 1Jn 4:20-21 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. [21] And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
It’s strong language, isn’t it? Yeah, strong, but true. Our love for God is demonstrated in how we treat the people around us. Our spouse, our children, our neighbors, coworkers, and get this—even that person who cut you off in traffic, that family member who pushes your buttons, or those persons who are your polar opposite in politics, values, morals, and religion. Yeah. I said religion. We are to love the Muslims, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and all the others who have fallen victim to the various lies and deceits of Satan, the cults.
Love your neighbor as yourself. How do you love yourself? Don’t you feed yourself when you’re hungry? Don’t you rest or take a nap when you’re tired? You also protect yourself from harm and forgive yourself when you make a mistake. You give yourself grace on your bad days, and you pursue those things that are good for you. Well, Jesus tells us to do that for others! Do that for others!
In Luke’s gospel, we’re told that this Scribe or Lawyer wanted to justify himself and asked Jesus, Luk 10:29 …"And who is my neighbor?" You see, if we can eliminate those people we don’t like, then we can fulfill this command. I mean, it’s easy to love those who love you. To love those who are lovable. But those Samaritan’s, those Romans, the foreigners who don’t look like us or have our values, in today’s world—the Democrats, the Conservatives, the hippies, the commies, now they’re easy to hate. So, if we can eliminate them as neighbors, then we should be ok.
But Jesus wasn’t having anything to do with that kind of thinking, that kind of legalistic mumble jumbo that would give license to our hatred. So, He gave His answer in the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the fact that all mankind is our neighbor. We can’t pick and choose. Everyone, whether we like them or not, they are our neighbor and we are to love them as we love ourselves!
And friends, I’ll admit right now—Loving Others is hard! Some people are difficult. Some have hurt us. Some have stabbed us in the back. Some have spread lies and gossiped about us. They drain our energy, and if we try to love them, they don’t love us back! But here’s a truth you need to remember: *We cannot love others well when our focus drifts from God! When we are not connected to the source of love, we run dry. We’ve got nothing to give. But when we’re loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that love will overflow and splash out onto others.
3. Living It Out
We cannot love others well when our focus drifts from God! You know, it’s one thing to for me to tell you what love means, what agapao means, but if we want to get the full force of its meaning, and truly understand how this type of love plays out in our own lives, then we need to turn to the NT book of James where the ½ brother of our Lord, and the pastor of the Jerusalem church shoots straight through the heart of superficial religion and phony love for the brethren.
Jas 2:14-17 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? [15] If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, [16] and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? [17] Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
Contrary to what some might think, James is not contradicting the doctrine of justification by faith. He is not talking about being saved by works but rather shining a spot light and exposing counterfeit faith. Beloved, true love, true agape love for God inevitably pours out in love for neighbor, not in words alone—but in deeds. In other words, the man who claims devotion to the Lord while ignoring the shivering brother or sister without food, drink, clothes, medical attention, or whatever their great need is, well, that man’s faith is dead—nekra, lifeless, barren. He truly has no faith at all.
Friends, we live in an age of easy-believism and profession-without-possession Christianity, but these texts confront us with divine reality. Divine reality that even the Scribe in our text understood. Mrk 12:33 …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."
Even he understood The Heart of True Religion, that religion isn’t about rituals and rules. It’s about our relationship with God and our relationship with others. You can go through all the religious motions you want, but if you’re not loving God and loving others, then you’re missing the whole point. I’m thinking this is one reason why Jesus told him that he was “not far from the Kingdom of God.” He was close. He understood, but understanding just isn’t enough. We have to live it out. We have to be doers of the word and not a hearers only!
So, let me wrap this up today with some recommendations, some specific, practical steps you can take toward living this out. When it comes to *LOVING GOD, maybe a good first step would be to commit to a daily 15–20-minute quiet time in the Scriptures and prayer. No scrolling on the phone. No TV in the background. Fifteen minutes where it’s just you and God. Read His word. Talk to Him. Listen for His voice. If you’re not doing this already, then start first thing in the morning.
The second thing you can do is try a weekly fast. Fast from a meal or meals, from social media, from TV, or from whatever it is that tends to distract you from focusing on God. This isn’t about earning God’s favor; it’s about creating some space for you to refocus on Him.
A third thing you can do is start journaling. Begin a gratitude journal, a Bible reading journal where you write down what you’re grateful for or your thoughts on what you read that day, or maybe a journal of your prayers—write them out. I find that writing things like this tends to sharpen my thoughts and make things become clearer in my mind.
Now, when it comes to *LOVING OTHERS, the first thing you could do is to reach out to someone who’s been on your heart. You know who I’m talking about—that person who keeps coming to mind, the friend you’ve been meaning to call, the family member you’ve been worried about. Stop ignoring that prompting from the Holy Spirit and send them a text, make a call, write a note, or how about this—go visit them. Let them know you’re thinking about them and praying for them.
Second, serve a neighbor with a practical need. Bring a meal to someone you know who’s sick or maybe just broke and can’t afford to buy anything to eat. You could run an errand for an elderly person, or maybe just sit and listen to them as they talk because they’re lonely. Look around you. Who needs help? Who needs encouragement? Then serve that neighbor and fill their need.
Third, and this might be a tough one—reconcile with someone you’ve been avoiding or in conflict with. Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there someone you need to seek forgiveness from? Someone you need to apologize to? Remember what Jesus taught… Mat 5:23-24 "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, [24] leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Beloved, God cares more about your relationships than your religious activities, so, make it right this week. Stop putting off what you’ve known all along you should have done or should have been doing.
Friend, I believe Jesus is saying something to you today. You’re here. You’ve sang the songs. You’ve prayed the prayers. You’ve listened to me preach this sermon. But what is Jesus saying to your heart? Is He saying, “Well done.” Or is He saying, “You’re not far from the kingdom of God.”
Are you willing to take the next step and go beyond being a hearer of the word to being a doer of the word? Are you ready to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength? And are you also ready to love your neighbor as yourself? Because friend, this is the heart of true religion. Love God and Love Others.
Would you pray with me? Father, thank You for Your word this morning, and thank You for the clarity and simplicity of what You’ve called us to: Love You and Love Others.
Lord, we confess that we struggle with this. Our hearts get divided. Our focus drifts. Our love tends to grow cold. Help us, Lord. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit and give us the desire and the power to love You and to love others as You have loved us and as You have commanded. –Amen
