Priority 1
Mark 12:28-34
September 8, 2002
“Love From ‘Ground Zero’”
12 months ago, it wasn’t a place; rather, it was a concept, a term we used to describe the center of things. Now, everyone in America knows of it as a place, a geographic location on a map. It’s called "Ground Zero". Never will we hear that term again and fail to think of the site where almost a year ago two massive towers came crashing to the ground. Etched on our minds and consciences are the sights and sounds of that horrifying 102 minutes, the span of time between 8:46 AM, when the first jetliner plowed into the North Tower of the WTC, and 10:28 AM, the time when that same North Tower followed the South Tower in collapsing to the ground. The most current count suggests that 2803 people perished in that period of time, including as many as 200 who reached the horrifying conclusion that leaping from 80+ stories in the air to concrete below was the best of the available options. That day changed our lives--though sadly, for most Americans, not by virtue of causing them to turn to God. On September 10, those two buildings stood as silent testament to the robust American economic way of life; one day later, the burning, smoking rubble lay as testimony to a vulnerability we had never really considered. The horror of terrorism had come home--at Ground Zero.
The term “Ground Zero” speaks of the epicenter, the very core. There is in every human life a “Ground Zero”, if you will; the Bible terminology is the “heart”. The Greek term is “kardia”, and we think of words like cardiac, cardiogram, and pericardium, words which deal with the physical heart. We see a cardiologist when we’ve eaten one too many fast food meals and the arteries get clogged!
While this word is used of the physical heart, in the Bible the word “heart” refers to the command center of all of life, the place where decisions are made and plans hatched. The heart controls our feelings, our emotions, desires and passions. It is in our hearts that commitment takes root. The heart is the place where we decide for or against God. Our lips may say one thing; we may profess devotion to Jesus. But it is our hearts that betray our true loyalties (Mark 7:6-8).
Jesus is asked by a lawyer, a man knowledgeable in the Old Testament law, skilled in its application, which of all the commandments found therein was to be considered the most important. What is priority one, in essence? Jesus starts with ground zero, the very heart of man, and indicates that to love God wholeheartedly from the very epicenter of life is the beginning of that commandment. Before we get there, though, note Jesus’ statement as to
I. The Oneness of God
Jesus quotes from what was known as the shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-5. The shema was recited twice daily by every devout Jew; in fact, they carried this Scripture around with them on little parchment rolls which were placed into a little parchment compartment called a phylactery. These phylacteries would be placed upon either the arm or the forehead. This was a symbolic way of doing a very good thing, which was to keep the Word of God close to oneself at all times. We could stand to do some of the same ourselves. I’m currently getting involved in an in-depth discipleship program with a friend, and this program involves, in part, the memorization of Scripture. Many people will say, “oh, I can’t memorize Scripture.” If you say that, I will tell you right now, to your face, with the most love I can muster, that I do not believe you! The suggestion is made that a good way to memorize the Word of God is to take the time to write it out on 3x5 cards and carry these cards around in one’s pocket. You’re standing in line at the bank? Pull it out and read it. You’re getting a haircut? Pull the card out and read the Word. You do it over and over often enough and it will begin to stick in your brain! These pious Jews believed in the supremacy of the Word of God, and they demonstrated it in a tangible way by keeping it close to them at all times, again not a bad practice!
And so when Jesus made reference to this passage, the shema, it was one with which they would already have been quite familiar. It’s first sentence, as we see here, stresses the unity of God—He is One. In contrast to what the Jehovah’s Witnesses would say about Christians, we do not believe in three gods, but we believe in the tri-unity of God; He is Three-in-One; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is One, and in the pantheon of would-be gods, there are none others besides Him who are real, who can save, who have power. There is one YHWH, Who the Bible describes as a God Who is love. Muslims will describe their god Allah as a god who loves, but would stop short of our understanding that love not only is something God does, but love is part and parcel of Who God is. He is more than love, to be sure; there are those whose emphasis upon God’s love obscures the broader Bible understanding of a God Who is foremost “holy, holy, holy”. He is never described as “love, love, love.” Nonetheless, God is love, and He demonstrates that love by loving us where we are, as we are. Romans 5:8 tells us that Christ died for us as a demonstration of God’s love for us even while we were yet in our sin. What amazing love that loves all of us even as we are in the act of open rebellion against Him! Self-giving love is the kind of love that God has for us, and as He loves us with an everlasting love which spared not the totality of His own Son for us, He calls us to love Him with the totality of our beings. Which leads us to the next point, which is
II. The Comprehensiveness of the Command
God loves us with all He has and all He is, and Jesus tells the lawyer that priority one is that we love God with “all” of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. He doesn’t love us only part of the time; He doesn’t only love the parts of us that are lovable. Now, some of us are naturally lovable, while others of us are…also here! Further, every one of us has lovable parts, while every one of us has some things about us that just aren’t all that lovable! Yet He loves us, and He calls upon us to reciprocate His comprehensive love by loving Him with everything we’ve got, not in some halfway manner.
Jesus warns us against divided allegiance; He says that we cannot serve both God and money at the same time, for instance. We cannot simultaneously be seeking unbridled power, ostentatious wealth, worldly status, or sensual gratification while at the same time truly be seeking first God’s kingdom and his righteousness. Worship, for instance, needs to be understood as a 24/7 proposition, not a "25 minutes on Sunday morning" thing. Commitment of time needs to be understood as 24/7, not an hour and a half or even three hours on a Sunday morning. Jesus is either Lord of our lives or He isn’t; He didn’t die on the cross so He could be the sovereign over your Sunday mornings between 9:00 and 12:00, and it’s an insult to Him for us to so confine His Lordship. The one who is a friend of this world, we are reminded in Scripture, makes himself an enemy of God. While the old saw used to be of some people, "she’s so heavenly minded that she’s no earthly good", the greater problem with most of us is that we are so earthly-minded that we’re no heavenly good!
We don’t tithe our love for God. We don’t sing "10 percent to Jesus, I surrender; 10 percent to Him I freely give. I surrender a percentage; I surrender some!" Jesus tells us that the extent of our love for God is 100%; we are to love Him in each of the instances He gives with everything we have! Now let’s look briefly at the first qualifier:
III. Love from the Heart
’Love’ here is agapao, or agape, the highest love, the love generated by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the yielded believer, a divine love due unto God from His creatures. Jesus asked Peter, twice, "Do you agapao me?" Peter answered back twice, "You know, Lord, that I have phileo (brotherly love) for you." The third time Jesus asked, "Peter, do you phileo me?" and Peter responded that he did. Peter could not speak the word agapao, even in speaking to the resurrected Lord. What ought this to say to us?
We ought to be very careful not to assume that we have got this down; in fact, do any of us have this down? Peter was a man who could not say agapao, and yet he was one who was front and center in the early church, speaking with boldness about Christ, eventually going to prison and then giving his life, legend has it, by being crucified upside down. And yet Peter could only muster phileo. Think that Jesus’ words aren’t relevant to you today?
We ought to take encouragement from this as well. Jesus, even after Peter failed the agapao test, called Peter to "feed (His) sheep." There was work to do for God even for one whose love was not fully developed, immature, and incomplete. And God will use us as well!
And Jesus tells us that it is with all our hearts that we first are to love God. We’ll talk about soul, and mind, and strength, in weeks to come; today it is the heart. Kenneth Wuest defines the heart as “man’s entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and the emotional elements.” It entails the intellect and the emotions, what I think and how I feel. It is from the center of my thinking and the center of my feelings that I love God with all I have!
Anthony Campolo is one of those “pucker or duck” kind of guys; you know, the kind who, when you mention his name to someone, you need to be ready to pucker or duck! I’ve always been intrigued by Dr. Campolo; while I strongly disagree with some of his conclusions, I admire his guts, his passion, and his compassion for others. Dr. Campolo was on campus at GCC some time back, and at the end of his talk, there was a Q/A session. The topic which came under discussion was this: what does it mean to love God? One young man—for all I know, he might be here today!—volunteered words to the effect that loving Jesus meant following His commands—period. Did Jesus not say, “If you love me, keep my commandments”? Certainly. But Dr. Campolo politely disagreed with the young man, suggesting that it was incomplete to take those words of Jesus as the sum total of what it means to love Him. I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Campolo on the matter! Sure, doing what Jesus says is a significant part of loving Him, but there is more!
Let’s put it on a human level. How do I show my wife I love her? In part, it is by doing out of love what she asks me to do. I love her by serving her, by doing what she asks of me as I am able. She loves me by doing the same. But is that all? Do we merely show love by doing what another asks of us? I think not! What if I picked up my socks and took out the trash and washed the car and picked up dinner dishes every single time she asked me—but never told her I loved her? What if there were never any emotion in my voice? What if there were never any romance? What if I never thought of her? Would it be enough to simply point to the doing of those things she asked as evidence of my love? I don’t think so! Sure, we love God by obeying Him—but loving Him with our hearts is more than obedience through outward acts. It is loving Him with my emotions when I consider His goodness, maybe when we sing a particularly meaningful song in church. It is loving Him by thinking of Him, praising Him quietly in the middle of my day, calling to Him in prayer in times of need, or in times of leisure!
In the story of the prodigal son, we find an older brother who stays with his father, assumedly doing everything his father told him to. But his heart wasn’t in it; had his heart been in it, he’d not have reacted the way he did when the prodigal came home. Instead of rejoicing, he griped and complained about the fact that he hadn’t been thrown a party. And some of us dutifully go through certain motions; perhaps coming to church today was a chore for you, a religious motion to go through. Do you imagine God is pleased by your presence here if in reality you chafe at being here, or at the service going past some artificial time limitation that you’ve placed on God? Do you imagine that God is pleased with your worship if, even as you sing, your mind is 1000 miles away?
Or do you imagine that you are worshipping God if your main concern in choosing a church is how entertaining the preacher is, or how upbeat the music is, or how casual you can be clothing-wise? Hey, don’t get me wrong; I prefer contemporary worship, and I miss it whenever I am away in another church, especially those that sing funeral parlor music. And sometimes, the reason that they sing that music is because those churches are dead! But the fact is that we can sing exuberant music that is just that, exuberant music. And the truth is that if I love God and I’m worshipping Him, then I can do so with music that sounds like a Gregorian chant, or a Welsh hymn, or a Southern spiritual, or, if it exalts Jesus as Lord, a chorus written Thursday!
And the worst kind of hypocrites are religious ones. In Jesus’ day, everyone saw the teachers of the Law as being extremely pious, but Jesus saw thru their religious showmanship and looked at their hearts. They loved the trappings--the power, the status, the respect of the people, the success, the financial reward--but their hearts were far from God. Jesus doesn’t say, "love the Lord your God with your church attendance, your big offerings, your children’s programs, your loud singing, your hand-raising, your extended and verbose prayers." He says to love God with your heart, and if you have all the rest, but not the heart, then you’ve missed the most important thing.
Who or what do you give your heart to? We live in a generation of people who all too often are giving their hearts to everything--and ultimately to nothing. They ramble aimlessly through life. Oh, they find time to fill up their lives with various diversions, pastimes, etc. They are ever seeking the newest thrill, the coolest experience, the latest buzz. But they end up looking back on their lives with deep regret, wondering what they have to show for their fleeting time on this earth.
“What’s priority one?” asked a lawyer. Jesus said to Him—and to us—that priority one is to love God with everything we have from the very center of our lives, our hearts—our “Ground Zero”.
Points to Ponder:
1. How often do you think of God during a typical day? Is He truly your “best thought, by day or by night”? What are your thoughts of Him?
2. When you make decisions, what role does the Word of God and the will of God play in your choices?
3. Do others know that you love God? How do you display your love for Him to them?
