THE GREATEST COMMANDS
Mark 12:28-34
INTRO:
My kids get frustrated sometimes trying to figure out which of my many commands take priority, which comes first.
Ever been frustrated by a boss who gives multiple assignments, all of which are ‘top priority?’
Overwhelmed by all you hear in church? Have difficulty knowing where to start, what to give priority to?
PREV: In today’s text, from Mark 12:28-34, Jesus is asked by a teacher of the law, which of God’s commandments is the greatest, or weightiest, or most important. This was a common point of debate among such teachers, and it was more difficult than you might think. We’re not just choosing the best of the 10 commandments. These guys identified 613 different commands in the Torah.
In his answer, we will see what is most important to God. You will leave here today knowing what God’s top priority is and how you can do it. You will discover where to start, what comes first, what I most important to God.
So what is God’s most important command? Let’s see both the question and the answer as I read Mark 12:28-34.
I. THE GREATEST COMMAND IS TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL OF YOURSELF
In his answer, Jesus quotes from Deut. 6:4-5, the Shema`. The greatest command is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
His answer is to love God with everything, every part of you.
Today we are going to talk about what it means to love God.
This is difficult because:
• Women can have trouble talking about loving God because of what has been done to them in the name of ‘love.’
• Us men are uncomfortable talking about “love.” We don’t say “I love you,” we say, “me too.” Its hard for us to talk about “loving God” because we describe him in male terms. Talking about love seems to move us into the realm of feelings, and we are not good at talking about this realm. That leads us to another difficulty.
• Our society’s definition of love tends to make us think of syrupy greeting cards. To love someone comes to mean “to have warm, sentimental feelings” about them.
But even with these difficulties, we must talk about it, because Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength.” It isn’t to ‘believe’ or to ‘follow’ or to ‘have faith in’ or ‘obey’ God. It is to love God. So today I’d like us to unpack this idea of loving God, and get a picture of what it means and why it can be so difficult. I think you’ll “love” the results!
Transition: So what does it mean to love God? How do we go about loving God? Show slide of Mark 12:29-30
A. Loving God means focusing all of our longings on him.
Think about this: What or who do you love? And why?
We love things and people that bring us joy, or happiness, or pleasure, or delight, or significance.
Ex.: I love pecan pie – it brings me pleasure
Ex.: I love my job, because I feel significant.
Ex.: I love my kids, they bring delight and meaning.
Ex.: I love Anne: I delight in her beauty I feel secure in her embrace, her words encourage me, etc.
We invest our love in those things, people who bring us joy
God calls us to invest all this love in Him.
The things that we love all provide for us, in varying degrees, some joy and satisfaction. But from God’s point of view, these things are nothing compared to Himself. What you are looking for, joy, happiness, meaning, satisfaction can be found so much more in God.
Ps. 16:11 – You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Ps. 37:4 – Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
John Piper, in “Desiring God” puts it this way: (p. 284)
Take all of your longing and focus it on God until He satisfies it completely.
Have pleasure in God.
Recognize that in him (not from him) is true joy.
Focus your love on God. Place all your longing, searching, attempts to fulfill on him, and him alone.
Again, John Piper says:
Find in God a satisfaction so full that it fills up all your heart. Find in God a meaning so rich and so deep that it fills up all the aching corners of your soul. Spare no strain or exertion to put yourself in a position to see the all-satisfying grace of God poured out on you. Find in God the riches of knowledge and insight and wisdom that guide and satisfy all that the human mind was meant for.
B. Loving God means actively choosing a passionate pursuit of God
Contrary to popular thinking, love is not merely a feeling. It involves feelings, for sure, but there’s more to it.
Love is a matter of choice. We choose to love.
Love is a matter of our will, and results in definite action.
The command isn’t to have loving feelings, or to feel love toward, but to love. A verb!
So we must choose to be involved in love.
This command is a call to action!
This love results in passion. Loving involves passion. We are passionate about the things, and the people we love.
Examples of things we get really into.
When we decide to focus on God in this way, it results in a life that pursues God. [Examples]
Impulsively pursue Him (Lane)
Seek him for his own sake (Lane)
God says love me, seek me, pursue me, and I will do this. I will satisfy your longings with my glory.
Application:
This is the starting place. This is first.
Transition: Loving God with all we have means focusing all of our longings on him in a passionate pursuit. But Jesus gave not only the 1st commandment, but 2nd most important as well. In Mark 12:31, Jesus said, “and the 2nd is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” This comes from Lev. 19:18. This is a well-known verse, but it is often misunderstood. Let’s unpack what it means.
A. To love your neighbor is the visible manifestation of loving God
Jesus can’t just give one. In other words, you can’t love God with your all without it resulting in loving your neighbor. The two are completely entwined.
How then do we go about loving others?
B. We are to love them as we love ourselves
To love “as yourself” is not a command by Jesus to love yourself. People often think this. No, this is an assumption. Jesus assumes that everyone loves themselves.
This love of self is not referring to self-esteem, a positive self image, a high regard for self. This is very common thinking today. We are inundated with this thinking, that the most crucial thing a person can have is good self-esteem. This isn’t what Jesus means, as we know, not everyone esteems themselves, do they?
Jesus assumes that everyone loves themselves. In other words, each of us seeks joy, fulfillment, security, significance, pleasure. These are God-given desires, not evil in and of themselves.
We love ourselves in that we seek to preserve, satisfy ourselves. We seek fulfillment and satisfaction.
Jesus says do this for your neighbor!
Seek their well-being, and seek it “as” you seek yours!
The 2nd command is grounded in the 1st command:
To love others, seek for them the same things you seek for yourself.
Jesus revolutionized their thinking about who qualified as a neighbor by telling this parable. [Luke 10:25ff.]
In the context of the parable, what does it mean to love someone? It means to go out of your way, rearrange your schedule, use your own resources to meet their need.
Cf. Eph. 5:29: nourish and cherish your flesh.
We are called to place our love on God, to find in him our satisfaction. As we experience that abundant provision, it overflows to others:
Examples: What we seek/find in God we offer to others.
Ultimately, we love others when we share with them the same relationship with God that we have.
Now we are ready to fulfill his commission to go and make disciples. Erwin McManus has written:
We are accustomed to speaking of the great commission, but it is the commandment that Jesus calls “great.” The commission erupts out of the great commandment…The gospel flows best through the establishing of significant relationships that are authentic and healthy. When relationships become stagnant and the community of Christ closes itself to the outside world, the result is an institution rather than a movement.” [An Unstoppable Force, p. 15]
II. THE 2ND GREATEST COMMAND IS TO LOVE OTHERS LIKE YOURSELF
