The Best Thing You Could Ever Do - Mark 12:28-31 Series

Mark 12:28 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.

Introduction

The Best Thing You Could Ever Do

Which is more important—putting your tithe into the offering plate, or showing mercy to someone in desperate straits? Answer: mercy.

Matthew 23:23 … You give a tenth ... But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-- justice, mercy and faithfulness.

He went on to say they should do both—they should tithe and show mercy—but not all acts of righteousness are equal. Some good deeds are weightier than others. Mercy is more important than tithing because tithing is symbolic, whereas mercy is a direct moral act. When Jesus gave that answer, he taught us that there are gradations of good. It’s good to tithe; it’s even better to show mercy. It’s good to show mercy to one person; it’s even better to show mercy to ten people. It’s good to help an old lady across the street; it’s even better to save someone’s life. It’s good to save someone’s life; it’s even better to save their life by laying down your life in their place. That’s a super good deed.

What’s the best deed of all? When you think of all the amazing things people do— a soldier diving on a hand grenade to save his buddies, a woman devoting her life to raising godly children, a preacher faithfully proclaiming the gospel to millions of people, a missionary devoting his life to translate the Bible for an unreached people— of all the good deeds, which one is the best possible deed that a human being could ever do? Thankfully, someone asked Jesus that question, so we’re going to find out the answer today.

As you know, this passage is very dear to me. I preached a 13-part series on this passage before. I’m not going to repeat all that now because it’s all available online. As tempting as it is to delve back into all that, I want to finish Mark before the Second Coming, so today I’ll just focus how this passage fits into Mark’s message.

Review

Jesus has been dominating the Temple ever since he arrived in Jerusalem in the days just prior to his death. He started by driving everyone out and trashing their tables which resulted in a series of encounters between him and the Temple authorities. Each time, all their efforts to humiliate and discredit Jesus ended up discrediting themselves, and showcasing Jesus’ superior wisdom and authority. But this final question ends up being a completely different kind of encounter than the others. For one thing, instead of being motivated by a desire to discredit Jesus, this scribe asked his question because he was impressed with Jesus.

An Excellent Question

Mark 12:28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them [the Sadducees] a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

This guy wins the prize for asking the greatest question ever. Once Jesus answers it, then we’ll know what the best thing a human being could ever do is.

Priorities in the Law

The scribes often debated questions like this, and rightly so. It’s important to know which things are more important than other things—even in the Bible. Sometimes people get way off track because they take one thing in the Bible and get so fixated on that, that they neglect more important things. People like that will destroy relationships or even whole churches because they disagree with the Bible translation they use. They get out of balance because they don’t understand the relative importance of things. Take something that is important and elevate it above something more important, and you’ve just turned a good thing into an evil thing.