Your Soul Is Hungry--Feed It - Mark 12:28-30 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.'

Introduction

In Matthew 22 Jesus gave us the greatest commandment in all of God’s Word, and it is not only the greatest, but it is also the summary of the whole Bible, and the basis for the whole Bible. Nothing in the Bible has any meaning apart from that command. If you obey it you are doing the greatest activity possible for a human being, and if you disobey it you are committing the greatest possible sin. That command is that you must love the Lord your God with every part of your being.

The measure of a soul

Ask yourself this question: How righteous are you? I am not talking about positional righteousness in Christ – I am talking in practical terms. In your day-to-day life, how holy are you? How godly and pleasing to the Lord is your life? My purpose in having you ask yourself that is not for you to focus so much on the answer to the question. Instead what I would like you to do is focus on the criteria you looked at when you were trying to answer that question. When you go to measure how good or bad you are, what is the yardstick you use to make that measurement? What is your criteria?

Actions and thoughts not the best measure

Most people would say it is your behavior. If you do good things you are a good person; you do bad things you are a bad person. But that is not really the most accurate way to measure the goodness of a person, because good deeds can be done with bad motives. In Matthew 6 Jesus said if you pray and fast and give to the poor, but your motive is self-glory, that is evil.

What about thoughts? Is that the measure? No - demons have many true thoughts and believe them.

What about the choices of the will – what you decide? That does not work either. Suppose one person strongly desires to commit murder or rape, and he derives enjoyment from hurting people, but chooses not to do them because he wants to avoid prison, he is not a good person. So what is the measure of godliness in the heart?

See if you would agree with Henry Scougal. Here is what he said is the measure of how good a person is: “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” He is saying that when you look at your heart and try to assess how good or evil it is, the way to do that is by looking at what your heart loves and does not love. Was Scougal right? Does the Bible teach that evil people are evil because of what they love and righteous people are righteous because of what they love? Listen to Paul describing how bad things will get in the last days – listen to how many times he uses the word “love.”

2 Timothy 3:1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money … 3 without natural love, … not lovers of the good, 4 … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Evil people are evil because of what they love and do not love. And righteous people are righteous because of what they love and do not love.

1 Timothy 3:2 The overseer must … 3 not be a lover of money but one who loves the good.

Romans 12:9 Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Amos 5:15 Hate evil, love good.

Psalm 97:10 Let those who love the LORD hate evil.

Psalm 119:104 I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.

When you and I look out over the world, we do not just observe – we observe and evaluate everything we see. We do not just say, “Oh, that thing is really big”; we say, “Oh, that thing is really big and I like it” (or “I don’t like it”). You see a bumper sticker and you don’t just read it like Mr. Spock and say, “The message on that sticker is technically incorrect.” You say, “It’s incorrect and it makes me mad!” Or you agree with it and it makes you smile. And that is what reveals the health or sickness in a person’s heart – not just his analytical evaluations, but which things make him mad, and which things make him smile. If you see something evil and your heart is attracted to it – that is an evil heart even if you manage to restrain your evil actions. And if you see something good and beautiful and your heart is repulsed by it, or unmoved and indifferent towards it – again, that is an evil heart. But the more attracted you are to true goodness and true beauty, the more that shows your heart is good. So what is the best thing a human being can possibly do? The best thing – the most righteous heart – is the one that sees the greatest good and loves it above all. And that is why the Greatest Commandment is the greatest commandment. The most commendable, most holy, most righteous thing you could ever do is love the greatest good, which is God.