As we read God's word found in your worship where you can turn in a Bible to the Gospel of Mark chapter 12 verses 28 334 That's in the New Testament Gospel of Mark chapter 12 verses 28 334 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating noticing that Jesus had given them a good had given them a good answer He asked him of all the commandments which is the most important most important one answered Jesus is this here O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength The second is this love your neighbor is yourself. There is no commandment greater than these well said Man I forgot saying that there's no other Love your neighbor is yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices 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 the word of the Lord Let's pray together our father. We come now to seek you and so we ask that Dear Holy Spirit you would be our teacher during this time that you would cause us to focus To put aside whatever distractions there might be on our mind weighing upon our conscience and Grant that the deep everlasting Priorities of your kingdom Might be once again the object of our deepest affection For we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Please be seated
Eugene Peterson is said I think very poignantly that busyness is the enemy of spirituality Bizziness is the enemy of spirituality. Why? Well, I think for a couple reasons one because it diverts us and It also dilutes us in terms of our living for the things that we're really supposed to be giving our life to It diverts us and it deludes us a picture of diversion If you're a fan of basketball and you watch on television Particularly at very critical moments in the game when someone from the The opposing team not the home team is shooting a free throw and they give you that camera shot if you're watching it on television Kind of the end zone type shot and I know there's not in zones in basketball So don't write me letters about that, but you know what I mean kind of a long shot
You know what happens, don't you? I mean, it's just frantic sea of Papers and flags and hands going like this that the free throw shooter is looking right at and the goal of course is to divert us Attention so that he can't focus on the one single thing that's most important. It probably the critical juncture of that game That's what life does to us in our frantic pace today the gazillions of emails and voicemails and and all sorts of things that come screaming at us How is it that we can remain focused on what we're really supposed to be focused upon? How about dilution it dilutes us dizzy The enemy is spirituality-wide because not only does it divert us it deludes us Think of it this way there has been some mysterious disease That has emerged in the world and at a lightning pace. It is extinguishing the human population Killing people right and left all over the power all over the planet and Somehow don't ask me why you get an email that has The cure no one else has it, but you've got it It's sent to you on an email the only problem is there are one billion emails in your inbox Or if you don't think yet in cyber language You have received the letter in the mail But the problem is you've gotten one billion pieces of mail in the mail that day and you've got to sift through it and Find that one that will save the human population. What are you supposed to do? Your frantic. It's very difficult Well, this is why I think busyness And all of the ways in which the wonders great wonders of technology today Work to reinforce our propensity to busyness. That's why busyness is the enemy of spirituality or you might say of the human soul Jesus Christ bus onto the human scene and says I'm going to tell you about an entirely different world a World that you can leave From this world into another world and find healing find peace Find the type of love that your soul has been longing for since the day you were born But the difficulty is that in this life There are so many things that will dilute and divert you from focusing upon The most important things about that other world that you're well, you're likely to miss it and Franklin most of us do most of the time, right? This is one of those passages in the gospel of Mark where Jesus just kind of widows everything down It says look I know there's a lot of things you don't understand about Christianity and some of you are sitting out there and going But I ever sent this Bible thing Leo and this is all new to me I don't understand theology and you all Spoken of creeds and talked in prayers and ways that are very foreign and new to me Well, don't be diluted By all of that here's what Jesus says we need to focus upon The priorities of his kingdom and his world and if you want to be Jesus would say an effective person if you want to be a person That has real purpose and direction in life if you want to be a person that at the end of your life looks back and says well Certainly wasn't perfect, but I did live my life for what was most important and not all these other things Then here's what you're supposed to focus on Jesus would say So I want to look at that with you what are the priorities of Jesus's kingdom? What are the priorities of Jesus's kingdom? And in how in the world do I in the midst of this frantic and busy life that I live in how is it that I maintain those things as the priorities of my life or as one Business I'll put it the main thing is to keep what the main thing the main thing every day on and on and on and on And that's what you find in this passage, so if you have a Bible or your worship bulletin in front of you Just keep it open to this passage mark 12 28 334 first of all What are the priorities of the kingdom? Well priority number one is Love for God The two priorities of course we're talking about and the first one is love for God now you remember The Beatles song, don't you? I'm giving you a real history of my movie and music Past here the Beatles thing that song what the world needs now is Love sweet love, right? And that's very true what the world needs what this kingdom needs is an infusion of the very best of the other kingdom the very best commodity that Jesus's kingdom has humanly speaking is love But not first the way that you and I tend to think of love we tend to think of love as me love get love and Love between other human beings, but what he's saying is the key to under to understanding This life is first of all beginning with love from God Love to God. It's it's foreign love. You're loving a foreigner a God from another kingdom And you are there for interacting with that kingdom and bringing it to bear on this world now a little bit on the context of this particular passage Jesus had been going through Sort of the 21 questions You know or someone is just drilling you trying to stump you trying to show that you don't know what you're talking about And that's what Jesus has been going through to climactic point in his public ministry his life It's about to come to an end and so the religious leaders have Have galvanized all the best of their inner talking with questions to try and stump him or to try and pick him against one another and
He answers them all perfectly and they're enraged but maybe you can't looming in the background. There's this one Teacher of the law one lawyer that comes and asks a spectacular question and when Jesus answers it He affirms it and Jesus says look you're not far from the kingdom and this was a this was a great moment because Jesus was Sticking down against most of the religious leaders because they were just out on another planet But he's saying with this one teacher of the law He was very very close now. This ought to be a great encouragement. All you lawyers You know who just lived under the plethora of lawyer jokes all these years Here's one of the critical moment in Jesus's life where he's saying look. It's a lawyer who got it It's a lawyer who got it What did he get Well, it's it's this That when you understand what it's all about the law of God You are very close kingdom and how did Jesus summarize it loving God now there where this is a difficult thing to summarize because in Jesus's day There were known to be probably about 613 Commandments in the Bible and the religious leaders prided themselves and knowing all of them and then debating about which one Sort of should be jockeying for the top position and The odds that Jesus was going to please all the different factions there was ridiculous, but He didn't nail it particularly with this one leader loving God above all and what he did was he went to a passage in the Old Testament that was Red Force earlier in the service by the graphs Deuteronomy chapter 6 called the Shema and by the second century BC This was the staple The food, but it is What's up every evening when they went to bed the Shema here of Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one speaking of monotheism One God which was a great contrast to the cultures in which Israel was surrounded very polytheistic that is many God in most cultures around Israel, but they held to one God one invisible God the Lord our God the Lord is one and Knowing therefore who he is our response should be one of love, but not just taft at love But comprehensive Universal undiluted love for God with every ounce of my being every second of my life That's pretty comprehensive love right love the Lord your God look at the language that he uses love the Lord your God And again, Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6 with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind It was all your strength that don't make the mistake that a lot of you know really super analytical types do and sit here and come up with a Picture of the human psyche with this Jesus isn't giving a Lesson on psychology here so much saying look think of all the different ways that you think of yourself as a human thing Your thought life your affections the deep longings of your soul all of your activities Your physical well-being everything that makes you up as a human being gather all of those aspects together and Then gives them all to blow everything that defines you as a human being You must begin with loving God and it's he's not talking so much about all right make your to-do list of how you're supposed to live and Prioritize put at the very top Love for God and then you can kind of for all you you know hide the Task-waring in people you can cross that off at 705 because you finished your devotional time and go about your life right It's not what he's saying at all. That's not what Jesus would mean by priority What he means rather is this now becomes the window through which you look at all of life? Or maybe a little better pictures than that think of yourself you and I live on a submarine All right, we all live another Beatles. I'm sorry. We all live on this submarine and We can't see outside to the the kingdom beyond we can't see life at all, right? But there is this periscope and the periscope through which you and I see the world beyond is this loving God all right So therefore it gives a whole new meaning Holy perspective to the way you conduct the affairs of your life The way that you think about your vocation. It's all about loving God, right? It's not just about being ethical and being a person of good integrity, which of course that's part of it But it's being passionate about what you do in life because you're passionate about God, right? It's the way that you think about marriage or it's the way that you think about singleness you live your life Not as a duty, but as a devotion to your God in heaven Loving God with everything that makes you up as a human being Jonathan Edwards my foremost hero Colonial preacher in the United States up in New England said this in his great work religious affections During the time of the Great Awakening in the 18th century. He said true religion Exist in great part in holy affections. Isn't that great? I know the language is a little bit archaic, but And that's it holy affections lifting up this one God hero israel the Lord our God is one in other words, he's unique that in contrast to everything else he is spectacularly unique Therefore he should be the spotlight he should be the focus But not in some Religion where you're like a soldier but much more like you're in a love affair with this one who is utterly unique Give yourself to him in every way in all your ways all your days That's it right, but then he gives another one The second priority is to love others He says In verse 31 the second to this love your neighbor as yourself There's no dynamic greater than these I don't know if it occurred to you because if you've been around Christianity or the church for a while I mean you've heard these for a long time But did it occur to you Jesus kind of fudged at least it appears that way a little bit on the question because what was the question he says of all the commandments Which is the most important In Jesus's well here's one but you know there's really one more It gave us two Why why did he do that? Because he said in essence these are invisible they're two but they really want why Because you really cannot Integrity say you love God if you're treating people like dirt You can't say oh Jesus I've given my life for you if you're condescending to people who aren't like you If you neglect people who are hurting where you have a sphere of influence over them The Apostle John who was called the disciple him Jesus loved that's what he called himself which is boy That's all sermon itself fabulous, but um listen to what He said first John for 20 if anyone says I love God yet hates his brother He is a liar for anyone who does not love his brother whom he is seeing cannot love God and he is not seeing You see they go together they're inseparable You love for human beings true sacrificial Roll up your sleeves For people particularly those that you're not inclined to love Is a great evidence that you actually really do love God and um you might say well who's your neighbor Well, it's the really cute person that lives across the street from me, you know They're just so sweet made up a little grandmother. She makes me cookies and that's yes, yes But when Jesus was asked to define what he meant by neighbor in the gospel of Luke remember what he did That's when he gave the parable of the good Samaritan That is there's someone that's injured and they're all bloodied and for you know for all you know You got him about another person is a drug addict. They deserve what they've gotten right So you think and and well you better stay away from him might catch a disease by the way. You've got a lot to do And that's how Jesus paints the picture he shows how these people on the exterior appear to be religious that they just pass by Believe it. And it's the person you don't expect the person who's not perceived as being religious It lends lends aid and uh boy. It's a beautiful picture magnificent picture of true love that the neighbor That we and I are called to love is the person who Inconveniences us to love them Who pulls us out of our comfort zone? right And you just just let that principle kind of fly in your own life as the people who that may be frankly could be your spouse Right, it could be the could it could be the person closest to you And get your blind to the fact that you've been disaffectionate That you haven't been rolling up the slaves and loving Or maybe someone like a homeless person like Zach spoke about so that's probably the continuum there
Now how is it that uh This All our life. What is it that you and I need to do to make sure that this begins to be something that actually occurs in our life So this is the how right you see what the priorities are the twin priorities that really are one Loving God and evident thing that through true love sacrificial love for other people How is it that you and I Breathe this in our life Well, of course it's God that ultimately breeds it but here's what you need you need a little R and R right In this busy frustrated frantic world you need some R and R what's R and R you need reflection And redemption and you need it every day over and over and over R and R reflection and redemption Why do I say reflection? Well, it's it's curious How Jesus ended this you know he affirmed what the answer was and the guy The lawyer said like a good lawyer does, you know, he's gonna make sure that the witness is accurate And so he he rehearses what he said and and then Jesus now playing judge says well you're exactly right you understand it And it says in verse 34 when Jesus saw that he had heard wisely he said to him you're not far from the kingdom of God It's a curious answer isn't You know you might expect him to say particularly to someone who's really religiously savvy Yet, yeah, you got it exactly. I mean you're part of the team. You're in the kingdom. Let's go But he doesn't say that he says you're really close It's a one commentator great commentary on mark if you're interested by William Lane LA and e You put it this way. He said that Jesus's words are deliberately ambiguous and intended to provoke reflection They're deliberately ambiguous and intended to provoke reflection See Jesus a good teacher that he was wanted to get this guy thinking Be why because he needed him to bust out of the perpetrator Because men with that always don't forget about the focus upon you know 10,000 thoughts come into your brain a day You know how do you sit through all that Jesus sometimes has to Set off a stick of dynamite and get us thinking reflecting and pondering What our need is sort of a wake up call and what he wanted this man to think about I think first of all was his own shortcomings He was a lawyer he knew the law and even summarized it the right way, but what would his tendency be to think well I can do this I can just follow lock and step and I probably got some really good rules up down That'll make sure I do this properly and then I'll find acceptance with God. They saying they're close, but no cigar basically, right See he was saying that this was something that he could achieve but What we begin to see in his passage is that this is something really beyond our human ability Look for instance with respect to love for God you notice the repeated annoying use of the word all Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul with all your mind With all your think does that. I mean you know you might do it On Sunday morning, but are you doing it Monday afternoon at work Right me you might love God With your worship time, but are you doing it with your thought time or with your activities Are you really looking in all of life through that periscope? Are you trying to swim to the top and see yourself It's an impossibility and then when he gives a second command love your neighbor As yourself What's the assumption there with the exact same as an augment? That is you and I by nature love ourselves Completely holy compulsively right any saying now flip that back and let that be the standard by which you love one another Now I know some of you are sitting there and going Leo you don't know me Because I don't just the opposite. I don't love myself. I hate myself. I love who I am
In a sense. Yes. Okay. I can agree with you. I can understand that But if you kind of tweak what is underneath the concept of love I think indeed all of us love ourselves to the help because really if you define love more in the sense of what consumes you What your whole life is built around yeah, you might have this horrible self image of yourself But probably you're also a very self-consumed person, right And so that's really what he's getting at that you love yourself now it's a bizarre twisted love when we do that But nevertheless it's devotion. That's really what it is. It's devotion to self Any saying now it's all about focus give that kind of focus give that kind of attention to other people Go do that and love God With everything that makes you up as a person and you'll be in the kingdom Nobody doesn't Every single person falls woefully short Paul put to this way in Romans 138 let no debt Remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another See his assumption there is look. This is a debt and you're never fully Pay off this debt in this life So don't fool yourself that you think you're hanging off your debt that you covered all your bases in terms of tearing for people It's an endless hang off of debt now Martin Luther understood this Martin Luther was a pretty you know extreme person and And one of the ways in which you see this and I'm talking about the leader of the movement called the Reformation the 16th century Luther Luther came across this concept of needing to love God above all things and he said you know The more I died into the waters of this thing called Christianity the more I mean I don't love God In fact, it's just the opposite I have hostility toward this God. I fear this God Why because he knew implicitly that he didn't love God They didn't love God the way he was supposed to and then he fell very short of loving his neighbor as himself and that Brad in him it fostered not love for God but fear and hostility but the great thing that Luther discovered the sort of aha That that stick of dynamite that erupted into his world was this Has the apostle John says perfect love drives out fear Isn't that a fabulous verse perfect love drives out fear that it just shoves it out It throws it out and that's what Jesus does We've been saying this the last couple of weeks that when what what we believe is Christians that Jesus has resurrected means That he has that he like a volcano. He has erupted into our world alive wonderfully alive and powerful And that means that there is great hope because he does Throw out all the enemies of the soul that keep us from Singularly loving God and others and so we not only didn't need to be reflective But we need to be reflective about ourselves and God's redemption as the second are in R and R That the this man This lawyer saw Jesus as a great teacher that he needed to see him as what not only a great teacher, but a great savior a great redeemer You see the great truth of Christianity is that God Who has required us to love him and other human beings above all things Also knows that it will only be by his love and kindness invading our life That we will ever be honest about our failure to love him and others with integrity And the office that word means buy back that you and I As children of Adam and Eve our first parents Have told God to in essence take a hike We're gonna have our own life to ourselves. We have our own little kingdom But we've messed it all up and so what God has done is taken the initiative Intermittent to our world and purchased us back. That's what redemption means. He bought us back As his own treasured possession By the blood of Jesus Christ a lamb without blemish or defect first John 410 Put it beautifully absolutely He says this is love not that we love to God but that he loves us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice For our sins You're not the only one another. See that's the priority there Love begins with the initiative of God Invading our world and for some of us today that needs to be probably for the first time where you recognize Your own need for this love That you need Jesus to intervene to disrupt to invade your life With his spectacular redemptive love That he might give you new life and make you able to love And that's the first thing that happens that then you and I need this to become a rhythm to our life Don't we we need R&R every day We need R&R every day. We need to reflect on who we are and who he is in his redemptive love for us And then his love becomes the fuel and fire upon which I love him and love others that frankly Our unlovely Richard Baxter who was a Christian leader in the 17th century put it this way. He said every Christian must use so much Confemplation as is necessary to the loving of God above all That's what we're talking about you and I must Act from the frantic assault of the emails of this world and find time Daily to reflect to contemplate what to contemplate the wonders to treasure Of God's love for us in Christ Jesus This is what the Bible calls the gospel the good news that though we're unlovely people God loves us in Christ and making that our Making that our food our oxygen every day One more picture think of the word that begins The section that was quoted from Deuteronomy Jesus quoted It's hero Israel. This is the Shema all right the Hebrew word Shema is here. It's a very powerful word It basically means sit up listen Those of you who have ears Jesus would say you if you have ears to hear hear Listen spiritually be sharp about what About the wonders of who God is in Christ the one true God Don't give yourself don't love all these other things in life all these other lesser gods But set your affections Set your life and passion upon the one true God Baving yourself in the great truth that you can do that because he has loved you first This is a great motive for life to live life the way it's supposed to be to love people One of the things that I love about my wife and I didn't get permission to tell him this so I'm sorry in advance Is You know she will occasionally give me little love notes just maybe hide them in my drawer Open my desk drawing will be a little love note there and one of the things that she'll say to me is I love you. I am so proud of
Know me she knows me she has to live with me. She sees the way I really am She sees the unlovely person that I am and yet she chooses To love me to be proud of me To enjoy me and delight me That's what gods are deemed loves all about That he who has eyes to see every thought every attitude every action every neglect chooses Because of the blessed life death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ to love you To be proud of you to pursue you reflect on that taste it love it And see if that amazing love of your heavenly Father Does not change your affections toward him and others Let's pray oh Lord Lord it is so difficult because life is so full um Full in a messy way of busy way uh, we're like that free throw shooter and Frankly, there are just way too many people waving in front of us and it's so difficult more to keep that one focus Would you please with your amazing transforming liberating love Come into our world and shove everything aside That you Jesus might be the victor of our souls that For rose out the enemy of our souls That we might adore you above all else In Jesus name we pray amen