Sunday Sermon

"You Are Not Far"
[Mark 12:28-34]
September 10, 2006 Second Reformed Church

How would you have answered the question? "Which is the most important commandment of all?" Do you have one in mind? The Pharisees and scribes debated with each other about what the most important commandment was and what a short summary of the entire Law might be. In this morning's Scripture, we have one of the scribes coming forward to ask what Jesus' opinion of the matter was, and if we didn't have the Gospel of Matthew, this would look like an honest question. But Matthew tells us that this man was chosen to ask Jesus the question in an attempt to trap him (Matthew 22:34-35).

The Sadducees had just asked Jesus a question about the resurrection, and Jesus had made them look like fools, showing them that they neither knew the Word of God, nor the Power of God. So, the Pharisees finished laughing and thought that they could trap Jesus with a question about the greatest Law..

Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel, the lord your God is one lord, and you shall love the lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all of your strength.' The second is this, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." The first law is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and the second is from Leviticus 19:18.

What do these laws tell us?

In the call of the first law, we learn that there is One and Only One God. Israel was reminded as they were called to worship with this commandment, and in synagogues around the world, they are still called to worship with this commandment, that Israel is a peculiar people. That is, they are not like the world, they believe in One God and the Only True God. That is true of us, the spiritual Israel, all those who believe in Jesus Alone for our salvation. We do not and may not believe in several gods or a pantheon of gods -- no, there is One and Only One God.

Then, we are told to love God with all of our heart (for defs., Bible Windows Analytical Dictionary and Hendriksen 492-4). This refers to the emotional, spirited, part of us that moves us in one direction or another. It includes our passions, our will, our inner-most self. Similarly, we are to love God with all of our soul -- and there is some over-lap between the words "heart" and "soul." This refers to the spirit within us, the life-force, it is that part of us described in Genesis 2:7, "then God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." The "breath of life," the soul, that living spirit that is ours, from God, that cannot die.

In the church that I grew up in, the minister's final sermon was on this passage, and when he talked about loving God with heart and soul, he told us about how he would visit the boys in the hospital who had come back from Viet Nam. Some of them had lost sight and hearing, some had their whole face taken off, some had lost both arms, both legs, but with all of that gone, they remained. There was still something there that made them who they were -- something untouchable by the guns and bombs. It is with that deepest part of who we are that we are to love God. With every breath, will, emotion, action, by our very existing, we are to love God.

We are also to love God with all of our mind -- with our intellectual ability. In whatever way and to whatever extent we can use our minds, we are to use them to love God. When we think, when we understand, when we explain, we are to do this in love for God.

And we are to love God with all of our strength -- with our physical body. In every way that we use our physical body, we are to love God. In eating, moving, engaging, having sexual relations -- in every way we use our body it is to be to show love to God. Paul put it this way, "You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (I Corinthians 6:20).

That is the most important law -- that we love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. Do we do it? Do we always love God, glorify God, submit to God, give thanks to God -- with all of the very center of our being, that which causes our body to live, and with all of our thoughts and intellectual processes, and with our body -- in everything we do to and with our body -- do we always, only, primarily use that which makes us who we are to show our love to God. He says that is the first and most important thing we ought to be doing. Do we give first? In everything we feel, in everything we do, in everything we think, in everything we understand to be the very core of who we are -- do we first use all of that -- all of us -- to show love and give thanks to God? It completely changes the way we live if we purpose to do everything first out of love for God.

What would it be like, if we were a people who believed and strived to say and act in this way: "I did this with my body because I wanted to show love to God." Would we rape and murder and abuse ourselves and each other? "I thought this out and planned this and came to these conclusions to show love to God." Would we embezzle and plot and cheat each other? "I felt this way, I am motivated to do this, my life is centered and focused in this way to show love to God." God deserves and is worthy to be loved and glorified with everything that we are, and if we strive to do so, we will be very different people. We might ask ourselves -- does this really show love to God? -- before we think or do or become anything.

Second, we are to love our neighbor as our self. We often paraphrase that as "love your neighbor." But we can get in trouble, because that doesn't tell us how much we should love our neighbor. We are to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. And the Bible is clear, God is clear, and if we think about it for even a split second, it will be clear to us -- we love ourselves very much, thank you. We love ourselves enough to provide for food and shelter and things that we enjoy around us. We are to love our neighbors -- who? -- everyone -- that much. Now, that doesn't mean that you or I have to provide for all of the needs and wants of every person that we come in contact with -- that's just not possible. What it does mean, is that you and I each have blessings and gifts that we are able to share with others -- that we are able to use to show love to others -- and as we are able and as the occasion appears, we are to show love in giving of what we have to those in need, so they might see our love and God's Love through us.

Jesus said these are the two greatest commandments, and there are none greater.

And this scribe got it, "Well said, teacher." It could be translated, "Beautifully said, teacher." The scribe was excited, filled with joy, the desire to trap Jesus had left him, and he was filled with respect and awe of Jesus. And he burst out in joy, "That's beautiful! What a perfect summary! What a truly true statement of the Law of God! There is One God. And to love God with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our mind and all of our strength and our neighbor as much as ourselves is greater and more pleasing to God than the sum total of all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices!"

God had given him wisdom. As the writer of Hebrews put it, "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book."' When he said above, 'You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings' (these are offered according to the law), then he added, 'Behold, I have come to do your will.' He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:5-10).

In other words, the sacrifices and offerings were symbolic -- God did not need bulls and goats and grain. They were symbolic of the sacrifice of Jesus, the only One Who could perfectly keep the Law and be sacrificed for those who did not keep the Law, because He is both fully God and fully human. The eternal Son came to earth, incarnate in the person of Jesus, lived a perfect life under the Law, was put to death for the sins of those who would believe, rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father in Heaven. Jesus made the final and only eternal sacrifice, so sacrifices are no longer necessary. Now we are called to obedience. And Jesus stated the summary of obedience to the Law -- Law that we, as Christian, can finally be obedient to, because we are empowered by God to keep it. Through Jesus, God has made us able to give Him the love and glory He deserves and to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, and God gave the scribe that understanding.

Jesus saw the wisdom of the scribe's answer to him and said, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." What does this tell us about Jesus?

It tells us that Jesus enforced the Law. As He said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of God. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:17-20). As Christians, we are not excused from keeping the moral law. No, God has made us able in Christ to finally keep the moral law, and we are to do so.

It also tells us that Jesus taught obedience to the Law as a sign of participation in the kingdom of God. In other words, if someone is keeping the Law of God, it is a sign that that person is a member of the Kingdom of God. But we must be careful, as Paul wrote, "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people" (II Timothy 3:1-5). In other words, someone may appear to be godly -- he may appear to be keeping the Law -- but, in fact, he is a son of his father, the devil.

This leads us to our third point: Jesus taught that obedience to the Law is not enough for participation in the Kingdom of God. James makes this very clear in his letter: "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For anyone who is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. ... If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable to all of it. ... What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them , 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith, and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe -- and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;" (James 1:22-25; 2:8-10, 14-22).

You see, good works are not enough for salvation. Good works are not enough for us to enter the kingdom of God. The scribe understood the summary of the Law. He thought it was beautiful, well-said, and accurate. But he had not confessed faith in Jesus Alone, the Messiah, the Savior. And Jesus said, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." How pathetic and tragic is it, if he never received Jesus by faith? And how pathetic and tragic is it, if you have spent a lifetime "keeping" the Law, trying to be "good," and you die, "not far from the kingdom of God"?

And Christians, if you call yourself a Christian and believe that you have faith, but believe that the moral law does not apply to you, you are deceived. Faith that does not lead to good works is not real faith: Obedience to the moral law is a natural outgrowth and sign that we do have faith in Jesus Alone for our salvation and we are members of the kingdom of God.

Where are you this morning? Are you "not far" from the kingdom of God? Understand, that's not good enough -- you're still lost in your sin. Paul wrote, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). And if you believe you are a member of the kingdom of God, then let us learn and live by loving God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength and our neighbor as much as ourselves. If we are working hard to do that, and we believe in Jesus Alone for our salvation, then we can be sure that we are members of the kingdom of God and we have received salvation in Jesus Alone.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for making it clear to us that we can never be good enough to earn the Kingdom and Your Salvation. And we thank You for making it clear that faith that does not evidence itself in good works is not a true faith. May You be pleased to give us true faith and the will and the desire and the ability to follow the commandments in love and joy and to Your Glory. In Jesus' Name, Amen.