LOVING GOD AND OUR NEIGHBOR

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: MARK 12:28-34




INTRODUCTION:


  1. We read in Mark 12:28, “And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?”
  2. Matthew 22:35 tells us this man was a lawyer, i.e., an expert in the law of Moses.
  3. He appears to have been an honest and sincere man, and our Lord commended him (Mark 12:34).
  4. By his question, he meant “first in importance,” not “first in order.”
  5. Our Lord answered him by quoting Deuteronomy 6:4, 5, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
  6. These verses are part of what Jews refer to as the “Shema” (Hebrew for “hear”).  For orthodox Jews these Scriptures are the centerpiece of their morning and evening prayers, and this is considered their most important prayer.
  7. Deuteronomy 6:4 summarizes the monotheistic faith of Judaism: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD.” 
  8. This verse also affirms the triune nature of God.  “The LORD (Jehovah) our God (Elohim) is one LORD (Jehovah)” (Deut. 6:4).
  9. The Hebrew word translated “one” expresses compound unity.  The same word is used in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
  10. The Hebrew word for God - Elohim - is the plural of El and is the first name for God given in the Bible, “In the beginning, God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
  11. Elohim is peculiar to the Hebrew OT and appears in no other Semitic language.
  12. By quoting Deuteronomy 6:4, 5, our Lord epitomized all the commandments that deal specifically with man’s duty toward God.
  13. Then our Lord added, “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31).  This “second commandment” is from Leviticus 19:18.
  14. This second commandment epitomizes man’s duty toward his fellow man.
  15. Our Lord added something to Deuteronomy 6:4 - “and with all thy mind.”   (“Might” and “strength” are synonymous.)
  16. It has been said that man’s great dominant faculties can be divided under four heads: conscience (heart), affections (soul), intellect (mind), and will (strength).
  17. Therefore I will attempt to divide my exposition under these four heads.

  1. MAN’S CONSCIENCE - “with all thy heart”
  2. MAN’S AFFECTIONS - “with all thy soul”
  3. MAN’S INTELLECT - “with all thy mind”
  4. MAN’S WILL - “with all thy strength”

 

I. MAN’S CONSCIENCE - “with all thy heart”

  1. The heart is referred to 833 times in the Bible.  It refers to the inner man, the seat of personality, man’s conscience.
  2. The first time we see the word “heart” is in Genesis 6:5, and it refers to an evil heart.  This is a result of the fall of man.
  3. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).
  4. Here we see in the very early pages of human history that man’s heart was full of sin.  It was so bad that God had to send a flood to destroy the world.  Things are not any better today.
  5. Loving God with all your heart means hating sin.  Loving God with all your heart means obeying God.
  6. Romans 6:17 says, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”
  7. This speaks of a sense of moral obligation to obey God.   David said, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).
  8. Our Lord, quoting the prophet Isaiah, said, “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6).
  9. The same principle applies to the second great commandment (Mark 12:31).  Love means putting others first.  Loving our neighbor with all our heart means we recognize our obligation to help our neighbor - to relieve his wants and to promote his welfare (cf. Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10).
  10. Certainly this should be applied to soulwinning and to missions.  We are to love God with all our heart, and we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
  11. And if we love God we will obey Him, and He has told us to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
  12. If we love our neighbor we do not want to see him go to hell.
  13. Back in 1865, Hudson Taylor was given a few minutes to address a large conference in Scotland.  He told his listeners that in October of 1856 (nine years earlier), he had been  travelling on a Chinese ship from Shanghai to Ningpo. Among his fellow-passengers, there was a Chinese man, by the name of Peter, who had spent some years in England and  though not unacquainted with the Gospel, knew nothing of its saving power.
  14. Hudson Taylor told the story of this man’s friendliness and of his own efforts to win him to Christ. Nearing the city of Sung-kiang, they were preparing to go ashore together to preach and distribute Gospel tracts, when Mr. Taylor in his cabin was startled by a sudden splash and a cry that told of a man overboard. Springing at once on deck he looked round and realized Peter had fell overboard.
  15. “Yes,” exclaimed the boatmen unconcernedly, “it was over there he went down!”
  16. Searching everywhere in an agony of suspense, Mr. Taylor caught sight of some fishermen with a dragnet - just the thing needed.
  17. “Come,” he cried as hope revived, “come and drag over this spot. A man is drowning!”
  18. “Veh bin,” was their amazing reply: “It is not convenient.”
  19. “Don’t talk of convenience! Quickly come, or it will be too late.”
  20. “We are busy fishing.”
  21. “Never mind your fishing! Come - only come at once! I will pay you well.”
  22. “How much will you give us?”
  23. “Five dollars! Only don’t stand talking.  Save the man’s life without delay!”
  24. “Too little!” they shouted across the water.  “We will not come for less than thirty dollars.”
  25. “But I have not so much with me I.  I will give you all I’ve got.”
  26. “And how much may that be?”
  27. “Oh, I don’t know. About fourteen dollars.”
  28. Upon this they finally came, and the first time they passed the net through the water they brought up the missing man. But all Mr. Taylor’s efforts to restore respiration were in vain. It was only too plain that Peter had died, sacrificed to the callous indifference of those who might easily have saved him.
  29. Hudson Taylor’s biographer, his son Howard Taylor (also a missionary to China), described the audience’s response to this sad story: “A burning sense of indignation swept over the great audience. Could it be that anywhere on earth people were to be found so utterly callous and selfish!
  30. But conviction struck home all the more deeply as Hudson Taylor made his point: “Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man’s death - because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,’ and the searching question inspired by God Himself; ‘If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul doth not He know it? And shall He not render to every man according to his works?’”
  31. Loving God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself means doing your best to reach them with the Gospel.

 

II. MAN’S AFFECTIONS - “with all thy soul”

  1. God is worthy of all our affections.  Man is an emotional being.  If loving God with all our heart  speaks of our sense of moral obligation to obey God, then loving God with all our soul speaks of our need to worship Him.
  2. Some preaching services touch man’s intellect but do nothing for the soul.  On the other hand, some church services are very emotional but the people are not being properly instructed in the Word of God.
  3. This is why our Lord said, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart (conscience), and with all thy soul (emotions), and with all thy mind (intellect), and with all thy strength (will)” (Mark 12:30).
  4. This underscores the comprehensiveness of our duty to love God.
  5. Some preaching goes straight to the heart, and bypasses the brain. And in some cases it is the other way around.  But our Lord says we should love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength.
  6. “And the second is like…” (Mark 12:31).  There is too much unscriptural teaching today about self-love.  Selfishness is worldly and devilish.  I saw a photo in the newspaper the other day of “A-Rod” kissing himself in the mirror.  Another photo showed him looking lovingly at his image in the mirror.  It was disturbing.
  7. We can expect this creepy self-love from rich and pampered celebrities, but unfortunately it has crept into Christian circles too, through the unscriptural teachings of James Dobson, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, et al.
  8. The Bible assumes man will love himself, but nowhere in the Bible is man told to love himself.
  9. Loving your neighbor as yourself suggests an unselfish love and sympathy toward our fellow man.  If you love your neighbor, you do not want him to go to hell.  You will attempt to win him to Christ.

 

III. MAN’S INTELLECT - “with all thy mind”

  1. This deals with man’s rational faculties. We teach Sunday School and we preach God’s Word Sunday morning, and Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening because we understand this principle.
  2. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”  This renewing work comes by the Word of God.
  3. And Paul wrote in Romans 7:25, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God.”
  4. If man is to love God and serve God with all his mind he must have an intelligent knowledge of God’s person, God’s nature, and God’s character.
  5. People often talk about “God” but it is apparent that their god is not the God of the Bible.
  6. Deuteronomy 32:31 says, “For their rock is not as our Rock.”
  7. For example, so-called theistic evolutionists say that God used evolution to accomplish creation.  But this contradicts the Bible.
  8. Therefore, the god of the evolutionists is not the God of the Bible.
  9. The homosexuals say God created them that way.  But this also contradicts the Bible.  Why would God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if He created the sodomites that way? 
  10. There is a popular book out called The Shack.  Millions of people are being deceived by this horrible book because the “god” of “the Shack” does not judge sin.
  11. The false god of The Shack says, “I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it...” (p. 120).
  12. This is certainly not what the Bible teaches (cf. II Thess. 1:7-9).
  13. Psalm 9:17 says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”
  14. The false god of The Shack says, “Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims...I have no desire to make them Christian” (p. 182).
  15. But Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
  16. In a recent radio interview, The Shack author, William Young, told the interviewer he did not hold to the Biblical view of the atonement in that he does not believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.
  17. But the Bible emphasizes that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
  18. So in order to love God with all our mind we must know His Word.  Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
  19. But there are multitudes of professed Christians who do not keep God’s commandments, and at the same time they claim to love God.  They are being deceived by the devil, and by the works of the devil, like The Shack and all of the other heretical books being sold today.   We need to read the Bible and know the Bible and believe the Bible and obey the Bible in order to love God with all our mind.
  20. Regarding the second great commandment (Mark 12:31), loving our neighbor with all our mind means learning about his needs.
  21. And man’s greatest need is spiritual - he needs to be born again.

 

IV. MAN’S WILL - “with all thy strength”

  1. There must be a yielding to God - a yielding of the whole being to God.
  2. The will is the governing power in man’s nature, and if the will is yielded to God than everything else will fall into place.
  3. Loving God with all your strength means but making a deliberate decision to obey God and to serve God no matter what.
  4. I am resolved no longer to linger,
    Charmed by the world’s delight,
    Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
    These have allured my sight.
     
    I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free;
    Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.
     
    I am resolved to follow the Savior,
    Faithful and true each day;
    Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth,
    He is the living Way.    —— Palmer Hartsough
  5. Are you resolved to do what God willeth? 
  6. Jesus prayed to God the Father, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

 

CONCLUSION:


  1. I watching a Christian video about the life of Eric Liddell, the Scottish athlete who won the Men’s 400 meters at the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris.
  2. In this video, they interviewed close friends and family members who all agreed that there were many inaccuracies in the film Chariots of Fire.
  3. In that popular 1981 film (it won 4 Oscars, including best picture), Eric Liddell is shown struggling over his decision whether or not to run on the Lord’s Day.  But in reality, there was no struggle.
  4. Eric Liddell loved the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength, and so there was no struggle obeying God.
  5. He simply refused to run on Sunday, and that was it.
  6. Later on, Eric Liddell returned to China where he served as a missionary, like his parents.  (He was born in China.)
  7. He died in a Japanese internment camp during WWII.


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