The Love That Leads Us Near To God

Transcript

Good morning, family. Good morning. So we have a lot to unpack this morning. Ryan just kept reading and reading. There’s a lot of good and beautiful things in our text this morning, and so I’m excited. So before we dive in, let’s take a moment just to pray and ask for the Lord’s help. Father, there is so much beauty and depth and complexity of your word.

And on a human level, it would be impossible to understand what your word has for us, to probe the depths of your word and receive clarity. We recognize, Father, that this is altogether a spiritual exercise. And so right now, we ask for the Spirit’s help to guide us, to illuminate your word, to correct us and to conform us into the image of Jesus. Meet us this morning, Father. Give us eyes to see. Give us hearts to love you rightly as we’re confronted with your word. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.

Love’s Complexity

Well, love is a complicated word. According to its definition, it is an intense feeling of deep affection. But it’s not the definition that makes it a complicated word. It’s how we as a society choose to use the word in our everyday life that makes it complicated. So for example, we can say we love good coffee and we love Portland. Unless you’re Sam Nagel, you probably don’t feel this with an intense feeling of deep affection. We just really like those things. So when we say that we love something or we love someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we actually love that someone or something. But regardless of how we choose to use or misuse the word, love, when properly applied, is arguably the deepest and greatest of all emotions. In fact, in almost all other emotions, whether it’s painful or joyful, it is connected to love

or it is sourced in love. The Bible tells us in 1 John that God is love, which is a very interesting way to frame love. Because it’s not just that God loves, but that God is love, meaning he is love personified. Love is one of his attributes. And so what this means for us as creatures created by God, made in the very image of God, is that we’re not only made with the capacity and desire to love, but we’re actually made with a genetic marker of love that pushes us into this ever driving pursuit of love. And not in some superficial or shallow sense, and not in a limited romantic sense, but in a deep and divine and ultimate sense. This is why the songs and movies that move our hearts the most are the ones that touch on this sacred theme of never ending

love or together forever kind of love. It resonates deep within our souls because at the end of the day, we were made to be eternally tethered to the God of love. Because we’re fallen creatures, our pursuits of love and our desires for love are all out of alignment, which is one of the very reasons we misuse the word love to begin with. The longing is a good thing. And it’s God’s means of leading us near to him, to his ultimate source of love. But the sin in our hearts has this corrupting effect on our longing. And it seems to only lead us farther and farther from the source of the very love we were made to experience. And so what we end up doing is we find all these cheap imitations. We settle for that which is temporary, for that which never truly satisfies our God-given craving

for love. And this perhaps is one of humanity’s biggest problems. As cliche or as kitschy as it sounds, it’s true that we’re constantly looking for love in all the wrong places. And the irony in all this is that because of our sin, in our pursuits of love and our desire to be loved, we do all kinds of unloving things to get it. Not only that, but the kinds of things and people we chase after tend to always leave us unhappy and unsatisfied. So though humanity’s longing for love is good and right, it seems that we often don’t know who to love or how to love. But in the loving kindness of God, in the steadfast love of God, he has not left us without understanding or without a means of realignment. He has given us his divine word as a guide to the kind of love that leads us near to the God of love.

The Greatest Commandment

And brothers and sisters, this is exactly what is made clear in our text this morning. And it’s really interesting to see the connectedness of these four kind of separate narratives, but how it beautifully and mysteriously strings together this greater understanding of the kind of love we were made for. And the way this breaks down is that in the first two narratives, we get a picture of the who and the how we are to love. And then in the last two narratives, we essentially get two case studies, one framed negatively and the other that’s framed positively. And so there’s a lot to cover this morning, so I’ll just dive right in. So let’s look at verse 28 with the who and the how to love. And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another. And seeing that he answered them well,

asked him, which commandment is the most important of all? As we’ve seen, Jesus has been consistently in conflict with the religious leaders. And our text this morning picks right up at the close of a previous conflict with the scribes, or the Sadducees to be more specific. And one of these scribes that was observing approaches Jesus. The first thing I want you to notice here is the tone of this scribe. Up to this point, all we’ve seen is hostility from the scribes as they’ve questioned Jesus, but here it’s different. The tone and the motive is different. This is an honest question that’s coming from a place of genuine interest in what Jesus has to say. So if you remember last week, as Andrew beautifully unpacked the passage, the Sadducees were of the religious sect that did not believe in the resurrection, the literal resurrection, which is why they tried to trap Jesus

with the question concerning the resurrection. But Jesus biblically confronts them by pointing them to the Old Testament scriptures and to the power of God, that God is not the God of the dead, but he’s the God of the living, which ultimately reveals that there is an actual resurrection. And you have to remember that when Jesus rebukes the Sadducees for their false view concerning the resurrection, the scribes, the experts of the law who actually believed in the resurrection, they were present, they were observing. They heard how Jesus dealt with this issue from the Old Testament scriptures, and so it’s likely that this one particular scribe, after hearing Jesus faithfully and biblically deal with this issue of the resurrection, approaches Jesus to genuinely ask him a question. Now, the fact that this scribe asks Jesus this honest question with the right motives is actually a good thing for us to see,

because up to this point, we’ve only seen the negative side of the religious leaders. So while it is true that most of them were in opposition to Jesus, there were some who were genuinely curious and intrigued by what Jesus had said. And so this particular scribe, out of his curiosity, he asks a question. This common question in Judaism concerning what is the greatest commandment. Now, why does the scribe even ask this question to begin with? Well, it’s because the primary responsibility of a scribe was to interpret the law. And the whole purpose of interpreting the law was so that he could explain the law. So that’s essentially the job description of a scribe. And given Jesus’s ease to both interpret and explain the law, this scribe approaches Jesus for help in understanding and explaining the most fundamental question concerning the Jewish religion. And again, it’s beautiful what Jesus does here.

He answers the question by appealing to the Old Testament scriptures. Verse 29 through 31.

Jesus answered, the most important is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. His second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

— Mark 12

(ESV)

So Jesus, using the scriptures, both simplifies and prioritizes the commands of God by appealing to love. And his biblical justification comes from two Old Testament passages. Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5 in Leviticus 9, 18. In fact, what Jesus quotes is a hybrid of those two. So let’s look at the first in the Deuteronomy passage, which is almost a direct quote. Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5 says, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. This verse here is part of what was commonly known in Judaism as the Shema, which is a bit of a creed that devout Jews would recite every day. It would be something akin to what we do with the Apostles’ Creed every Sunday. So it’s obviously a very popular passage among the Jews.

And like most popular things that’s regularly recited, the depth and the weightiness of it is often overlooked, precisely because of its repetition. And the reason Jesus appeals to Deuteronomy is because it’s here where we start to see not only that the greatest commandment is love, but also it shows us who and how we are to love. And this is important to understand so that we know that Jesus is not referencing some kind of general love, like the Beatles’ kind of love. But this is a specific love. It’s a directed love with specific actions attached to it. And so this is why he begins with this call. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. When Jesus says this right away, this combats the notion that is so prevalent in our culture that as long as you love in general that you will be good with God,

that you’ll be good with people and the world will be a better place. This bucks against the aimless love that is undefied. True love is to be specifically directed to the one true God, Yahweh, the God of the Bible. And when it says the Lord is one, that means that God is not made up of many gods or that God is not one of many gods. No, he is one God. He is exclusive, that he alone is God, which means then despite the pluralistic culture that we live in that says all paths lead to God, it’s simply not true. There is only one true God, Yahweh. And all other paths that claim to lead to God actually lead you far from God because they’re false gods. They’re imaginary gods. They’re non-existent gods. So the God we are to love, the who is specific to Yahweh,

the God of the Bible. But then it goes on to show the how we are to love this specific and only God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. Now, that’s a big call to action. It’s massive. And because we live in such a fluffy kind of love culture, it’s important to understand what does this actually mean? Well, to love with all your heart is to love exclusively. It’s really a capacity issue, meaning your heart must be full of love and devotion to God, so exclusively reserved for God that nothing else in this world can compete with it. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t love other people in this world. We do. In fact, Jesus addresses that and we’ll get to that in a second. But what it does mean is that our love for God

should ultimately be what reigns supremely in our hearts and that all of our other loves should flow out of that love. And to make it really very practical, there should be a non-compete clause in the compartment of your heart. Nothing else, no one else should occupy that space that God alone is meant to occupy. And to love your God with all your soul means, on a practical level, to love God in such a way that it’s demonstrated with a total submission to his will and to his ultimate purposes, that your soul, the deepest part of your being, that your spirit will love and live under God’s sovereign rule, which practically means that your love for God’s will must be greater than your own will. And to love your God with all your mind, well, that’s pretty basic. It’s to love God with your thoughts, with your thought life.

And more than that, it’s to learn the one that you profess to love, to study, to take all there is in about this God, not for the sake of just knowledge alone, but for the sake of loving God better. And this is why, brothers and sisters, I’m constantly telling you, your theology doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t lead you to loving God better. To love with all your mind is to intellectually assent and to submit to his wisdom and to his word, even when it seemingly doesn’t make sense. And to love your God with all your strength is to labor with your love. It’s to actively demonstrate your love and allegiance to God with your life, with your body, with your things, with your actions. That means, then, if your heart is moving away from God, if your soul is shifting in a direction that is in an opposite course from God,

if your mind is leading you down a path of deconstruction, you are to actively fight against it with all of your strength, with all that you can muster up within you. And you see, this is why, when people deconstruct their faith, it shouldn’t be celebrated as brave or noble. We should call it what it is, not fighting hard enough for the love you once professed, because that’s what real love does. It fights. It doesn’t just profess certain things, but it gives them the greatest room in the realm of your hearts. It commits to learning and loving what is lovely about the person, and it doesn’t leave when it can’t be figured out or when it’s complicated. I mean, how foolish would we sound if we said, oh, you know, I’m in the process of deconstructing my marriage. It’s complicated. I just can’t figure it out.

And as a result, I’m just gonna deconstruct from my commitment to my family and to my children. We would see that as foolish. If you profess to love, but you don’t fight for love, then you never really love to begin with. Real love is faithful. It’s spiritual. It continues to learn of the one that you love, and real love fights to the bitter end to preserve and to protect that love that you profess. This is what it means, brothers and sisters, to love with all. Did you notice the emphasis? All, all, all, all. It’s emphasizing a total response of love to the lordship of God.

So on a dumb practical level, your love for God must be all physical, all spiritual, all mental, and all active. And that loyal love for God, when it’s genuine, has an outworking effect on your neighbor as well, which is why Jesus then quotes from Leviticus 19, 18, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Who is your neighbor? Well, we’ve talked about this before. Your neighbor is all people. So think about that for a second. You are to love with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and you’re to love all people. It’s an all-consuming, all-comprehensive love that is both vertical and horizontal. There’s a natural outworking of our love for God that makes its way into the lives of those who are uniquely made in the image of God. And you see, brothers and sisters,

this is why we as Christians ought to never participate in this us versus them mentality. That’s not what God’s intentions are for you. The world is lost in its longing for love, and that’s why they do the things that they do. They don’t know any better. And so we are to love them because our love for God compels us, but it also commands us to do so. And our hope is that as we demonstrate the love of God, they would experience that kind of love and be attracted to it, that they would draw near to it because it’s so countercultural. It doesn’t come with terms or conditions or which tribe you’re a part of. This is why we are to love. The world will know us by our love, our love for one another as Christians absolutely, but it doesn’t stop there. It will also spread the way we love the world around us.

And to be clear, just so that there’s no ambiguity here, loving people in this world doesn’t mean that we don’t tell them the truth concerning sin or God’s coming judgment. In fact, that’s quite the opposite. It’s not loving at all to not tell people about their sin in God’s coming judgment, the one who can save them from their sin. Love doesn’t mean tolerance.

Jesus closes his statement here by reiterating that there is no greater commandment than these, to love God and to love neighbor. And you see the reason there is no greater commandment than these is because if you love God and you love neighbor, then you will keep all the 10 commandments, the moral law. Because the first four commandments specifically deal with loving God. And the last six commandments specifically deal with loving people. So then if you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, you won’t serve any other gods before him. You won’t create idols in place of God. You won’t use God’s name disrespectfully and you won’t disregard his holy day. And if you love your neighbor as yourself, you won’t kill people, you won’t commit adultery, you won’t steal, you won’t lie, you won’t covet your neighbor’s things

and you definitely won’t covet your neighbor’s wife. That’s why Jesus calls us to prioritize our love for him and our love for others because when you do that, you keep all of his commandments, the moral law. And the scribe, after hearing this wonderful wisdom from Jesus as he unpacked the Old Testament scriptures, he gets it. And not only does he get it, but he understands how love is far greater than the religious work of his constituents, of his partners. Verse 32 to 33, and the scribe said to him, “‘You are right, teacher. “‘You have truly said that he is one, “‘that there is no one other beside him. “‘And to love him with all your heart “‘and with all your understanding “‘and with all your strength “‘and to love one’s neighbor as oneself “‘is much more than all whole burnt offerings “‘and sacrifices.’” He gets it.

He connects the dots. The response of the scribe in his honesty, it reveals that he is wise and teachable, that he’s discerning and able to apply the truth. He’s taken what Jesus just said and he unfolds it and pulls it apart. He understands the significance of what love for God and love for neighbor means. He sees the truth that love is what compels sin and sacrifice. Love is what compels sacrifice, which means then that if we sacrifice without love, then our sacrifice is worthless. And isn’t that interesting? This scribe sees that love is what compels sacrifice.

And Jesus, seeing that the scribe understood that he discerned the truth, Jesus makes this very interesting statement in verse 34. And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’” And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. And you see what this means. It means that when we love God and when we love others, that we are in close proximity to God and his kingdom. And you see, the statement is so much more profound than just you’re close to the kingdom of God. Jesus was speaking both intellectually and physically because the scribe was honest and discerning. He was close in terms of his intellectual understanding, but he was also close in terms of his physical standing. So it was both literally understanding God, but then also physically standing close to God.

And I love that response of Jesus here. I love this response of the scribe and Jesus’s response to him because we tend to think of conversion as this immediate thing that just happens right away when someone hears the gospel, they immediately respond and there’s this instant conversion. And sometimes that’s the case. Praise be to God, but it’s not always the case. Sometimes the process of conversion could be just that, a process where God begins to open up people’s hearts to the truth, where they become curious and intrigued. They don’t have anything or everything figured out, but they’re open. There’s a spiritual sensitivity there. They’re asking honest questions. And in some cases, the process eventually turns to God making their heart of stone a heart of flesh. And this could be you here this morning. Maybe you stumbled into church because you were just curious. Maybe a friend or a coworker has been bothering you

to come to church and this is your obligation to him. So you end up here, but you’re curious. You’re thinking about it. You don’t have everything figured out. You’re open, asking honest questions. If you’re here this morning, listen, there is no better place to be than here. There’s no better place to be. And I want to encourage you to keep on coming. Keep asking questions. Ask us questions. Ask any of the pastors. Ask anybody sitting in the congregation. If you have questions, they’ll help you figure it out.

You want to know what it means to be a Christian? You want to know about this weird thing that we believe, this strange, incomprehensible thing, what it means to have your sins forgiven? Come talk with us. We want to help you figure out. It would be our joy to do that. We would love to do that. And when I say we would love to do that, I mean that in the truest sense of the word love, with deep affection. We would love to talk to you about that.

The Messiah’s Identity

Now, when I heard this narrative, when I first read this narrative of this scribe, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another similar narrative that we’ve unpacked in Mark’s gospel. And that’s the narrative of the rich young ruler. You don’t have to turn there in your Bibles. I’ll read it to you. Mark 10, verses 17 through 22 says, and as he was setting out on his journey, a man, a rich young ruler, ran up before him and asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. See what Jesus did there? He pushes him into the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And he said to him, teacher,

all these I’ve kept for my youth. And Jesus, looking at him, listen, loved him. Jesus, looking at him, loved him. And said to him, you lack one thing. Go sell all that you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. Disheartened by the saying, the rich young ruler went away sorrowfully for he had great possessions. You see, the rich young ruler was also honest in his approach. When he asks God about eternal life, he’s spiritually sensitive. He genuinely wants to know what’s going on. He too was not that far from God, both intellectually and in proximity. And Jesus does the same thing. He appeals to the commandments. And this rich young ruler, he thinks to himself, oh, I’m good. I’m good. I’ve been rocking these commandments since a child.

But Jesus, knowing the rich young ruler’s heart, knew that he failed to follow the greatest commandment, to love your God with all your heart. See, for him, his love for money was what prevented him from following Jesus. He couldn’t love the Lord with all his heart because his money and his things occupied the greatest parts of his heart. You see what this means then? It means that you could be a moral person. You could do all kinds of good things and still be far from God. You can know certain things about God. You can know good theology and still be far from God. Well, after Jesus responds to the scribe with such magnificent wisdom, no one else in the crowd dare to ask any more questions. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He keeps pushing this issue of love so that the people in the temple

will have a greater understanding, a more comprehensive view concerning the one God that they are called to love. And so that brings us to this next section where Jesus further elaborates on the who we are to love. Verse 35, and as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, how can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? So Jesus, seeing how one of these scribes was able to ask an honest question and discern the truth from the scriptures, Jesus here begins to address another issue in the scriptures that the scribes have been tripping over. And that has to do with the Messiah, the Christ being identified as the son of David. You see, according to not just the scribes, but all the religious leaders, there was this expectation that the Messiah would be an offspring of King David. In their mind, from their understanding

of the scriptures, this offspring would be a man, a descendant of the son of David, which is all true. But in their mind, though they knew the Messiah was gonna be from the line of David, they viewed the Messiah as a political and nationalistic leader who would come with a military force like King David. So when Jesus asked this question, what’s being implied here is, in what sense, or on what basis do you make the claim that the Messiah is the son of David? Essentially, what Jesus is saying to them is, you don’t even know what you’re talking about. Yeah, you got some things figured out, but you’re missing the main point. So Jesus poses this rhetorical question to correct their wrong thinking concerning the Messiah. And of course, Jesus does this again by using the Old Testament scriptures. And just a side note, that should be,

this pattern here should be something that you put into practice. People have questions about your God, your faith, your love for him, don’t give them philosophy. Don’t give them, oh, my heart feels a particular way about it. Give them God’s word, the source of all truth. So Jesus appeals to the Old Testament scripture, and this passage is a quote from Psalm 110. But before Jesus quotes the passage, he prefaces it by saying, David himself in the Holy Spirit declared. Okay, so that’s Jesus prefacing his quote from Psalm 110. Then he goes on to say, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. Now, you’re gonna have to track with me for a bit here, because we’re gonna have to dive a little bit. When Jesus quotes from Psalm 110, by starting with the fact that David,

under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, made this statement, he’s setting some context for us. And if you’re the highlighting type, or the underlining type in your Bible, and I want you to do two things here. I want you to first underline where it says the Lord, and then I want you to highlight or underline where it says my Lord, okay? The reason I want you to underline those is because those two words in the Hebrew, from Psalm 110, are actually translated differently. When David references the Lord, it’s translated Yahweh. It’s what we just referenced earlier. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That’s what David’s referencing with the Lord. But when David references my Lord, it’s translated Adonai, or master, or a better translation might be Messiah. So the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, makes this statement, the Lord, Yahweh,

said to my Lord, the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. And then Jesus gets to the main point of his question in verse 37. If David himself calls him Lord, how is he his son? And here’s what Jesus is getting at. If King David refers to the Messiah as my Lord, then the Messiah is so much more than just the son of David. It’s not just an heir of David. He is greater than David, meaning the Messiah is not just the son of David, but he is also the son of God. And now, if you’re looking at it properly, you can begin to understand why Jesus brings up this issue in the first place. Because over the last couple of weeks, as we’ve been walking through this passion, Jesus has been emphasizing two motifs. You remember what those were?

The son of God and absolute authority. When they challenge his authority, he referenced the baptism of John the Baptist, where the father declares from heaven, this is my son with whom I am well-pleased. And again, he emphasizes his authority in the parable of the tenants by referring to himself as the son of the vineyard owner, meaning the son of God. And you see what this means then. If the greatest commandment is to love God and to love neighbor, these scribes, these Pharisees, and these Sadducees who have failed to see Jesus as the Messiah, they failed to see him as the son of God, they’ve not received him as the son of God, they have failed to fulfill the greatest commandment.

Because if Jesus is the son of God, if Jesus is God, they’re not loving him. In fact, they’re doing the opposite. They’re rejecting him. They’re literally trying to kill him. Though they are unknowingly near to God in proximity, though they know certain things about the Old Testament scriptures, they are not loving God, and therefore they’re spiritually far from God. And there’s something else that I don’t want you to miss here in this section here. Jesus, in this small little section, is emphasizing some pretty weighty doctrine. I mean, first, he unpacks the nature of Jesus. And more specifically, it’s what theologians call the hypostatic union, that Jesus is fully man. He comes from the line of David, he’s fully man, but that he’s also fully God, he’s divine. So Jesus is helping us to understand this very deep theological truth about God, he’s fully God, he’s fully man.

And then secondly, Jesus is emphasizing the doctrine of the Trinity. Did you notice it in verse 36? This one little verse, this one little verse. David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, the Lord said to my Lord. You see, this is Trinitarian right here. It’s the multi-personal nature of God. It’s being emphasized here. Christian apologist, Sam Shimon, when speaking about this particular verse, he says this, by referencing this particular text, Jesus is demonstrating that the Hebrew scriptures themselves testify that the one Lord whom the Israelites worship and profess is multi-personal.

In other words, the one God is Trinitarian. One God in three persons. And you see why this is important to understand. Because if anyone intends to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, that love must be Trinitarian in focus. And because loving God rightly and righteously hinges on the identity of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. And with this correction, the crowd was pleased to hear what he had to say. That’s why they respond, and the great throng heard him gladly. So essentially, what these two sections reveal is that the who we are to love is the one true God of the Bible. One God in three persons. And how we are to love is with our whole heart, with all our hearts. And from that all-encompassing love, we are to love all people.

Two Case Studies

But Jesus doesn’t stop with just data points, information, or doctrine. He gives us two case studies to show us a negative and a positive example of love. And that’s played out in verses 38 through 40 with the hypocritical love, and then in verses 41 through 44 with the humble love. So let’s look at verse 38 with the hypocritical love.

And in his teaching, he said, beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and like greetings in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues, and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.

— Mark 12

(ESV)

So Jesus uses the scribes as a negative example of how not to love, of how not to be. That’s why he says, beware. Jesus essentially says, instead of fulfilling the greater commandment,

these scribes will receive the greater condemnation. He begins first by making reference to all of the religious things that the scribes do to promote themselves. They parade around in their religious and extravagant garments, so that everyone knows that they’re religious people. They love to receive praise and accolades from all the people in the marketplaces and in the synagogues. They position themselves in the most prominent places, in the most important places, to be seen by others. They love to be the featured guests at the feasts, because everybody would be looking at them. Essentially, they’re self-promoters and platform builders, or a better way to describe it is that they’re glory thieves. And you see, the reason they do this is not because they love God, but because they love themselves. They love themselves.

And what’s even more shocking about this scenario is the text says they devour widow’s houses. Now, that’s an interesting phrase. This phrase is used to describe the exploitation of the most vulnerable in society. Widows in this culture, in this kind of patriarchal culture, lived with no protection of their husband, because their husband died. And so they could easily be taken advantage of. And you think that the religious leaders would be the last kind of people who would seek to exploit these poor widows or take advantage of them. But that’s precisely what they did. They would persuade widows to give up the very little money they had to subsidize their religious extravagant lives. Now, this isn’t altogether different from the prosperity preachers that we see today, who exploit the most vulnerable among us, the sick, the poor, the desperate, the uneducated. And the greatest tool for exploitation

is the same tool today that was used back then, prayer. Give me all your money and I’ll pray for you. Make a donation of $110,000 and I’ll pray for you. That’s why it says, for a pretense, they make long prayers. Beloved, God hates, He hates that. And as a result, they will receive the greatest condemnation from God. This is not loving God. And it’s definitely not loving neighbor. And it’s all done because they love themselves. Though they profess to be religious and righteous, though they profess to love God and follow all the commandments, they’re hypocrites. Their love is hypocritical and God hates it. So we get this picture here of what love isn’t supposed to look like. But so as to not leave us on our own, the Lord gives us this wonderful picture of what love of God and love for neighbor actually should look like.

And we see that in verses 41 through 44 with the humble love.

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums, but a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more “‘than all those who are contributing to the offering box, “‘for they all contributed out of their abundance, “‘but she, out of her poverty, “‘has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.

— Mark 12

(ESV)

’” So Jesus, in this living illustration here, positions himself in the temple next to the offering boxes, if you will. Now these offering boxes were kind of like a large trumpet-shaped receptacle, okay? That’s the best way I could describe it.

So they’re metal and they’re big receptacles. And so as people would walk by in the temple to give their offering, they would take all of their coins and they would throw it in this metal receptacle. And as you can imagine, it would make all kinds of noise from the coins clanking and reverberating off of this trumpet-shaped offering box. And so the amount that a person would give would be audibly noticeable to the people in the temple, everyone standing around. So you’d have these very wealthy men throwing in large amounts of coin into the offering boxes, making their offering a very public spectacle. And the people standing by would often listen to how much money was going in and deduce that the amount that was given was equal to their love for God. They must be really in love with God because they’re given all that money.

But that’s not necessarily true. And to make this point, Jesus draws his attention to this poor widow in the temple who drops in two small coins. Clank, clank. Such a contrast and comparative difference between the wealthy offering and the poor offering. And hear me, listen to me. The difference has nothing to do with the amount.

It has nothing to do with the amount of money. It has everything to do with sacrifice. You see, it’s not that wealthy people who give money to the church is a bad thing. Of course that’s not the case. God uses wealthy people to provide for the church. He blesses people to make a lot of money to give that money to the church so that the church can thrive. Again, it’s not the amount that pleases God.

It’s how you give that pleases God. Meaning, is it a sacrifice? Meaning, do you feel it when you give it? Do you feel it when you give it? Let me give you an example. If Jeff Bezos wrote a check for $340,000 to Trinity Church and we got it in the mail, we would praise God. We would say, thank you, Lord, for Jeff Bezos and his generosity. That just made up our annual budget. Let’s go do some kingdom work in Portland.

But the $350,000 donation, though we see it as a great contribution, means nothing compared to the massive worth of Jeff Bezos. You see, to give sacrificially means it hurts when you give it. It means to choose to forego certain things or privileges or benefits when you give it. This is why Jesus says that this poor widow gave more than all those who gave in abundance. For them, they didn’t feel it. They gave in abundance. For her, in her current financial situation, she gave those two coins and it hurt. It hurt. It cost a lot, which means she sacrificed to give those coins. And why does she give?

Because she loves God and trusts God that he will provide for her every need. See, she knows what it feels like to not have enough, but yet somehow always have enough. She gets it. She lives a life of humble dependence upon the Lord. And because she knows that her offering will be used by God to provide for others like her, hopeless, desperate, exploited, she gives.

She gives because she loves God and she loves neighbor. J.C. Riles says, the Lord looks not merely at the amount given, but at the ability of the giver, not merely at the quantity contributed, but at the motive and heart of the contributor. Now, I want you to notice what Jesus says about this widow. He says, out of her poverty, she has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. Jesus said, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love with all you have. And she loves with all she has. Now, just for a moment, let’s compare the poor widow to the rich, young ruler we just mentioned. In Mark 10, 21, the rich, young ruler, in this conversation with Jesus, Jesus says to him, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, you lack one thing.

Go, sell all that you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me. In Mark 12, verse 44, with this poor widow, in the context, for all they contributed, the rich and the wealthy, they gave out of their abundance, but she, the poor widow, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. Now, look at the contrast for a minute. The poor widow, who has nothing, gives everything because of her love for God. The rich, young ruler, who has everything, gives nothing because of his love for money. And I do find it interesting that Jesus says she gave everything she had, all she had to live on, because is that not exactly what Jesus has done for us? Listen, brothers and sisters, this is what I really want you to understand.

Perfect Love

The call from Jesus to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, condemns us. It condemns us. Because if we’re honest, the great commandment to love God and love others only exposes the fact that we can’t do it. We can’t do it. Our hearts are prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love. None of us can love God perfectly, and fully, and completely, because we’re sinners. We are bent to love ourselves and to hate our neighbors. Which means, then, we’re lawbreakers, who can’t help but break the greatest commandment. Which just points us to the fact that we need someone to save us from our lawbreaking, to save us from our lack of love for God, from our inability to love our God with this all-consuming love, and for failing to love our neighbors as ourself. And you see, brothers and sisters,

this is why Jesus came. This is why the Messiah, the Son of David, came. This is why the Son of God came, to rescue us from our lovelessness. You see, Jesus was the only one who perfectly loved the Father. He loved with his whole heart. Nothing competed with his affection or devotion to God. He loved with all of his soul. He submitted his soul to the Father’s will. He loved with all of his mind. He knew the Scriptures, he studied the Scriptures, and he was never swayed by the influence of men or people.

He loved with all of his mind. He loved with all of his strength, when he gave all that he had, even his very life on the cross, to save us from our sin, so that we might have eternal life, so that we might be rich. He gave everything he had.

You see, brothers and sisters, with that as the backdrop, listen to this most popular verse that many people fail to see the weightiness for. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. The Father gave all he had, his only begotten Son. Jesus gave all he had, his very life and breath. Why?

Because of love, because he loved us. His perfect love compelled him to sacrifice. Are you far from God this morning? Are you far from him? You could be near to God this morning. As you sit here listening to God’s very word, you are not that far from the kingdom of God. You can be near to God this morning. Trust and believe that Jesus, the Son of David, is the Son of God, and he will save you from your sins, and he will show you the kind of love that you were made to experience, eternal love, this eternal tethering to the God who made you, who sent his only beloved Son to save you, so that you could experience his love, and mercy, and grace for all of eternity. Trust and believe in him, and he will rescue you from your sin and your lovelessness. Let’s pray.

Father, your word is so powerful, and it exposes so clearly the gap between the perfect love of God and the fallen and fickle love of humanity. And I pray, oh Lord and God, that as we meditate on this text, as we see the beauty of your design, as we see the love of God, that our hearts would turn, that we would orient our love and our affection, not just upward, but outward, that our love for you would radically change our lives, that we would experience the deepest and most satisfying love, while at the same time loving others in this world, so that they might experience the deepest and most profound love ever known. Help us, Father, to take this love and push it into our city, into our family, into our marriages, into our parenting, into our friendships, into our roommates, and into our coworkers.

Help us, oh God. May love compel us to sacrifice in the same way your son gave his life for us. May we lovingly lay down our lives for your people. We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen.