Love God, Love People

Good morning once again. It's always great to be gathered and to see faces familiar and new. We're so grateful for the Apex team joining us. Worshiping, serving. We hope you love Minnesota. We hope you love the Twin Cities, the people that call this home, and the people that we as a church get to love on and get to tell about Jesus. So we're so grateful. Thanks for being here. My name is Aaron. If I step back, I got a bit of an echo. We'll see if that helps. My name's Aaron. If we haven't met before, I'm one of the elders here. And today I'm gonna be taking us into God's word. My daughter said I can't wear this hat, but I just wanted to acknowledge from the stage that I am the top dad. It's official. It's on record actually. After any dads that want to compete for this hat, we'll do cage match style fight on the stage. Last one standing goes home with the hat. I can't wear that, but I'm going to have a red line across my forehead now. I have a lot of directions in life that I have struggled to follow. My parents would have many, many examples. My wife would have many examples. It drives her crazy. But I'm kind of one of those, I'll figure it out as I go sort of guys. It's how I work best. And a lot of people don't work that way. But that's okay. We make it work at home actually. Sorry, this is falling off. I used to get points off papers in college and seminary for not following directions. They'd have very specific things on, like word counts and certain styles. And I just couldn't be bothered with that kind of detail. I just kind of. This is my paper. This is what you're going to get. And I will take the hit for whatever directions I failed to follow. Maybe not a great thing to pass on to my children, but that's how I'm wired. So anyways, we're gonna be looking at a passage today that gives some very clear and simple instructions. And they're ones that I know all of us have failed to follow. So we'll get into that. But before we open our Bibles, I just wanna start us in a quick word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your goodness and your faithfulness, your new mercies. Pray that you'd give us eyes to see and ears to hear your grace upon our lives here today. We just are thankful to be gathered, thankful for your word, which can Correct and guide, instruct, comfort and do so much more for us. We're grateful. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. All right, so today is our last message in the book of Mark before we take a little summer break, where we're gonna be looking at some psalms here over the next several weeks. But last Mark sermon for a little while here. Oh, I lost that. That's okay. I put together a really boring slideshow today, so this actually isn't a big deal to not have it up there, but we're looking at Mark, chapter 12, verses 18 to 34. And if you don't mind, please stand when we read God's word here. And the Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers. The first took a wife and when he died, left no offspring. And the second took her and died, leaving no offspring. And the third, likewise. And the seven left no offspring. Last of all, the woman also died in the resurrection. When they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are wrong? Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, had ye not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong. 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? 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 and with all your mind and with all your strength. And the second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And the scribes said to him, you are right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one. There is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much More than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that, he answered wisely. He said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of heaven. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. You can be seated. So this passage today continues, actually the storyline from last week where the temple authorities are gathered. They're looking at Jesus. They're seeing the people follow him and their excitement for him. And they're disturbed by it. They're frustrated, they're disappointed, they're fearful over their own status, their own position. And so these temple authorities are made of a couple different groups that have been sent to Jesus, and they're trying to trap him in his own words. They're trying to make him look foolish, trying to discredit at him, trying to expose him as a fraud. And so last week, it was the Pharisees and the Herodians that sent and they asked questions of Jesus. They're trying to kind of catch him off guard or put him in a hard place. Hard questions to answer and really trying to expose them in different ways that they think they can to discredit him. And these groups, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, others typically, they were all kind of part of this temple authority group of leaders, but they didn't particularly care for one another. They saw each other as competition, kind of for the power and the prestige within the temple system, within the religious life of Israel. They were competitors, and the one thing that united them was their dislike of Jesus. They typically were arguing with one another. But on this instance in the case of Jesus, they came together. It'd be a bit like putting a Vikings fan, a Bears fan, and a Lions fan in the same room, right? They'd have no love for each other, except for when it came to discussing the packers, right? And they would all heartily and correctly agree that the packers stink. And unlike the Jews in today's or in today's verses, they actually be justified in their hatred of the Packers. Right? I know we got some Bears fans here, probably, huh? They'd be justified, right? But these groups, they didn't like each other, but together they're like, jesus is disrupting. As much as we might hate each other, Jesus is disrupting what we have going. His teaching, his power, his authority is disturbing our place of power, of privilege, of prestige, within the temple, within Jewish life. And last week is the Pharisees and the Herodians. They took the matter of paying taxes to Jesus and they're hoping that Jesus would expose either A disloyalty to Jewish law or to the Jewish faith, or possibly a disloyalty to Roman rule. Something that would allow them to go after him, to arrest him. Instead, he kind of circumvents their whole argument, right. He demonstrates the kind of authority and wisdom that he's shown all throughout the Book of Mark. And his words provoke amazement in those who ask the questions. But they didn't penetrate their hard hearts. They didn't understand that Jesus is the one to be worshipped and followed. And so today we got two other little vignettes. Two other little groups. Well, one's a group, one's an individual going to Jesus with hard questions. And the next group in line is. They're known as the Sadducees. They're only a couple times in the scriptures, kind of in broader Jewish history. They're not known as well as the Pharisees. The Pharisees were well loved by the people. They kind of were rank and file. They were known for their understanding of scripture, for the way they read scripture and the way they looked at the law and the commandments of the Lord. They were very well known. The Sadducees were really kind of the social and religious elites. They were like the prestigious high class, educated, wealthy group of folks within this temple. Group of temple leaders. They were the ones that they had really high ranking. They were associated with the priesthood in the temple. And they really were seeing a of ways to have openness to Roman rule. They were friendly with the Romans who were overseeing Israel at the time. And so those things, their wealth, their status, their kind of elitism, they weren't well loved by the people, but they held a lot of the strings of power within Jewish life. They had a lot to protect. The Pharisees did as well in their own way. But they weren't as generally liked as the Pharisees. The Sadducees were. And so they set this question forward, right question about marriage. And they ask it, it's really a fascinating thing. They have all these factors in the background. They're protective of their status. They're protective of their place of power within Jewish life. And they want to see Jesus exposed. They see how the people love him. The Sadducees and Pharisees, other Jewish leaders at the time would have memories. They have history of Jews kind of revolting and inciting revolutions, trying to overthrow Roman rule, all these different things, all these things that would disturb the status quo for their own place. And so the Sadducees, they want to know is Jesus with the Pharisees, or is he maybe with us? Or can we just disregard him entirely? They're trying to expose him as a fool or a fraud. So they put up this scenario and it's quite absurd. And it's that way, for reasons. A woman has married seven different brothers that all pass away without producing an heir. And it sounds crazy to us, tragic, heartbreaking, all these different things, but it's actually something that's playing on a well known aspect of Jewish law called levirate. Levirate marriage. If a husband died, one of his brothers or a close relative would be called upon to marry that widow. This would be done for a couple of reasons. First would to continue the line and the legacy of the deceased person, that the brother who passed away, his line, his lineage, his property, his other things, would not continue without an heir. And so the next family in line would come in and take that place. But it also provided protection for that widow without a husband, without an heir in the culture and in the world. She did not have the means to provide for herself. She didn't have a place of belonging, a place of protection. And so, as crazy as it sounds to our ears, this kind of marriage arrangement actually had these layers of beauty and grace buried in them. If you remember the story of Ruth, this is an example of this kind of marriage where husband has passed away, Naomi and Ruth are left without means to provide. They're left vulnerable, they're exposed. They can't inherit the land of the husband who has passed away. And so Boaz steps in as a kinsman, redeemer, so that Ruth and Naomi are not left alone, they're not left vulnerable and exposed in that situation. So the sedge they present, this situation, this woman's married husband dies over and over through these seven brothers. There's not an heir that could carry on that line. And they pass away. And they ask when they rise, who will she marry? And they have this long list, seven different spouses. They kind of want to raise the question to a point of absurdity, like who does she marry? There's seven of them. I mean, that's kind of absurd situation. She married seven in life, so who's she going to marry in the next life? The funny thing about this, all they want to know who the woman would marry in heaven. The funny thing is they don't even believe in the resurrection. It tells us right in the passage, they don't actually believe in the premise behind the question they're asking. Clearly they're trying to trap Jesus, they're trying to expose him or do something else with this absurd scenario. They don't even believe in what they're putting before Jesus. And there's a couple of reasons that they would have asked a question like this. First off, they would want to see, like, if Jesus, like the Pharisees, believed in resurrection. If he does believe in the resurrection, he has to give a really hard answer. Who. Who would she marry? There's seven of them. An absurd situation, an absurd answer. The Sadducees would have seen that as an opportunity to discredit Jesus. If Jesus had said, yeah, we got to figure out which one. Whatever legal maneuvering Jesus has to do to give an answer, the Sadducees could have written him off. They could have dismissed Jesus. And if he did say, yeah, the resurrection's real, then the Sadducees were well equipped with arguments why he wouldn't be legitimate. This was an argument that they had with Pharisees. If Jesus is one of them, we know how to deal with one of them, but Jesus doesn't go that way. Secondly, the Sadducees, they may have been hoping, part of them, that Jesus would see the absurdity of the situation and land on their side, say, you know what? The resurrection isn't real. This isn't a thing, and dismiss it. And then the Sadducees would have said, oh, you're one of us. We can co opt you into our agenda, into our things that we're doing. You can be one of us. And that may have been another thing. They're getting at these scenes here with the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Herodians. It reminds me a little bit of in the Princess Bride. You remember when Wesley's chasing after Vizzini and Fezik and Iniga Montoya, right? And they're like, we're gonna throw all these different things at him. We're gonna put these challenges before him. We're gonna, you know, you gotta do the sword thing and then you gotta do the strength and then the battle of wits. These temple authorities are doing that. Like, we're going to keep throwing our best at Jesus to try to beat him, right? Try to expose him, try to eliminate him, get rid of him. So you can keep Vizzini in your mind as Jesus is responding here. Inconceivable. But Jesus has a twofold response to the Sadducees, right? They want to know about this widow. Who's she gonna marry? Jesus knows that they don't believe in the resurrection. And another thing about the Sadducees he knows they only believe in the first five books of the Old Testament, right? The Pentateuch as it was. They disregarded the Psalms, all the historical books, the prophetic books. They didn't put any weight in those. It was just the first five books of the Bible. And so they had a very narrow view of Scripture. And Jesus says, you don't know Scripture. Even the ones you adhere to, the ones you believe in, you don't understand. And you don't understand the power of the God who has authored those scriptures. You don't know Scripture or the God behind them. In a really straightforward manning, he tells them, your spiritual imaginations are too small. Their view of what the resurrection would look like was kind of just more of the same, a cleaned up version of what they already knew. Well, they're married, we're going to keep married. And there's other documents, other literature that showed this. They kind of thought the afterlife, the next life, whatever was to come next, was really just kind of the same thing, but cleaned up from, you know, those people won't be here anymore and we won't have to deal with this and this will happen. God will get rid of that for us and it'll just be more of the same. That was as far as their spiritual imagination could take them. Jesus says, no, he doesn't. The word here for wrong. It's not just, oh, you made a mistake. It's a little boo boo. It's, you're ridiculously wrong. You are very wrong. You are so far off base. They just can't imagine a God who could do something as beautiful as the resurrection actually will be. Jesus goes on, he explains the life to come is beyond their imagining. It's something different entirely. It's not just more the same. It's not just a sanitized version of what we already know. It's something new entirely. And he says, we'll become like angels. Not angels themselves, but we'll be like angels. We will be eternal in a different state that doesn't involve marriage, it doesn't involve family and children the same way that life on earth has. And this vision for the resurrection, it goes far beyond the Sadducees vision, who didn't even believe in the Resurrection. It actually went beyond the Pharisees vision for the resurrection. Jesus is pointing them to something so beautiful, so beyond imagination that really can't fully be described. And he uses this point to highlight the Sadducees don't really understand the power of God. God isn't just kind of you know, sweep some things up and move some furniture around. He's building something entirely new and different. And to point this out, he goes to a verse that the Sadducees actually would have been very familiar with. They only believed in the first five books of the Bible. So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that's all they would have put any credit in. So Jesus goes to a passage from those verses, says, let me show you that you don't know the Scriptures and you don't know the power of God. He goes to the passage where Moses is meeting the Lord at the burning bush. Lord reveals himself, he's speaking to him. And the Lord declares himself to be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And when God is saying this, he doesn't use the past tense. I was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they're dead and gone. He says, I am presently, actively. I am the Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God speaking, someone who is present with those men, present with those who have passed on. And he's doing this. Jesus is using this verse to demonstrate the power of God and to point out you don't even know the Scriptures. You do claim to know. And at the beginning, at the end of his response, the Sadducees are told, you're mistaken. That's a very strong mistake. And it's, you've messed up. It's not the school teacher response, you know, where you're asking for questions. Oh, you almost had it. Let's try that again. This is, you are dead wrong, way off base. Sadducees are left with little ground to stand. They've exposed nothing. They've only revealed more of God's wisdom, more of God's authority, more of the power of Jesus. And as this interaction is happening, someone is watching. A teacher of the law. He's paying attention, he's listening, and he likes what he hears. He's impressed with how Jesus handles the question. And unlike the previous inquiries from the Herodians, from the Pharisees, from the Sadducees, this teacher of the law comes to Jesus with an earnestness. You can see it in his response. He's got an earnestness in how he wants to, well, tell me then, what is the greatest commandment in his response to that? You're right. Rather than trying to trap Jesus, trick Jesus, expose Jesus. This teacher of the law comes with a humility and earnestness, open heart, open mind. And so, as a teacher of law, this guy asked Jesus, what is the Greatest commandment. There are over 600 commands of different kinds. I think 631 of the commentaries said, found in the Old Testament. And the teachers of the law, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodians, they loved to sit around and talk about all these commands, list them out, they prioritize them, they put them in different hierarchies and say, these are the most important, or these only work for this situation. All sorts of literature, dialogue happening around all of these laws. So this is a conversation that the teacher of the law, but a lot of others would be familiar with. What is the greatest? What is the most important? All of social life, all of religious life would have been tied up in all of these different laws. And this kind of question would serve as an attempt. We want to find an organizing principle in this. Like, how do we make sense of this? What's the first order for us to kind of build our teaching around? Right. And it could help teachers of the law, scribes, rabbis, kind of have an order of operations. This is what your spiritual life should look like. This is how it should be organized. So Jesus responds using words that are very familiar, maybe to us, but certainly in his day. It's the first part of what is known as the Shema. It's taken from Deuteronomy 6, 4, 5. And actually, this is a daily prayer that would have been prayed Jews as they're starting their day to orient their hearts, their minds and lives around Jesus or around God. Right? Lord is one. He is our God. Right? And we want to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is a daily prayer. And actually for millennia to this day, faithful Jews will start their day by praying through this prayer. It's a way to orient their lives around worship of the one true God and the word Shema. I didn't know this. This came out in my study this week. But the word Shema actually translates as hear or listen. That's why it's called the Shema. And it's not just like, you guys are listening to me now, or I'm listening to a podcast, I'm hearing a song. It's not just kind of an auditory hearing. It carries a much deeper sense than that. And the way the word was often used in Hebrew literature was to communicate, focus, pay attention, listen. But more than just like, take it in, but prepare for action. What you hear is something you need to then live out. What you hear is something that is going to lead to action. It'd be like a coach giving a pre Game speech, right? Or he's giving the pregame span, pregame plan. He's not just talking about, come on, we can do it. We're the best. He's, we're going to run this play in this situation. And if you see this kind of coverage happening, you want to run this kind of route. And he's giving like the action plan. It's an action plan. It's not just, hey, we're going to pump each other up. It's, this is what we're going to do. These are the actions we're going to live out. And so that's what the Shema is. It's actually a lot of psalms. When they say, hear my cry, O Lord, it's Shema, Shema, my cry. Listen and take action. Lord, what I'm putting before you, what I'm bringing before you, I need you to respond. I need you to show up. I need your grace, I need your love. Shema, O Lord. So that's the words that Jesus goes to, Shema. Listen and obey, hear and follow through. And what those verses do they declare that Yahweh, the Lord, the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is our God, Lord, our God, he is our God, we are his and he is one. And that's the baseline reality in the universe that human beings are meant to understand. The Lord, the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he is one and he is our God, we are His. The Shema hear that and respond to that. And we respond to that declaration of who God is by loving him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our being. Right? We hear that. We listen and obey. If we truly know who God is, who faithfully keeps covenant, the only response possible is love and worship with all of our being. Everything about who we are was created in God's image. And that we only truly and fully display that image when all aspects of our lives serve him in love. NT Wright puts it this way. Jewish law begins with worship. Love the Lord. It begins with worship, with the love of God. Because if it's true that we're made in God's image, we will find our fullest meaning, our true selves. The more we learn to love and worship the one we are designed to reflect no half measures, heart, soul, mind and strength. That is every aspect of human life is to be poured out gladly in worship of the one true God. Whatever we do, we are to do for Him. In chapter three of the Book of Revelation, Jesus is talking to these different churches. And he is calling out in chapter three, the church in Laodicea. And he calls them out for their lukewarm, warm faith. They're not fully alive. They're not aligned to the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And their love is tepid, it's mediocre, it's not wholehearted. And what Jesus says is they'll be spit out, they'll be vomited, they will be expelled from Jesus because that love is not complete. When Jesus brings up this Shema, this prayer, this love the Lord your God, he's calling for a full and resounding completeness in our love for God. It should crowd out all other loves, all other passions. And then Jesus adds a second commandment to his response here, right? Love the Lord your God, then love your neighbor as yourself. And in giving this second commandment immediately, he's actually binding the them together. And if you look at the language here, this is something I hadn't noticed before I got into some commentaries. Jesus, he uses the word these, but he actually says a single commandment. Here's the passage. No other commandment singular is greater than these plural. He's saying, these are tied together. These are one, right? It's a commandment, but it's two pieces. It's singular, but it's plural. Love your neighbor as yourself. They're bound together. And what Jesus is highlighting is that true love for God comes from a heart so full of love that loving neighbors actually is like the necessary outcome. It's the overflow. We use the word overflow a lot when we talk about opportunities to serve in our community, ways we can connect. Love our neighbors, care for neighbors. That's this idea, this overflow. We're so full of the love of God that love for neighbor just comes out of us. And it's actually true. You can't be said to be following that first commandment of loving God if you aren't also loving neighbor. They're so closely tied together. If you are loving God, you will love your neighbor first. John puts it this way. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. The Teacher of the law gives a wholehearted agreement to what Jesus says, right? He's like, you have truly spoken. And actually this teacher of the law, he adds onto it, he adds a clarifying point, and one that Jesus agrees with. Loving God and loving neighbor is actually more important than all of the sacrifices and offerings given how much of Jewish life would have been centered around sacrifice, offerings, rhythms of the temple visits, all those things that was so much of Jewish life. And this teacher says, actually, what you've said about loving God and neighbor is more important than all the rest. And that really is a bold claim for that teacher to make. In stark contrast to those previous confrontations with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, we actually see this teacher tracking closely. Like, yeah, that's right. That makes sense. Kids these days would say that Jesus and this teacher were vibing, right? Like, they are tracking what my middle. My daughter, teenage daughter, didn't like that I used that. I can see her back there. Jesus and this teacher are vibing. But Jesus affirms what the teacher says, right? You are close to the kingdom of God. And as I studied this passage, I realized in closing this passage that way, it leaves a bit of an unanswered question, right? When it comes to the Kingdom of God, I don't want to be close. I want to be all the way there, right? Close isn't good enough. I want the kingdom of God. I want to be present in that kingdom. And truly finding and entering that kingdom is what this teacher probably would have wanted. Like, well, I don't want to be close. Like, how do I get all the way there, right? My dad, and maybe some of you others have heard this or had a dad say that. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, right? You get close enough, you get something out of it with horseshoes and hand grenades, everything else, you want to get there. My dad sometimes would use that in, like, games, playing games or competition. And he'd beat me out. And he's like, ah, it's so close. And he's like, ah, this isn't horseshoes and hand grenades. Or he'd use it kind of as a criticism. I'd do a job maybe not quite to completion. He's like, ah, it's close. And he's like, not horseshoes and hand grenades, right? The idea of being close to the kingdom of God but not there should leave us with a restless spirit. I would hope that this Teacher of the Law, in hearing Jesus, you're close, wouldn't go home with a chest swollen out. And, yeah, I'm close. You know, look at me. He'd be like, I want to get there. So what is it? What's missing? What was it that the Teacher of Law was missing? That Jesus wanted him to see. And what the Teacher of the Law needed to realize is that Jesus was giving two simple and clear commandments, right? Directions to follow. Love God, love others. Super clear, super simple, impossible to keep, right? I said at the beginning, we're gonna look at a passage with clear directions that all of us have failed to live up to, right? Super clear, super simple. And we all and that Teacher of the Law would have failed to live that out. An honest survey of any of our lives shows that there's countless ways to we fail to live this out, right? Even this morning, after having spent a week immersed in this passage and these commentaries and these thoughts and preparing to teach them this morning, even this morning, I've had moments of selfishness or pride or other things where actually I didn't quite get there, right? I didn't quite measure up with that full and complete love of God or of others. I had moments where I was lukewarm, where I was tepid. I think we all can all see that in ourselves. The fullness of the love for God and selflessness of love towards other that's asked for us. It's too much for us to actually live out. We're sinful, we're broken. And I think that's what Jesus would have wanted this Teacher of Allah to see. It's clear and it's simple, but it's impossible. You can never fully live that out. It's the most important thing and we can't get there, right? We always fail. We always come up short. We always mess things up, even with the best of intentions. But there's something else in the passage, something in the teacher's response, Right? He says, yes, this is better, or this is the most important thing, right? And it's more important than all of the offerings, all the sacrifices. What the teacher needed to see, what we need to see, what the Gospel tells us is that the sacrifices and offerings of the Old Testament, the sacrifices of Jesus, only happen because people have failed to live out that first commandment. The sacrifices, the offerings that the teacher mentions, they only exist because of failure to live out that first commandment, that greatest commandment. If anyone were to completely and perfectly love God with all their being and to love their neighbors as themselves, they wouldn't need those sacrifices, they wouldn't need those offerings. The Teacher of the Law was close to the kingdom of God because he grasped the basics of this reality, right? This love is greater than anything else. But the step that Jesus wanted him to take was recognized. He could never fulfill those Commandments on His own. He might see it, but he can't get there. What was needed was a perfect sacrifice from someone who did unfailingly love God and love others. The kind of love needed to get to enter the kingdom of God is beyond our reach. We simply can't do it. We're throwing horseshoes and hat and grenades. But something else is needed. Jesus came to earth to fully live out these commandments. He did love the Lord with all of his heart, all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his might, all of his being. And he loved his neighbor as himself, even to the point of death on a cross. We love God and love others. But Teacher says love is greater than sacrifice. What Jesus wants us to see in him is the greatest. Love actually means sacrifice. Following Jesus means that we first recognize our failure and our weakness when it comes to love. We need Jesus to do it perfectly in order for us to enter the kingdom of God. But because he has done it, we receive the benefits of his perfect love. We do get the kingdom of God because of his love in faith and through the power of His Spirit, we actually become that love. We are loved and then become that love through the work of the Spirit. I want to go back to one John, and this is kind of where we'll end. I remember I quoted one John, if you hate your brother, you actually aren't loving the Lord. And there's a fuller context to that passage in one John that I think really summarizes or captures a lot of what Jesus is pointing towards in our passage today. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God, knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us. He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, he lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love that God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. And this is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. In this world, we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God, yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command. Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. These verses paint a full picture of what Jesus was pointing to when he said, loving God and loving others. We can't do it, but he has. We can't love perfectly, but he has. So we love because we've been loved. The first and greatest commandment has been fulfilled in Christ and in Him. We get to participate in that love and we get to share that love with the world. It's because of him he has been sent as an atoning sacrifice. This is love. Not that we loved God. We didn't do the first commandment. He did. He did it for us. He loved us, sent His Son that we might live. I just love that passage. I love the reminder that it gives us of the gospel, right? We can't earn it. We can't fix it. We can't make it up on our own. It's not under our own strength. It's because he has loved us. One of the questions I've taken to asking myself the past few years is how is this decision, this action, this attitude, how is this demonstrated in love for God and for others? Does this attitude or thought or action come from a place of love for God or for others? Am I motivated right now out of an overflow of my experience of God's love? Or am I holding things up under my own strength? Am I trying to earn my way? Am I trying to fix things on my own? Jesus said, there's no more important principle, no more important command around which I can organize my life. And I can't live up to that. But because I have been loved with this perfect love, I'm empowered to love in the same way. It's incredible. The most important thing that I fail to do every, every day. God loves me anyways and invites me into that. And in his fullness, in the power of His Spirit, that overflows in me more and more and more. It's an important thing to reflect on. I like that question because of the way it grounds ourselves. I like that in the Jewish faiths, they pray that prayer every morning. Lord, you are the Lord, you are our Lord, you are a covenant God of faithfulness. And my right response is to worship. It's to love. I'm going to invite the worship team back up here as we close. And I want to encourage you this week, revisit our passage and revisit this passage from John where the gospel of God's love for us is laid out in clear ways. It's not that we love. It's not that we figure it out. It's because of his great love, he has loved us first. And because of that, we get to enter the kingdom. We get to experience the fullness of joy that comes from walking with God. I've got a couple questions for us as we close here, and the bullet points got lost in translation. But have you acknowledged your failure to love perfectly? That's all of us. Have you acknowledged that? And have you received God's perfect love in faith? What relationships do you have right now? Can you prayerfully ask for more of God's love to overflow into names and faces may come to mind situations, hard realities at work or home or friendship or whatever it might be. Where is that overflow of God's love needed? Who can you tell of God's love this week? Who needs that encouragement? You are loved. God loved you first. And then how can you better rest in God's love, in his perfect sacrifice? Perfect love casts out fear. Fear has to do with punishment. That punishment has been dealt with through Jesus Christ and so we can rest in his love. We're going to have time of worship now. We have communion in the hallway. You don't have to be a member at Hope to participate. We just ask that you would have put your faith in Christ, that you would be trusting in him for salvation. We have people in the back that are willing to pray with you. We'd love for you to have that time of prayer and you can give online through the app. And I think we have a box on that table if you'd be interested in responding that way. And then we'll sing, we'll worship. We'll have three songs here. So, Father, we're thankful your love is unending, unfailing. It is perfect. Your son was sent because of his love, your love for us. And he loved you perfectly. And he loved us perfectly. We rejoice in that. We rest in that and ask that you to be with us now this morning as we respond to your great love. Amen. Thanks, Aaron. Let's stand and sing and respond together.

Mark 12:18–34