Mark 12:28-13:2
Date: May 21st 2023
Speaker: Samuel Crites
Scripture: Mark 12:28-13:2
Exegetical Outline
Main Idea of Text: Jesus condemns the religious leaders for not keeping the greatest commandment of God, the temple as a house of false worship.
12:28-34: Jesus answers a lone scribe’s question about the greatest commandment, bringing an end to the testing of the Jewish leaders.
12:35-40: Jesus asks his own question of the Jewish leaders that no one can answer, and he condemns the scribes as false teachers.
12:35-37: Jesus asks a question about the Messiah that no one can answer and demonstrates that the Messiah is greater than David.
12:38-40: Jesus condemns the scribes as false teachers that do not keep the greatest of all the commandments.
12:41-44: Jesus uses a widow as an illustration to demonstrate the great commandment to his disciples.
13:1-2: Jesus explicitly condemns the temple.
Homiletical Outline
Main Idea of Sermon: True worship is to love God and all things in relation to God.
True worship is ruled by the double love command. (12:28-34; 41-44)
Beware of the condemnation that follows false worship. (12:35-40; 13:1-2)
Introduction:
As the Israelites were preparing to enter the promised land, Moses stood before them and gave them a second giving of the law, the deutero nomos, the “second law.” The initial generation of Israelites that came out of Egypt had all passed away, this new generation had been raised, and Moses must reconstitute the Old Covenant with them. The climax of the book is found in Deuteronomy 30 beginning in verse 15. Notice the choice that Moses gives to the people.
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
Moses sets before the children of Israel the choice: obey God and receive life and good, disobey God and receive death and evil. But the question is how? How were they supposed to obey?
You would think that the essential component to obedience was following the rules. Moses had just spent who knows how long delivering the Law to this new generation. He had explained it to them and expounded on how to keep it. But, if you read carefully, the essence of obedience is not rule following; verse 20 says, the essence of obedience is “loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days…” Loving God and clinging to him in hope, trusting that he will care for them and lead them was the essence of obeying the Law; loving God was the path to life and blessings.
From the Old to the New, this has not changed. God expects his people to love him, in fact, he has commanded it. We are going to see in our sermon text today that this is the greatest of all the commandments. It is the one commandment that subsumes and give context to all other commandments. If you keep all the other commandments, but you fail to love God, you fail at all the other commandments.
Which is exactly what has happened with Israel in our sermon text. They have failed to love God. They are false worshippers that follow false leaders in a false temple. Follow along with me as we read it together.
Mark 12:28-13:2
28 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?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 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.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 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.” 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.
35 And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
37 David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.
38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 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. 44 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.”
13 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
From the moment Jesus road into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey, he has been laser focused on one thing: ending the false worship in the temple. In Mark 11:12-25, Jesus taught in the temple that the prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah had come true, and that God was going to make the temple as desolate as the tabernacle at Shiloh. In the same way that the fruitless fig tree was withered by the curse of Christ, the fruitless temple was going to be withered by the judgment of God.
The next day, in Mark 11:27, Jesus is challenged by the chief priests, elders, and scribes. They want to know what gives Jesus the authority to teach such audacious and impudent things about the temple. Jesus refuses to answer their question, so they send the Pharisees and Sadducees to trap him in theologically embarrassing debates. Jesus expertly sidesteps each one.
He so soundly defuses the situation that a lone scribe, passing by, sees the expertise with which he dealt with all of his challengers and asks what I can only assume is a genuine question: what is the greatest commandment? Jesus’s response established the main idea of our sermon today: true worship is to love God and all things in relation to God.
Our sermon will have two points. The first point is this: True worship is ruled by the double love command. This is the fundamental problem with the lone scribe and everything taking place at the temple: God is not being worshipped because God is not being loved. In all of Jesus’s experiences at the temple recorded in the Gospel of Mark, the only positive example of true worship is the poor widow at the end of Mark 12. She alone is an example that Jesus can point to as a true worshipper, demonstrating her affection for God by what she is willing to sacrifice for him.
The second point of our sermon is a warning: beware of the condemnation that follows false worship. Now that everyone has had their chance to ask Jesus questions, it is his turn to pose a question to them. He demonstrates that the scribes are not teaching the plain meaning of Scripture. They are not concerned with communicating God’s word to God’s people. Instead of loving God, they love themselves. They parade around in fancy robes and reserve for themselves the best seats in the synagogues. Instead of loving their neighbor, they consume widows’ houses under the disguise of fulfilling their religious duties. They are taking advantage of the lowest and weakest among them to support their love of being praised by other men. They are despicable and deserve the condemnation of Christ. Ultimately, this condemnation will come in the form of the destruction of the temple, an end to the false worship led by the false teachers in the false temple.
The end of the temple, and all that it represents is coming, and it is justified because: true worship is to love God and all things in relation to God.
True worship is ruled by the double love command.
Our sermon text opens with a scribe that apparently was not a part of the antagonism that Jesus had experienced to this point. Last week we saw how the Pharisees and the Sadducees attempted to trap Jesus in ways that would reduce his popularity with the crowd. His rebuke of the Sadducees was so complete that when this lone scribe walks up to the conversation, the Sadducees are arguing amongst themselves. He is so impressed by seeing how Jesus answered them that he decides to ask Jesus a question. Whether you think the scribe has pure motives or if he is just another antagonist that is also trying to trap Jesus, the lesson Mark wants us to learn is clear: True worship is ruled by the double love command.
In verse 28, the scribe asks Jesus,
Mark 12:28
“Which commandment is the most important of all?”
Jesus’s answers is not a surprise to anyone there. They come straight out of the Old Testament. In verse 29-30, he quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5, and in verse 31, he quotes Leviticus 19:18. These were extremely important Old Testament passages that everyone was familiar with, and we know that Jesus answered correctly, because the scribe agrees with the answers that Jesus gives in verse 32.
So what are these famous commands that Jesus has just quoted? The first, and greater of the two commandments, comes from Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 and 5, and is known as the shema. It is called the shema because that is the first word of the first verse in Hebrew. Shema means “behold or listen,” and pious Jews would recite these verses as a creed twice per day.
It is the Jewish belief in the oneness of God that marks them out as monotheists, and since God is singular in his existence, he has a right to the total and absolute devotion of his people. There is no one else to compete for their affection. So it is right for him to command that Israel love him with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength. The command is centered on essence of who God is and who God is to this people. He is their God. There is no other God in existence, but there is also no other God for this people. He has revealed himself to them in a special covenant relationship, and their duty in that relationship is to love him.
The second commandment is like it. In Leviticus 19:18, God commands them to love their neighbor as themselves. It reads like this:
Leviticus 19:18
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
Notice the common grounds for these two commands. God commands the Israelites to love their neighbor, not because their neighbor is lovely, but because “I am the LORD!” They are to love their neighbor because the God that they love told them to love their neighbor. You could not have the second command to love your neighbor if you did not first have the command to love God.
So it is appropriate for Jesus to bring these two passages of Scripture together to answer the scribe’s question. They are inherently linked together by their common foundation in the character of God and in their common imperative to love.
Now let’s pause and think about these two commands. I see two potential problems right out of the gate with attempting to keep these commands. First, they seem to be mutually exclusive. If I am to love God with all, with my heart, with my soul, with my mind, and with my strength, how can there be anything left with which to love my neighbor? Or, said differently, how does my neighbor, or any other love in my life not immediately become an idol?
Augustine of Hippo lived in North Africa from A.D. 354 to A.D. 430. He was quite possibly the greatest Christian theologian aside from one of the apostles themselves that has ever lived. In his book, De Doctrina Christiana, Augustine discusses this very problem. He differentiates between things that are to be enjoyed and things that are to be used. Things we are to be enjoyed are things that are to be loved as an end in themselves. Things that are to be used are things that are to be loved as a means to the greater end of our ultimate enjoyment.
He gives an example. Pretend we are all exiles traveling to a far country that is our true home. We know that in that far country true happiness awaits us. Since it is our home, it is the only place where true happiness is even possible. To make such a long journey, we will need vehicles. Carts, wagons, even ships to cross the great sea that lies between us and our ultimate destination. The difference between enjoying and using things is the difference between our love for our homeland and our love for the vehicles that carry us there.
It would be a great tragedy to lose sight of our love for our homeland and begin to love the journey. It is a natural thing to love the sturdy ship that faithfully carries us safely through the various dangers of the seas to our ultimate homeland. However, we would call it a great evil if some among us decided they loved the ship more than the destination, if they wanted to wander and sail in an endless voyage that prevented us from ever arriving at our destination.
The ship is something is a love to be used. A means to ultimately enjoy that which is worth enjoying as an end in itself. The two commandments to love God and love neighbor are not mutually exclusive, because the love of our neighbor is a means to love God. We know the love of our earthly father in order to carry us to the love of our heavenly Father. We know the love of a godly husband or a godly wife in order to carry us to the true love of our heavenly husband. We know what it is like to love a stranger in order to understand our love for the one that died for us while we were strangers to him. Every love in your life is ultimately meant to deepen, strengthen, enrich, and expand your love for God.
The second potential problem I see with keeping these two commandments is that I cannot force myself to love. I might as well force myself to be sad or to be angry. How am I supposed to obey a commandment when I do not control how I feel?
The question is not how do I obey this command, but how do I obey any command? I don’t know about you, but I do not have the best track record with obedience. My inability to obey made me an enemy of God. It is the reason that Christ had to die on the cross to justify me. Listen to what Paul teaches us in Romans 5, beginning in verse 1:
Romans 5:1-5
5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
We are not justified because our ability to obey God’s commands. We are justified as an act of grace because Jesus was able to keep God’s commands. It was Jesus that purchased the peace that we now enjoy with God. We are credited his righteousness as an act of God’s grace. It is not about our obedience to the law, but our trust in Christ’s ability to stand in our place. The great joy in the believer is a hope that regardless of our circumstances, we can make it to the end.
Now notice the last phrase. Hope will not put us to shame, “because God’s love has been
Poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We don’t love God because we have found him to be lovely. We love God, because he loved us first. He has poured his love into our hearts in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the person, has been poured into our lives and gives us the ability to love God.
These two great commands to love would indeed be cruel tyrants of our condemnation if we were left to our own devices. No one seeks after God on their own. No one wants him. We have all turned aside and abandoned him.
But we have not been left to our own devices. God has given us what he commanded of us. He has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, so that we can know the love of God. In the Confessions, which is arguably Augustine’s most famous work, he says, “Give what you command, and then command whatever you will.” The command to love God and love your neighbor is not beyond your ability, because God has given you his Holy Spirit to be love for you. He gives you knew affections and abilities to love God as your satisfaction.
The importance of Jesus’s answer cannot be overstated. He says in verse 31,
Mark 12:31
There is no other commandment greater than these.
These two commandments stand alone at the top of the list of all commandments as the most important commandments to follow. Jesus goes further. In a parallel account of this episode found in Matthew 22, Jesus says in verse 40, that
Matthew 22:40
40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Not only are these two commandments the most important of all of God’s commandments, but they are also actually the foundation of all of the Law and Prophets. Meaning everything that takes place in the Old Testament is meant to get you to love. All the stories, commandments, psalms, wisdom literature, everything is meant to make you love God and love others as a means of loving God.
Therefore, as a point of application, these two commands should change the way that we conceive of worship. Worship is not merely singing, nor is it merely the Sunday worship gathering. Those are important components of worship, but worship is ultimately about the orientation of our hearts. According to Romans 12:1, our very lives are a living sacrifice of worship.
Consider your own life. Think of every activity in it. All the ways that you spend your time, the hobbies, the places you frequently visit. Think of all your desires, all your hopes and dreams. Think of all people, your loved ones, your friendships, your acquaintances. Everything that you hold dear and value. Every affection in your life, big or small. Do they make you love God more or less? Are they road signs, leading you further and deeper up the mountain inviting you to find new vistas, hidden grottos and unseen cliffs that allow you to look out upon panoramas of his splendor and beauty? Or, are they stop signs, detours that lead you off the mountain? Tourist traps that keep you from that which is truly beautiful by tricking you to enjoy that which is keechy and manufactured?
The only positive example of true worship in the latter third of the Gospel of Mark comes in verses 41-44. After all is said and done, Jesus is sitting in the temple and sees a poor old widow woman give two small copper half-pennies to the temple. Many sermons have been preached from this passage on stewardship and finances, but look at how it functions in the story. It is not an isolated episode. It comes right at the end of chapter 12, as Jesus is finishing his condemnation of the false worship at the false temple. He points this woman out to his disciples. Not as someone that is a good financial steward, but as one that is willing to give everything to God. She loves God so much that she is willing to put him before everything else, even her own financial well-being. Money, security, food are not more important to this widow than God. He means that much to her.
We must have our loves in order. If we are going to fulfill the commands of our savior, our entire lives must be ruled by the double love command. We must be those that love God, and all things in relation to him.
Beware of the condemnation that follows false worship.
Once Jesus finishes answering the lone scribe’s question, he says,
Mark 12:34
You are not far from the kingdom of God.
The scribe is not far from the kingdom of God, because the scribe knows the importance of the double love command, but he lacks the ability to live it out with faithfulness. This is bad news for the scribe. As we will see in the text, the second point of our sermon is a warning: Beware of the condemnation that follows false worship.
Once Jesus is finished answering questions, he asks everyone there his own question. His question is simple: How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? By this, he means, how can the scribes say that the Messiah is less than David? You see, Jewish society is a patriarchal society, a son is always less than their father.
In this way, the scribes were attempting to undermine Jesus’s claim to be the Messiah. As we have seen throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus does not merely claim to be the Messiah, but he has also claimed to be God. However, if Jesus was God, then that would make him greater than his earthly father, David. Therefore, Jesus can’t be who he claims to be.
So, Jesus asks a question based off of Psalm 110. Now, some background, Psalm 110 is a messianic psalm written by David. It is David, in his own voice, saying things about someone that can’t possibly refer to David. For example, he says that this Lord will be a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. We know that David is not writing about himself, because he calls this person, “my Lord.”
Psalm 110:1
1 The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
It is clear in the text that David is speaking of someone that he considers to be in authority over him. So as Jesus poses the question before the crowd, he is posing an obvious question. It is meant to show that the scribes are not teaching the plain meaning of the text, and the crowd hears it gladly.
Which sets Jesus up to deliver his warning. Look at verses 38-40 with me and notice how the actions of the scribes contradict the double love command.
Mark 12:38-40
38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
The scribes do not love God. The scribes love themselves. They love walking around in fancy robes, greeting the right people in the marketplace, and reserve for themselves the best seats in the synagogue so that they can platform themselves. They set themselves up to be the object of the affections of man, because they love themselves so much and think everyone else should love them too. They love themselves so much, they couldn’t possibly have any room left in their lives to love God.
And since they do not love God, they cannot love others. They use others, not as a means to love God, but as a means to love themselves. They consume widows’ houses and make false prayers while doing it. Those that are the least in the kingdom of God become the objects of their abuse, not the objects of their duty. They make a show of holiness and religiosity, but they are really wolves that consume the weak and the vulnerable.
It is right for Jesus to warn the crowd about them because this is one of the chief tasks of the shepherd, and Jesus is the chief of shepherds. The shepherd must protect the sheep from wolves, and these sheep have been devoured and abused to the point where they think that abuse is normal. They have no concept of a good shepherd, because they have never known one.
Jesus’s condemnation of these scribes is bone chilling to anyone that has any type of spiritual authority over another. He says in verse 40,
Mark 12:40
They will receive the greater condemnation.
Instead of following the great commandment, they will find great condemnation. I can almost hear the echo of Moses’s warning through the halls of time. He said,
Deuteronomy 30:15
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.
These scribes have chosen to disobey. They have chosen to love themselves and not God, so their just reward is death. Jesus cannot be a good shepherd and allow this false worship to continue. It is the fact that he is good that requires him to deal our justice and judgment against the temple.
This is an important point about the goodness of God. Many times you will hear a lost person say something like, “Well, God is good. He will forgive me,” as if the kindness of God was something that prevented him from doing something that they might find offensive. Brothers and sisters, listen carefully: it is the goodness of God that requires him to deal justly with the world, which includes pouring out his wrath and condemnation on those that do evil.
When I was in college, Highway-6 was under construction. Now, forewarning, this story does not make me look good, but I think it illustrates the point. So here it is.
I was coming back from Houston doing 70 mph in a construction zone. To my credit I didn’t know it was a construction zone. I thought I was going the speed limit. Regardless, of what I thought, the State highway patrolman pulled me over and gave me a speeding ticket. I tried to explain to convince him that I thought this was unjust, because not only did I not know it was a construction zone, but it was a Sunday and there were no workers present in the construction zone. So I decided in all my youthful wisdom that I was going to fight this thing. I wanted this heard by a jury of my peers. So, I took it to court, and I thought it would be a good idea to represent myself.
So, to court I went. I thought the silver bullet of my case was that the workers were not present. You see, at the bottom of the road work sign, it says that traffic fines are doubled “if workers are present.” Well, needless to say, it didn’t go well, because the DA provided ample evidence that the workers were actually present. They were working on a bridge on a different part of the highway.
When it became clear that I was not going to win my case, I said, “This is fair. This court is just taking advantage of college students. You just set up the speed trap and are targeting out of town students instead of your own citizens.” I’ll never forget this. The judge leaned over in his chair, and he looked right at me. He said, “Son, this is fair, because you broke the law. You know what would not have been fair? What if you had hit one of those workers because you were speeding? A man just trying to do his job and make a living. I have a duty under the law to protect those men.” He wasn’t rude or condescending. He was kind, almost sorrowful. Like he really had dealt with the alternative before, and he was happy to deal out justice this time because it could have been so much worse.
He was a good judge. Good in the truest sense of what it means to be a judge. He carried out his duty that day even though he probably wished he could have given me a break. This is how God’s justice is only to taken to the infinite extreme. In the courtroom of God, he is not dealing with minor speeding tickets, he is dealing with the eternal weight of his glory that has been offended by rebellious sinners. If justice is not done, if judgment does not come against those that hate him and take advantage of the most vulnerable of his creation, he would not be a good judge, he would be an evil judge. What would the husband of the widow say to a God that would allow the scribes to continually take advantage of his poor, defenseless wife? He would cry for justice, and is because God is good that he brings that justice on those that rightly deserve it.
So the warning of verses 38-40 is real. The good shepherd has come to bring the kingdom of God, and the only way true worship can be established is for the old, false worship to be removed.
This is why Jesus responds the way he does to the disciple at the beginning of chapter 13. Look at it with me.
Mark 13:1-2
13 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
This poor disciple, whoever he was, just didn’t get it. Or maybe he was understanding what Jesus was saying, but didn’t think Jesus really meant it or maybe he thought that Jesus was going to bring reformation, not destruction. So, as they are leaving, he points out the beauty of the temple, and Jesus brings all that we have been studying since the triumphal entry to a sharp point of clarity. He says, “There will not be one stone left on another.” The destruction is not figurative, it is not a reformation, this temple, with all of its leaders and all of its teachings will be so completely destroyed that not one stone will be left on another.
Now this shocks the disciples. We aren’t going to see it this week, but the implications that are running through their head at this moment set up our sermon next week. They want to know when these things are going to take place, which we will see next week.
But now some points of application before we close. First, Jesus’s warning to the crowd about the scribes is very relevant today. All around us, we have spiritual leaders that lead their ministries that are not ruled by the double love command. Just go listen to the “Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast if you want a front row seat to what happens when pastors care more about themselves than they do about loving God and God’s people. We have to raise up elders that love God first.
Second, you are responsible for the loves in your life. God himself has commanded you to love him. If you allow any of your affections to deter you from your devotion to him, you are not a good husband, or a hard worker, or a doting father; you are an idolator. You have loved the gift and not the Giver, and have fashioned idols out of your wife, your job, and your children. God calls us to be good husbands, and worker, and fathers, but when our desire for those things supersedes our desire for God, we have made an idol out of those things as surely as if we would have carved them out of wood.
Finally, Jesus’s warning is real, especially for the local church. If Jesus brought an end to the false worship in Jerusalem at the temple, how much more will he deal with his churches scattered throughout the world. False worship leads to judgment. This is true of every Church. In Revelation 2, Jesus warns the Church in Ephesus. In verse 5 he says,
Revelation 2:5
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Jesus promises that if the Church at Ephesus does not return to their first love, he will come and remove their lampstand. He will remove the light of their gospel witness and they will no longer be a Church. The warning against false worship is real. Our worship must be ruled by the double love command: to love God and love others.
Conclusion
This morning, at our Sunday morning prayer service, we discussed Deuteronomy 30 in detail. We saw how law keeping was never about rule following, but was always about God loving. Tonight, in Mark 12, we saw how Jesus maintained that eternal truth that Moses taught. All commandments are summed up in this: we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is the rule of love. The rule that governs our worship every day of our lives. We were created to be genuinely satisfied in our devotion to God, and to have that devotion expanded as all the other loves in our life expand our ability to love him. Obedience and love are not at odds. It is because we love him that we can obey him. True worship is to love God and all things in relation to him.
Let’s pray.