We all enjoy being loved. We wish there were more love in the world. But how can we ourselves become more loving? And what does love for God have to do with love for other people?
MARK 12:28-31: LOVE GOD; LOVE OTHERS
Read Mark 12:28-31
“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 first of all?’
“Jesus answered, ‘Hear, O Israel:
The Lord our God 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.’
“The second is this,
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
INTRODUCTION
We are so familiar with this text that we may not notice how impossible these two commands are.
When I was a little boy, we often had sauerkraut.
I like sauerkraut now, but when I was a kid I didn’t like it at all.
But I grew up during the Great Depression, and it was not an option to leave anything on my plate.
Dad served us whatever he thought we should have, and we didn’t leave the table until our plates were clean.
Whenever we had sauerkraut, we also each got a wiener.
In order to get the sauerkraut down, I cut my wiener into little bits, so that I could put each bite of kraut into my mouth with a bit of wiener.
That way I could get it down.
My father could command me to eat my sauerkraut, and I would obey.
But it never occurred to him to command me to like sauerkraut, much less to love it.
I think that if these commands were not so familiar, we would wonder:
How can I make myself love God?
How can I make myself love my neighbor—especially when the Bible teaches that my “neighbor” is just everyone else in the world?
I. When God gave Moses the 10 Commandments they were pretty clear-cut.
A. You worship God, or you don’t.
You make yourself and idol, or you don’t.
You work on the Sabbath, or you don’t.
You kill people, or you don’t.
A lot of people take comfort from the idea that they’ve kept the 10 Commandments.
Now, we know that there’s a deeper dimension to each of these commandments.
But most people are pretty comfortable with them.
The 10 commandments aren’t so hard, and most people think they keep them pretty well.
That is why there’s a concrete tablet in the middle of the First Avenue bridge with the 10 Commandments carved in it.
Other towns have them on the courthouse wall.
But can you imagine anyone putting on the courthouse wall: “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 love your neighbor as yourself”?
B. These “love commandments” are different from the Ten!
Can anyone ever say, “I love God with all my heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. I guess I’m all right with God”?
Can anyone say, “I love all my neighbors as myself”? I might love my wife as myself, my child…my best friend. But everyone…?
II. What can we say?
A. The first point: What God commands must be possible, and God will show us how to make it work.
Our love for God is a response to God’s love for us.
God first loved us.
He sent his Son, our Lord Jesus, into the world to die for us.
If we thoroughly understand what God has done for us—and what it cost him—how can we not love him with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength?
But there’s more:
According to Romans 5.5, God “pours his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which he has given to us.”
Love is a fruit of the Spirit. In the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, love stands at the head of the list.
Apple trees just naturally produce apples. Christian people, if they are real Christians, just naturally produce love.
John writes, “Dear children, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…”
B. The second point: People generally misunderstand what “love” means in the Bible.
Love is not, first of all, a feeling.
It is hard to find in the Bible anything that suggests that godly love is a warm, happy attraction to someone. Those feelings are nice and they may help us love, but they aren’t love.
Love, in the Bible, is a way of behaving.
So we don’t have to try to be fond of everyone: be kind, considerate, respectful, helpful, encouraging…
The Bible says: “Consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10.24).
CONCLUSION
Rodney Stark, a sociologist, wrote a book, The Rise of Christianity, in which he examines the reasons why Christianity spread so rapidly in the Roman Empire—in spite of a hostile environment.
One of the reasons Christianity was so attractive was the love of the Christians for their pagan neighbors.
When devastating plagues swept across the ancient world, the pagans pushed the sufferers away and fled.
Christians stayed, showing practicing Christian love in caring for the sick. Many of the best Christians lost their lives as they cared for their sick neighbors.
A Christian named Dionysius wrote about a plague that came in 260 to Alexandria, Egypt. There was a huge death rate. Dionysius wrote that the Christians were terrified of the plague but they considered the plague a call to action.
They believed that as believers they must stay and help the sufferers, especially those who were pagans.
Dionysius wrote many of the Christian brothers and sisters in nursing and, curing others, became infected themselves and died in their stead. In this way they lost many of their elders, deacons, and most devoted laymen.
In this, and other plagues in ancient times, the pagans whose lives were saved by the Christians often became Christians themselves.
That is one way Christianity became credible to the surrounding world.
It is the same way today. We prove our faith, not by arguments but by our kindness and helpfulness.
God gives us love, not so that we can soak it up like a sponge but so that we can be channels of his love to others…
…especially to those who are difficult to love…
…especially to those who don’t love us in return.
Pray for the people you see every day. Pray that you can find some way to encourage them, to compliment them, to let them know that they are important to you—and to God.
“The love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay.
Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
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