THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT Ruth 1:1-18, Psalm 116:1-10, Mark 12:28-34 November 3 & 4, 2018 Eagles are known for soaring. They glide in the air. The amazing thing about eagles is that they don t work that hard to hang in the air like they do. Eagles depend on wind gusts and updrafts to keep them aloft. When an eagle catches the wind, he can soar for a long time, just pausing every now and then to flap his wings a bit. An eagle doesn t fly furiously beating the air with his wings. If it did, many of them would probably poop out because their wings are too heavy to do that for any length of time. They rest on the power of the wind. Many people are tired because they are furiously fighting their way through life, trying to do the best they can under their own power. God would have us to catch the wind of His Holy Spirit. He wants us to link into His will so that we don t have to struggle unnecessarily when He s provided a way already. His commandments are not burdensome. 1 They enable us to be lifted up and supported so that we might live life to the fullest according to God s will. Our world today certainly demonstrates the furious flapping and fighting of people to make it through life. Some are going as hard as they can go trying to make meaning of their life in order to find a purpose. They are looking for entertainment, job success, pleasure, fortune and fame to bring them what they think is the necessary quality of life and purpose of life. They live hard, play hard, work hard and pursue all that they can, to get the most out of their lives. But unfortunately they are still missing out on what God has for them, because they are leaving God out of the picture. They want to do things their way and live it up as fast and furious as they can so they don t miss anything. But by missing God, they really miss everything. The lesson of Psalm 116 exposes the fear we can have even when we re going 90 miles an hour at living life. The writer says, The danger of death was all around me; the horrors of 1 (Tony Evans, Tony Evans Book of Illustrations, [Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009] pg. 137, #410 1
the grave closed in on me; I was filled with fear and anxiety (116:3). And such are we as we face this world. It doesn t take us too long looking around us to see the horrendous things that are happening, and we, too, become fearful and anxious. We have very little hope of finding a firm foundation on which to stand upon outside of having faith in the Lord. But the writer of this psalm knows Who is the best One to turn to. He says, Then I called to the Lord, I beg you, Lord, save me! (116:4). He goes on, The Lord is merciful and good; our God is compassionate. The Lord protects the helpless; when I was in danger, He saved me. Be confident, my heart, because the Lord has been good to me (116:5-7). Who else can calm our fears and relieve our anxiety as we face the world? Only the Lord our God! Isn t He the greatest? Yes, He is! The Lord saved me from death; He stopped my tears and kept me from defeat. And so I walk in the presence of the Lord in the world of the living. I kept on believing (116:8-10a). This is the key to a purpose-filled life. It is the Lord our God who walks with us and guides us and gives us the power and ability to fly in this world without beating ourselves to death trying to make it on our own. As we trust in Him and let Him lead us through His path in this world that leads to eternal life, we can rest assured that He can bring about our greatest good if only we let Him do it. I like the way that Tony Evans puts it. He says, A drunk driver is told not to drive. If he or she drinks, they are not to drive because they could hurt themselves or somebody else. People who have had a drink should hand over the keys to somebody who s sober and let this other person take control of the steering wheel so that each passenger in the car can safely get from where they are to where they are supposed to go. Many of us are taking control of the steering wheel of our life as we seek to drive it our own way. But we shouldn t be! We are crossing the center line, swerving, and going out into the ditch because we are out of control. God stands available to take the keys of our life and to drive us home. He can take us from here to eternity safely and on time, but He s got to have 2
control of the wheel. He must be in charge of our life so we can find ourselves safe in His hands. But that takes obedience on our part to follow God s commandments and use them to keep us safe and lead us home. 2 But of all the commandments, which ones are the most important? What is the most important commandment of all that is the most valuable to follow? That is the question put to Jesus by the teacher of the Law who had observed Jesus answering the question of the Sadducees about marriage and resurrection. Listen to the conversation in Mark 12:28-34. (READ Mark 12:28-34) The teacher of the Law was asking Jesus what one law was the most important one for us to follow to be found favorable in God s eyes. And Jesus sums up all of the laws of the 10 Commandments and the other 653 rabbinical laws into one guideline that we are to follow; well actually two. Jesus says, Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second most important commandment is this; Love your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no other commandment more important than these two (Mark 12:29-31). Now this is what is called The Shema. It is the first word of Deuteronomy 6:4, Hear, O Israel, and it became the confession of faith for the people of Judaism. This statement of faith includes the commands to love Yahweh completely (with all your heart and mind) and to live in a way that reminds us constantly of God s guidelines and enables us to put them into action in our life (with all your soul and with all your strength). Jesus uses The Shema to lift up the vital importance of us living under God s commands so that we might be pleasing to Him in all that we do. As people of the Book (the Bible) we are to have God s word steadily working in our minds, guiding our every thought and action. Loving the Lord our God COMPLETELY means we follow HIS Commands! We love God by being in obedience to His Word, even when 2 (Tony Evans, Tony Evans Book of Illustrations, pg. 137, #412) 3
the rest of the world around us is adamantly telling us that we have to follow THEIR way. Loving God is consistently and persistently pursuing the obedience to ALL of the laws of God so that we might stand out to the world as being different so that they can see the difference when we follow God s commands in love. But in a world that wants things to go their own way, we have gotten so far away from God s commandments guiding our lives that we do whatever we want, whenever we want, to whomever we want, and we call it good and right. Is it any wonder then, that God allowed the people of Israel to be sent off into captivity until they should come to honor and respect His Law and commandments again? Is it any wonder that we here in the United States are suffering such hardships and catastrophes? When we are insistent upon living by our own resources and with our own wisdom and in our own wants and desires, we re like the eagle flapping furiously instead of following the updrafts and winds that God has given to us for real life. And God finally lets us go our own way, sadly, to our own destruction. Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength keeps us in tune with all that God has commanded for us, and brings us blessings to our lives as we seek to follow Him above all others. Jesus then gives the second commandment that He compares as of equal importance to the first, Love your neighbor as you love yourself (Mark 12:31). First we love the Lord our God with all that we are, keeping His laws and commandments in our minds at all times to guide us and protect us; then we use that love of the Lord our God to share with those around us, treating them in ways that we would want to be treated ourselves. But without purpose and meaning in our own lives, it is very difficult to treat others with respect and dignity if we don t have that for ourselves. If we are adamantly controlling the steering wheel of our own life, we have no way of letting God direct us, so we ultimately end up in destruction. We must see ourselves as valuable and precious in God s eyes first, relinquishing control of our life to Him, and then we can look out to those around us and treat them as valuable and precious people of 4
God, too. Loving God first with all that we are in obedience to ALL of His commands, then loving those around us with the love and honor and dignity God gives to us. This is exactly what the teacher of the Law replies to Jesus. He says, Well done, Teacher! It is true, as You say, that only the Lord is God and that there is no other god but He. And man must love God withal his heart and with all his mind and with all his strength; and he must love his neighbor as he loves himself. It is more important to obey these two commandments than to offer on the altar animals and other sacrifices to God (Mark 12:32-33). We saw that today in our reading of Ruth1. Naomi diligently followed the Lord her God, even when she found herself widowed and childless in the land of Moab on the southeast side of the Dead Sea. Even thou she lost her husband, Elimelech, and her two sons, Mahlon and Chillion, she continues to love her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth. She desperately clung to God with her whole heart to the point that her two daughters-in-law noticed the difference. Yet, when Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem in Judah, it is only Ruth who clings to her in loyalty and love. It s not that Orpah didn t love Naomi. She made the choice to go her own way back to her own people so that she might live in the comfortable place she knew, hoping for a new life there. Ruth on the other hand, decided to remain loyal to Naomi and trusted the Lord God to be her God, and decided to let Naomi s people become her people. Ruth gave her life and love to Naomi, trusting that they would find God s blessings in life, even when they didn t think there were any left. But God is good to those who trust Him and follow Him and seek Him with their whole heart. As we see in the rest of the book of Ruth, God uses the loyalty of Ruth to bring about a new life and she finds herself in the lineage of not only King David, but of the Messiah, Jesus, as well. Obedience, loyalty, love of God and others is not wasted in God s eyes. He sees those who trust in Him and follow Him and give their whole lives to Him, and God blesses them 5
because of their love for Him. It is good for us to take notice of this so that we might seek the Lord and find the love of the Lord in our whole life, heart, soul, mind and strength. Then we, too, can turn and influence the lives of those around us so that they may be blessed, too. One last thought on our Gospel lesson today. Jesus responds to the teacher of the Law with these words, You are not far from the Kingdom of God (Mk. 12:34). This teacher of the Law demonstrated that he was hearing Jesus words and was receptive to the lessons Jesus was teaching. Jesus reply to him challenged him to continue to consider these two laws and to begin to put them into practice into his own life. We re not told whether this teacher of the Law found his way into the kingdom of God, but the challenge goes out to all of us, too. So what will our lives look like if we were to consider these two greatest commandments, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself, and then put them into practice in our daily living? What changes would we need to make in how we understand and serve God? What changes would be necessary as we interact with other people? How might your life look when you begin to live these two greatest commandments? Jesus invites us to be His loyal, obedient, faithful servants living for Him each day of our lives. Will you accept His challenge and put these two Greatest Commandments into practice in your life? Or will you determine to follow your own way? The choice is yours today. Let s pray: Father, Your way is always better than our way. Your plans for us are always better than our plans for ourselves. Give us the courage to love You and follow You with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and be obedient to You with all that we are. Help us then to love those around even as we love ourselves and as Jesus first loved us. Enable us to make a great difference in our world as we invite others to follow You, too; in Jesus holy Name we pray. AMEN. 6