The Greatest

Transcript

Mark chapter 12. We only have a few more weeks in the Gospel of Mark and then, you know, Advent is going to restart us into year A. All right? And year A is, or, sorry, year C, forgive me, which is the Gospel of Luke. Alright, so we'll be, you know, first Sunday of Advent all the way through the year will be in the Gospel of Luke.

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But for now we're in Mark chapter 12. Whenever you find Mark 12, verse 28, go ahead and stand with me as we read our gospel reading.

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Notice these words found in Mark 12:28. One of the scribes came near and heard the Sadducees disputing with one another. And seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, which commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, the first is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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.

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The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Then the scribes said to him, you are right, teacher, you have truly said that he is one, and besides him there is no other. And to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus saw that, he answered wisely.

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He said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. After that, no one dared to ask him any question. Jesus, thank you for your holy word. We pray now that you would send your spirit to us today to not only enlighten us, but to then set us about your business. We pray in your name.

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Amen. And you can be seated now. Jesus, as you know, and as we've been tracking along with him, is about to go to the cross. He's very close here and he's already in Jerusalem. And there's been many questions that have that he's been encountered with by the various religious leaders, the Pharisees, of course, the Sadducees.

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We're told right before this scribe comes to question Jesus. And it seems as if his questioning is really maybe innocent in the sense of he actually wants to know what this rabbi thinks is the greatest commandment. And so here we might need to just ask ourselves a few things about scribes in general, because, you know, sometimes the Scriptures will delineate between the Pharisees and the scribes. And Jesus, as you may know, in reading the Gospels, is most direct, most Maybe confrontational, pointed, terse, even at times with the Pharisees and the scribes, or the scribes of the Pharisees as Pharisees could be scribes. Now, scribes are just experts at the law.

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They were literally known as lawyers, but not of the type that we think. Instead, Gods law. They were experts at God's law, both of not only studying, but also writing the law and promulgating that through recording it and then passing that along, but also commenting upon it. So they had commentaries, you know, like we do oftentimes. Just like this book has, this Bible has a commentary at the bottom on some of the words.

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That's what these guys did. They were the experts. So it would be right that if another expert came into Jerusalem, well, you would want to know that, right? Like, you, you know, I mean, you know how it is sometimes when you're in a specialty field or maybe you get into something new and then you find somebody else that's also into that, you kind of nerd out for a minute, right? You know, like, I'm kind of into pickleball right now.

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So then I found somebody the other day that was also. They said into pickleball. And I nerded out on him for a minute, and it didn't go well, but I did anyway because I'm a newbie, I'm an amateur. But these are two experts that are meeting, and they're meeting about the law. The question revolves around the law of God, which is his Torah, which is his Torah.

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It doesn't just mean the various laws that we find in the Old Testament. In fact, when we speak of the law or the Torah, we can mean the whole old testament, all 39 of the books that we find in the Old Testament. It means that they would have been experts at all of them. Now, of course, the law specifically was the first five books of the Bible, which, as you know, includes a lot more than law, which is why the term is really Torah. Okay?

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So if you talk to a Jew, then it's Torah, which is instructions. And in other words, the whole Old Testament, specifically the first five books of the Bible, which obviously include Genesis, Exodus, numbers, Deuteronomy, are all God's instructions to us. Sometimes we misunderstand law, don't we? Especially in our sort of American, modern context, instructions might get at the thing a little better. Because instructions are meant to build on something.

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Not just negate, but to build on something. For instance, when you buy these pieces of furniture that are cheap, you know, maybe for your kids or for yourself, you have to put them together right? And inevitably they had come with thousands of parts. And it's very frustrating because you think it should go together like this. You start doing some of it, and then I find that inevitably I do it wrong.

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And then I have to go back and consult the instructions. Now, most of us don't just sit around and read instructions unless we have something to put together. Now think about this. What do we have to put together as people of God, but a holy life? Truly, we are called to holiness.

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I am holy. God says, therefore you be holy. This is why, as we observe all saints day to day, which is the reason for the white pyramids here is this is a day where we remember that we are called to be saints of God, not just the people who have gone before us, okay? Who we think, oh, wow, what a life. What a life.

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When you start digging into their lives, we all find different things that trouble us about their life. Just like our life, there are things that should trouble us about our life. And yet we are called to be holy. And so God has given us his instructions on how to be holy. And this is something that's oftentimes misunderstood.

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We think, oh, yeah, being a Christian is just obeying the law, okay? But we miss it because we don't come to God through the law. The law is the way we walk with God. Grace is the only way to come to God, because we can't come to God on our own. It's his grace.

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Remember what we always talk about. He is always first, never us. When we think we're looking for him, it's actually him that's looking for us. We're the lost ones, not him, not God. And the sooner we realize that, the sooner we'll long for his instructions, his law.

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Now, I think it's helpful what I'm about to give you, and if you don't just disregard it. But St. Thomas Aquinas breaks down the law into four types of law. And I'm going to kind of do a visual, so you kind of have to watch me for a second. So the eternal law is God himself.

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He is law. Okay, so like, the eternal law is the law that never changes, obviously, because it comes from God. And that's the kind of fountainhead, if you will. All right, so this is the base. Underneath that comes natural law.

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And you know what natural law is? It's laws that. It's the reason why if you look at the laws across all of the nations, they're very, very similar. In other words, if you Go to Russia or if you go to India or if you go to China or if you go back in time, even, okay, let's say 2,000 years, 4,000. The laws are very, very similar, okay, across the board.

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In other words, murder, never a good thing, okay? No country's ever going to promote murder like murder properly, okay speaking. No one's ever going to promote rape, all right? No one. Like, just look through the law.

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There's not one, okay? No one ever. No country, no people, group ever considers cowardice a virtue, something to be pursued. You know, nobody claps when you run away from the fight. We honor those who stand up to their own peril, who go after, who go into the buildings at their own cost of their life.

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That's the one we recognize, not the ones who were too fearful and hiding around the corner. We never reckon. No one ever recognizes, okay, that's natural law. In other words, who told all the people around the world who are not even Christian nations, not even influenced by Christianity a lot of times, who told them that that's the way it should be? Well, the Creator, he kind of built it into us.

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CS Lewis and others would say it comes from our heart. Actually, the natural law comes from our heart. Just like when two people are arguing, they're always going to refer to a third party and say things like, that's not fair for you to say that. Okay, well, where does this idea of fairness come from? If we're.

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If both me and you are equal in our determination of reality and of truth, then we're just at a standstill. We can't go any further. But if there is actually truth that is third party of us, that is above and beyond us, that we both participate in when rightly understood, then we have something to go from, don't we? Okay, so all of us understand and kind of feel natural law and then natural law. Notice.

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Eternal law. Natural law coming from the eternal law. But then natural law can be misunderstood. So then we have to clarify it as humans, right? Because natural law does not apply across the board to roaches and to horses and to humans in the same way.

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So then we have to clarify, okay, well, here's what we mean by manslaughter, because all killing isn't murder, all right? That's the way it happens, right? There's manslaughter and there's war. There's incidental things and so on and so forth. So we then clarify in human law, okay, so you have eternal law coming from eternal law?

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Is natural law coming out of the Natural law. So as humans look at the natural law, what is right, okay? The instructions by which we should live. And by the way, law is really avoiding evil and doing good. You want to just kind of really basic elementary dictionary definition here of what law ought to do.

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It helps us to pursue what is good and to move away from what is evil. And it does this by fear, by the way. In other words, law is always attached to some retribution, isn't it? You know, to some sort of punishment. And so that's exactly how we do our.

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Any lawyer would be able to tell you all this, right? Like, in fact, go read, in fact, these four things of St. Thomas Aquinas. We're missing one. I understand, but we're at three right now.

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If you read a letter written. The letter written from prison by Martin Luther King Jr. In a Birmingham jail, okay, if you go read that, he mentions all four. He's working from. And he's appealing to those who.

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Those racist lawmakers, because he knows they also understand where human law comes from. And it's the natural law which then comes from the eternal law. So he's actually pointing them back up to the Creator himself and saying, would you reconsider your Jim Crow laws, for instance, that they're actually unjust. It's a beautiful, like, go read it this afternoon. You can read it in the afternoon sitting.

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And he actually does this from a Birmingham jail. It's so ingrained in him as a Christian. Okay. That this is what he produces from jail without books and so on and so forth. Now, so eternal law, natural law, then from that human law.

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Okay? Now both of these are deficient, aren't they? We all know that human. Certain human laws at times have been very unjust. Think of Nazi Germany.

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Think of Jim Crow laws, et cetera, et cetera. Enough said. Okay? Now, so just because it's a human law doesn't mean it actually comes from the natural law or actually comes from the eternal law, right? So what other fourth law do we need?

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Because no one knows the mind of God, so we can't access the eternal law directly. Instead, what is that fourth law, but divine law, Divine Torah, divine instructions given by God through man to man. All right? That's what we mean by the Holy Scriptures, isn't it? Both the old law and the new law, by the way, right?

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With the old law being external and the new law being internal. So the law moves from what is external to the heart. This is why Jesus will say things like this. The law says, do not murder. I say new Law.

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If you hate your brother, you've already murdered them in your heart. What is Jesus doing? He's taking the external law that we can all measure. All of us can measure external law. We can all see if you murder someone like we feel that we can see it.

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It's an external act that you do to another that's physical and material. We cannot pick up on the internal law. And which is more important? The scripture is going to teach us that the new covenant, the new law is the most important. What's happening in our heart is most important because here's what James will say in the Anatomy of How to Sin is all sin comes from where?

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The heart. Not from the external. It's not from somebody. The devil didn't make me do it. No, no, you made you do it because you entertained it in your heart first.

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And from there, all sorts of wickedness we are told, comes from our heart. This is why Jeremiah is able to say the heart is wicked. Who can know it? We can't. But you know who does know our heart?

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God.

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God does. You know who can change our heart? Not us. God can alone. Which is why the prophets foresaw, they looked in the power of the Holy Spirit.

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They were able to look and see a day today when the Holy Spirit could transform our heart, give us a new heart. Remember, not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh.

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So whereas the external law was controlled through fear, implemented in fear. In other words, you do this and this will happen, okay? The internal law, you know how it's conducted by the example of divine love, the cross.

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In other words, he doesn't persuade us through, if you don't do this, this will happen, but rather now he persuades us in the positive direction. That's the negative one. In the positive direction of his great love for us. And I would suggest this, which is more powerful again, because trust me, some of us, even though we've known the consequences, blowing up a marriage, blowing up a business through lying, blowing up a friendship, we do it anyway.

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We do it anyway. We could care less. But this act of forgiveness, this act of self giving love, that persuades us in a different way than dread. Now we start with dread, right? And kids need to know this, this is why you should discipline your kids, is they need to understand that actions have consequences, right?

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But here's what Jesus will show is that it's not just our actions, but it's our thoughts. He wants to get down to changing even our thoughts. Now, how many, how many people want that in their Life. Most of us just want to skirt through life making sure we're not caught. Truth be told, we want to do what we want to do and not get caught.

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And so long as that happens, we skate by. How many of us would actually beg Jesus to change our thoughts about this or that matter? Now we want to coddle it, keep it for ourself, and pet it. And the reality is, it will come out. What is in you will come out.

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And that's why Jesus says it's not what goes in a person, remember, but rather what comes out of a person that defiles you. God help us. We need his grace. And this is why law and grace are not opposed, but rather grace is his giving of the law, of the instructions of God. Otherwise we would never know.

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Otherwise we would be groping in the darkness. We need God's divine law now. So the scribes, they understand this, okay? This scribe understands this and comes to Jesus. And now he says this, okay?

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Of the 613 laws that we find Jesus in the Old Testament, which one is the greatest? Because you know, there's all kind of laws, right? Moral laws, civil laws, ceremonial laws, et cetera. He says, which one, teacher, Rabbi, is the greatest? Now remember, you boil down the 613 and you get the Ten Commandments, right?

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And there's two copies of the Ten Commandments. One is in Deuteronomy 5. Interestingly, our text was from Deuteronomy 6, right after the Ten Commandments. The other is in Exodus 20, remember, where God gives the law to Moses. This is why it's called the Law of not just God, but the Law of Moses, right?

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Even Jesus calls it that because it was given to Moses on Mount Sinai. And remember, it came on two tablets, all right, The Decalogue, as we kind of call it, scholarly wise, which just means 10 words, because it's the 10 words that we all should obey. Everybody's under obligation to obey these 10, and they don't change. And four of them on one side of the tablet have to do with our relationship with God, don't they? And then the other six on the other tablet have to do with our relationship with one another.

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And so Jesus, in his answer, is quite brilliant here in directing our attention to God and others and not bifurcating the two or imbalancing the two. In other words, it's not others first and then God, but rather God and then others as yourself. Oftentimes I joke with my students that there's only one person in the whole Bible that broke all Ten commandments at one time. It was Moses, remember? See, they don't laugh either.

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So I need like a drum thing. But he broke all ten commandments at one time, you know, because he threw them down. Okay, you have to explain it. It's not funny, right? So I would move on the Ten Commandments.

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Jesus even gets more narrow now. So 613, 10, 2, right? This guy's asked which is the greatest. And shouldn't we also be kind of asking this same sort of question, like, what is greatest in the world? What is the greatest thing that we could ever pursue?

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Okay, that's really what he's asking. What is the greatest, remember, instruction that we could ever be led into? Notice it's not here. Suggestions. These are not the 10 suggestions.

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These are not the two suggestions. There's not the one suggestion or the 613. Instead, these are commandments. We are being commanded to do this and immediately. Our American spirit, you know, who's going to command me?

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We're the home of the free and the right. But listen, not when it comes to God. And you can be all that with other people. Sure, yeah, you're just as good as name the person, okay? But not when it comes to God.

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He can command us and he does. In fact, he can instruct us, and he does. Okay, so now you already know that this section here that Jesus quotes when asked, the first is hero. Is the Lord our God. The Lord is one or some translation alone.

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He's alone. In other words, nobody else like him. Okay, now he's quoting from Deuteronomy 6, which we happen to read today in our lectionary reading, which is nice because. And this is called, of course, the Shema, right? And Shema, that is a Hebrew term that just is the first term here.

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First word that we come to in this sentence, hear. Okay, so hear. Shema means to hear. But it's not just any sort of hear. It's to hear and to obey.

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You know, it's the same sort of thing that you do with your children. I mean, inevitably, parents will say, I'm never going to say that. And then they do say that because you find out that it's actually useful to say that.

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You know, like that whole thing that used to get on my nerves as a kid, you know, because I said so. He's like, okay, well, that's not an explanation. So I demand an explanation, you know, and I didn't get one. And I got even in further trouble because of even suggesting that, okay? And I got so angry, I Just remember distinctly being like, that's just so stupid.

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I'm just going to explain to my children, right? Like, this is why. Okay, but now that I'm a parent, that would be stupid to explain to your children because it would be like, this is what they're going to hear. Womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp.

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Because if they ask a question about sex and they have no idea about it, how in the world can you explain it? Then you have a concept and you don't want to awaken that before time. It would be stupid to say, oh, well, let me explain that to you, buddy. No, and you know what? God is in an uber position to a parent, child, relationship to us.

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And if he says, because I said so, then we simply say, yes, sir.

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We don't have to understand it. To demand of God to understand is ridiculous because we can't understand his mind. We can't even understand each other's mind, much less God.

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So hearing is doing right. Because just as you know, I just distinctly remember one particular day, and I use this all the time, so forgive me, but for new people, it's like, oh, that's a cool story. I remember Justin and I were playing Nintendo, you know, and Pop was like, hey, I'm going to the store. When I get back, I want the clothes folded and the dishes washed. All right, we got you, Pop, for sure.

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Okay, now, it was only five minutes. I don't know how he got there and back, you know, so quickly. But all of a sudden, here comes the garage door. And we started scrambling, you know, I ran to. I don't know what I did.

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I think I did the dishes because, you know, he didn't want to do the dishes and wanted to fold clothes, whatever. And so we. But you know what? By that point, there was no way it was getting done, you know? And what does my dad come in and say?

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Just the very typical thing any other parent would say. Did you not? What? Hear me? I said I wanted these things.

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Well, of course we heard him. We even nodded, you know, and took a moment to maybe glance. All right? But we didn't do it. Therefore, we didn't hear it.

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You see, hearing is doing for Shema. Now notice this.

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If this is the greatest commandment, notice that it is not. And just hear it again. So love the Lord your God. Notice not. Obey the Lord your God.

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He could have said that, right? He had the right to say that, like, the greatest commandment is to obey the Lord your God. No, that's not what he says.

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Or maybe this one. The greatest commandment is to believe in the Lord your God, to trust him. No, it doesn't say that. Instead, it's love the Lord your God. And I think why is because you can obey someone and not love them.

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But if you love a superior, you will always obey them because you trust him. You can believe in something and still not love it. You know, I believe the dishes get cleaned when I scrub them. I don't love it. Not always.

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Sometimes I do. Last night I did, but not always. Sometimes it's just drudgery, isn't it? But notice, when you really love someone, you'll trust them. I mean real love, not the superficial stuff.

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Let's get real.

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Same thing with honoring your parents, by the way. It works the same way. Notice this. Honor your parents, not obey them. Because if you really honor them, you will obey them as a child.

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That's the way that works. And if we're going to honor God and he's our parent, he's our father, I'm the son, then I will obey him. Not out of just okay. I don't want bad things to happen. Not as a means to an end, but because of who he is.

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I actually trust him.

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And, you know, I do trust my earthly father. Like, I do trust him, you know? And if he were to ask me to do like, son, I really would like for you to do this for me. Why would I say no? You know, like, no, no, I'm not doing that.

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I still love you, but no, I want to serve him.

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Okay? Love the Lord, your God. That's the greatest commandment. That's the thing that we pursue above all else, is loving God. And notice, think about this.

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This is strange to us, sort of love is commanded. How is that? I mean, most of us would kind of balk at this. Love, you know, has to be felt. Right?

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Love has to be kind of worked into. It's serendipitous, maybe. Or perhaps it's just always a surprise. We never know when it's coming. So I'm not in control?

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No, no, no. You're thinking modern TikTok love, okay? We're not waiting around to somehow fall in love with God. No, no. Love is an action that we do again because we trust Him.

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Love is something we participate in, that he has already provided to us.

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It's the same way, you know, with kids, isn't it? You don't always feel love for them. If we're honest. Sometimes you feel all kinds of things toward Them.

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And by the way, some of us have fake relationships with our kids. We need to dismiss that as well. Or maybe fake relationships with our spouses. No, love is to say, you know what? I still am going to will the good of you even when you don't like me.

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That's love. As St. Thomas said, it's to will the good of the other and an as other, not as a means to an end. In other words, I don't love you just because what you can do for me, that is not love either. That's selfishness.

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No, there has to be an altruistic part to love, which is to say a self denying, self giving, self deferential, like, it's going to cost me something to love you.

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And, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm not always good at that. You know, like, sometimes I like my stuff too much. The kids get on my nerves. I'm like, can you just make them come in? Jessica and honey, they're out there playing in your grass.

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I'm like, yeah, but I want to keep my grass. It's like, but your kids are more important than your grass. And I have to remind myself of that. Truly. It hurts me.

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It pains me. I mean, I even asked my grass man in the back, I said, why does my front yard look so different than my backyard? And we treat it the same way. You know, I cut it the same way. He said, do you have any kids?

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I said, I've got five. Do you have any dogs? I've got two. And I've said, they trample my grass. Right, but think about it.

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Same thing here with this church. Think about it. God gave us this building, he gave us the various things, and now we're sharing it with two other churches. And you know what? Sometimes stuff gets broken.

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You know, stuff gets used. Our chairs are getting triple times use now instead of preserving it. But what is a building without life? What is a yard without kids? You see, we're not just trying to protect our own stuff.

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I need to distance myself from stuff and invest more in people. And that cost us always. And you know what? That's the kind of love, the example of love that Jesus gave to us. Did he give part of himself for us?

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No, he gave all of himself for us. And you know the cool thing about love, and I mean, I'm learning this more and more, even the older I get, the crazy thing about love, Jessica and I've been married for 20 years, as you all know, which is crazy, just means I'm getting very old. 20 years has gone by. And you know what? I still love her in a deeper way.

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And I still have these strong. And some people, like, you could never be with somebody 20, 40, 50 years. And like, listen, love always has more. That's the truth of love. If you give up on love, that's your own fault.

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Love never ends. Is there tough times? Yes. But that's when love should be expressed. In other words, even though I'm feeling like this, even though my body doesn't look like it did when I was 17, okay, it doesn't.

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I saw a picture of myself when I was 17. It's like somehow I got wider and just thicker, you know, and it just. It's nothing I can do about it, I don't think, except for starve to death to fix that. And unfortunately, I just don't have enough in me right now to work on that, you know, and even though my body doesn't function, you know, if we really want to be honest and look, I just bumped into another marriage that just got blew up again because somebody left somebody for somebody else in their 40s or whatever, you know, it's like, here's the thing. When you marry somebody, you're not just marrying that person at 23.

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It's that person at 33, at 43, at 53, at 63, at 73. And trust me when I say that's not the same person completely. So if you're just marrying this slice, don't go into it. You're marrying the person, and the person has these accidentals of a body that ages, gets gray hair. I mean, if she married me for my hair, trust me, give me another 20 years, I probably won't even be there.

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But you know what? You know who is still there? Marshall. Like, whatever that means of me, it's Jessica. And that's who I love.

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Not what she can do for me, but rather I will what is good for her. I choose. I act toward what is good for her. And she me.

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Don't we need a little bit more of that in the world instead of just chasing this?

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You'll chase it right into hell. That's the problem. That's where it leads.

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All right, so purpose of law is to teach us actually to fear the Lord and to love him. Now, those two don't often seem. They seem contradictory, too, like fear and love. How does that go together, Right? But fear is this awe or reverence for what is greatest.

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So think about this. There's been times where I stood at the edge Of Niagara Falls. Okay. I don't know if you ever been there, like, all this water. It's an amazing sight.

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Powerful. Okay. I'm standing there at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I'm thinking, I don't. I want to be very careful.

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You know, I was freaking out with the kids. I'm like, hey, don't get over here, you know, let me get over here, you know, look for everybody, right? And take the picture. But you're scared, right? Well, if we're scared or nervous or fearful around these powerful things of tornadoes and hurricanes and all the various things, guess who the Creator is.

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If we're nervous or fearful or shrink back in certain powers in our world, guess who's the greatest power? Shouldn't we fear him a bit? Absolutely. And unfortunately, it's ho hum with God for many people, slinging around his name as if it's anything. And it's not just anything.

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He's the living God, the one and only. And he's most powerful. He's highest, he's greatest, he's most wise. And so fear, notice in the scripture is the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning, but it's not the end.

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You know what the end of wisdom is? Loving God. We start in fear. That we have to. We have to start in fear, have to start in awe, reverence.

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But we don't stay there. We move toward loving God. So today, are you choosing God in your life?

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Jesus makes it super clear. Loving the Lord, your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength is the greatest commandment. There is no greater. And the second is an expression of the first. Love your neighbor as yourself.

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That's not to say love your neighbor as much as you love yourself, not to say that it's as yourself. In other words, just as important as you are and valuable and unique, unrepeatable as a human person and as an expression of a human being. That is how you love another. They are the imago dei, just as you are. And we love them for God's sake.

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Now, you can't do this on your own. That's the trick. Instead, God has to put his love in us. And he does this, of course, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is his grace.

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And so we have to come to Him. Receiving his grace, we don't demand it. We receive it humbly. We receive it by trusting in what he has said in his law.

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Do you love Him? Do you love others? Every single person in here can improve upon the love we have for God and the love we have for others. May it be so. May he give us that improvement.

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May he give us opportunity today and this week until we see love Himself face to face.

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In the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, may it be so. Amen.

Total Duration 00:40:14