Our scripture reading this morning is found in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verses 1 through 5. Deuteronomy 6, 1 to 5. Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess. that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. May God bless His holy word to us this morning. comes to bring the bread of life to us. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you for allowing your pastor to minister at Schenectady at Calvary. Excuse me. I have been preaching through Mark for a number of years, and I'd ask that you would turn to Mark chapter 12. And we're going to begin by reading just verse 24, but our text will be starting in 28. But we'll begin with one verse to introduce. So Mark 12, 24. And let's seek the Lord's blessing before we read. Oh, Lord, we ask that you would now use your servant and make your word come alive for us, that we would learn to love Jesus and love Jesus more so. And may we be mindful that that though the flower fades, yet the word of our God stands forever. So may it stand forever in our hearts, and use your servant, and bless your servants now. And we commit to the preaching, and the hearing, and the working out, and living by faith, based on the word of God. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Mark chapter 12, verse 24. This is the word of God. Jesus answered and said to them, are you not therefore mistaken? Because you do not know the scriptures, nor the power of God. Amen, may God add richly to his word. We do not know the scriptures, or he suggests his hearers do not know the scriptures or the power of God. So let's begin with a quiz, a quiz for you here at Covenant. And I'm going to give you a number of phrases. And I want you to tell me if what I'm saying is from the word of God or if it is not from the word of God. So we're going to have one category. We'll call that category A. And then we'll have category B. And category A, the first is this. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. B, we'll give the answer. Christian, you cannot obey the law. Your certain failure is a means to show forth the grace of God when you repent. So we've got A and B. Second A. My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all conscience on this day. My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience on this day. Or on this side, we don't need more lists of how to be better spouses or parents or Christians. We need more grace. Over here once again. Because he obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. And then over here, my life strategy for today is fail, repent, and then repeat. So who votes for A? All right, we have some A's. Anybody vote for B? All right, well, we'll talk about that more so. And the point being, we can be guilty of not knowing the scriptures. And then the second point would be that we don't know the power of God. We don't know the scriptures, and we don't know the power of God. So let's now turn to our text, which is just a few verses later, and that is starting with verse 28, and Jesus speaking about the two greatest commandments. Let's read. And then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. So the scribe said to him, well said, teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but he. And to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now, when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. But after that, no one dared question him. Amen. What's happening in our text, if you just take a step back and look at what Mark is recording for us in the ministry of Jesus, the Pharisees came to Jesus, the Sadducees came to Jesus. It's all happening in the vicinity of the temple. When you go to the next chapter, it's going to be all about the the temple, and now a scribe, or in the NIV, a teacher of the law comes and asks Jesus a question about the law and interpretation and application of it. Now you don't have to be that much of a biblical scholar to know that the law is central within Judaism, within an Old Testament understanding of who God is and what he requires of us. And the expectation amongst the Jews is that there'll be a day when the Messiah will come. When the Messiah will come, the one that God has promised, and what will the Messiah do? What will happen as a result of the Messiah? Well, a whole lot, but for today we'll focus on one of the things promised in Isaiah is that all the nations would come stream to the mountain of the Lord and that they would receive the law of God. Or we can say, in addition, Jeremiah 31, what the promise is that in that day, that God will make a new covenant, and that in that new covenant, the law of God will be taken and will be put in the hearts of God's people and in the minds of God's people. Do you have promise after promise to that end? Messiah comes somehow. The law will be fulfilled. The law will go forth. The law will be made more manifest and properly understood. And the Jews would say things like, if we would only keep the Sabbath perfectly for one day, then the Messiah will come. Wrapped up in their very understanding of the faith. And in our text, the question becomes, what is the first commandment of all? Or what is the greatest commandment of all? Perhaps a way to think of this, if your house was on fire, and you only could go and get, and assuming all the family is out, and you only could take one article out, What would be the greatest? What would be the most important? What would be the one that you would take? Would you grab your wallet? Would you take your Bible that you've used and have notes in for years? Would you go get the family pictures? Would you get the gold, if you have any gold in your house? Whatever that may be, what would be the greatest concern? And the Jews ask questions like that, not fires and taking out pictures, but they ask, it was a common question, how is it that we are to understand the Bible and the law? So a Jewish high priest about 200 years before Jesus says, the world rests on three things. One, the law. Two, the sacrificial worship. And three, expressions of love. For the Jew, the Torah, or the law, was central. And it was normal for the Jews to, in some way, rate what was most important. What are the greatest commandments? What are the heaviest commandments? So the Jew, the Old Testament, we could say, roughly speaking, or at least the argument was, that the Old Testament had 613 laws. Are they all equal? No, some are weightier than others. Some are heavier than others. So the less weighty ones, or the less important ones, would be things like, well, the camp has to be kept sanitary, or having to do with animals. And then there are heavier laws, or heavier requirements also. So you recall this. Doesn't Jesus talk about this in Matthew 23, where he has a scathing rebuke of the Pharisees? And he says to the Pharisees, and they're debating over whether they should tithe on their mint and their spices. Do you recall this text? And Jesus says that they should have done the more important or the weightier matters of the law. Not all laws are equally weighty. So he says that you should have followed after justice, mercy, and such things. And then, do you remember how he ends it, though? He says, you should have chased after justice and mercy and so forth. You should have done the weightier things without neglecting the lighter things, without neglecting the former things. Parentheses, if I may. This should be happening in our households. Any parent ruling within a household needs to have weightier matters and lighter matters. Not everything is equal. You talk back to your mother, the world stops. This does not happen. No one's moving forward. We're working through this. You took the name of the Lord in vain. The world stops. The name of God in vain. Is that what I said? The name of God in vain. That's what I meant if I didn't say that. And then, well, that's not the same importance. Hi, Cindy. I didn't realize you were over there. Got my back. You didn't make your bed this morning. Is that as important? No. And if a parent will not in some way make some things weightier and some things lighter, it'll be a very difficult household to live in. the law of the father, the law of the parents will be onerous. We distinguish one requirement from another. And part of, then, that family law is that you participate on Sunday in worship. These are the non-negotiables of being. These are the weightier things. Worship, Lord's Day, coming to be with God's people. the weightier matters. So we read in verse 29, Jesus answered him, end parentheses, Jesus answered him, the first of all the first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the First commandment. So a Jew gets up in the morning, and he prays the Shema. The Jew goes to bed at night, and he prays the Shema. They don't have a catechism. They don't say, what is your only comfort in life and in death? They don't say, what is the chief end of man? Their profession, their understanding of the faith is Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And then Jesus, and that's what Elder Peter read from, yes, from Deuteronomy chapter Six, thank you. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, since we're talking about knowledge of the scriptures, where is Jesus quoting from now? Is he quoting from the Old Testament? First question. Yes. Does anybody remember where? In the book of? Yes, Jeff? Yes, in the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 19. So before you say, Leviticus, ah, has nothing to do with us, all those sacrifices, all those crazy laws, Jesus says, do you know what the second most important commandment is? It's found in the book of Leviticus, and it's that you would love your neighbor as yourself. A famous teacher in Jewish history, Hillel, Shammai, asked him a question. Teach me the whole law, or the whole Torah, while I am standing on one leg. Right? One leg. That's a way you could only do this. Think I could do it a whole sermon? In other words, do it efficiently. I'm about to go down. Do it in the fastest and the most efficient way possible. And the answer that he gave is, what you yourself hate, do not do to your neighbor. What you yourself hate, do not do to your neighbor. And the rest is commentary. Go and learn it. You want the whole Bible? You want the commandment? Love your neighbor. Don't do what you would hate to your neighbor. And then Jesus packages this with a love for God explicitly. uniquely so. And then the scribe compliments Jesus. He says to Jesus, well said. Well, that's a good answer. And that was nice of the scribe to say that. They have a good relationship. Well said, teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your soul, with all your strength, And to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus then compliments him. Now, when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. Without saying too much, she's not chastising this individual, but encouraging him, saying, you're on the right track. You're going the right way. You understand things. You're not far from the kingdom of God. Why did Mark include this? Why did Jesus say these things? And we could talk about this on a number of levels. And I'm going to focus on one. But I'll say, just to get a full enough picture of what's taking place here, throughout Mark's gospel, and especially over the last number of chapters, people are coming and debating with Jesus. At the end of each of the particular texts or stories, Jesus ends up the winner. Jesus ends up as the one who is wiser than Solomon. Jesus is the one who knows best. Jesus is the one who is exalted, that he is the true Lord. So we see Jesus being exalted like no other, that he is the best scribe. that he is the best rabbi, that he is the best lawgiver here in our text. But more than that, Jesus in this text and through his dialogue with the scribes speaks of the kingdom coming, that the kingdom, that he's not far from the kingdom of God. And you don't have to study that much to see that Jesus inaugurated now a new kingdom. And what's particularly interesting in this text, he's going to go, Mark chapter 13, Jesus is going to curse the temple. And think about this. Pause. I realize you all want to know, what does this mean for me? And we're going to talk about that in a couple of moments. But we must read the Bible and understand how the original audience would have understood it, and how not only those who were in Jesus' hearing, but also Mark wrote now how many decades after. So think about this. Mark is writing to Gentiles in Rome. Mark is writing to the Gentiles in Rome. And what happened between this happening in the lifetime of Jesus and Christians being in Rome? Well, the point that I'm getting at is that those Christians in Rome would not have been sacrificing at the temple. And Mark 13 is going to talk about the destruction of the temple. And in the dialogue here, to love one's neighbor and to love God with all of his heart, soul, strength, and mind is greater than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And the point is, as the Gentiles come into the kingdom, as the Gentiles are now in the kingdom, they are not going to sacrifice in Jerusalem. They are not going to sacrifice at the temple. And for those hearers to know that there's something greater than sacrifices, because they're not able to sacrifice, is, shall we say, music to their ears. It helps them to understand, how is it that Gentiles can be in God's covenant? But the point I want to focus on Jesus speaks now as Lord of the Law, as the one greater than Moses, as the one who is not only Lord over the winds and the waves, not only Lord over the demons, but also as the Lord over the law and he has come as the eschatological hope to the end that the people of God would be committed to the law of God. So Isaiah 2-2, in the last days, Jesus inaugurates the last days. It'll be raised up above the hills and all the nations will stream to it. The nations are going to come and adhere to the law of God. Jeremiah 31, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel. After that time, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Ezekiel, and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. That's all what is promised. So let me make three points then for us to consider. Particular thoughts for us, not Gentiles in Rome, but Gentiles and maybe some Jews here in Amsterdam. We said that Jesus is the Lord of the law, and as a scribe and rabbi like no other, Jesus affirms and confirms the law rightly understood and used as the kingdom ethic. That is, for the disciples of Jesus, the law is our friend, not our enemy. For disciples of Jesus, the law is our friend and not our enemy. So yes, to start, of course, there are 101 ways in which people can misunderstand and misuse the law of God. We don't deny that at all. But Jesus would not have us to be antinomians, antinomians being those against the law. And no one is truly an antinomian. And what I mean by that, some, even Christians, will say, well, we don't really like the law. The law doesn't belong to us. But then if somebody asks your wife out on a date, The reaction is, no, that's unlawful. And my point is, no one really says that we don't follow a law today. So the Westminster Confession of Faith says, neither doth Christ and the gospel in any way dissolve but much strengthen this obligation, that is, to the law of God. So we read from Psalm 119. And some 119 is about 170 verses, 170 plus. And I want somebody to call out any one of the verses, any number between 1 and 170, we'll say. Pardon me? OK, 165. So we will turn to 165. Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble. Anybody else want to call out? 105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. We could choose just about any of the verses, and it would say, we are to love God's law and his word. And Jesus, then, what he is doing in Mark chapter 12 is affirming this law, not without a qualification. A lot more could be said about, well, what does carry forward and what doesn't. carry forward. I think one of the points we would all grant pretty easily or pretty quickly, New Testament doesn't require that we would be circumcised, and we could debate all 613 of them. But the point that Jesus is making, don't you worry about 613? Don't you worry about all the debates about which, about this law and that law? You start with two of them, and these two are that you would love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, and with all of your mind, and that you would love your neighbor as yourself. No debate, no confusion. This is the way that it is. You are to love God, and you are to love your neighbor. You are to treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated. And this, then, is the kingdom ethic. And we are to know the scriptures, then, and to know them in this manner, that the law is our friend. Number two, Jesus would have you walk with your friend obediently in joy. That is, he came not only to obey the law for us, but that we might obey it ourselves. Jesus would have you walk with your friend obediently in joy, that is he came not only to obey the law for us, which he most certainly did, but that we ourselves might obey it. And the quotations then in the beginning of the sermon is it seems as though at times we almost glory in our failures, that we aglory in, well, I don't really obey or make good faith efforts to obey the law of God. So I compared this is what the scriptures had to say about the matter to what we often find ourselves find ourselves saying, and I'm fearful that we so emphasize and almost brag that we can't do it, we can't do it, we can't do it, so that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And remember, at some point when we say we can't do it and we will not do it, Jesus will say, I never knew you. Christ came in light of and in fulfillment of Jeremiah 31 so that the law would be within our hearts. And it's as our friend. And I want you to get this. And I'm going to come down to make sure that you do. Jesus says that in him there is no condemnation. In him. There is no condemnation in the law. And I come down because I fear you will not get that or misunderstand me, and that you need to know that, the people of God, there is no condemnation in Jesus. And in Jesus, and as you have been united to Jesus, and as Jesus has given you the Spirit of God and given the people the Spirit of God, that we are to walk in His command so that they would not be burdensome. and as the scriptures declare, and that we would make it by the grace of God that we would walk in them and actually keep them. That is, that you would love your wife, and that you would work diligently, and that you would come to church on Sunday in such things, and that we deny the power of God, and we deny the spirit of God, and we deny that we have been buried, but not only buried with him, but then also raised with him. when we have been united with him. And then that propels our life. That defines who we are, knowing that there is no condemnation being united to Christ, buried, and raised, so that our disposition is, this is not burdensome. When your elder talks to you about giving unto the Lord and tithing, that you would take your wallet out, that it is not a burden to hear that. but that it is a pleasure to hear that because these are the words of your Savior that He would have you to hear as you have been united to Him. Because there is no condemnation in Him. When Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, he speaketh as a rabbi. I realize we all love that verse, I'm sad, Jesus, I want to come to you. And come to Jesus when you're sad. But he's saying, when you come to me, This is the easy way. This is the way without more burdens. My yoke is easy. And allow me to go off notes and simply to say, I can personally testify, and I can testify as a minister of the gospel. When you think you know better than God, and you do what you want to do instead of what God has revealed, your life will not become easier. It may be easier for the short term. You may have a period of time where you think that you're free. But when you do not follow the way of God and the way of the Lord Jesus Christ, your life will not be easier. But it will be a greater burden. Two. Jesus would have you walk with your friend obediently in joy. That is, he came not only to obey the law for us, but that we might obey it. And then number three, and lastly, the law is a friend and a good friend, but never our best friend. Only Jesus is our best friend. The law is a friend, a good friend, but never our best friend. Only Jesus is our best friend. That is the message that I'm trying to communicate or the message that we find in Mark's gospel and what Jesus is saying. He's speaking to his disciples. He's speaking to those who are following Jesus. He's speaking to those who have their eyes fixed on Jesus and who want to be at Jesus' feet and walk in His pathway. That is, that as we talk about the law, that we're never to abstract the law from Jesus and who Jesus is, and that we are disciples of Jesus, and that He's kind to us, and that He loves us, and that we love Him, and that He forgives us, and that we are to mimic Him that we are at His feet. So never should we abstract the law or any commitment to the law from Jesus. And we can say with Paul when properly understood. And it's often not the case, because he's not saying that these things are in any way absolutely rubbish. They were from God when he talks about the commandments and him keeping the law and being a Hebrew and circumcised and all that. But we can say properly that the law, oh, how I love thy law, Psalm 119. But Jesus, you're the best. No one compares with you. I love thy law, but I lovest thou more so, O Jesus. And that, then, is the disposition of the Christian. Let me be at Jesus' feet, not the feet of Moses. So as we struggle, even with the law, remember that there is no condemnation. And perhaps the answer is not as much that you would try harder, but that we would walk more closely with Jesus, and that we would have love and satisfaction in him. And that's my prayer for you and for the church, that we would go to Jesus, beautiful Savior, and to love him with all thy heart. And with all thy understanding, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and to love one's neighbor as thyself, as oneself, that's greater than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Let us pray. May we love Jesus more, and rightly understood, may we be committed to his commandments and to his ways more so. Oh, Lord, if there are souls here today who know nothing but condemnation, may they know the forgiveness of sins in Jesus. Grant us all repentance. Grant us forgiveness. Grant us hope. And may we fix our eyes on Jesus in a way that would honor you and be faithful to the scriptures. In Jesus we pray. Amen.