Open up God's Word to the 12th chapter of Mark's Gospel. We continue our studies, finding ourselves in verse 28. We'll study verses 28 to 34 in Mark chapter 12. Listen now to God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving Word, beginning at verse 28 of Mark 12. And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, that is Jesus, which commandment is the most important of all? And Jesus answered, the most important 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. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other great commandment greater than these. 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. 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. And when Jesus saw that he had 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. The grass withers, the flowers fall, and the word of our God abides forever. Amen. Father in heaven, we now pray the blessing of your Holy Spirit on the preaching and hearing of your word. Speak, oh Lord, your servants are listening. Give us life through your gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. In its most basic form, the New Testament reveals a message about the guilt of mankind for sin against God, answered by the grace by which God grants forgiveness to those who come in faith to his son through the blood of Jesus. Now, as we're drawing near in Mark's gospel to the day when Jesus actually dies for our sins, we see these two in bold relief. First of all, you have these leaders, these Jewish leaders who, one after another, are coming to Jesus. They're seeking to destroy Him. They're seeking to discredit Him. And it's not like these are Aztec warriors, fresh from the slaying, covered in blood, or it's not that they were Babylonian mystics worshiping the stars on the top of some ziggurat. It's not even that they're Roman aristocrats destroying whole nations for power and glory. No, it's actually worse. Because these are the leaders of the covenant people of Israel. If you want to say, where can we see what man and sin, how bad we really are. Well, here you have these men. They're steeped in the word of God. All their lives, they possess the word of God. Their job is to oversee the rituals that preach the gospel, that proclaim that a savior was going to come. The lamb is going to come. He's going to die for our sins. And there he is. He's in their midst. The promised Savior is before them and these most privileged and best prepared of all men conspired to destroy him. It's not just a picture of them. It's the Bible's message. What do we need to know from the Bible that man is a sinner, that you are a sinner, that I am a sinner, that we are guilty before God. Here's how John 3.19 puts it. This is the judgment that light has come into the world. And people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. There's the Bible's message that man is a sinner. But then there's the other message that Jesus Christ is the great savior, that God in his mercy and grace has provided his own son, and there he is in this scene of all scenes. Oh, the evil of it, what a burden it must have been to Jesus' heart. He's standing in the temple, in the holy city, and yet notice he doesn't abandon them and discuss, he's going to press on. He's going to teach graciously and wisely wonderful truths. Oh, what wonderful things come out of these terrible encounters. And in just a few days, he's going by his own commitment, his own mastery of the situation. He will shed his own blood on the cross so that sinners who believe in him will be forgiven and saved. Well, Mark 12, 28 to 34 includes the final of these dialogues we've been studying. These series of challenges that go all the way back to Mark 11, 27. Remember on Jesus' first day after entering Jerusalem, it all began with him encountering this barren fig tree and he cursed it. That's still the theme we're operating under. Jerusalem was designed, they gave the outward appearance with all the wonderful temple religion. And they were designed to give fruit to God, like that fig tree, the fruit of righteousness and holiness and worship and praise, but they were rotten. And Jesus cursed the fig tree, and the next chapter is going to be his prophecy of judgment on the people of Jerusalem. And after cursing the fig tree, he comes into the temple and he cleanses the temple of the merchants and the money lenders. And then he's accosted by this series, all the different factions of religious leaders. First, the priest, and man didn't know by what authority he cleanses the temple. And then you have the Pharisees and the Herodians, and they're trying to trip him up with their question about paying taxes. Then come the Sadducees with their clever little teaching, their trick question about the one woman with seven husbands, and whose wife will she be in heaven? Jesus answered them so wisely. And now comes the scribes. Here comes this scribe. And what's interesting is that in this last instance, Jesus finally finds one of these with whom he's able to agree. That's what's interesting here. Jesus is asked by the scribe to name the greatest commandment, and Jesus answers, and the scribe approves his answer. And then Jesus approves the scribe in return. Something's going on here. Jesus, seeing that he'd answered wisely, verse 34, he told him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. Well, this episode is famous for the great answer that Jesus gave. What's the greatest commandment? His answer is a great one. But it leaves us with a question, and here's the question. Jesus said, you are not far from the kingdom of God, but is it close enough to be not far? Well, reading this exchange, we should be asking ourselves, am I near to salvation, or am I saved? Let's look at this passage. We start with this surprising scribe. Mark brings us to the last of these challengers. We're still on the second day after the entry into Jerusalem in verse 28. And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing one another. And seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, which commandment is the most important of all? Now the scribes were the most scholarly of Jerusalem's religious elite. These were the Bible scholars. These in their time were the experts in the interpretation of scripture. And one question we know that they loved to debate, they do, it's like the internet forums today, they're debating theology. And one of the questions they loved to ask was this one. Which is the greatest of the commandments? By their tally, there were 613 commands in the Old Testament. 248 were positive, things you had to do. 365 were prohibitions, things you must not do. And so they were reasoning, if God's given so commandments, one thing they would question is which group of them are the higher, which are the lower? But then they wanted to know which commandment out of all of those, not which is best, the idea really is which is most foundational. Which commandment gets us to the root? of God's law? What is the most important commandment? And the rabbinic writings that we have are filled with answers to this question. About 20 years earlier, before this, Rabbi Hillel had given a famous answer. He was actually confronted by a Gentile who said, I'm willing to become a Jew if you can answer this question while I stand on one foot. In other words, don't give me a long answer. Me standing on one foot makes you all nervous. But it's like, well, I'm going to stand on one foot and give me a short answer. And here's what Hillel said. What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary. Now that answer has been called the silver rule, comparing it to Jesus' golden rule. It's a negative version, close but not quite there. Don't do what you don't to others what you don't want them to do to you. Jesus takes it a higher notch in his golden rule in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7, 12, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. And notice what he says, for this is the law and the prophets. Now the point I'm wanting to make is that this is not like the other questions. The other questions were dishonest. The Pharisees' question about Caesar, it was a trap. This is actually an honest question. It's a legitimate topic that was widely debated by teachers of the law, which commandment is the most important. Now another interesting thing is that an apparent conflict with regard to the Stribe in Matthew's version of this episode versus our version in the Gospel of Mark. Matthew 22, 35 says the Stribe asked him a question to test him. That's a negative statement, particularly in this context. All these people, all these different groups, they've got a strategy. They're all trying to trip Jesus up. And Matthew says this scribe came just like the others. His goal was to test Jesus, to cause him to make a mistake and to discredit him. And so that's part of the generally very negative view that we have regarding the scribes. In fact, just a few verses after our passage in verse 38 to 40, Jesus is going to say, stay away from the scribes. They're hypocrites. They are trying to fleece you. They're all driven by pride. And so we generally, and Matthew's going to reinforce this, we're going to look upon this scribe by going, this is not a good guy. This is a bad guy. He's not coming honestly. Except for what Mark tells us. As we look at Mark's version, we have good reasons to think that this man may be a little different, that he at least, when he gets to his question, he asks it sincerely and with something like goodwill. Look at verse 28. Mark says he came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that he, Jesus, answered them well, he then answered his question about the law. It seems that he admired what he saw in Jesus, what he witnessed as Jesus answered the Sanhedrin's question or the Sadducee's question about life after death. And he was impressed. and were thus led to consider the scribe more positively. In fact, he ends up agreeing with Jesus. None of the others do. And Jesus praises him. Jesus says to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. Now, how do we reconcile Matthew's very negative take with Mark's more positive take? Well, I think the situation is very similar and is very instructive. Like everybody else, he's part of a game plan. First, the priests are going to come. They're going to ask Jesus what's his authority. Then the Pharisees with the Herodians, strange bedfellows. But they've got a strategy. They're going to put him on a dilemma over taxes. Then the Sadducees, they've got their question about life after death. And you, the scribes, are going to ask him another question. But he shows up early. He doesn't get it. These are complicated strategies to unfold. And he gets there early and actually witnesses Jesus' talk with the Sadducee and he's impressed. I wonder what the question he was originally going to ask was. But he comes and he reminds us that the person of Jesus, the presence of Jesus has a great redemptive influence. You know, as we're trying to reach the lost, we want to bring them, we want to introduce them to the church. We want to introduce them to ourselves and the Christian people so that they have interaction with the grace of God. But our chief ambition always, we want to introduce them to Jesus. If we want them to see Jesus, that's why it says on this little plate right here on the pulpit, sir, we would see Jesus. The questions the Greeks asked in John 12, 21, that's what we want to do, bring people to Jesus because Jesus changes everything. The scribe comes and he's the enemy of Christ until he sees him, until he's in his presence, until he hears his word and he does not ask a trick question. But he asks him sincerely his question. You know, this happens over and over in church history. One of the famous examples is Simon Greenleaf. He's one of the founders of Harvard Law School. And he, like so many others, he said, I'm going to disprove the Gospels. I'm a secularist. I don't like Christianity. I'm going to use my great legal learning. I'm going to disprove it. And then he meets Jesus. He reads the Bible. And he ends up arguing on the certainty of the resurrection, the legal proof of the resurrection. And he follows the Jesus. We want to introduce people to Jesus. Now, as we get ready to look at Jesus' answers, there's a few things we should note, important things about this response of Jesus and our understanding of the law of God. The scribe asked Jesus which commandment is the most important. Look at Jesus' answer in verse 29. He answers him, the most important is, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now what's so interesting about that answer is the man asked, which of the commandments is the greatest? And Jesus answered with a verse that does not contain a commandment. It's the great monotheistic creed of Israel, of the Old Testament people. It's not a command at all. It's the declaration that there is only one God, the true and living God. There's only one. He is the God of Israel. Now Jesus answers by citing Deuteronomy 6 verse 4. That's what he's citing. It's known as the Shema. Shema here is the first word of that verse. It's known by that. And this most treasured verse by pious Jews is even today inscribed not only on the walls of synagogues, but often over the front of it. In fact, on a number of occasions. I've worshipped in reformed churches and there was a church plant in some city and they were looking for a building and they got a synagogue. And those are always fun. You're going to make some changes, but they often leave the Hebrew on there. And every time I've been there, in Hebrew script, over the top of the church it says, Shema O Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. Deuteronomy 6.4, the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. That's what's there. This is the great creed of monotheistic Israel. In fact, today, the Hasidic Jews, in that vain attempt at legalistically fulfilling the commands, Deuteronomy 6, 8 says, bind God's law to your forehead. And they carry little phylacteries, leather boxes fixed to their forehead. And you say, what's in the box? The Shema's in the box. This verse that Jesus cites, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That's what Jesus answers. Now, what does this mean? Well, one thing Jesus is showing is that God's grace and the revelation of God and possessing God through faith, notice it's going to precede his answer to the question about the greatest commandment. What's the significance? It's this. That the law is not designed by God as a way for sinners to become God's people. The law, if we're going to talk about the law, first thing we need to know is God is not providing you a way to be justified by performing the right actions. Keeping the law is not a work substitute for faith. No, it's actually the way that we respond to our faith in God. We keep God's law not to become his people, but because we are his people. Hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's the first thing you need to know. God's saving grace, God's revelation of himself through his word. God makes a people And it's in that context of that saving covenant grace that we should talk about the law of God. William Lane puts it this way, the command to love God is an obligation that stems from his uniqueness as God and from his gracious favor in extending his covenant love to Israel. Do you realize that Christian obedience, which is so important, it is not a substitute for divine grace. Rather, it is something that flows from God's grace in saving us. We love God, the Apostle John said, because he first loved us. Now secondly, notice that Jesus does not set aside God's law. But he positively expounds it. There are some Christians who would be sure that when the scribe says, which is the greatest commandment, Jesus would have said, why do I care about commandments? It's gospel, not law. That's Old Testament. I'm New Testament. And we're so sure. Don't talk to me about law. I've got Jesus. But no, he positively expounds. He's going to teach what is the law, the meaning of the law. We're reminded of what he said in Matthew 5, 17. Do not think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus sees no ultimate conflict between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the law of God and the gospel. There is only one God. Another common error, it's a related one, is to say, I'm going to dismiss the law because what the New Testament calls for is love. So don't give me law. All I want to talk about is love. And you want to scratch your head and go, well, look at what Jesus talks about when he says, what's the meaning of the law? You shall love the Lord your God. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. My friends, the law is the biblical description of what love is. Don't ever say, I don't want to be hung up on the law. I just want to love. What do you mean by love? Well, I want to love God. Well, there's the first four commandments. Don't worship him only. There are no graven images. Don't take his name in vain. Reference his name and keep the Sabbath. Remember the Sabbath. Keep it holy. That's what love to God looks like. And then I need to love other people. That's five through 10. You're to respect God-given authority, starting with your parents. You're to preserve life. You're to pursue and observe sexual purity. You're to respect property. You're to speak truth. You're to free your heart, by God's grace, from covetousness. The law is the way that God teaches us how to love. Far from seeing love in contrast with God's law, Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. John 14, verse 15. Well, I think those are important insights for us to glean from Jesus' answer, but let's go to the answer itself then. The question is which of the commandment is most important of all? And Jesus first, he recites the Shema. Let's not forget, it starts with God's grace, starts with God's self-revelation. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And then he goes on to keep reading in Deuteronomy. It's actually the next statement in the book of Deuteronomy. It reads this way in Deuteronomy. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Now the scribe's question asked Jesus to name the greatest commandment, particularly in the sense of the most foundational commandment. That's actually the nuance of the way they asked the question. What's at the root of the, what commandment sums them all up? What's the one from which all the others flow? And Jesus says, you should love the Lord your God. What an important statement. And people will say, what does God want from me? And what's the answer? He wants you. He wants your heart. He wants you to love the Lord your God. That's the sum of the law, Jesus says. That's the most important commandment. Love the Lord your God he self. And he's not talking about some sentimental feeling. fleeting as you're on the fifth verse of the song, repeating the same words over and over. No, he's talking about a whole self commitment and surrender to the Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, Jesus says, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. Now, when Jesus calls us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, he's speaking of the entirety of our faculties as God's image bearers. The Old Testament understood the heart. We tend to think of the heart as emotion. That's true. It includes the affections, but it's actually you think with your heart. It's your thinking, your day-to-day thinking. You're to love the Lord with your heart. Yes, it's your feelings, but it's your thinking as well. You're to love the Lord with your soul. What's that talking about? Your will and your desires. Let your will and desires be conformed to God. Let your chief will be to know God. What's the Westminster Shorter Catechism? The chief and the man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That's worshiping God with your soul. You're to worship the Lord with your mind. That's particularly believing the doctrine of the Bible. You're to affirm what God teaches. You're to glorify Him in your understanding. And then you're to love the Lord your God with all your strength. That means we exert our energies towards serving Him and giving Him glory, pleasing Him. Notice that we're not only to love the Lord with our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength, but he says with all of them. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. J.C. Rowe puts it this way, we cannot err in our affection toward God in the matter of excess. He is worthy of all that we can give Him. We are therefore to love Him with all that is in us. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Psalm 103. I've been helped by James Edwards' comment that the preposition here is not with really, but it's out of. The preposition is the Greek word ex, and that normally means out of, and so he's not saying use, he's not merely saying use your heart, use your soul, use your mind, use your strength, he's saying out of them. We're to worship the Lord, we're to love Him with all that we have and all that we are, and we're to use out of our heart, out of our soul, out of our mind, out of our strength, we're to offer Him love. William Lane puts it this way, the whole man is the object of God's covenant love, and so the whole man is claimed by God for himself. To love God and the way defined by the great commandment is to seek God for his own sake, to have pleasure in him and to strive impulsively after him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Now, so earnest is Jesus to answer the scribe's important question that he keeps going. Look at verse 31. Let's talk about the next one. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now, you and I live in a generation that knows all about loving self. In fact, we use the great, our generation, I love, I want to love myself. I've got to be true to myself. I've got to nurture myself. The greatest love of all is to love yourself. And it's our rationale for not loving other people. We love ourselves. And on that basis, we don't love others. Well, Jesus takes it for granted that normally it's natural for you to love yourself. And he says, well then let that be the measure by which you love other people. This is how he put the golden rule. We are to consider how we want other people to speak about us and we're to speak about them in the same manner. We love them as we love ourselves. We're to consider how we want other people to treat us. We treat them in the same manner. Love your neighbor, that neighbor means everyone, as yourself. Now notice there's a relationship between the two. There's an order. First of all, according to Jesus, loving others is a result of our first loving the Lord our God. If we love God, we are bound to love his image-bearing creatures. And so it's because of, it's for God's sake. It's because we love the Lord that we encounter maybe sometimes the most unattractive people, the most unlikable people. And we don't look upon them the way the world teaches us. We say that person bears the image of God. That person was made to reflect the dignity and the honor and the glory of God. And we love them. Why do we love them? Because we love the Lord our God. It's the love of God that produces the love of others. See, this is why there's so little love for others, for neighbors in our world, because there is so little love for God. Loving God is the prerequisite, really, to really be loving towards people. In fact, it's interesting, so closely knit, we might say, well, the man asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus gives him a bonus round. Here's number one, here's number two. Actually, look at the end here, he says, there is no other commandment greater than these. There's no other commandment singular than these plural. Jesus sees them as a unified whole. You can't have one without the other. If you love God, you're gonna love your neighbor. The only way you're ever gonna love your neighbor is because you love God. And so Jesus' greatest commandment is an active obedience towards God and acts of loving kindness to one's neighbor. Well, Jesus answers the scribe's question in a way that concludes these dialogues. We've been working through Mark's gospel. We've seen this succession of these religious factions. They're all trying to trip him up and destroy him. And in each case, despite the hostile intent and malice of his questioners, this scribe apparently accepted, Jesus nonetheless has provided answers that have so greatly enriched the readers of the Bible. God brings good out of evil. And so he says, well, what a treasury we have through the results of these evil questions brought to Jesus. And we were taught in this context, render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, render to God what belongs to God. And the Sadducees question gave us very information about life in heaven. And now this scribe, we get to hear Jesus expound. Here's the great commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. What a blessing. We as Christians are grateful that they tried to trip him up. They were never going to trip him up. He's majestic in wisdom. Why? They're not going to trip him up. It actually gave him a forum to give us great instruction. And it seems that the scribe shared this positive approval. Look at verse 32. Here's how he responds. And the scribe says to him, you are right, teacher. Now that's the first time we've heard that in this sequence. You're right, teacher. And then he's going to repeat Jesus' summary, verses 32 and 33. You have truly said that he is one and there is no other beside him. and to love Him with all our heart, with all of 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. Now let's not lose that final statement because he actually makes a cogent comment. He takes Jesus' teaching and he draws a reflection from it that is actually very profound. Namely, this is more important than the ritual observance of the Jewish people. This is more vital than the sacrifices and offerings brought to the Lord in Israel. What a rare insight this is. That the sacrificial system of Israel was designed to teach us God's grace, with the result that we love the Lord, our God, and love our neighbor as ourselves. What he's saying is the end is greater than the means, the sacrifice of whatever, a mean end in themselves. They're designed to point us to God, and then that we would love the Lord, our God, and love our neighbors than ourselves. And of course, this viewpoint is taught in the Old Testament. You think of Micah chapter six, when the question is brought to Micah the prophet, with what sacrifices did we come to the Lord? And I hope you know his answer. Micah six, eight. What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. And so in keeping with that teaching, the scribe answers Jesus that loving God and our neighbor is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Well, Mark tells us in verse 34 that Jesus thought that he answered wisely and he praises him. He says, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And so this man has insight into God's word that has brought him to the very brink of saving faith. And yet, by saying you are not far from salvation, Jesus was saying that he was not yet saved. How far do we have to go? How far is good enough? Well, not enough. He was not far from the kingdom of God, from salvation, but he had not arrived. Let's ask ourselves the question, why is it that this man who interacts with Jesus so cogently, who Jesus praises for his wisdom, why is he only not far from the kingdom? I want to give you two reasons. And we noted at the beginning that the Bible has two messages, and the first main message of the Bible is that man is a sinner. Man, you and I, the scribe, mankind, we are lost in sin. We are guilty before God because we've broken his law. And yet notice there's no indication as he stands before Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ tells him the very heart of the law, and at no point is he convicted that he's broken it. My friends, if you have not come to the conclusion that you are a sinner, That you are guilty before God, you are bound justly for eternal judgment, and you don't realize your need for salvation. You may be near to the kingdom of God, but you have not arrived in it. And that's what we see in this man. There's no conviction. He has not loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, or strength. Certainly has not loved his neighbor. Guess what? Neither have you. Neither have I. Why? Because we are sinners. And Jesus' exposition of God's law should have just removed all of his pride. He should have broken in front of the Lord. He should have cried out, then how can I be saved? How can I be forgiven? The law of God convicts us of the guilt of our sin. But instead, he piously reaffirms Jesus' teaching when he should have fallen in tears at his feet. He should have said, oh, teacher, I have not kept the great commandment, the very foundation of the law. I have broken. I am guilty. And my friends, the fact that he was not convicted of his sins shows us that near is not close enough. Near to salvation is not far enough. When you and I find ourselves, and we need to be doing this, when we praise God's law, maybe we're interacting with our wicked culture, we're going to point out various commandments, like the sixth commandment, the seventh commandment. We need to do that, but let's never forget it's a law we've broken. The first purpose of the law of God always is to convict us of our sin. The law is a mirror, and we see what is true and what is right, and we see ourselves. Do you look at the law of God as your first thought? I need to be forgiven. This is a law that will condemn me and not justify me. That is not the conclusion. He may have been not far from the kingdom of God, but he was far away nonetheless. Let me give you a second reason why he was not in the kingdom, even if he was not far. What's the second great message of the Bible? The first great message is that man is a sinner guilty before God. The second great message is that God in his grace has sent his son, the Lord Jesus, to be our savior through the blood of his cross. And yet, however near he was, he did not embrace Jesus as Savior. Oh, what a tragic irony there is in this passage, like so many in the Gospels. He's sitting there pontificating with Jesus about the need to love the Lord as God, and God is standing in front of him. The Son of God is before him, and the only way that you or he can ever love the Lord as God, it starts with loving Jesus Christ. It starts by saying, and I believe in his Son. If he's going to love the Lord as God, he's going to trust the Son of God, whom God sent to be Savior and Lord. At that very moment, he was in the presence of God's Son, and he did not believe in him. If we're going to love the Lord our God with our hearts and minds, we'll receive Jesus, his Son, in faith. If we're going to love him with our souls and our might, we will follow Jesus, God's Son, as his devoted disciples. So in this regard, I think we might even take Jesus' statement physically. You are not far from the kingdom of God. He's merely feet away. But he's so far away until he realizes that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father apart from me. The only way to enter the kingdom of God is through Jesus by faith. Well, what a vast difference there is between this scribe. He's seeking apparently earnestly. He wants to follow biblical truth. He wants to follow the commands of the Bible. What a difference there is between sincere religion, commendable religion, and Christianity and following Jesus Christ and believing in him and being saved. And it's a great difference that was discovered by the great evangelist John Wesley many years after he was ordained. He'd actually taught God's word as a missionary. John Wesley was born in 1703. He was the son of an Anglican priest. His mother was an eminent Christian. There's whole books about Susanna Wesley, his wonderful mother. And he grew up in a Christian household. He went to college. I suppose Susanna, like other parents, was anxious when their son John was going to college. Is he going to fall into the wrong crowd? Well, he forms a fraternity. Oh, that's not good. No, it's called the Holy Club. That's what he does. He's a very earnest person. He's earnest for God. And its first three members are John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield. the great evangelist, Charles Wesley, the great hymn writer, and John Wesley themselves. And what are they doing at college? They're spending hours reading the Bible. They're spending hours in prayer. They're actually living Pharisees. They're seeking God through works and through pride, and they're fasting twice a week. They're going to visit prisons. They're striving. Their journals are looking at their sin. That's good. I'm trying to become more holy. That's what they're pursuing. And because of this, John Wesley was persuaded that he was not merely a Christian. He was an eminent Christian. This is the holy club. We're going to show you, he says. We're not a bad resolution. We're going to show you true godliness and religion. In fact, so zealous was John Wesley that he and his brother Charles in 1735, 32 years old, they decide they're going to go be missionaries. By the way, praise God for missionaries. But it is true that if you're a self-righteous zealot, going to the mission field is going to give you major bonus points. Today it's Africa. We need more missionaries in Africa, but don't be there to try and do works for religion like they did. And for them it was America. In fact, it was Georgia. They come to that penal colony called Georgia, and they're going to be missionaries to the Native Americans, Native Indians there. And they land in St. Simon's Island. There's a little church there where John and Charles Wesley have been there. It's really exciting. And it was a colossal failure. Why? Because they weren't converted. Because he was obnoxious. He was in constant conflict with everybody as he's trying to one-up them. And he gets sick, and he feels like, well, why is God allowing me to be this sick? And nobody wanted to follow him. He's teaching them how to be holy, and no one's buying it. Why? He's this severe works-driven person expanding his holy club out into the world, and he's despondent now. After all of this effort, all this religion, he's an ordained minister, he's a missionary. When they finally, after two years, they go back to England, he writes this in his famous journal, I went to America to convert the Indians, but who, oh who, will convert me? And this realization, it's dawning on him that he's a sinner and that his works are in vain and he's futile. I think we might say that he was brought near to the kingdom of God. And on the ship home, he was providentially brought nearer because on that ship were a group of German Christians that Wesley looked down upon previously called the Moravians. And I think it's true their doctrine had some problems. It's not a good thing. And they weren't as impressive as Wesley. They certainly didn't have the rituals that the Anglican church had, but he realized what they had was pure and true and simple faith in Jesus Christ. They had a personal faith in Jesus Christ. And Wesley noted the difference as he's talking to them. And he realized he does not possess the kind of faith that he sees in these humble believers in Jesus Christ. On May 24, 1738, when Wesley had returned to England, he opened his Bible at random. He would do these kinds of things. Maybe you do it. He's going to seek a word from God. This is not really the right way. But he opens his Bible, and he puts his finger down. And guess what verse it is. It's Mark 12, 34, Jesus' comment to the scribe. You are not far from the kingdom of God. That's actually the place where he put maybe God was guiding him. And there's so much. He has so much in common. They were both. clergymen. They were both highly educated. They're both Bible scholars who knew the Scriptures inside and out, and they were both unsaved. And Jesus said to both of them, you are not far from the kingdom of God. It was actually an encouragement to Wesley. And based on that encouragement, he said, I'm going to go to, I'm going to find a Moravian church. I'm going to go with them. And it was Aldersgate street, Moravian church. Now, if you're from a Methodist background, you've heard Alders and Aldersgate Methodist church in, in Greenville. Why? Because that's when he's converted. at the Aldergate Street Moravian Church. And he gets there later in the evening and a man is reading, a leader is reading aloud to a group of people Martin Luther's preface to his commentary on the book of Romans in which Luther is explaining justification through faith alone in Jesus Christ. And here's the famous words that Wesley writes in his journal. About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. And an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine. He had saved me from the law of sin and death. Wesley had discovered what, so far as we know, this scribe who came to Jesus with a question never found. He discovered that near to salvation is not close enough. My friend, if you say, I think I'm pretty near, that's not going to save you. I have these commendable things. I've made these pursuits. Near is not far enough. To enter God's kingdom, we must embrace his son, the Lord Jesus, personally in faith. In Wesley's words, you must trust in God's word that Christ and Christ alone for your salvation, he has taken away your sins, even yours. He has saved you by his blood from the law of sin and death. Well, how near was the commendable stride to salvation? Well, Jesus was right there. He was right there. The door, the gate, the Savior was right before him. That's near he was. And my friend, if you're not a believer, That's how close you are to Jesus Christ. He's not gone. Jesus has risen from the dead. He's ascended into heaven. He is speaking to you through his word. If he says to you, you are not far from the kingdom of God, he is calling you to himself. Will you confess the guilt of your sin? You must if you will be saved. It's only the truth. Will you admit that there's no works you can perform, there's no law that you can keep because you are a sinner? In your own strength, you cannot love the Lord your God, certainly not in a way that would commend you to salvation. In fact, not at all. But if you will confess your sins, oh, now you are very near to the kingdom of God. Now lay hold of Jesus. Believe his gospel call. Ask him to cleanse your sins by the blood he shed on the cross. And you are not near to salvation. You are saved. and then being saved, you will discover as God's gift that you have a new heart, you have a regenerated soul, you have an enlightened mind, that you have a God-given strength. And now, by grace alone, laying hold of Jesus, Go love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Father in heaven, we thank you for Jesus, how remarkable it is. But Father, we're not engaged in a history lesson here. It's not merely a doctrinal discussion. Jesus reigns. Jesus stands before us. Jesus' word is preached. Let us take it to heart. Lord, help us as your people to think about what it means to love you and to love our neighbor. But Father, I pray particularly for those who are like this scribe. Let them realize that near to salvation is not close enough. And by the work of your spirit, convict them of the guilt of their sin and then by that same spirit, open their hearts, make them strangely warmed that through personal faith, they would lay hold of Jesus because then they will be saved. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.