Bringing our Faith to Life
Mark 12:13-34
How do we really Bring our Faith to Life? Our study through Mark has been all about that very question.
There are lots of ways to do that
In Jesus day, There were lots of commandments
Ten commandments
The Law
The prophets
the thousands of subsidary laws, rules, regulations that were designed to live out the ten commandments and the Law.
"Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
this teacher of the law had just witnessed what happens so often, someone bringing a hypothetical situation looking for a 'concrete' response.
Jesus saw through their motive and addressed their heart attitude, the Sadducees were trying to engage Jesus into their controversy to only create more conflict through a hypothetical = non real - made up - situation.
Children do this when they come to the parent and says "my friend really wants to watch this movie with me" and they know that under "normal" circumstances they would not be allowed to do that.
immature Christians do this when they look for a church that will let them do this or that
We do this to find out just where the boundaries are, how far can I go, how much can i get away with and still do what I want, live with
Jesus saw their immaturity and responds -
"Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?"
To bring our Faith to Life requires a TEACHABLE HEART
An astute teacher of the law - the equivelent of a professor, a learned person asked Jesus an honest question
where others wanted to teach Jesus in the midst of their question, this teacher asked a question to learn Jesus response.
He came to Jesus with a teachable heart, an honest desire to hear and learn from Jesus. He didn't come to trick, trap or judge Jesus like many did, and still do today. but was teachable.
a mentor and friend told me one time that the most difficult people to teach were the ones who wanted to teach him.
in life - there are lots of things people feel strongly about, but those strong feelings can move people away from foundational truths, and they end up building their lives on tangents.
The Pharisees and Herodians had an agenda - they wanted to carve out and establish their authority independent from the Romans - to establish political influence over their society. They were looking for a way to rebel against Rome and thought one way to do that was to justify not paying taxes.
The Saducees had a different agenda - to establish an orthodox faith system that was not influenced by the liberal thought of the day that said there was a resurrection.
Both groups were willing to USE Jesus to bolster THEIR CAUSE. Their cause became a tanget that captured their heart and attention drawing them away from the foundation, what it all comes down to - knowing, loving, responding to God and loving others so they can experience Him too.
We can do this today - churches & individuals can get centered around the wrong things - and it is usually in areas of how someone wants to express and promote themselves, and they can be areas of creativity, social issues, gender issues, economic or intellectual issues - and while they may be important - they should never become foundational.
The wise man asks Jesus which commandment is the most important...and Jesus does respond. "The most important one ..."
it all comes down to this... When it is all said and done, this is the deal, the foundational issue, the bottom line...
it comes down to this = that what is important to me is what is important to God - What is important to God is important to me.
I noticed in the career world - the ones who had a track record of succeeding were the ones who found out what was important to their boss and made those things happen
the ones who wanted to debate the boss with an attitude of teaching their boss that they really knew best - never really did as well.
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Get this! hear this! - Everyone -
There is one God - he is who he says he is
not only one God but the office / position of Lord - the one with authority
There is no equal, alternative - he is God - the one - the only one
He is exclusively God
I have no place else to go , to run from or run to
I must deal with him, i must come to terms with who he is and who i am
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
If Jesus is my boss, then...
what I know,
what i feel
what i do
is expressing my love to God
and it is showing up in how I love others
At The Bridge - we say the same thing - it is our mission - it is our identity - who we are - how we live - what we do
We are a church committed to knowing - loving & following God and making His love known
I have taught much on what it looks like to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind & strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves and that is not what we are to look at today. This morning we must look at the response of the teacher of the law.
Mark 12:32 "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
The second step to Bringing our Faith to Life is to say "YES" to Jesus
"Well said - you are right" --- agree with Him
This man was willing to affirm - say "YES" to Jesus; not challenge him, qualify him
2Cor. 1: 21 God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. 22 By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge-a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete. (Message)
we long to hear Jesus tell us one day "Well done, good and faithful servant..." (Matt 25:21) - when we have been willing to say YES to him and respond to his ways, we are placing our lives in a place for him to say "Yes" to us.
This week I told someone "You need to help me help you" - there are times we just want things to be done for us, without any real effort on our part, without any real movement in our own hearts - but God is constantly challenging us to move our hearts towards him, to say "YES" to him for He longs to say "Yes" to us and this he does through Jesus, his son.
The teacher of the law personalized Jesus' commandment
...To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself...
he took it personally - made it his own
the man re-worded Jesus words
He was a true teacher - he knew that when you are teaching a student something one of the tools is to have the student re-word what you are wanting them to learn.
He knew the command -
Moses spoke it in Deut 6 - these are commands the common Jewish man would have committed to memory as a child and certainly a teacher of the law would be second nature to him. but he re-worded it to make it his own.
He has "come to terms" with the foundational command of God for his life.
It is important for us as individuals and as a church to take Jesus commandments personally, to make them our own,
when we say that the Bridge is about knowing, loving and following Jesus and making his love known, that statement moves from our minds to our hearts, we own it personally.
when I own something then it is mine to enjoy
when I say "this is who I am and what I do" - that is me
not only did he personalize it by re-wording it, but he also changed the tense of the statement to a future tense
"to" is a future tense article - He saw himself living this way - he projected himself into this great commandment
another way to help someone learn is to have them teach what they are learning - this man repeated what Jesus said, reworded it to make it his own and relayed it pubically, others were around him - he was a teacher and he was learning by teaching everyone who heard him.
The teacher personalized this command when he took "Love the Lord your God" that Jesus said and reworded it to "love him..."
he recognized God was a person who he needed a relationship with
and that relationship looked like loving him in these certain ways.
The teacher of the law took what Jesus said seriously -
When he re-worded the commandment, he also maintained the strength of the commandment -
he didnt take what he wanted and left the rest, he didnt water it down to make it easier
When he re-worded it
He applied his faith to his life
"...and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
More important than... the man had considered the priority, what was going to be important to him in his life
"...than all burnt offerings and sacrifices..."
he knew his culture, what was expected of him, how he was to live and he was willing to put his relationship with God and expressing that in his actions to others ahead of his cultural expectations.
He wasn't turning away from those expectations, but not constrained by them.
He was going to love God and others and there by live out his faith in action.
It is one thing to know the right religious things and another thing to actually do them.
People have asked me "what is The Bridge doing to meet the needs of the poor in our city?" and my response is ask the people who are doing those things. There are people engaged in helping disadvantaged people, but don't look for a program - but look for people who are living out their faith and bring this scripture to life.
When Jesus saw that the teacher of the law responded very differently than the others around him by coming to him with a teachable heart, a willingness to say "Yes" to him and to take God's commands personally then Jesus blessed the man - he said "YES" to the man
Mark 12:34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
By the man's response - he set himself apart from everyone else -- "...And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions."
Everyone else knew they had nothing else to say, bring or add - because the man had just honestly given himself.
When we bring our faith to life - we are bringing God's Kingdom to life - we are advancing His Kingdom around us.
PLEDGE SUNDAY
Today is pledge Sunday and it is a time for us to pledge our lives,
Our time, our talents, our treasures and resources to engage in God's Kingdom and bring our faith to life.
When we pledge ourselves to God and one another as a church, we are saying we are
coming to God with teachable hearts - that want to hear and respond to him in our days
going to Say "YES" to Jesus - "you are right - this is how we are to know you and live in our world"
When we pledge our time, our talents and our resources - we are taking what Jesus tells us to do personally so we can live out what he has told us to do. We make it our own, "see" ourselves living His ways out in the things we do.
We have used the inukshuk as a symbol of our church, signifying that we as a church are building our lives together to become a body that is living out Jesus command to
know, love and follow Jesus and to make his love know to others around us.
That when our lives are brought together, we can do far more than we could hope to do on our own. Each of our lives is like one rock that God is using to build a body that will proclaim God's presence, his hope, his love to the world around us.