Well, good morning, everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 12, we'll
continue our study in Mark 12 this morning. I'd like to welcome
Dan's class out into my class this morning. Dan has been exposed
to hand, foot, and mouth disease, and he's had a fever and some
other symptoms, so he thought it best to stay away so none
of us get it, which I think we can all thank him for. but I'm
glad to have his class out here. They're some of my favorite people.
Before we begin, let's bow before our Lord in prayer. Our Father, we are so thankful
that this is the day appointed that we can meet together and
to worship your matchless name. And Father, I pray you would
enable us to do that this morning, that you'd send your spirit upon
us and Lord, give us a spirit of worship, a heart of worship,
and enable us to worship you in spirit and in truth. You are
worthy. The Lord is worthy of all of
our worship, our praise, our adoration. And Father, we desire
this morning to be able to worship you as your word is open to us,
to learn more, to see more of Christ our Savior, have our hearts
drawn to him, have our faith and love for him increased, and
our love for one another. Father, I thank you for a place
that you've given to us where we can worship together in peace
and unity with one accord. And Father, I pray you would
make each of us a blessing to the rest of the congregation,
that we look out for one another and not just feel love, but show
our love one to another. be a help and encouragement to
each other. Father, we thank you that you
are God above, that there is none else beside thee, that you
are ruling and reigning in every event going on in our world and
our lives today. Father, we're thankful it's in
thy hand, in thy eternal purpose and grace. Give us the faith
to be able to rest knowing that you're doing all things well,
that you're working all things together for good to those that
love thee, to those who are called according to thy purpose. Enable
us, Father, to rest in Christ our Savior, to rest in his sacrifice,
his righteousness, and to, Father, also to rest in his government
of this world. And what we pray for ourselves,
Father, we pray for all your people, each congregation scattered
around the globe, as we pray you'd bless us, we pray you'd
bless them. Now, Father, all these things we ask, and we give
thanks in that name which is above every name, the name of
Christ our Savior. Amen. Now, you'll remember we're
still in this day. All these events have been happening
in this one day. which started out with the Pharisees
and the Herodians. Remember how they came to the
Lord trying to trap him with a question about taxes. They
thought they'd trip him up, you know, and make a bunch of people
leaving. The Lord answered their question,
put them to silence. Then the Sadducees came. They
thought, boy, they're gonna get the Lord here with this question
of the resurrection, show their superiority in knowledge and
doctrine to the Lord. He answered their question, put
them to silence, Well now a scribe's gonna come and he's gonna have
his go at it. He's gonna dispute with the Lord over the law. Now
you think of that. Here's a man coming to dispute
the law with a lawgiver. I'm telling you, that's our nature. Our nature is so fallen and depraved
and darkened without understanding. I mean, this man, and I'm not
just saying him, it's us, it's our nature. We've lost all sense
that we would come and argue with a lawgiver over the law,
that we would ever argue with God about anything that he does
or says, but that's what he's trying to do. In verse 28, here
he comes. One of the scribes came, and
having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he had answered
them well, asking, which is the first commandment of all? Now,
this man had been standing in this group. He heard them reasoning
together. He heard these questions that
were asked of the Lord, and he heard the Lord's answer, and
he was impressed. He thought, that's a good answer. He was impressed with the Lord's
answer. He answered well, but he wasn't so impressed that he
humbled himself before the Lord, did he? Now, he still came, and
Mark doesn't give it this way, but in Matthew's account, Matthew
does, he came tempting. the Lord. This wasn't just an
honest question. He was tempting the Lord. He
was trying to trap the Lord in his answer, catch the Lord contradicting
himself, you know. And he figured, well, however
the Lord answers his question, he's going to be able to accuse
the Lord, well, you're putting one law above another. You know,
you're contradicting yourself here. You're giving preference
to one law over another. And he thought he really had
the Lord trapped. But the mere fact this man asked
this question shows you he didn't know God. The law is the commandments
of God. Each commandment is a commandment
of God. One can't be more important than another. They're all equally
important. Each one of them is vital, isn't
it? The Lord told us one time, here's how you know every single
commandment of God is equally important and every commandment
is vital to obey. To offend in one point is to
be guilty of all. So every commandment is equally
important, isn't it? just like the whole Word of God.
Don't ever fall for somebody making one verse or one portion
of the Word of God more important than another. You know, one epistle,
one book in the Bible, it's not more important than the others
because it's all the Word of God. I mean, what word did God
give us that's not precious, that's not
vital, that's not life-giving, it's all the word of God. So
you can never pit one against another. So this man's got the
wrong question with the wrong motive, doesn't he? But the Lord
still answered him. Look at verse 29. Jesus answered
him, the first of all the commandments is, hear O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. Now I think this is so telling
if we really listen to what the Lord's saying. When the Lord
talks about obedience to the law, when the Lord talks about
what is it that's important, he deals with the heart. He deals
with the motive. It's the desires. He's not talking
about the outward actions. That's what the scribes and Pharisees
were so concerned about was cleaning the outside of the cup and platter,
cleaning the outside of the sepulcher, but inside it is full of corruption
and dead man's bones. The Lord didn't talk about outward
actions. He talked about the heart, love. Now look back at
Matthew chapter 22. Here's Matthew's account of this
same conversation, and I wanna show you how important this matter
of love is, the matter of the heart. Matthew 22, verse 40. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets, loving the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and loving thy neighbor as thyself. On those
two commandments hang all of the law of God. That's how important
this matter of love is. If we would love God with all
of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and we would love our
neighbors, ourself, we would fulfill, we would obey all the
law of God. And to the life of a believer,
the believer who's not trying to keep God's law in order to
earn a righteousness, we're still instructed how to walk, how to
conduct ourselves in this life. If you would walk according to
the way a believer's supposed to walk, love will tell you how
to do it. Love for God and love for your
brethren. If you let that be your heart,
your desire, your driving force, you'll walk as a believer the
way you're supposed to. But the Lord tells him here,
not just, he is telling him about love, but it's love for God. Now, who is he? He's one God,
one God over all. God is not the God of our imagination
that needs us to help him accomplish something. God is God over all. The sovereignty of God, you cannot
preach the gospel without preaching a sovereign God. You can't be
saved without knowing and believing and loving the sovereign God
who's sovereign over all. Everything that happens now you
just you can't take that too far from the Dust mite blowing
through the air to great cataclysmic events in this earth Our Lord
has ordained every single one of them. He's in every one of
them The sparrow doesn't fall from the ground. He don't he
don't ordain it. He don't know about this He's sovereign over
everything and we're to worshiping he is to be Worshipped. He's
not to be questioned. He's not to be argued with. He's
to be worshipped and we're to love him. We're to love him for
who he is and his sovereign control over everything. There's one
God. But then he says how he says
here, here, Oh Israel, the Lord, our God is one God. Now there's
one God overall, but this God, he's God to his people. to Israel,
to spiritual Israel in a special way, a way of love, a way of
eternal, immeasurable love, a way of grace, a way of mercy. He
loves his people as the redeemer of his people. Oh, David said,
blessed is that nation when the Lord is their God. Blessed is
that people when God Almighty is your God. Now there's one
God, but he's in three persons, isn't he? Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. And that tells us something about
ourselves, about our depraved nature, that we're so sinful. We need the whole Godhead, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, in order to save us from our sin. The
Father, I need him to elect me. The work of the Father in redemption
is election, and I need him to elect me. I need him to choose
to save me. And I love Him for it. I love
Him. Don't you love God that He would
choose in His love for sinners to save some people out of the
fallen race, Adam's race, to save some of them who've sinned
against Him? I love that, don't you? I love
God's electing love. I need the Son. I need the Son
to redeem me by His precious, sinless blood. I need Him to
suffer and die the death that I deserve. I need to be made
righteous by His obedience for me. I need Him to do that for
me. And I love Him. Oh, how can you
not love Him who gave Himself for you? God's people, they love
the Father. They love the Son. And they love
the Holy Spirit. I need the Holy Spirit to come
give me life and a new birth. I'm dead. I mean, if I know anything
about myself, I know this, I was born dead, and I'm carrying a
dead nature around with me to this day. I need the Holy Spirit
to give me life. I need the Holy Spirit to give
me faith in Christ. I can't make myself believe Christ.
I need the Spirit to give me that gift of faith. I need Him
to reveal Christ to me. I can't see Him unless the Spirit
reveals Him, Christ, to me. I need Him. And I love him. I love that the Holy Spirit has
come and given me life. I couldn't have had it any other
way. That he's given me faith in Christ and to trust him. That
he's revealed Christ to me in the scriptures. I mean, Jane will tell you I spent seven
days a week studying. Which is true. And I'm still
so excited Every week as I'm studying and seeking God's message
for us in this hour, I get so excited when I see Christ. I see it. This is Christ. This
is him in the message. This is how he needs to be preached.
I get so excited to see that. It's the spirit that reveals
that. I love him. You love him. Every believer
does. See, obedience is not just an
outward thing, is it? It's in the heart, to love God,
to love him as he is. And then second, the Lord tells
us we're to love our neighbor as thyself, verse 31. The second
is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these. Now we are
to love our neighbor as ourself. Now, what does that mean? What
does that mean? Well, it's not just a feeling
of emotion, you know, that we keep to ourself and our neighbor
never knows it. The Lord here is talking about
acting on that love and showing it to folks, showing it to our
neighbor. And the best way that I can think
of to describe this whole thing about loving thy neighbor as
thyself is the example that the Lord gave of the good Samaritan.
Who's your neighbor? Somebody that you see in trouble
down there in a ditch. That's who your neighbor is.
And who's the good Samaritan? Christ our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know how I know that he loved
his neighbors himself? He gave his people everything
that they need. Everything. He did it all for
them and he gave it to them. And why did he do it? Because
he loved his people. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. He sacrificed
himself to save his people from their sins because he loves them. Now we're to follow that example
and love our neighbor as ourself. And do for them whatever it is
we can do that they might need, we're to do it. And love will
do that. Love will give the best that
it has every single time. Every time. The Lord used the
example one time about your children. If your son comes and tells you
he's hungry, well, are you going to give him bread or a stone?
You're going to give him bread, aren't you? Some of you ladies,
you imagine your child coming home. I'm so hungry. I mean, you're not even just
going to give them a crust of bread, aren't you? You're going
to get out to pots and pans and start cooking and cook the best
stuff that you can cook and feed them. And just, you know, why
do you do that? Love, love. And again, I tell
you, how important is this matter of love? First Corinthians 13
tells us. No matter what other gifts you
have, the gifts of preaching or healing or speaking in tongues
or whatever it is, the gifts that you use to help this ministry.
If you don't have love, you got nothing. You got nothing and
you are nothing. If you don't use those gifts
out of love for God and love for his people, you don't have
anything. Look at 1 John chapter four. Here is how important this matter
of love is. If you don't love your brethren,
if you don't love people, you don't love God. 1 John 4, verse
7. Beloved, let us love one another,
for love is of God. And everyone that loveth, here's
why they love it, they're born of God and they know God. Now he that loveth not, knoweth
not God, for God is love. So this is vital, isn't it? This
matter of love, love for God and love for our neighbors. And
you can easily see how love, the love in your heart and acting
on that love fulfills all the law of God. If we truly love
God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of
our mind, with all of our strength, we'd worship God and worship
him only. We'd never think about having
another idol, comparing anything to him. We'd never take the Lord's
name in vain because we love him. And the same thing is true
about other people. If we truly loved other people,
we'd fulfill the law. We'd honor our father and mother
because we love them. We wouldn't murder anybody. We
wouldn't bear false witness against somebody else. We wouldn't commit
adultery. We wouldn't steal from people. Because you don't do
that to people that you love. If we could truly love, we would
obey the whole law of God. The whole law of God hangs upon
it. But now the way that the Lord summed up the law in those
two commandments, you know what it shows us? It shows us that
we are guilty of breaking God's law with every breath that we
take. Because we don't love God that
way. And we don't love others that way. This flesh is too selfish,
it's too rotten. We don't love like we're supposed
to. You know it and I do too. And that was the purpose of all
the law of God, to show us our guilt. The law is like a mirror
held up in front of us to show us our guilt, to show us how
vile we are, and to shut us up to Christ. To show us we got
no hope. except for faith in Christ. Now,
when I say that we can't, that we can't, and we don't love others,
and we don't love God the way that we're supposed to, that's no excuse not to love.
A believer does love. I mean, John says, if you're
born of God, you love. You do, you love God, you love
other people, but boy, it's nothing to write home about, is it? Now,
you love faith, work it by love. But nobody here who knows God
would ever claim that I love God with all my heart, soul,
mind, and strength. Nobody would dare claim that.
Nobody would say that I love others the way that I'm supposed
to. I love you, but as myself, I don't know, I'm pretty partial
to myself. Well, then how can I obey that
law? How can I obey this law of love? in Christ our Savior. Because
you got to remember he's the representative of his people
and what he did, his people did. The Lord Jesus loved his father
perfectly. Always. And he loved his neighbors
himself. And just like I told you before,
here's the proof that he loved his father. He said, Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not
as I will, but thy will be done. He went to the cross because
he loved his father enough to satisfy his, his father's will
to redeem his people by his sacrifice. And he loved his people enough
that he set his face like a Flint to go to Jerusalem to be sacrificed
for them. He loved his neighbor and his
obedience is the obedience of his people. His love is the obedience
of his people. It's because we've obeyed this
law in Christ our representative. That's what the Savior means
when he uses this answer, that we got no hope but Christ. Well,
now the scribe's gonna answer back, verse 32. The scribe said
unto him, well, master, thou hast said the truth, for there
is one God, and there is none other but he, and to love him,
With all the heart and with all the understanding, with all the
soul and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself
is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. The
scribe hears the master's answer on the law and he says, well,
master. Now that word master means teacher. He's not calling the Lord, Lord.
He's not calling him God. He's not calling him savior.
He says teacher. He said, teacher, you've answered
well. I agree. I agree that love is so much
more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. Oh,
it's love, that we're to love God with all of our heart, mind,
soul, and strength. We're to love our neighbors.
Oh, I agree. I agree. You've answered. You've
answered well. Don't you just know the Lord
really appreciated the seal of approval from the scribe? My
goodness, we're so full of ourselves. And the Lord listened to his
answer. And then the Lord gave the most
sobering response. Something that I pray constantly
that the Lord would deliver you and me from. Verse 34. And when Jesus saw that he answered
discreetly, he said unto him, thou art not far from the kingdom
of God. And no man after that Durst asked
him any questions. This is such a sobering response.
You're not far from the kingdom of God. You're close to it, but
you're not in it. You're not in it. I mean, that
takes your breath away, doesn't it? To think that that's possible. Well, what does it mean to be
close to the kingdom of God, but not in it? Well, there's
several things that are revealed here, just in our text, is to
have a head knowledge of the facts, but no heart faith in
Christ. Listen, salvation is not knowing
about Christ. Salvation's knowing Christ. It's
knowing Him and loving Him. It's not knowing that I should
love Him. It's loving Him. It's knowing
Him. The scribe knew the fact that
there's one God. I mean, anybody that can read,
can understand from the scriptures, there's one God. No question
about it. But knowing that fact is not
salvation. The devils know that. The devils
know there's one God. And you know what's different
between the devils and this man? They tremble. This man didn't
tremble to argue with God. They know there's one God. Knowing
the fact is not salvation. It's knowing him. This man understood
some facts that I'm pretty confident most of his comrades did not
know. He had some idea of the spiritual
nature of the law. Because the scribes, or the Pharisees,
they're always holding up what they've done outwardly. I don't
know that I ever heard any of them talk about loving God or
loving their neighbors. I mean, they certainly didn't
love their neighbors. Look how harsh and critical that
they were because of their self-righteous nature. But this man had some
understanding of the spirituality of the law. That it's more than
the outward actions, it's the heart. He knew that. But he didn't
know God. He didn't know Christ. He didn't
have faith in Christ. That's being near the kingdom,
but not being in it. And you know, these fellas, the
Pharisees and the Sadducees and now this scribe, they've been
asking a lot of questions, haven't they? Now I know they asked the
wrong questions with the wrong motive, but they've been asking
a lot of questions. Now they dare not asking me more
questions. When the Lord told this scribe,
you're near the kingdom, but you're not in it. This would
have been a very good time to ask one more question. Then how
can I get in it? How can I be in the kingdom of
God? How can I get in? Well, he didn't
ask that question, but I'm gonna ask it. And then in closing,
answer it for you. How does a sinner, how can a
sinner like you and me get into the kingdom of God? That's what I pray for every
day, that the Lord would save us, that the Lord would keep
us, that he'd call out his people, that those who are here every
week that don't know God, that God will reveal himself. This
is so vital that I know God, that you know God, that we're
in his kingdom. How is it that a sinner gets
into this kingdom? It's vital. Well, the Lord told
Nicodemus, we get into his kingdom by the new birth. Isn't that
what he told Nicodemus? Accept a man, be born again.
He can't see, he can't understand, he can't enter the kingdom of
heaven. But if you're born again, when
you're born, born from above, born by God, the Holy Spirit,
you're born into the kingdom. You're a naturalized citizen.
You're born into the kingdom. Second, a sinner gets into this
kingdom of God by faith, by faith. You can't earn your way in. It's
by faith in Christ. It's by trusting Christ the King
and being his loyal subject. That's how you get in the kingdom.
Faith in Christ opens the door wide, doesn't it? Now, it's narrow
in the sense that Christ is the only way, but faith in Christ
opens the gate wide to enter into that kingdom. Third, we enter into the kingdom
of God by being made righteous in Christ. If you're gonna be
in this kingdom, you must be perfect, perfectly righteous. Remember what the Lord told his
disciples one day? Accept your righteousness, exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. You'll in no case
enter into the kingdom of heaven. You've got to be more righteous
than the scribes and the Pharisees. Well, now how are you gonna do
that? I mean, outwardly speaking, these guys are pretty straight.
Now I know outwardly they're straight and they're empty as
a gun barrel, but now listen, these guys outwardly were straight.
Paul, the apostle Paul said Saul of Tarsus was outwardly blameless. You can't say that about any
of us here. You sure can't say it about me.
How am I gonna be righteous? It's by the righteousness of
Christ. God making him sin for me who knew no sin that I might
be made the righteousness of God in him. If Christ died for
you, he made you righteous and you're in the kingdom of God.
Next, we're in the kingdom. We enter into this kingdom of
God by becoming as a little child. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child
shall in no wise enter into heaven. But if you receive it as a little
child, you'll enter into the kingdom. You're in the kingdom.
Now this is not being childish, you know, like a little child
and throwing a fit and acting like a little child. That's not
what the Lord means. It doesn't mean as a little child that doesn't
know anything. Children ask so many questions.
What's that? What's that? Why is the sky blue? It's not being unknowing exactly. It's being like a little child
in this way. You're teachable. You're humble. You just believe
what God chose you, what God teaches you. Little children, we don't want
to be gullible, but little children in a way are gullible. You tell
them something, they just believe you. Entering into the kingdom
of heaven as a little child is this, simply believing what God
says, and you'll enter into the kingdom. And then last, a sinner
enters into the kingdom of God by a mighty operation of God's
grace. Colossians 1 verse 13, who has
delivered us from the power of darkness. Well, that's the way
we're born. We're in the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan,
the kingdom of this flesh, the kingdom that's like Adam. But
God, by his power, by his grace, has delivered us from the power
of darkness. And what has he done? He's transferred
us. He's taken us from this place
to this place. He's transferred us into the
kingdom of his dear son. He's transferred us from darkness
to light. Now we don't deserve that. That's
got to be by grace. And to take someone who is darkness
and make them light, that takes power. It's the power of God's
grace. And that's how a sinner comes
into the kingdom of God. And I alluded to this a minute
ago. One of my greatest fears for you and me is to be close
to the kingdom of God. to have a head knowledge of these
things, they'd be well taught, but not have heart faith in Christ. And that's what I pray God, the
Holy Spirit, will be pleased to give everyone of us. All right,
we hope that'll be a blessing to you.