That First Commandment (Part C)

Taking this from John Bunyan in his Pilgrim's Progress. Confession of faith is to lead to a life answerable to that confession. You said you're a Christian?

Okay, let's see it. God help us to believe the things that we confess. God help us to believe and carry out the things that we say we can do. And when you fail, you get up. Satan hates that part. Satan hates that you can get up and that you do get up.

Join us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in Mark Chapter 12 with his study called, That First Commandment. Since the very moment I've been saved, I've been trying to fulfill this love. I haven't gotten there yet, but it's been worthwhile.

Imagine if I did not. It is a worthwhile duty to pour everything into loving God with balance. But loving God, it must continue to love self, not an imbalanced love of self. We love ourselves naturally.

You need no effort for that. Jesus said, Listen, love your neighbor as yourself because I know you love you so much without effort, I don't have to tell you to love you. I've got to tell you to take some of that love and give it to your neighbor and you'll not lose any of it. You know, some would say, you know, a candle doesn't lose any of its own light when it lights another candle.

Well, that's a good illustration. But I've been chasing this love, but I'm not the only one. Paul said it this way because he chased it too. He says, Not that I've already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me.

Not that I've already attained or am already perfected, but this one thing I do. And then he goes on to, he's telling the Philippians when he writes this in Philippians 3, I'm spending myself loving Christ. And then he told the Corinthians, I am spent and will gladly be spent for you. Sometimes I get tired of being spent. I do.

Okay, I'm done. And God just says, because he knows I am kept by the power of God, not only for my salvation, but for my service. Because I can't keep myself. Our God is big and he is awesome. And we love him for it. And Satan's not going to sit down idly and stand for that. He's going to come at it.

No matter what you bring to God with your heart, he's going to attack it at some point. If you're in it, if you're in the fight like he did Job. Job was attacked because he was a good man. He was a great man. God was bragging about Job.

You check out Job. Nobody liked Job. Loves good, hates evil. I have asked God to not boast about me. And he has said, don't worry about it.

You're not giving me much. So, God put blood in the game when he came and died for us. And he has demanded no less from us in return. With all your heart, again, that is my mind, that is my ability to reason, to make a decision, the way I feel, it is all of me. That's what Christ is saying. He is giving us the definition of the heart. When he says mind, soul, with all your heart, mind, soul, you got it.

I've already quoted it like five times without looking. Your soul, your mind, your strength. That's your soul. It is that part of me who is me. And if I'm not born again, I only have a soul.

I do not. My spirit is dead. It is not until I am born again does my spirit come alive and now I can interact with God. That dead spirit can interact with hell. But it cannot interact with God in a way that pleases God. He says with all your soul.

And again, I've already pretty much covered that. If you are unsaved, your soul is empowered with human energy and influenced by Satan from the spiritual realm. And not God, unless of course God is appealing you to get saved. If you are saved, your soul is empowered and influenced by the Holy Spirit, but it still has to fend off the flesh. So it is that touch of holiness upon the soul that brings us life in Christ and centers our attention upon God.

Here's a picture of what happens inside of us from an experience of Moses. You remember, and I love to tell this, I know, Moses did not want to be called into ministry. He had tried to help his people. He realized, you know what, people are a pain in the neck. And he left. And God said, yeah, too bad they're a pain in the neck.

They're a pain in, you know, you're going to still have to work. Eventually there would be a pain in his hands and his feet and his side and on his brow. People did all that to him. Christ was crucified for us. Anyway, so when Yahweh saw that he had turned aside to look, because God, I guess, I don't know much about hunting or trapping or things like that, but I have heard that there's two things that really work when it comes to hunting and trapping, and that is bait and wait.

If you bait them and you wait for them, you're going to get them. And so God kind of did that with Moses in the bush that burned. He wanted to grab his attention. And Moses said, I have to go and see this thing. He took the bait and God was waiting.

I hope that doesn't sound like I'm trivializing it. I'm magnifying it. So when Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And when God says your name twice, something's going on.

Not necessarily bad, but it's serious. And he said, here am I. Could you look at the look on Moses' face? There's nobody on the mountain and someone's talking to him and he's talking to someone he can't see, just like us.

Anyway, then he said, do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Well, what's the next thing Moses did?

Took his sandals off. You see, his soul, his spirit came to life. He's in the presence of God. And God does this to us. And that sense of holiness comes from this type of experience with God. And so Jesus says, with all your mind. Sin always drives us from God, what God desires. Sin is always opposite of what God wants. And it is always harmful.

At some point, it is very harmful. And we are better off when we feel better about Jesus Christ. A lot of Christians, they just don't feel good about life. They're always sour.

They have life, but they don't have joy. And I fear that in many of these cases, it's because they're really not centered on Christ, they're centered on self. And I don't say this as an outsider, as a bystander. When I'm cast down, I know the steps and I take them. I don't suffer with depression too much anymore. I mean, now and then, I feel it, you know, I want to see it on the horizon and I beat that thing back now. But I learned early on, you know, I'm not going to live this way. And so, as I've said before, when I feel depression coming on, the next sound you hear is the sound of the sword leaving its sheath. I'm going to fight it.

I am not going to let it fight me without resistance. And when my mind is on him, then I feel, how I feel about myself falls into place. Now, Isaiah says it this way, and I have had problems with this verse, but I've never given up on it.

And it has paid off. Isaiah 26, you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. Now, you either believe that or you do not. If you are in a place you say, I believe it, but I don't feel it, then you've got to work it out. And that's okay, you're in a good space. You are saints.

You are separated by the blood of Christ. We have no right to take the easy way out when the hard way leads to victory. We have no right to say, it's too hard, and then quit. More is expected of us. How else do you get stronger? How else do we develop? And I'm telling you, I'm getting afraid to preach these things.

You know why? Because it seems like I preach them and God says, okay, let's see if you can do it. I say, no, no, it doesn't work that way. I preach it, they do it. And then you tell me more to preach, I preach it, they do it. It's a good system, God. He just hasn't agreed with that. With all your strength, that's the resources of your resolve, of my resolve, the resources that we have and we have them.

You just sometimes have to mind them, you have to dig for them. Feeling a thrill in Jesus' name does not make me a believer by itself. There must be the confession of the faith with energy to grab hold of life in that strength and that faith and that belief. Confession of faith is to lead to an answerable life to the confession.

I'm taking this from John Bunyan in his Pilgrim's Progress. Confession of faith is to lead to a life answerable to that confession. You said you're a Christian?

Okay, let's see it. God help us to believe the things that we confess. God help us to believe and carry out the things that we say we can do. And when you fail, you get up. Satan hates that part. Satan hates that you can get up and that you do get up. How many times have you felt like, I don't feel like going to church? Well, probably none here. I know that. But let's just for a moment put ourselves in the place of other churches.

Where sometimes people, I know, it's so goofy. I don't feel like going to church. And they go anyway.

Who just won that skirmish? Wasn't hell. Unless they get to church and cause problems. Then he gets another problem. This is the first commandment Jesus said. So he lays it out. You're to love God with everything you have. These four things are the beginning of the first commandment.

Because he's going to say, but it doesn't stop there. The man asks for one commandment. Christ is giving him one answer with two parts of commandments involved. What would Christianity look like if Christ never said such things? If he never said you shall love the Lord your God with everything you've got. What if he said, you know, just whatever you can.

He'd get even less than what we're able to give him. And so balanced Christianity is critical. It involves duty and sacrifice. Which is what Christ meant. Take up your cross and follow me. It is your duty and it is sacrificial and it is worth it.

And to take that away we get nothing done for Christ. And so the will, that is the duty. And the heart, the strength, the feelings are involved. The mind. Passionate action with intelligence because if you have passion without intelligence you have fanaticism.

That's no good. It has to have truth. Because if you have passion in your faith without truth, you have superstition.

Both of those are wrong. I do not want to be a fanatic. Someone who is, you know, obsessed we would say with a particular passion but has no truth with it. Or not enough truth. Just parts of it. Fragments which creates the lie.

We see the news media do this all the time with truth. How they manipulate with it. Anyway, your heart, soul, mind, strength. This is the first commandment. Collectively these make up the first, they make up the whole person.

The first part of his answer. The whole heart put on the whole armor of God. Ephesians 6 11 verse 31 now. The second is like it. Is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. I don't like that one too much as I've already been very clear about. I'd be lying otherwise. To stand up here and say, let's just love everybody.

Well, that would be nice if you could just do it like that. But they're not going to help you all the time. In fact, they're going to work against you many times. God will send them your way. Satan will send them your way.

And God will allow Satan to send them your way. Because that's where the fight is. So this first commandment has two parts according to the Lord. Because here, he's not quoting Deuteronomy or the Shema, any part of it. He's now going to Leviticus.

It is like he said, well, I'm going to answer your question. And the obvious answer is you love God with everything. But the part that's not so obvious is that you're supposed to love people too. Leviticus 19, 18.

You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh. I am God.

And what good is there in loving God if you don't love people who were made in his image in spite of the fall, especially after the fall. That's when it's needed most. I've had friends in my life who were my friends when I needed them most. Even when I didn't know I needed them most. That's a friend. Not when they bail on you when the going gets tough and they're gone. You can't find them.

They won't pick up their phone. But Onesiphorus, Paul said, he sought me out. He looked for me. I was in jail in Rome somewhere, and he found me at great risk to himself. Anyway, with the devotion to God comes the love for others. It is sometimes like a cross.

It is painful. And God's way, God's people, whenever they have got big things done, again, it has not been by taking the easy way out. Joseph could have taken the easy way out. He did not have to reveal himself to his brothers, but love compelled him.

He loved his brothers, he loved his father, and it shows up in the end of the story. And there just aren't shortcuts to these things. It's long-term victory. That's why we have words in our Bible such as endurance and persevere. That's what it takes to win.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Very challenging, is it not? Does anybody here say, ah, that's easy? Because you need counseling.

You haven't been in the fight then. Now, granted, it does come easier to some. Some just seem to be able to love more effectively.

But the great many do not. What about, you know, there are Christians that think that they can love others, they just don't have to love their spouse. Where does that come from? It comes from hell.

It comes from nowhere else. That you can go to church and you can love on average the people you choose to love, but when you get home or you get in the car, you can hate on the other one. Praise the Lord.

Sarcasm. Hopefully, if someone is guilty and they're saying, that got me, I am convicted, and that is God speaking to me. And that is God speaking to me because he loves me and he doesn't want to leave me the way he found me on this matter.

So I'm going to do my part. I am going to love. And again, I had hoped to master it, have had mastered this love thing by now. And I asked myself, am I difficult to love?

Don't answer, because of course I am. But just, you know, you should ask yourselves, am I difficult to love? I do ask myself, is there something about me?

And then I say, well, I like this and that and the other one. Well, I can't fix that. No, I don't. I don't do that. That would be counterproductive. God show it to you and you say, yeah, I see it, but it's not going to happen.

We don't do that, no matter how long it takes. And Christ here, summarizing the Mosaic law, making a compound verse out of these two verses, putting them together. No one but Jesus has ever truly loved God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. Only him. No one but Jesus has truly loved his neighbor as himself.

No one but Christ could give everything he's got for the Father's will. And he knows this, but he doesn't excuse me from trying. In fact, he demands it. It is an imperative. You shall love your neighbor. If you don't have love, you are nothing. I'm quoting scripture verses. You shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Well, what's the opposite?

You should be okay. Like who? I mean, if he doesn't set the standard as God, then who should you be like? You should be like David, who really loved me but failed. Well, the truth is, I don't want to be like that.

I may be like that, but I don't want to be like that. And this has made the church successful. So love fulfills God's will. Paul said this to the Romans, Owe no one anything except to love one another.

That's why I borrow money from people. I don't owe you anything. I love you. Okay.

I know. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal. Notice they're all in the negative. You shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet.

Well, that's a big one. You should not want more than what God's giving you, right? And if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love, now it goes to the positive, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Love may do harm to me. Well, it did it to Jesus.

It was his love. You know, there's a group out there, they'll say, well, God only loves the elect. People who have that position have elected to be wrong. Because if that was true, then he could never have said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He loved the whole world, and no man has the right to say, well, that's only the elect. This is the world. If he wanted to say God so loved the elect that he gave his only begotten son. No, he loves the world. And this is the love that we are to pursue.

It is a good system. It is very easy to love religion. That's what the Pharisees and Sadducees were doing. It is very easy to love doing things in God's name. It is easy to love places. Oh, I love Jerusalem or whatever it may be.

It is easy to love pets, because pets won't treat you like people will treat you as a rule. But that's not what he's demanding. We still have to love people more, like it or not. You cannot hide behind those things and be without guilt. Jesus said to Peter, Simon, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? The Scripture doesn't say what Christ was referring to when he says more than these. Was it the fish? Was it the other disciples? What was it?

It purposely omits what it was, because we are to fill in the blank. If there's anything we love more than Christ, if there's anything we love more than people, then something has gotten in the way. God has made us in his own image, and he has also died to keep us out of hell. Genesis 9, whoever sheds man's blood, this man, his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made them. He says that later on, after the creation of man, to remind us he's not forgotten this. It doesn't go away.

It's still there. This is duty and sacrifice. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Again, I have not been able to pull it off. However, if I've gotten anything done for Christ, it is because of that. If I've made any progress as a believer, it is because I'm commanded to love, and if he had not commanded me to love, things would look nothing like Christianity.

Well, I see that I'm out of time almost, and so I need to finish this up. Just to remind you, Christian love is like a high antenna. It transmits, and it receives, and it also draws lightning from hell. And if you are loving, you're going to be attacked. If you are not loving, you are already attacked.

It is no way around it. Sin is the great separator of man from God. However, the cross is a greater separator than sin, because it separates us from the judgment of sin.

And this, then, is about loving the Christ. We'll take verse 32. 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. The Lord could have said, I really don't need your approval, but he's too loving for that, and that's not what he wanted. He wanted this man to say this and others to hear it, and for us too, verse 33, the man continues to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, with all the strength to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. David said it this way after his great sin with Bathsheba. He killed Uriah, and you know the story, and he writes Psalm 51, and he says, For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. If it was that simple to bring a bull down to the temple and have all of this go away, I would have done that. He continues, he says, You do not delight in burnt offerings, not under these circumstances.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, these, O God, you will not despise. You go to the Lord and say, I have been mean to my spouse. I have been so selfish, and I'm not getting out of life what I want, which brings the avalanche of depression. God's not giving me what I want, I deserve more. Look and see what God wants from your life and do that and watch what begins to happen.

It will struggle, but it will have meaning. Verse 34, Now when Jesus saw that, he answered wisely. He said to him, You're not far from the kingdom of God, but after that, no one dared question him. He was not far, why wasn't he all the way in? Because he had not said, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Nathaniel got it, Peter got it, and Christ, not that this man did not eventually get it, but again, you have to surrender to Jesus Christ because he has no plan of salvation without surrender. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio. .