(From June 10) Renewal's Third Ingredients: The Greatest Commandments Scripture: Mark 12:28-34

- For almost 500 years, much of what the Jews thought would take place at the end of the Babylonian exile as promised in the prophets did not happen.

- God had not restored the kingdom to Israel as they thought he would; therefore, Israel was still in exile for her sins.

- The Jews were waiting for a deliverer, a Messiah who would forgive the sins of Israel and fully establish God's kingdom on earth.

- John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus by preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

- When Jesus began to preach, Mark tells his readers that he proclaimed a three part message.

* - “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15 (ESV)

- The message Jesus preached meant: the time is fulfilled, Israel's exile is over; her sins are forgiven. The time of God's reign over Israel has come, he is near, and he will receive you into his kingdom as you repent and believe in this good news.

- At the heart of the message of the gospel is repentance.

- If we want to take part in the kingdom of God and accept his reign over our lives, then we must cultivate in our lives & in the life of the church an attitude of repentance.

- At the heart of the Greatest Commandments is repentance. Repentance is really the core, what is central to these two Great Commands.

- A Jewish understanding of repentance is turning around. It means to turn & return to God.

- To repent for a Jewish person meant in the first century to turn away from doing things my way and return to God and learn to do things his way.

- The literal meaning of the Greek word for repent is to change one's mind. To repent, I need to stop insisting on doing things my way.

- We need to change our minds about thinking that our ways of doing things are the best ways of doing things and return to learning God's way and thinking that God's way is the best way of doing things and God's way is the best way of being.

- I think that it is clearly obvious what repentance has to do with church renewal. Let's look again at our definition for church renewal.

* - Church renewal is the continual transformation of God's people into the people he has called them to be, doing the things he has called them to do.

- Clearly, for the church to continually be transformed into the likeness of Christ, then we must cultivate attitudes of repentance.

- Now, let's consider Mark 12. Earlier in this chapter, Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees and Herodians about paying taxes to Caesar.

- Then the Sadducees, who were the ruling priests and did not believe in the resurrection, questioned Jesus about the resurrection and marriage.

- Having successfully rebutted the Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees, Mark lays out for us a third encounter between Jesus and a scribal expert in the law of Moses. Let's read it.

*- ²⁸  And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
²⁹ Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
³⁰ And you shall 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: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
* ³² 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.
³³ 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.”
³⁴ And when Jesus saw that he 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. Mark 12:28-34 (ESV)

* - At the time of Jesus, accepted Jewish thinking with regards to the law of Moses is that ritual purity and sacrifice were held in their minds as being equally important as love.

- When the scribe asked his question it's safe for us to assume it was a public question. The Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees, along with Jesus' disciples and the crowds, were probably all still hanging around.

- The answer Jesus gave to the scribe's question is a cloaked judgment against the legalism of keeping the law as being equal to the law of love for God and neighbor.

- According to Jesus, a person needs to devote their entire being to loving God.

- Who among us are completely devoted to loving God every waking moment? Surely, not one among us loves God perfectly.

- We need renewal in the church continually & we need to repent regularly because our love for God is always incomplete.

- No amount of religious rule keeping can replace a genuine love for God.

- The only thing religion can do is create a culture of comparisons where we see ourselves as either better or worse than others; where we are trapped and held captive by our inflated egos or by the shame of our religious failures.

- We practice spiritual disciplines for this very reason; not to keep score, but to grow in our loving relationship with God.

* - Jesus brought Leviticus 19:18 together with Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 because our love for God should naturally fuel and flow into love for our neighbors.

- As the apostle John wrote in his first letter, 'anyone who says I love God yet hates his brother is a liar.'

- Love for God necessarily precipitates love for our neighbors. In other words, if we do not actively love our neighbors, then can we honestly say that we love God?

- If we stop and think for a moment, we realize that the Ten Commandments are really all about love.

- The first four commandments have to do with loving God and the last six Commandments have to do with loving others.

- Why not take some time this week and sit down and read through the Ten Commandments from either Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5 from the perspective of love revealed by Jesus' words.

- People who are captivated by the kingdom of God, who have allowed God to enfold their story into his story love God and they show it by loving their neighbors.

- According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is all about love, love for God and love for others.

- Repentance is at the heart of real love for God and real love for others.

- A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.

- Now, the scribe's response to Jesus' answer is very telling in that he admits that the law teaches the superiority of love over ritual purity and animal sacrifice.

- Mark's readers should understand that by stressing the importance of love over sacrifice he is foreshadowing the abolition of the sacrificial system that comes about through the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.

- The scribe's response to Jesus also reveals to us something else. It reveals to us that Jesus was starting to get through to him.

- As Jesus said, "you are not far from the kingdom of God."

- When we come to understand that love is more important than ritual purity and sacrifice then we are not far from the kingdom of God.

- Entry into the kingdom requires repentance and faith.

- By developing an understanding that loving God and loving others is more important than anything else, then we will be challenged to further thought and to take decisive action.

- The Scriptures reveal to us that love is a verb. One cannot hide like a hermit and claim to love because love must be in expressed in loving action.

- A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.

* - Last week we learned that: a renewed church is Spirit empowered for the work of inviting others into God story.

- We cannot possibly love God and love our neighbors in the way we are meant to unless we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

- Only the power of God can accomplish the work of renewed hearts thereby empowering us to keep the greatest Commandments.

- We must affirm that we are Spirit empowered for the work of inviting others into God story.

* - And we must affirm: A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.

* - How do we invite others into God's story?

* - We invite others through friendship, service, *sharing, caring, *listening, empathizing, *healing, delivering, reconciling, *feeding, clothing, *by being inclusive rather than exclusive, *and by announcing the news that the exile is over; God's kingdom is near, repent and believe the good news.

- These are the actions of people who belong to the kingdom of God, who love God and neighbors.

* - A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.