Living the Greatest Commandment

Covenant Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him,

00:06

Which commandment is the most important of all? Jesus answered, The most important is,

00:12

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one, and you shall love the

00:18

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.

00:24

The second one is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

00:30

There is no other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said to him,

00:36

You are right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.

00:44

And to love him with all your heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

00:58

And Jesus saw that he answered wisely, and he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God.

01:05

And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said,

01:12

How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself in the

01:19

Holy Spirit declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

01:28

David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?

01:34

And the great throng heard him gladly. And in his teaching, he said,

01:40

Beware of the scribes who like to walk, who like to walk around in long robes, and like greetings in marketplaces, and have the best seats in synagogues, and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.

01:56

They will receive the greater condemnation. In the last section,

02:02

And he sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the people putting money in the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.

02:12

And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.

02:19

And he called his disciples to him and said to them, Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.

02:31

For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had.

02:40

All she had to live on. Let us pray. Father, thank you for your goodness and grace.

02:47

Lord, I thank you so much for our church body. Lord, we ask that your spirit would just bless

02:55

Josh's teaching today, that he would be able to encourage and challenge and sharpen us with the word,

03:03

Lord, that your spirit would do that work in our hearts. Father, we look at it as a great offering of the work that Josh has put in through the week, for it to culminate today, for you to bless.

03:15

Father, we thank you so much for the salvation that we have through Jesus Christ. And Lord, we ask that you would keep us faithful, and that we wouldn't think that we can keep ourselves faithful,

03:28

Lord, but that we know everything, our sanctification, our salvation is all truly in your hands.

03:34

In Jesus' name, amen. Blocking and tackling. The fundamentals. That is what the legendary high school football coach at Prairie Grove would say all the time.

03:46

If you want to win, you have to be the best at blocking and the best at tackling. There's a lot of flash that goes into the rest of the game, but if you can't tackle, you lose, and if you can't block, you can't pass, and you can't run.

03:59

Similar in other sports, it's the fundamentals that matter. In the Christian life, it should strike us that the fundamentals are the most important, and today is a sermon about the fundamentals.

04:10

But it's also a sermon that accomplishes a much bigger picture, and I will tell you, some who have been close around me know this, there is a cloud on the horizon that is next

04:21

Sunday. It's like one of those where you can circle the day next week and forget the fight this week, because we have the

04:28

Olivet Discourse coming up, and to understand the Olivet Discourse, we have to deeply understand the fundamentals and the structure of what

04:36

Mark is writing. And he is pointing us and leading us along the way, and so in today's text, what we see is a last appeal to the

04:45

Pharisees and the scribes of the fundamentals of the faith and what they are missing. And then a final condemnation to the scribes and the

04:54

Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the religious elite that Jesus is going to give them publicly before they shrink away with their tail between their legs, because they can't stand against him.

05:05

He has dominated them at every pass with their questions. So last week we saw two stupid questions.

05:12

This week, we see a question asked in good faith, and it's a good question, but the answer to the question doesn't get you there.

05:20

Even though it's the fundamentals, and this is the hard thing, right? In the Christian life, we have no ability to practice the fundamentals without the power of the

05:27

Holy Spirit. And so what I want to draw your attention to in this text is that we have kind of a, in the

05:33

Theo nerd talk, we have this rudimentary chiasm, where what's going on, if I can remind you, and you'll hear this word sometimes, a chiasm means that there are arguments that correspond to each other on both sides of a center, and that center is the main point.

05:48

So what they're trying to do is highlight the center. So in this one, if we're labeling it, the first text, where the scribe comes and asks the question, we would call this one law.

05:58

And then when the scribe talks about how to follow the law is greater than burnt sacrifices, with Jesus' declaration that you're near to the kingdom of God, that is heart.

06:08

And then we'll skip the middle. The next part is we have fake law, with the scribes and the

06:15

Pharisees in their long robes and appearance of righteousness, and then we have highlighting the heart, the real heart, the true heart of the widow.

06:24

And the reason that the widow should be exemplified is she's all the way in while the scribe was near. And what is the key to following the law?

06:31

What is the key to the fundamentals of the faith? It is knowing, believing, trusting, and understanding who

06:38

Jesus Christ is. We say his name every week. We say his name in prayers.

06:43

And yet I think even among us in the church, sometimes through familiarity, we forget who we're talking about.

06:50

He is the glorious Lord of all creation. He is the creator and the sustainer.

06:56

Without his thought and constant attention to creation, it all melts down and comes apart at the seams.

07:02

And that king, that one who rules every molecule of the cosmos, has declared that some fallen human beings who hated him, who rebelled against him, he has called them sons and daughters and adopted them into his household.

07:15

And then not only that, given them the Holy Spirit, the Godhead, who embodies, who indwells, and who proceeds forth illuminating

07:24

Jesus' revelation and makes our hearts to follow this king, where we could have never done it on our own.

07:31

See, we look at the glorious king of creation and we think, no, I'd really rather take care of it myself.

07:36

That is the human response, and that response is crazy, frankly. But sin makes people crazy.

07:44

Sin causes insanity. And so in Jesus' final public condemnation to these religious elites, we're going to see the craziness of their system, and they've missed the whole thing.

07:58

And then next week we're going to see the stupendous, apocalyptic prophecy of the destruction of their whole system.

08:05

It's really an amazing thing that Mark is doing. So let's get into it. We start with a good question, and we start with the law.

08:12

And the good question is that we have a Pharisee here who is hearing, and he studied the law his whole life, and the scripture in Matthew, it says that he has come to test

08:21

Jesus. I don't think that in the context here with how Jesus handles him, I don't think that this is the type of adversarial test.

08:29

I think that he has heard of Christ's words, he's heard his authoritative teaching, and what he wants to know is, am

08:37

I on the right track with this guy? Does this guy get it? Is he a teacher worthy to be followed?

08:43

And so we ask the question, what is the foremost commandment? And so Jesus answers him with two answers.

08:51

And in Mark, Mark writing a letter, Mark writing to the Gentiles, includes something that the parallel account doesn't, and that is the first of the

09:00

Shema, which is Deuteronomy 6 -4, which is, Hear, O Israel, the

09:05

Lord our God is one Lord. That is the preamble to the commandment, and the reason that Mark adds it in here is because there was a lot of talk among the

09:15

Jewish elites later on that Christianity was a polytheistic religion, right?

09:20

Where we had this Trinity going on, and that Jesus is God, but also the Father is God. And so an accusation was being lobbed at the followers of Christ that they were a polytheistic, heretical faith, that they were a schism, that they should be thrown out of the city gates.

09:36

And so Mark writes to remind that Jesus didn't come representing a new God, that Jesus is the eternal

09:43

God, that he was never created, but that he was eternally begotten, as the

09:49

Confessions say. And so this good faith question is not stupid, it's a critical question, it's a foundational question, it's a fundamental question.

09:57

And every good Jew, every pious Jew, would have already known half of this answer.

10:03

Because the pious Jews would recite the Shema, which is Deuteronomy 6 -4 -9, they would quote it twice a day.

10:10

This is the core memory verse of the Jew, from all of their heritage.

10:16

This is what they would wake up and say every day. To be a religious God follower would be to memorize this text and to say it twice a day.

10:24

And as we look back at the Old Testament, how many texts could we find that would be much more important to catechizing yourself into what

10:30

God honors and what God loves than this one? It has it all, doesn't it? God is one, and you must love him with everything you have.

10:39

Absolutely everything you have. But then Jesus does this interesting thing. He connects another law, and this law comes out of Leviticus.

10:51

A couple of places in Leviticus, but most blatantly from Leviticus 19 -18.

10:58

That says, You shall not take vengeance, and you shall not keep your anger against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

11:07

I am the Lord. So God, through Moses, gives another command that the people of Israel are to love their brothers.

11:15

That they are to not hold things in malice against their countrymen. That is how they show honor and respect for the

11:22

Lord. It is impossible to love the Lord with everything you have and to not love his people.

11:28

Can't happen. So when you listen, this is a tidbit for you. If you want discernment, and you listen to a bunch of people, and there are many of them on YouTube and on podcasts and everywhere.

11:38

If people are constantly savaging and running down Christians, they are not following the law of God.

11:46

Because our people love the brothers. Even when we disagree, we love one another.

11:52

We cannot love God if we don't love one another. But see, the Jew would have no problem with that, because they were a very ethno -nationalist state.

12:01

That's one of the problems that's going on, is that the promise to Abraham had not extended through the fathers to the nations around.

12:09

And so there was something left undone. And that was that all the nations would come, and they would look at the law of Zion, and they would see that it is beautiful.

12:18

But the people of Israel had been unfaithful, and it hadn't happened. And they would hold on to commandments like this, while ignoring later parts of Leviticus, in verses 33 and 34, where he would expand this love of neighbor to the sojourner, who was in the city, who was in the country.

12:35

So you would love the sojourner as yourself also. And then Jesus, really radically in Luke 10, with probably the second most well -known parable of all of them, the

12:45

Good Samaritan, he brings this similar language, and he extends neighbor to whoever is in need that is in your face.

12:55

So Christians love those who are in need, who are in our proximity. And there is no conflict between the parable of the

13:04

Good Samaritan and the law given in Leviticus. And so when Jesus says that this is the greatest commandment, this is the foremost commandment, it is the inseparable link between the love of God and the love of neighbor.

13:18

And your neighbor is not some rando that you've never seen before half a world away. Your neighbor is the people who are around you.

13:25

We cannot make this an extension principle to every single person, because to extend the love of neighbor to someone you've never seen, never heard of, and don't know the plight of, is to make it mean nothing.

13:35

Commandments mean something. They mean something tactically. You can't just say, as the scribes will later, we love the

13:41

Lord with all that we've got, and then don't do his commandments. That's empty words.

13:46

And when we say, yes, we love our neighbor, but we do nothing to help our neighbor, then those are empty words, and the love of God is not in us.

13:54

We are not following the commandment to love our neighbor when we don't show love to tangible, real neighbors.

14:01

It's not an idea. It's not an ethereal vapor out there where we say, I'm a person of the world and I love the world.

14:08

That means nothing. Love of neighbor requires sacrifice. You see it in the parable of the

14:14

Good Samaritan, right? What makes the man righteous is that he puts the ailing Samaritan, his hated, his hated nemesis, he puts him up and makes sure that he's going to be healed and going to be okay.

14:26

That takes sacrifice. Love of neighbor takes sacrifice. It is a putting aside of the love of self to love someone else.

14:34

So this is how Jesus answers the question, and it's an amazing teaching. Because what he does, if you missed it there, is that he does what good expository teaching does, is he takes the whole counsel of the word of God and he puts it together into a consistent framework that makes a lot of sense, and he links these two things together and he goes beyond.

14:55

Because remember, Jesus is always making a point here, and one of his points is, you guys aren't doing this.

15:02

Understand? You're not doing this. This answer is antagonistic towards the religious elites who are going around giving all of the appearance of loving

15:11

God while they have put in the Corban law, as we saw earlier, that takes away the most basic love of neighbor there is, which is the love of your parents.

15:20

If you can't love and sacrifice for your parents, who are you going to love and sacrifice for?

15:26

And so they would give the appearance with none of the substance. And so the contrast is coming.

15:32

There is an object lesson, and remember where we've been, as he answers this question and he says, everything hangs on this.

15:39

All of the law and the prophets hang on this. In other words, all of your religious authority that you hold to hangs on this.

15:47

So if you're saying, we are the chief scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees who have given our whole life professionally to study this word, to study the law, to study the prophets, if we've given our whole life to that and then we don't do what it says, do we really understand it at all?

16:04

And we've set ourselves up as an expert class to dispense the wisdom and the knowledge that we found in this book, and yet when we don't live it, it shows that we are totally ignorant of it.

16:15

Jesus is saying, they don't understand the law, because he's already declared, what are they?

16:20

They are a den of thieves. Do they love their neighbor while they're plundering the weakest among them?

16:26

And the prophets rail against this kind of activity. That while the elite sit and get fat, that the poor underneath them, the rich are unconcerned with them, have no care of their plight, and will even bar them out from the spaces.

16:39

And we've seen it over and over in Mark, as the blind, the beggar, the Gentile dog, they are all outside, and they are looked at with scorn by the religious people.

16:49

There is no love of neighbor. We're talking about people who are in their backyard. We see also that they are a barren tree.

16:55

They are a tree that studies the law, but has no fruit. They have forgotten what they read, is another way of saying that.

17:03

And finally, we see over and over again that they are testing the Lord, which is expressly against the commandments of God.

17:11

How can a human being put the Lord God to the test? How can we do that? Have you ever thought about what those words mean?

17:18

That you, with your knowledge, are going to test God. That's an insane thing to think about.

17:26

And so the man asks a good question, and then Jesus gives this declaration. The man has another good answer, doesn't he?

17:33

He says, That is a great answer.

17:52

It recalls back to Hosea 6. It recalls to 1 Samuel 15. And we know that story if you've been here a while.

17:59

This is where Saul is told to make total war and put the ban on the Amalekites. And what he does is he plunders them.

18:06

He kills most of them, but he leaves the king, and he takes some of the cattle. And when Samuel comes and he hears,

18:12

Saul says, Well, I did what God said. And Samuel says, Then how do I hear cows lowing out there? And then

18:18

Samuel pronounces on him, It is much better to obey than to offer burnt sacrifices.

18:24

God does not care about your religious activity if you don't do what he says.

18:30

It's very similar. To say that you love your parents and then not do a single thing that they say is no love at all, and you're a curse on your home.

18:39

And this is the home, the house of God's people. And what has happened is over and over again, in this house, they say,

18:45

Dad, Father, we love you. We love your law. We have built the highest crust of our class to study your law all the time, and yet we don't do anything that it says.

18:55

So we don't love you at all, do we? We're out. But this scribe is closer, isn't he?

19:02

Because he starts to identify some things. First, he hears and he understands the soundness of the doctrine.

19:07

He says to Jesus, This is right. And then he goes a step further, which is really good.

19:12

And he says, The Lord cares more about these things than the religious activity going on in our glorious temple.

19:19

Right? That's what he's saying. And we know that because of what happens next week. Everybody's marveling at this temple.

19:25

Oh, what an amazing temple. Are we so different today? Wow, what amazing structures.

19:32

What an amazing government we've built. Democracy for everyone. What a powerful edifice we have.

19:41

And yet the substance is not there. Jesus answers him, and it says that he had answered thoughtfully, and then

19:50

Jesus says this thing, and it's crucial to the rest of the sermon. He says, You are not far from the kingdom of God.

19:59

I think that can be taken in two ways. One is the literal way. And we like literalism, right?

20:05

We like the literal way. Here's the literally thing. Jesus is standing here talking to this man, and Jesus says,

20:10

You are not far from the kingdom of God. That is quite literally true. The man is standing right in front of the kingdom of God.

20:16

Okay? So, in a sense, that is what's going on. You are literally standing in front of the kingdom of God, so what are you going to do?

20:25

What are you going to do? But there's another thing here. There is a knowledge of God in this man's heart.

20:34

There is a knowledge of the law. There is a knowledge of what God loves, which is obedience over sacrifice.

20:41

Obedience over religious words and actions. And I have to ask the question. I haven't done it in a while,

20:47

Brian, but I have to ask the question. Does this typify the Reformed types? I mean, do we have a tremendous knowledge of the doctrine?

20:56

I would say it is characteristic of our tribe. And we exalt and we lift up each other based on our knowledge of the ancient confessions and our knowledge of the creeds and our knowledge of the church fathers.

21:08

Do you guys realize out there, when you go, if you throw a dart and hit another evangelical church out there today, and you ask a random person in that church who is a born -again

21:18

Christian who loves Jesus Christ, and you ask them a question about church history, they're going to immediately look at you cross -eyed.

21:24

And what we do is we go, oh man, that's pretty rough, right?

21:30

You don't even know your history? How many of us know that? Do you really want to take the test? We sit in our piety and we sit in our bunched -up robes, and a lot of times

21:38

I think what we do is we can get into a place where we start to conflate knowledge of doctrine with love of God.

21:46

Am I ever going to sit here in a Reformed church and speak against knowledge of doctrine? Of course not.

21:52

Doctrine is important. Doctrine changes your mind. Doctrine can be guide rails for us.

21:58

They can keep us on track. But at the same time, do not be confused. Entering into the kingdom of God does not come through intellectual assent.

22:06

It is not a propositional nation. Do you understand that? The kingdom of God is not about assenting to a set of ideas.

22:13

It is found in a person. It is found in allegiance to a real flesh and blood king who happens to exist in the spiritual realm in his fully realized body, the first fruits of the resurrection who reigns in power today.

22:28

And if you don't bow the knee to him, you're done. You have nothing.

22:34

You can be near to the kingdom of God, and do you know what that gets you? Heaping spoonfuls of condemnation.

22:42

Because to whom much is given, much is expected. And so when you know the doctrines, you venture into dangerous places.

22:49

Very dangerous places. The worst places that can be for a human being is to know the things of God, to assent to certain propositions, and then at the end, to not give everything you have to the kingdom.

23:02

It's to hold something back. What good is the subject of the kingdom who holds allegiances to another king while in the kingdom?

23:09

We are seeing that fray our country apart even as we speak, are we not? We see allegiances to other sovereigns and allegiances to other kingdoms tears a kingdom apart.

23:20

There has to be allegiance to one sovereign and one king. That's what makes nations. And Christ is the greatest nation.

23:29

We are a nation of priests. We are a nation built of living stones.

23:35

We are a nation who has been set apart and holy. So it's about time that we act like it.

23:40

It's about time that we set aside the things that deface what he's made us. So you're near the kingdom of God, and I hope, and I think there's good reason to believe,

23:51

I hope that this man is in the kingdom of God and that we'll see him someday. I think there's good reason for hope because what's about to happen, right, what's about to happen is high crimes and treason and then the most glorious day in all of creation, forward or backward, for infinity.

24:09

It's not the creation. The highest day is the resurrection of the Lord where he shows all of his characteristics in glorious, clear, manifest light.

24:20

And many came to Christ when they saw the resurrection. Many, many. See, the disciples, as we'll see next week, still blind.

24:27

Still partially blind. They're even near. They're following him around. They're still near. They don't get it all.

24:33

This man doesn't get it all. And then we see a turn. He's near the kingdom of God. You better go all the way in.

24:40

And the people around him dare not ask any more questions. They were afraid of him.

24:46

Okay, the coin question, the resurrection question, the answer to this one.

24:52

These guys are just getting beat up all up and down the field, right? These are supposed to be the smartest, wisest purveyors of the religion in the kingdom.

25:01

And this carpenter's son, right, he is going into the temple and he is making them look absolutely ridiculous.

25:09

Because what they were doing is they were setting up these gotcha questions and then going, well, I don't know. What do you think it is?

25:15

And this is how the rabbinical interlude went is they were just asking each other nebulous questions. And what

25:20

Jesus does is as a man's man is he cuts right through the center of it and he just bullseyes them with his direct, blunt knowledge of the law.

25:30

And no one knows the law more than Christ because the law is his law. He wrote it.

25:37

He's the one that Moses did not bear the reproach, he bore the reproach of Egypt because he knew that Christ was coming.

25:45

It was a greater thing. See, the one who wrote the law followed Christ. Do you understand that?

25:51

We know from Hebrews 11. The one who wrote it all, he followed Jesus. And so Jesus is the one who told him what to write.

25:59

It's really silly to test God. And what is happening is all of the plans of these religious elites is backfiring on them every time they ask a question because we get this little notation here, right?

26:11

The crowd, the large crowd, enjoyed listening to him. Isn't it exhausting when you hear people just ask questions back and forth to each other that just get more and more vague?

26:22

And you're like, get to the point. Please get to the point. What are we supposed to be figuring out here? See, that's how

26:27

Jesus talked. Jesus got to the point. And so the crowd was drinking this in.

26:33

It's like when you've been out in the desert and you hear a bunch of 20 -minute TED Talks and then someone busts open this book and without pretense just starts trying to tell you exactly what it says.

26:45

See, the power is not in my voice. It's definitely not. The power's here. And my prayer every day and every week is that the weak man would be out of the way and what would happen is the unveiled, unvarnished power in this book, and it's right there.

27:01

And that's what Jesus was doing. Can you imagine what his preaching was like? I can't imagine.

27:07

But friend, we will see it someday. We will see it. And we will hear the story told by the writer of the story as the hymn says, in scenes of glory, and we will ask to hear it time and time again.

27:19

What an amazing thing it is. Now Jesus gets to the main point before he delivers some woes, okay?

27:26

And here's the main point. You have to ask. It's curious. It seems a little bit out of context that Jesus would at this point quote

27:33

Psalm 110. Remember, we've got this law thing going on. We've got a Pharisee who's close to the kingdom of God in the midst of this fig tree judgment thing that we're going to end with next week.

27:43

And so Jesus says, how is it? He asked his question. Jesus' question is tough, isn't it?

27:49

How is it that the scribes say that Christ is the son of David? David himself said in the

27:55

Holy Spirit, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.

28:01

David calls himself Lord. So in what sense is he his son?

28:08

And the large crowd loved to listen to that. Well, the large crowd has already seen the triumphal entry as the king has come back into his own.

28:17

And he starts to teach with authority. Understand here in a point of clarity, why is

28:22

Psalm 110 quoted here? Well, because in microcosm, what happens is Mark is showing us that everything in this book is about Jesus, everything.

28:32

And the phrase that Mark likes to write, Jesus' name is the son of man. Remember, over and over again, the son of man, the son of man, the son of man.

28:40

The reason why is because that's Jesus' kingly title as prophesied in Daniel. Son of man, as Mark is telling you, this is the king.

28:47

So in his magnum opus, what you're gonna see here is that he says, Jesus says, I'm the king.

28:53

Do you not understand how I'm the king? It's not son of man talk here. It's explicit exposition of Psalm 110, and Jesus is applying it to himself.

29:02

And he's saying, hey, listen, you guys, I am the son of David, which means I'm the eternal king.

29:09

Because kings would never call their sons lords. That's not what they did. They didn't call their sons lords.

29:14

And so when the Lord said to my Lord, there is three there, right?

29:21

The Lord, which is God the Father, said to my Lord, which is the one in between God the

29:27

Father and David, sit at my right hand. So David knows that it's not him sitting at the

29:32

Lord's right hand. It's someone else. How can this be? Now see, the

29:38

Jews knew this was a messianic prophecy. They understood that. And their idea was materialist.

29:44

But what Jesus is clearly saying here is, I am the son of God. So what happens when you kill the son of God?

29:52

That's what we're gonna find out next week. It's not good. Jesus is the eternal fulfillment of the

29:59

Davidic covenant. So this scribe, this Pharisee, he comes because he wants to know the law. He wants to know what is the foremost commandment.

30:06

And Jesus answers him rightly, but then what is going on is Jesus, in the middle of his text, is saying, here is the warning to all you, and this is my final warning.

30:13

If you don't understand what Psalm 110 means, you've missed all of it and it doesn't mean anything.

30:19

The only thing you're gonna do is get near to the kingdom of God. But to get into the kingdom of God is to understand who the king is.

30:26

You're not in the kingdom if you don't have allegiance to the king. What are you if you don't have allegiance to the king? You're an enemy, or you're a subversive, or you're someone who needs to be deported.

30:36

That's the way it works. Understand, who are you loving as your neighbor? Well, you're loving your countrymen and the sojourner, but the sojourner's not there to stay, okay?

30:46

This is all connected together. And so what Jesus is saying is, I am the fulfillment of 2 Samuel 7, 12 through 16, where David is promised seed.

30:56

I will raise up one of your seed after you, who will come forth from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.

31:02

Who's that? That's Solomon, right? We know that, but there's things that Solomon can't do in this text.

31:07

So let's go on. He shall build a house for my name. And he did, didn't he? And I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

31:16

He did not do that. Solomon's son lost the kingdom. It was split in two, and it was never rejoined.

31:23

And that is a big problem in the time where Mark writes. He goes on, I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.

31:30

When he commits iniquity, Solomon, I will reprove him with the rod of men and the strikes from the sons of men.

31:38

But my lovingkindness shall not be removed from him, as I removed it from Saul, who I removed before you.

31:44

And your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever.

31:52

Now let me ask you, did Jesus commit iniquity? No. Jesus never sinned.

31:57

However, was Jesus beaten or reproved with the rod of men and stricken from the sons of men for iniquity?

32:07

Yes, he was. He was. And does Jesus sit at the right hand? Is his throne established forever?

32:14

Did he build a house for the Lord's name? We're in it today. And this is what we miss a lot in our time, is that Jesus built a new temple, and that temple is the church.

32:24

And we are in his name. The eternal throne goes through the church. It is the new temple.

32:31

But this problem, this declaration, which is an astounding one, isn't it?

32:36

That Jesus tells them, I am the son of God. He wasn't a good teacher.

32:42

He wasn't some, you know, nice hippie who was trying to help all the poor people.

32:48

Jesus is the son of God. And if you believe that, that brings implications. You have to follow the king.

32:56

And the people like this, and it worsens the problem for their leaders. So now we get to the last part here, the last two parts.

33:03

We've seen the middle. The middle is this. Jesus is the son of God. What are you going to do with that? And let me ask you, what are you doing with that?

33:09

Do you act like he's your king? Or do you act like he's a nice add -on in your life? Have you come across the border into the church and enjoyed the blessings and the riches of being inside the church without following the sovereign?

33:23

You are an invader and a subversive, and your loyalty is not here. If you're in here and you follow the king, you have to go all the way.

33:32

You have to have full allegiance to the king. The son of God demands nothing less. So what are the main guys doing?

33:39

Well, we're going to talk this fake law. Fake law? Rotten hearts. They're as rotten as a hew horn.

33:45

All right? Black hearts. They don't like what they hear. And so they're going to wrestle together and rebel.

33:51

Jesus says in his teaching, he was saying, beware of the scribes who want to walk around in long robes and want respectful greetings in the marketplace and the best seats in synagogues and places of honor at banquets who devour widows' houses and for appearance's sake offer long prayers.

34:06

These will receive greater condemnation. Do you see what they're doing? They are abjectly and manifestly hating their neighbor.

34:14

They're not only indifferent to their neighbor, they hate their neighbor. They look at their neighbor as money bags. I will take your money and then

34:22

I will dress myself up so that while I'm punching you to take your money, you will honor me for how pious and holy

34:28

I am. That's what they're doing. We see this all the time. This is just the scourge of the church, is it not?

34:37

The holy man who gets in his holy robes and he looks nice and he preaches words that tickle the ears all the while skinning the sheep, killing them, taking from them so that he can sit himself up in the place of honor.

34:54

See, these teachers of the law, they proclaim the law loudly. They study the law.

35:00

They had divided the law into 613 commands. How many did Jesus do? See, following Christ and following Christ's commands, it's easy to understand.

35:11

And this has been a hallmark. I'm a simple man and what I've always understood is that sin is a simple thing to understand. When you transgress

35:17

God's law, you have sinned. If God has not written it down, then it's all about your conscience.

35:23

You have to sin against the law, the letter, or your conscience. But these men, what they tried to do, understand their game, right?

35:29

They studied the law so they could make it immensely complicated, much like total state does, so you can have a million bureaucratic laws out there so that every person walking around is a felon.

35:42

That's what they did. You need to come in here and offer your sacrifices all the time at the temple because you are breaking the law constantly.

35:50

And the people are like, how are we breaking the law? And they're like, we told you you are. Do you understand? Do you see my robe?

35:58

Do you know my degrees? How are you presuming to talk to me?

36:03

Don't you know where I went to school? That's what they did. And they think that their knowledge is going to save them right in the midst of their pride.

36:12

They look at the glorious temple and they think this will be here forever. Sure, the greater one of Solomon got torn down, but this one is gonna stay up.

36:20

This is Herod's temple. This one's gonna be great. We have got it forever. But Jesus knows their hearts.

36:27

And what He says, it's really a cutting thing that we can connect with other things. They secure the best seats because in these men's heart, they know they better get them now.

36:36

They better get it now. There is no eternal reward. So they cloak themselves in this appearance while gutting the commands that supposedly bind them.

36:44

And we see this today. And we've seen it really clearly in the last 10 years that what people will do is they will be bad operators in the pulpit and on the gospel coalition and ad nauseam all of the big evangelical publications.

36:57

And what they will do is they know that they can't stray from some core things. They have to say, oh, of course, we're complementarian.

37:04

But we want women to teach in every facet in the church except being head pastor. You know what they're doing.

37:10

They're trying to hollow out the law to gain the approval of men. And they do it over and over and over again.

37:17

And what they do is they try to complicate things. They'll write books. And they'll say, is same -sex attraction a sin?

37:24

And Joe Blow, congregant, who sits in the pews, is like, yeah, that's gross, man.

37:32

You gotta repent of that. But they write hundreds of page books going, did God say that it's bad to just be attracted to other men but not act on it?

37:43

And they act like this requires doctorates to parse out what the Bible says about these kind of desires.

37:49

We know what it says about those desires, don't we? Kill them. Kill them. You can't give them quarter.

37:57

But these men are constantly giving lawlessness quarter. They are building the temple into a den of thieves.

38:03

This is where lawlessness is ebbing out. Where you're supposed to go to be purified and to be holy, it is the seat and the den of iniquity.

38:11

In Revelation, John would call it Babylon. It is an abomination. It is a whore drinking the blood of the saints.

38:19

That's what they've made the holy place of God. It's not going to go well for them. Their prayers are a show.

38:27

They take the Lord's name in vain when they pray to Him because they don't care about what God says. They don't care about waiting for an answer from the

38:33

Lord. They just care about looking good and saying a bunch of high -dollar theological words so that people will hear their prayers and go, oh, man, that was an incredible prayer.

38:44

Did you hear the knowledge that they were blasting out? That's what they do. Their condemnation will be great indeed.

38:52

See, we think the murderer is the most condemned person in hell.

38:58

It's not. It's the preacher. It's the preacher. Friends, I'm aware nobody knows who

39:08

I am like I do, right? And even in that knowledge, nobody knows who I am.

39:14

And even what I think I know about myself, I know that the word says the heart is deceitfully wicked. Who can trust it?

39:23

And I hear the call, and you hear in the flesh the idea that, man,

39:30

I'm pretty smart. I can say some really smart things. I can almost bend people to my will with my theological words.

39:38

It is a dangerous place. And the only thing we can do is pray, not in long prayers, but in silent prayers.

39:44

I heard a preacher in Dallas this week who said that the study of the word is important, but it's not as important as the private, unannounced, silent prayers of the preacher.

39:53

It's so true. It's so true. It has nothing to do with what

39:59

I know and my knowledge. It has everything to do with who I love. Who do we love?

40:06

Who do we have our allegiance to? See, our problem in the church today, and one of our greatest problems, is that we look up, just like in the old days, we look up to the men who act exactly like these guys, who crave the platform, who crave the popularity, who say pious -sounding things while being accountable to no one and holding no one accountable themselves.

40:30

Do you know what the office is? What were these guys supposed to be doing? They were supposed to be making the law simple to the people of God so that the people could understand the law and follow their

40:39

God. They were to be urging their countrymen to be in allegiance to their God because they were going to lose their country.

40:46

And they did lose their country. The country cannot stand who stands against the

40:52

God of creation. He will smash that country like a clay vessel with his iron scepter.

40:58

It is promised in Psalm 2. Don't look up to men like this. It's okay to have theological knowledge.

41:07

It's a good thing. Elders should have it. But at the same time, you have to look for a man who loves his people.

41:15

He has to love his neighbor. And you guys are the first ring of my neighbor. Are you not? You're my neighbors.

41:21

So test me. Do I love you? I pray to God that I will. I will disappoint you. I will let you down.

41:29

But I pray also that God will give me a soft heart of repentance. And I pray that I would lead you in that.

41:34

As Paul says, it's the scariest words in the New Testament to me is Paul says, follow me. Imitate me as I imitate

41:41

Christ. And that is the call of the elder. Calling you to imitate me as I imitate

41:47

Christ. And then Jesus doesn't leave us there. He gives us a picture of exactly what this kind of faith looks like.

41:54

Precisely. So let's end here. He sat down in the treasury and began observing how the crowd was putting money into the treasury.

42:02

The big show, right? Same thing going on. And many rich people were putting in large sums and a poor widow came and put in two lepto which amount to a quadrants.

42:11

It's nothing. Putting a penny in the jar. Calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly

42:19

I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all those putting money into the treasury for they all put in out of their surplus but she out of her poverty put in all she owned, all she had to live on.

42:31

She couldn't buy bread that day because she put it in the box. Do you understand?

42:36

And God doesn't need your money. He doesn't need your money. We look at it as God, like we are blessing

42:44

God with the massive amount of money we're putting in and God looks straight through that into your heart.

42:50

It doesn't matter how much money you put in because God doesn't need any money. He created it all.

42:56

It's all his already. Are you going to give a tithe back to him to show that you are fully dependent on him?

43:04

And that's what she does. Why is this woman so beautiful? Why is she the picture of faith that the scribes have completely abandoned?

43:10

Here's why. Because she's totally dependent and she trusts God for her food. Do you?

43:17

Or do you trust your employer? See, God feeds his people. Not a hair of your head falls.

43:25

You don't have to worry about your clothes. The lilies are clothed in beauty. Are you not more important than a lily?

43:33

She's poor on the outside but she is rich on the inside. And as I hope that we see the young Pharisee in heaven,

43:42

I know we'll see this widow. And she will be honored by many. She is beautiful.

43:50

She is incalculably rich on the inside. Can you imagine the dependence? Can you imagine the faith?

43:57

Can you imagine the love for your king that you're like, King, I don't even know if I'm gonna eat today but I'm gonna give you everything

44:03

I have because I trust you to take care of me. I know that you're a good king and I know that you know your people.

44:11

You know every single one of them and I know that you will take care of me. She's the opposite of the scribes in that she has no robes, no ceremony, no seat of honor.

44:21

She has one thing and that is that she is singularly driven by her love of God. She is embodying the foremost commandment.

44:31

She knows that God is one. She also shows the destitute position of many in the nation.

44:37

In some ways, I think this widow is a federal head of the people at that time, that there are many who are destitute.

44:42

We've seen them. We've seen blind Bartimaeus. We have seen beggars. We have seen demon -possessed in Mark.

44:48

And this woman, I think in many ways, is a show of all of them that she has nothing and just like Bartimaeus before and just like everyone who needed healing before, if they could just touch

44:59

Jesus, if they could just get close to Him, they knew they would be healed. And this woman comes up to the box and she knows, if I could just get close, if I could just trust

45:08

Him a little bit more, I know that He'll take care of me. That's what it is to be a Christian. It's not saying a bunch of complicated propositions.

45:19

She's the one that no one sees and no one knows about. But Jesus sees her and that's what's so important and critical about this text is that she's the one who's looked on as unimportant by everyone, but Jesus singles her out because make no mistake, my friends,

45:34

He sees everything you're doing and He sees every word that proceeds from your mouth and even more than that,

45:40

He doesn't need the external. He sees all the way into your motivating thoughts and He weighs those out and He knows them.

45:49

We mistake them. He never mistakes them. He knows them. Do you understand? The church's lifeblood is members like this widow.

45:57

Can you imagine what the church would be in America if our congregants and our elders had the heart of this woman who would give everything to follow

46:05

Christ? The success of the mission depends on God's power, not hers. She has no power.

46:11

She just gives all she has and it's not much. Do you think the mission of the temple was being furthered by this penny?

46:19

No, it was being furthered by her. By her faith. See, friends, this is not a message on tithing.

46:27

It is a message on we have to give sacrificially as though we truly love God. Do you give as though you truly love

46:35

God or do you give as though it's a vague commandment that you feel like you had to and you were taught by your parents?

46:42

It's not bad to be taught by your parents but it's much better to give hilariously out of our love for our

46:48

King that He comes around and we say, I'm gonna give you everything because you're going to protect me and save me.

46:55

See, this heart of the widow, we don't have to know if she loves her neighbors, do we? We don't have to.

47:01

It doesn't say anything about that here but we know because of her love of God that she absolutely loves her neighbors and she is a magnet in a culture who is disconnected and lonely and that's where we sit today.

47:13

Friendless, family -less, isolated, alone. We know this generation.

47:18

They get their jollies, they get their connection from Facebook, Instagram, Slapchat, whatever, post,

47:25

Snapchat, that's what I call it at school, Slapchat, right? Making fun of them. That is no connection at all.

47:31

This type of faith and this type of woman is magnetism for people who long for real relationships.

47:39

We have to love one another. Far less doctrinal showboating, far more love of neighbor, dependence on God, quiet resolve, and attention to the fundamentals of the

47:51

Christian life. I'll leave you with this. If Jesus is truly our

47:56

God, we owe him our allegiance. He demands it and we must give it.

48:04

Whatever you're holding back, let's put it on the table. And when you drive home today and when you think this week,

48:12

I want you to pray and I want you to ask, what am I holding back? What am I regarding that is a pollution?

48:18

What am I holding and pinning my hopes on? Pray that God would give you clarity. And remember, friends, where he often does that is he brings somebody to tell you.

48:29

And don't hate them. Listen. He brings people to tell.

48:35

And that's how this works. And that's how the mission of God is progressed. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, powerful words.

48:45

Powerful example. Lord, I fear that too often that we are like the scribes pounding our chests, praying out loudly and trying to draw people to our eloquence.

49:00

Lord, sitting in high places. But instead, Lord, you show us very viscerally that the heart that is near to you, the heart that is following you is the one who simply and quietly gives everything they have for your kingdom.

49:15

Lord, how often we need to be reminded and realize that we have nothing without you.

49:23

Lord, remind us as your church. We have plans. As Nehemiah did, we have a vision.

49:30

We have projects that we want to go forward with. But Lord, as we confess from the very start, help us to remember and help us to believe that you are the power behind the whole enterprise.

49:40

And if we miss you, we've missed everything. Lord, help us to be a people that live this way.

49:46

Help us to be a people who see things spiritually and understand the way things truly are. And Lord, we know that you will bless your people and keep us from condemnation, for there is no condemnation for those who are in you.