Mark 12:28-37, Do You Have Questions?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Mark chapter 12 verses 28 to 37 here the word of the Lord and One of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that he answered them

Well ask him which commandment is the most important of all and Jesus answered the most important is here

Oh Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one 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 The second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no other commandment greater than these And the scribe said to him you are right teacher

You have truly said that he is one and that there is no other besides him and to love him with all your heart with all the understanding with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all

Hobart offerings and sacrifices 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 and as Jesus taught in the temple

He said how can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself in the

Holy Spirit declared the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet

David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son and The great throng heard him gladly

Hey, the Lord had his blessings for the reading of his Holy Word Well, do you have any questions

Maybe instead of another sermon we have a question and answer time We'll go through every verse and we'll try to answer any questions you have about them and when we get to the end

We're done just like that We kind of do that on Wednesday nights Some professors prefer that kind of teaching called the

Socratic method or discussion style When I was a student, I usually didn't like it

I would get bored or maybe even irritated if another student asked bad questions

Now the professors would always say there are no bad questions and I would think yes there are

One professor of teaching of the Bible was particularly intent on getting us students to ask questions or participate

He thought this is the best way to teach the Bible get people participating asking questions And so when a Japanese man seated next to me said something the professor answered him and then said well

It's good that you spoke up because Asians are usually shyer about participating And then he said now every student in this class relatively large class has commented has participated except for one

And it's good to pry participation and then because I Was the one student who had not yet participated and ask any questions or made any comment?

He turned to me and said Don't you think so John? Do you have anything to say

Yes, why not and everybody laughed But asking questions is a good way to learn

Catechisms tease the faith through questions and answers like the Westminster Catechism Which begins with what is the chief end of man?

You know the answer questions drive Breakthroughs and understanding sometimes questioning the most basic things that everyone did just take it for granted

And thought to ask about like Isaac Newton questioned. Why do things fall? According to legend when an apple fell on his head and because he asked basic questions.

He discovered the laws of physics My professor at the University of Chicago first question sometime back in the 70s or even earlier what

American slavery was really like What were the conditions of the slaves? Was it economically efficient?

In other words did the plantationers did they choose this because this was good business, or did they just like to be lazy?

They were kind of pseudo aristocrats like Scarlett O 'Hara's father You know drink mint juleps and ride their horses while others did all the work

And so my professor did the research and found that it was unlike What it was pictured as it was efficient

It was good business and was thriving by the mid 19th century And he won a Nobel Prize for his work and that led him to another question the next question because since economists

Assume that if something is efficient if it's good business that it will spread it will last then

What ended slavery? To that question my professor confessed secular

Jew Said he was surprised to learn that Christians ended slavery

One question leads to another one question acts as a catalyst for further inquiry and discovery creating a chain reaction that leads to great breakthroughs a right answer can lead to more questions that you couldn't even dream of you wouldn't have thought to ask for example

Benjamin Franklin asked well, how can we stop these lightning strikes from setting our buildings on fire?

Well that led to the lightning rod We spark further questions about you know What materials best conduct electricity that led to electrical wires which led to the telegraph which led to the telephone which led to a widespread?

Electricity it's why we have lights right here right now in theology Martin Luther's driving question was how can

I be right with God? when he found the answer and He realized it was different Then what his church had taught he was faced with a question.

How do I know? Who is the authority? one question leads to another so Do you have any questions

Here we see Jesus answering and asking Questions this is after three hostile questions questions meant to trap him

There is one final question made of him and then he asked a question himself

We see that here in two parts first what then who our first question is

What is the greatest commandment? And it comes from a scribe who's just seen

Jesus answer those trick questions and he is impressed He sees that Jesus answered them

Says in verse 28 and thinks that this is a good time to ask a a burning question that he's been trying to figure out

And so he asked Jesus what commandment is the most important of all? It's a good question actually

His question is a common one like a lot of common questions people have today. Like how do

I know the Bible is true? You can answer that question with historical evidence Like recently the young apologist

Wesley Huff did on the Joe Rogan show or some ask Why do bad things happen to good people if God is loving?

Try not to be sarcastic when you answer back. Who are these good people you're talking about good people.

Who are they? Maybe you could say well It only happened once and it happened so the good things could happen to us bad people

This is a typical question Especially for the Jews of that day. They had 612 or 613

I think there's probably a debate about how many it is But whatever they had that many laws that they had to obey out of all those laws

Which is the most important so that can focus on that one? Well first, is there a greatest commandment?

That's an interesting question James chapter 2 verse 10 says whoever keeps the whole law, but fails at one point

Has become guilty of all of it So someone could argue that then all the laws are equal

They're all equally binding But the scribe is asking if there's one command that encapsulates all of the other commandments

So that if you do this one You will then necessarily Do all of them

The question is what is it and Jesus answered in verse 29. The most important is

Here Oh Israel Now this is from the Shema. He's quoting the Shema from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 or Shema It's from the first Hebrew word in that verse

Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 Which is Shema it means here this with their daily confession every day or twice a day

Jews were supposed to recite it here. Oh Israel the Lord our God The Lord is one and so the question is common in Jesus's answer really is it unusual?

It's not from some obscure passage or it has some previously new.

It's a previously hidden insight. It's totally new Sometimes the answers to your questions are just obvious What command and all the

Bible is the most important will go right to the most well -known Often recited passage the one we say every day telling us first to hear

Announcing that God is one. There's only one God and that's basic. This is

Monotheism other words belief in one God is the starting point before you ask any more questions about God You have to understand the oneness of God.

There's only one God described himself will say There is no other besides him So no matter what you ask later if you get an answer that there's multiple gods or you can become a god

You're getting wrong answers the serpent of the garden first ask a pernicious question

Has God really said? sometimes skeptics ask Pernicious questions meant to plant seeds of doubt has

God really said Is that what it really says? Now then

Satan promised Adam and Eve that when they eat of the forbidden fruit They will come like God and that's often the promise of false religion follow us and You'll become like God or even you'll become a god yourself

Mormonism promises that men can become a god over their own planet With a celestial marriage they call it perhaps many celestial marriages that last forever

And Jesus answered the question about marriages just before saying that they are only for this life Here Jesus says that only

God is God. The Lord is One there is no other besides him.

That's why Mormonism fails the very first question of being a

Christian Do you believe in only one true God? That's not what the scribe asked, but Jesus goes to that command.

He asked about what was the greatest commandment? That comes in the

Shema Here in verse 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 the most important command is love

But Jesus doesn't just mean a gushy or sweet disposition toward everyone

What is the greatest command first get the object, right? That's the one you are to love

He's the one Jesus just designated by quoting the Shema the Lord the one who revealed himself

By his name the I am who I am the one true God love him

Not just a general will choose love Like what is printed on the end zone of the Super Bowl choose love

Okay, what worthless advice? Everybody loves Everybody chooses love everybody loves something

They love themselves. They love their ego. They love their stomach They love football.

They love money They love Häagen -Dazs vanilla bean ice cream if they have good taste But to keep the greatest commandment, you must love the right one.

Some people love their families above all traditional Chinese culture even made a religion out of that filial piety family ism and People can look at that they can look at how people will sacrifice

Sometimes literally offering sacrifices to their ancestors to their dead ancestors, but more often giving all

To their living family. I think if people can look at that and think well, that is the greatest virtue to be a loyal family man or a woman that Jesus says

No, that's not it. That's not the greatest Some people love wealth They will obsessively pursue success and possessions.

They can't be in church on Sunday mornings They think because they got to make a few more dollars.

You're pursuing that wealth often, especially in this culture people love love

They love romance the relationship Placing the romantic partner above their commitment to the

Lord this week brings us Valentine's Day Which of the holiday to celebrate the

God of love eros But that's not what Jesus is talking about here

You've got to get the object of your love, right? the

Lord and notice Jesus says love What's the greatest commandment to obey

God because it to obey right? Is that just a good there are lots of commands to obey Practice the

Word of God be a doer of the Word Here these commands be sure to do them to obey them over and over again to the

Bible says that so why is it a Obedience the greatest command after all it's obedience for the greatest command

Then you could obey the command to love right? Man's me to love so I'm gonna love I'm gonna obey the command and I'll love

Except you can't You can obey the other commandments you can keep the

Sabbath you can honor your parents you could not murder You cannot commit adultery. You cannot steal. You're not slander. You can force yourself by sheer willpower

To obey all those other commandments, but you can't make yourself love

God What you need is a new heart that now holy loves

God You need that old cold Dead stone heart that love that love money or some idol.

You need that taken out and a new living warm heart put in That is pumping out now

Love for God, but you can't will yourself to have that heart

Indeed as long as you have that old dead cold stone heart

You will never want to have that living heart you'll never want

To love God the idea of loving God is it why so that would never be your free choice

You could be threatened with hell You could choose then to be religious you want to avoid I want to avoid hell

So I'm gonna be religious or I'll be moral I'll keep the laws or you could be convinced with good moral reasoning that keeping the commandments is best for you

If you keep these commandments, it'll keep you out of jail. It'll keep you out of divorce court and so forth

But you're still not loving God You're just loving the better life that keeping

God's law provides what you need and what you can never obey this commandment without is for God to do that surgery that heart surgery take out the old dead stone cold heart and Put that new living heart in and then it's pumping out love

What's the greatest commandment Is it to believe? Well, we're Protestants, right?

We believe in salvation through faith alone. Yes, we do Does that mean that faith that saves does not transform you to love

God that you can believe God? But not love him No, it doesn't mean that You're saved through faith alone, but faith that saves is never alone is never without love for the one you believe in a heart with true faith

Loves the Lord and if you love him Jesus said You will obey

My commandments, so if you love him You believe him and you obey him

So the what The greatest commandment that encapsulates all the others is the command to love the

Lord and That love is total. It's holistic. It encompasses all of you

It's from your heart your soul your mind and strength and now the heart the spiritual center of who you are

It's the hub of the wheel of your being it's where all your intentions your inclinations your desires your will

Things you enjoy things you like the all the other things you love they flow out of your heart

Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23 says that from the heart flow the springs of life

Your heart thing is like a spring There have been a mountain spring just gushing out pure water

Your heart is that spring where all the where all the rest of who you are is affected by it comes out of that so to love

God with all your heart is to be so centered on him that love for him then gushes out and Saturates all the rest of you all the rest of your life all your relationships or use of time and money and everything

Everything else that you love So loving God with all your heart with all your being doesn't mean that you don't love other persons or other things

You can indeed love many persons and things that you'll just say soon love neighbors

It means that now if you love God with all your heart you love them as a way of loving

God You love your mother As a way to love God you love your children as a way to love

God You don't love money, but you do love giving and so you want money and you'll work for money

So that you can love God with your giving You can love football even the

Super Bowl as a way to love God You love Haagen -Dazs ice cream the Haagen -Dazs vanilla bean ice cream

If you have good taste as a way to love the God who made it So loving God with all your heart flows out to the the three other realms of who you are your affections

Producing orthopathy your beliefs Your doctrine producing orthodoxy and your actions

Producing orthopraxy the ortho prefix means, right? So right affections affections pathos, right doctrines docs, right living praxis

So if your heart wholly loves God it then orients all the rest of you

To love God in the right way First you love God with all your soul.

The Greek word is where we get psyche from Your your thoughts your motions your perceptions your affections

What you like? What moves you? The love of your heart for God changes your soul changes your feelings

So you have an affection For God you desire

God you enjoy God you say with Psalm 73 verse 25 Whom have I in heaven but you and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you

You desire God when you love him with all your soul and so worship and it's hearing his word

Seeking him obeying him singing to him. Is this something you kind of you make yourself do?

Because it's a just a it's a dreadful duty. You think it's like a dieting or like taking medicine

You do it because you want the result you don't enjoy the thing No, you your soul wants to worship because you want

God your greatest desire is God and That shows in your emotions in your singing your enjoyment

Of praising the Lord in the feelings of joy and delight and all of having encountered

God from beholding Wondrous things in his word so you're filled with a sense of wonder when you hear about him

You enjoy God and you want you crave to enjoy him forever

This is why we have some songs in our services. There are mainly about expressing affections more love more power

More of you in my life Some people would scoff at songs like that.

Oh, that's so simplistic. It's so so childish. There's nothing there's no depth there There is there's a depth of feeling there and that's that's enough

More love to thee. Oh Christ more love to thee. This is my heart's desire

So we sing songs like that the Psalms are full of psalms like that a full of an intense feeling for God Psalm 42 verse 1 says as the deer pants for flowing streams so pants my soul

For you Oh God So our music should not only about be expressing right doctrine orthodoxy.

It should do that But not only that It should be expressing right affections a passion for God Orthopathy This is what

I like so much about John Piper's ministry. What's it named, you know? desiring

God It's a focus on delighting in God enjoying God what he calls Christian hedonism now

He's got sterling academic credentials. He could put that forward all his understanding his knowledge is a scholarship

But no, he puts forward you need to love me to a joy. You need to have pleasure in Seeking God and knowing

God Pursue God because you want to Because you enjoy him

You feel in your bones that your happiness comes from glorifying

God Rather than from fleshly pleasures or for money or stuff beware of ministries that are all about some secret insight or bare knowledge doing the right thing or the right disciplines or belonging to the right organization without any

Any feeling of delight in God loving God with all your soul

Means loving him with orthopathy Right affections

Then he says love God with all your mind Now in Greek, it's literally the word mine naos with the prefix dia like diameter

Going through so it's what goes through your mind So it's not just about the mind but the use of the mind the understanding thinking love

God with all your your thoughts the result will be Orthodoxy that's right doctrine the love of God from your heart will move your mind

To think right thoughts about God you want to think right thoughts about God Now the basic problem with most people who have false doctrine who are heterodox literally other than right doctrine their basic problem is

Not just with their thinking or that they're badly taught their people have been taught Well, they've been in churches that teach sound doctrine and somehow they still end up gravitating to some weirdo on the

Internet that teaches some nonsense What's wrong with them why do they go astray like that and There might be those who are new in the faith who are young and because of that they're not well taught yet They might have some heterodoxy some false doctrine, but if they love

God When you show them with Scripture the truth Well the love for God in their hearts will draw them to that truth

Say you show them that well the Father is God Jesus is God The Holy Spirit is a person and he's

God and there's only one God the Lord. I got is one the doctrine of the Trinity. Ah Maybe they were badly taught before by someone that that's not true.

Ah, they will see it They'll change their minds and they will repent but for most people with false doctrine their basic problem is not in their mind

It's not as you can try to teach them, but they won't accept the truth because their problem is in their heart

They don't love God Your bad doctrine shows that they love something else maybe their egos

They love something else more than God. So we have a confession of faith that expresses right?

doctrine Orthodoxy and if you love God with all your thinking

You'll love that Finally love God with all your your strength literally all your power your abilities

Everything that you can do you will love God with it exert your body your brain your will

To love God use your talents whatever you can do To love

God and that will show in your life and you're fleeing from youthful passions What you do with your body with your sex life keeping yourself from idols like greed covetousness

Living for things it appears in your checkbook and you're giving

It demonstrates itself in the time that you give to prayer and Bible reading and coming to church

You have to exert yourself to come here, right? You had to get up you don't clean yourself up you had to drive

It's an exertion and you love God with all your strength you apply yourself to be here to worship to hear the word

And we have a church covenant focused on white living Orthopraxy then surprisingly

Jesus adds the second greatest commandment. What does he do that? He wasn't asked about the second verse 31 He gives the second but described didn't ask him about the second greatest commandment only the first When Jesus gives him the second because it is like The first in the parallel passage of the same incident of Matthew Jesus explicitly says that the second is quote like the first now here in Mark It's implied by being attached to it as if to say that you cannot really describe the greatest commandment without also describing the second greatest commandment and it is

You shall love your neighbor Right your neighbors the person near you and most of us can't control who is near us, right?

God's in control of who's near us He brings people in across our path into our neighborhoods near us and we love them

Some people think well, I love some people love my family. Maybe I love people who are like me love my race

No, he says Your neighbor those that God puts near you you shall love your neighbor and yourself so if you love

God with all your heart, not only will that flow out or the pathy and orthodoxy

It will also flow out to the orthopraxy of loving your neighbors

That is people that God has put near you of whatever ethnicity even if like the parable of the

Good Samaritan They are from an ethnic group that your culture says you can hate or reject or suppress

So what do we do then in this culture? Where we had slavery racism and segregation living side -by -side with churches, can you love your neighbor and Enslave him

Jonathan Edwards the younger the son of the famous theologian as he saw in the late 18th century

What this new and it really was kind of new this new race -based Perpetual slavery was he realized at least this kind of slavery as practice in America the racist it was

Intergenerational that is there were no years of Jubilee. There's no opportunities for anyone to get out of it and Arise from man -stealing that this kind of slavery was a violation of the second greatest commandment

Which is like the first that it contradicts the commandment to love your neighbors He preached fervently

Against slavery because of that He was one of the pioneers of the movement to abolish slavery

Now the test of our loving others is Jesus his own golden rule Whatever you wish that others would do to you do also to them

You wouldn't want others enslaving you. It's an easy test Especially not just because you want them especially don't want to be enslaved because of your race

Keeping you and your children forever as property. So don't do that to others So as people were converted in America, they were given new hearts.

They loved God and they loved their neighbors even neighbors of another race, so they rejected slavery they then eventually

Voted against it that's how through the Great Awakening and Afterward to the preaching of men like Jonathan Edwards the younger

Most of the USA was turned against slavery for many because it was turned to Loving God Well, the scribe likes

Jesus an answer. You're right teacher He didn't sums it up with mark which mark reports for us as a way to emphasize

Jesus's teaching here Say it again repeating it. Love God with your whole heart understanding and strength and your neighbors yourself that he says to the implicit approval of Jesus is

Much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus saw that as a wise answer

This is a friendly exchange Between these two men and he concluded you are not far from the kingdom of God But that implies it describes missing something doesn't it think about it you're not far

He's not far. He's close But he's still not in it yet.

The question is what is described black? To be in God's kingdom that Jesus answers in the second question who

Starting in verse 35. Jesus asked the question. He's now answered everyone's questions. So well

Even avoiding the trap questions. Well, no one dares ask him any more questions But Jesus has one more question.

He wants to get to one more question. He wants them to begin thinking about and and that question answers what the scribe is lacking to be included in The kingdom of God he asked how can the scribes like this

Like this man. He just was dialoguing with how could how can they say that the Christ is the son of David now?

Remember mark has already established that Jesus is the son of David. That's the Messiah Bartimaeus Remember cried out

Jesus son of David have mercy on me and Jesus healed him

Accepting that title right then immediately next story in Mark Jesus has hailed coming into Jerusalem with Hosanna and Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father

David So whether the people he's talking to here in the temple versus 35 to verse 37 whether they know it

Jesus is talking about himself He is the son of David So his question is why do the scribes say that the

Christ Messiah same thing Jesus from Jesus point of view me? Why do they say I am?

the son of David In other words, who is the Christ? Who is he?

Is he just a son of David or? Something more someone more after all in Psalm 110

David writes Inspired by the Holy Spirit David didn't didn't just make this up himself the

Spirit carried him along inspired these words the Lord and the original Hebrew That's Yahweh the

I am who I am the one true God the Lord said to my

Lord and Hebrew my master. I don't I Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet now

Jesus's question in verse 37 is since David calls Him the

Christ the Messiah from Jesus point of view me Since Jesus since David calls him

Lord master How is the

Christ? David's son again, who is he?

Jesus is not questioning understand. Jesus is not questioning that the Messiah is David's son That's not what he's really questioning.

But how can the Messiah be both David's son and his

Lord? How is that possible why is David calling his own son

Lord Who calls their own son Lord Now your son could become the president of the

USA and you're still not going to call him. Mr. President Unless it's a sarcastic, you know, mr.

President take out the trash I hope Joshua reaches great success, but I don't care how high he gets.

I'm still not calling him Lord. It's not gonna happen Not gonna happen. No wonder what no matter how wealthy you get you could beat

Elon Musk. You're not no way I'm gonna do that. So what's going on here in Psalm 110? That's a good question

Well, the first question about the Greatest Commandment was was common The second question this question is a question they hadn't thought of But it comes out of the previous question one question leads to another it's what the scribes describe you answered him wisely

Didn't understand it was so still outside the kingdom of God What's he lacking?

To be in God's kingdom Well, who exactly to love with all his heart?

Who is the object of our wholehearted love who do we love?

Oh, yes, the Lord the one God. Well now why does David call his own son

Lord? Why? Doesn't make any sense to call your own son Lord Why does the here the

Lord the God? Promised to enthrone him to have him seated at the father's right hand While he puts all of David's son's enemies under his feet

Of course, he's the king of the kingdom of God The one thing of the wise scribe didn't recognize that was keeping him out of the kingdom of God Was who was the king of that kingdom?

Well, he's Jesus. We know that Jesus of course the son of David. He's the Messiah, but it goes beyond that Jesus is the king that the

Messiah was going to be the king was taken for granted But that still doesn't answer Jesus's disturbing question.

Why? Does David call him? Lord Jesus won't answer that question yet They aren't ready for the answer quite yet But they are about to see in Just a few days the father enthroned the son and put even death under his feet and then

They'll realize the answer to that disturbing question Why? Does David call him?

Lord because he is the

Lord he is the one God Whom you are to love with all your heart and soul

Mind and strength and show it by loving your neighbor as yourself. That's a question

They didn't even know existed And once they answer it rightly now finally

They are in the kingdom of God. So Have any questions?

Sometimes we're so wrapped up in minor questions like how can I give our money?

What's for lunch? Who's gonna win the Super Bowl? That we forget about the big questions like What is the chief end of man?

Do you know It's to glorify God and Enjoy him with all your soul mind and strength

Forever You can only do that if you love him

Jesus with all your heart the question for you now is