Message
Mark 12:30
All Your Heart
Over the next five weeks the sermons are going to focus on two verses of Scripture.
Mark 12:30-31
30 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: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.’
The sermon series will be called “All in Love”, and the five sermons will focus on
Heart.
Soul.
Mind.
Strength.
Neighbour.
If you have been around church even for a little while you would be familiar with these verses. Maybe not exactly where they can be found in the Scripture, but the actual verse is well known.
And they are not just well-known to Christians. These verses are also well known to the Jews. That is because Jesus here is quoting two Old Testament verses.
Deuteronomy 6:5
5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Leviticus 19:18
18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.
I can see that some of you have already picked up a difference between Deuteronomy 6:5 and Mark 12:30.
Deuteronomy calls us to love with heart, soul and strength.
Mark calls us to love with heart, soul, MIND and strength.
When we get to the sermon on the mind we will look at why there is a difference. For now, let’s put these verses in their context.
We read Mark 12:28-34
When you understand what it means to love God and your neighbour then Jesus Himself commends you.
These verses take us beyond mere religion … beyond offering and sacrifice.
These verses put us in a place where we are living wisely.
These verses equip us with essential kingdom character.
There is even a sense that – when you understand these verses – you will stop questioning and testing Jesus and you will just trust.
Now, this is not the only time in the Gospels that these verses from Mark 12:30-31 come up.
Jesus uses them in Matthew 22:37-39. That context is very similar to the one in Mark. But Matthew doesn’t give such an extensive record of the conversation between Jesus and the teacher of the law.
In Luke’s Gospel these verses occur in Luke 10:27 in a different context. There an expert in the law asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus turns the question around says, “Well what do you think?”
The expert in the law uses the same words as the ones in Mark. Which, by the way, is more proof that, in the days of Jesus, many people understand the significance of these verses.
Then this happens
Luke 10:29
But he (the expert in the law) wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”
Then Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. We will have a closer look at the significance of that situation and that context when we focus on loving our neighbour.
So that was a fair bit to take in – but now we have a good overview of the context and a broader biblical perspective on these verses.
Now let’s focus on what it means to love God with all our heart
From the outset let’s make it clear. Almost always, when the Bible uses the word “heart”, it is not talking about the physical organ that pumps the blood through our body.
But knowing the importance of the relationship between our physical heart and our physical body – really helps us to understand the importance of the relationship between our heart and our love for God.
Our physical heart is vital for life.
If our heart stops beating we die.
If our heart has defects it makes living very difficult.
Most the time you don’t even think about making your heart beat – it just happens.
Even in those terrible situations where people have had terrible accidents and they are completely unconscious. If you can do CPR – along with mouth to mouth – if you can do that you can keep a body alive.
And if medical personal can get that heart beating again, you can continue to live your life as if you had not been dead.
The physical heart is at the vital centre of your physical life.
The spiritual heart …
… I’m kind of hesitant to describe it that way.
It isn’t really a comparison between physical verses spiritual.
It is more about the vital centre of your identity.
What drives you and takes your focus.
It forms your worldview and it governs your character.
The heart is the essence of who you are.
That is how the Scripture sees it – both the Old and New Testament.
Let’s read Proverbs 4:20-23.
20 My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words.
21 Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart;
22 for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Everything you do flows from your heart.
The heart is the vital centre.
Not just in Old Testament thinking but also in Jesus’ thinking.
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Luke 6:45
What your heart is full of, that is what you verbalise.
The heart is the vital centre.
That is why the command to love God “with all your heart” is first on the list.
If your heart does not love God then it won’t make a difference what your soul and mind and strength are doing.
If your heart doesn’t love God then that lack of love is what is going to flow out.
You can put on a mask and pretend.
You can try and fool yourself with empty cliches.
You can go through the motions in a religious manner.
You can read all the Scriptures you like … and pray … and sing Psalms Hymns and Spiritual songs.
You can do all of these actions and activities, but if your heart doesn’t love God … then the reality is that we are dead to God.
… we will not have the capacity.
… we will not have the identity.
… we will not have the inclination.
… our vital centre will not be beating.
… to love God.
That is why the Gospel.
The Good news.
The message of love which is given to those who are dead in their sin.
That is why the Gospel is so important. The Gospel is the message of salvation that is able to bring a God-love beat to our vital centre.
The Gospel which cuts to the heart.
Paul says in Romans 10:8-9
8 (This is) the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
But not just saved in a moment of time, but saved in such a way that we can have confidence as we look towards eternity.
1 Corinthians 1:21-22
21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Here is a comprehensive message of love and grace.
The message of grace that comes to our heart and cuts into our heart in such a way that we can’t help but cry out “Jesus is Lord”. Not just with words – but our whole being – the vital centre – our heart
… giving us capacity.
… giving us the identity.
… giving us the inclination.
Our vital centre beating.
Jesus is Lord
Jesus is Lord
Jesus is Lord.
And in the days we have questions or doubts. Or when we are secure and at peace.
On the days when we cry out to God in lament. Or on the days when we shout in praise and wonder.
When we go through the valley of the shadow of death. Or when we sit secure in the fortress of God’s love.
If we struggle through the persecution that comes to the saints. Or we are praised for being a light on the hill.
In all of those times we have the Spirit in our heart. As a deposit of eternity. As a guarantee of salvation.
Moment by moment – whatever the moment – our vital centre beating.
Jesus is still Lord
Jesus is still Lord
Jesus is still Lord.
How great is our God.
He calls us to love Him with all our heart; but God knows exactly what we are like. God knows we can’t.
This verse … Genesis 6:5 … where the word “heart” is used in the Bible for the first time.
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
What an inditement against humanity!
The first mention of the heart and it is evil. That is the struggle we face as we seek to love the Lord our God with all our heart. Our heart just keeps getting in the way.
Jeremiah understood the situation so well.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9
Who can understand our heart?
Who can how easy it is to lose our spiritual fever?
Who can understand the fluctuations and the distraction and the disinterest?
Who can understand why, on Sunday, we can be so Christian … but on Monday we can be so worldly?
Who can understand the love we have for gossip, and the aversion we have to a disciplined life?
We can understand how that lie just rolls so easily from our tongue, and the how the justifications cascade?
Who can understand the restlessness and the lack of peace?
I certainly don’t.
You don’t either.
Only the One who created the heart … the vital centre … only He understands. That is the truth that enables us to love God with all out heart.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 if our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:19-20
God is greater than your heart.
God knows your heart.
God will do that is necessary to get your vital centre beating … even when that heart is dead.
But it will only happen if we are willing to see the truth.
Will we truthfully admit our sins, shortcomings, and weaknesses – or will we keep putting on a mask and keep pretending all is well?
Will we truthfully speak God’s foundation into our lives – or will we keep fooling ourselves with empty cliches?
Will we truthfully allow the Scriptures … and prayer … and Psalms Hymns and Spiritual songs to transform us each day – or will just keep going through the motions in a religious manner.
Be willing to see the truth. Give God all your heart.
Then everything you do … your capacity … your identity ... your inclination.
Everything … your soul … your mind … your strength.
Everything … will all beat to fulfill the call to love the Lord your God.
Prayer
