Mark 12:30-31
English Standard Version
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.”
Like most of you, I’ve been to a number of funerals in my lifetime. Some short, some long and some really long. A few were acquaintances that I only slightly knew. Some were co-workers or friends of our family. Some were funerals of family and friends that I will never completely recover from.
Regardless of whose funeral it was, I have found that there seems to be a constant at each one. An essential part. We hear about the life of our friend or family member. Perhaps a detail or two of new information we never knew, as well as a synopsis of what the deceased did with their life.
What they did with their life…..
What a seriously loaded question that is to answer. What did you do with your life?
A question like that can turn the most basic of us into a philosopher of sort. It can make us take stock of what we have done as well as what we are doing now. It can make us feel good or feel bad or even panicked.
But it should always give us pause.
Most of those funerals I mentioned, had a table dedicated to the deceased. Pictures, mementos, awards and even trophies. A baseball glove or maybe a hand sewn quilt.
I’ve put together such tables myself, for loved ones I have lost and I completely understand why we do it.
But Mark 12:30-31.
It causes me to stop and reflect on that tradition as it would relate to my own life and death.
If, when I have died and I am laying in the casket at the church, what if my family packs every table they can find? Will it be enough pictures? Enough mementos, awards, favored items or trophies? Will it show that my life was successful? That it had meaning? That it is was a life well lived? That I was loved?
I suspect it will not. In fact, I know it won’t.
Why is that?
But Mark 12:30-31.
The truth is this – it’s not about me and it never was. And if, if it was about me, it never should have been. Even at my funeral. My recognition, my SELF should not have been the focus of my live.
Succinctly put, my life was never meant to be about me. It was meant to be about my Savior. It was meant to be about my neighbor.
That’s some radical religion right there.
A thought that seems so antiquated and even downright fanatical in this day and age. “The world isn’t about you. Even your own life is not about you.” We were never made to be self-centered. In fact, it’s in direct contrast to why we were created.
In a world about self, or in an America that revolves and profits greatly on living for oneself, these statements will be labeled outdated and certainly out of touch. Again, antiqued. And that actually would be correct as this way of thinking is very old. Almost 2000 years old.
That piece of wisdom was shared by the Apostle Mark around 70 AD, give or take.
He got it from Jesus, and I imagine it was considered radical even back then.
Crazy, crazy talk. Can it be possible?
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. The second is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
As a Christian, it was never meant to be about me. It was about the Lord my God. And to take a step deeper into this way of thinking, is the idea that as a believer not living Mark 12:30-31 should be more fanatical, crazier to me than living it every single day. Living for myself, instead of for Jesus, should stand out as much more disconcerting and unsettling than the thought of living every single moment for Jesus and for my neighbor. But I submit that perhaps as a church we have not modeled the concept of Mark 12:30-31. So much so that the concept seems foreign to many.
And that’s on me. I’ve been a believer for over 50 years. I do know some believers who have lived life as described by Mark 12:30-31. But I know more who have not. Perhaps it’s been my associations over the years. Or maybe more Christians are living this deep call to the things of God, and I just haven’t recognized it.
But my concern is that, like me, maybe a lot of the church is not living this way. Perhaps living more to the standards of this world. If you are living Mark 12:30-31, I am truly grateful for you. The world needs to see the uncompromised living of the commandment that Jesus himself admonishes us to follow.
Because it was always meant to be a life for Jesus.
Contrary to what the world preaches from the featured article of most magazines, from many Facebook posts and many self-indulgent Twitter rants (embarrassingly raising my hand here), it’s not about self. It’s not about me. And truth of all truths, it’s not about our opinions or even about our feelings. Surely that can’t be right…. can it?
It can – but Mark 12:30-31.
From television program after television program and many, many movies. All telling me to live for myself. Make my life about driving the nicest car and living in that beautiful home decorated to the nth degree. Treat myself because after all, I’ll only live once and it’s about me.
And that would be wrong on both counts.
I’ll live beyond this life AND it is not about me.
But Mark 12:30-31
I’m not saying that I don’t matter. That we all don’t matter. We do. Very much so.
In fact, we matter so much that a man named Jesus died to pay the price for our selfishness. So great was the Creator’s love for us, he sent his only son as a sacrifice. That’s how much we matter.
It’s a lot.
So, this life we have, that Jesus died for, it’s not about me. It’s about him.
But Mark 12:30-31.
It’s about living a radical life of servitude to the Lord.
And then it’s about others. My neighbors. Each other. Again, his love for us shining through.
To me it is, at times, disconcerting to realize how much our Savior has made it about us. By living for him and for each other, it benefits, changes, and blesses us so much more than any self-centered existence ever could. It makes all the difference and can give us joy and true peace.
But still, my neighbor??? Have you MET my neighbor?
Did you know we once had a neighbor that backed into our car not once. Not twice. But THREE times? Denied it every time and once my husband watched it happen.
Love that neighbor?
But Mark 12:30-31.
Of course, the good news is yes. I am supposed to love him. Just as Jesus loved me every time I lived selfishly. Every time I lied. Every time I knowingly sinned.
More than seven times seventy.
Remember, the act of love doesn’t mean being accepting of the wrongdoing. The sin in whatever form. It means to love them, pray for them and work to be a light to them. With sin comes consequence. It means helping them and showing them the way God has planned it. But loving someone doesn’t mean enabling their sin. It means loving them in spite of it and praying for them. Working for a turnaround in the lives. Like Jesus does for us every day.
I recently heard it put this way by Rev. Calvin Robinson, ‘Christ spent time with tax collectors and prostitutes. But it is they who went away changed, not Christ.’ Being Christlike, always the best way to love your neighbor.
Can I live this radical life? Me. A radical.
The world (and Oxford dictionary) says a radical is:
adjective
1. (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.
“a radical overhaul of the existing regulatory framework”
2. advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party.
Boy, there is a lot there and it would take hours to completely unpack it all. But let’s just work with ‘affecting the fundamental nature of something.’
Well loving Jesus with every part of my life would absolutely and fundamentally affect the nature of my relationship with him. How could it not?
Loving him with ALL my heart. Loving him with all my mind. Loving him with all my soul and all my strength. That’s everything. Again, how could it not cause a fundamental change in me?
Could many of us, as Christians, not be living this radical life? Have we been, perhaps, halfway in? Maybe even lukewarm?
Then there is part two. Complete political or social change.
Again, a lot there in the political and social side. But let’s talk about the word ‘complete.’
That sounds like 100%. Everything on every level. And putting God first as individuals would surely lead us to put God first as the church. And loving our neighbors as well. Every day. Can it be done?
I can’t answer for the church, and I can’t answer for you. But I can answer for me.
Can I live my life wholly devoted to loving my Savior? To loving my neighbor?
Maybe not.
But I think I’d like to try.
As John MacArthur has said, not in perfect obedience, but in imperfect obedience.
Given what he has done for me. What he does for me daily, how can I not? How can I not love him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength?
But Mark 12:30-31.
So, when that day comes and it is me lying in that casket, I know 2 things:
1. I don’t want any pictures, mementos, awards, or trophies displayed. I’d like to have my bible displayed. Just my Bible. If I was living my life according to Mark 12:30-31, I can’t imagine any greater representation than the words that my Father gave me. And it is my deepest desire that it alone reflects who I am and what I was. In Him. In Christ. It was about Jesus. Not me. Jesus.
Let that Bible truly reflect whether my life had meaning, not as some hypocritical showing of pious religiosity, but of a life lived in Mark 12:30-31. That it was never about me. And other than our Savior, who would know better than the people sitting in that sanctuary whether that Bible is a reflection of my life? The people who lived it beside me.
2. The second thing I know is this, the very best part of my life has just begun.
So again, when that day comes, I hope you will all leave my funeral with true joy in your hearts. I hope you will hold the biggest, loudest, and happiest party that I’ve never been to. Because if I have lived Mark 12:30-31, I am complete. I have served my God. I have found and entered through that narrow doorway. The final chapter, eternity has begun for me with my Savior.
But Mark 12:30-31.
