Jesus on Deuteronomy Part 1: Will You Be My Neighbor?

[00:00:00] Continuing to talk about the Shema. How many of you remember what the Shema is? [00:00:06] Nobody does. Okay. All right. No gold stars at the door, Michael. All right, so the Shema is this Old Testament verse out of Deuteronomy. [00:00:15] Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Very good. Yeah, yeah. And then after that, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses goes to and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. [00:00:32] And you shall also love your neighbour as yourself. [00:00:36] We've been talking about that from Moses viewpoint. And so as I get together with the preaching prep, and we talked about how to kind of direct this so that we could get something out of it and really take it with us and walk with it and have it change our lives. [00:00:51] Someone, I don't know who it was, but came up with the idea and they said, what do you think Jesus take on this is? [00:00:58] So that's what we're going to look at today. [00:01:00] This is called Jesus on Deuteronomy. And it's called Won't yout Be My Neighbor? And I have a great picture for you this morning. I know you're all thinking about this. [00:01:11] When Mr. Rogers got up there and he took off his shoes and he put on his sweater and he sat there and he welcomed everybody into his neighborhood and he said those famous words. And now I know you want to say it, won't you be my neighbor? Who was he talking to? [00:01:29] Right. He was talking to a television screen. He was talking to the viewers over the air. And I wonder what he meant by that because he was also a pastor. I don't know if, you know, the background of this particular individual had a great testimony, a great walk with Jesus Christ. [00:01:47] And I think when he said, won't you be my neighbor? He intended for it to sound like much like Jesus did. But the challenge is, you know, if some stranger showed up at his house and said, hey, I heard over the radio, over the TV that you said, I could be your neighbor, I'd like to come in and have dinner with you, I wonder how he would respond. [00:02:08] And I started thinking about that. And it's one thing to say, won't you be my neighbor? Sounds very inviting, it sounds very intriguing, sounds very loving. But what exactly does it mean? What was he willing to do for all of his neighbors over TV land? [00:02:24] I mean, he did a good job. He developed character, sparked imagination. But do you really want all of these people, everybody who watches on TV in your living room, so the Question is, what does it mean to call somebody your neighbor? Again, back to the Shema. Hero. Israel, Lord our God. The Lord is one. [00:02:44] Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. [00:02:49] So here's my question to you. Who is and is not your neighbor? Because whoever it is, you should love them as yourself. Crazy. It's a crazy thought. [00:03:01] So what we're going to talk about this morning is how would Jesus answer this question? [00:03:07] All right, I want to take you to the book of Luke. If you're using your Bibles, which I'd encourage you to do, or your tablet or your. Your phone or something. Luke, chapter 1025. By the way, if you need a Bible, we have Bibles here. We'd love to give you one so that you can have one put on your bedside table and start your day off in God's word. But this is a passage of scripture in Luke, chapter 10, where a lawyer comes and talks to Jesus. Brent. [00:03:34] Lawyers need to talk to Jesus, don't they, Brent? [00:03:38] Yes, they do. [00:03:40] Brent is a Christian lawyer, one of the 5% who are. And so we're great. No, I'm just kidding. [00:03:48] You may not know this, but Brent actually has a ministry outside of this church where he ministers to young lawyers, you know, people who've been veterans in the legal profession, and he serves them. He's been doing this for how many years he's been doing this, Brent? 5, 0, 50 years. [00:04:03] And he's been investing his life into the lives of these lawyers. And so I tease him, but I have great respect for Brett. [00:04:13] Oh, it's a higher percentage than that. It's gone up this past year then. [00:04:18] So in your Bibles, Luke 10:25. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, which is what lawyers love to do. Teacher, he said, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, Jesus said to him, well, what is written in the law? Have you even read it? [00:04:36] So a lawyer goes because he's a lawyer. So Jesus needs to ask that. And so have you read the Bible? [00:04:42] And he answered, verse 27, you shall. This is the lawyer saying, you shall. Oh, my goodness. He has read it, and this is what he picks out of it to tell Jesus, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. He got it. He got the gold star. [00:05:01] This is. This is. Jesus himself said, this is the greatest commandment. The second is like it love your neighbors. So he has now knocked it out of the park. It was a home run. [00:05:11] And he said to him, jesus said, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. [00:05:18] But then. [00:05:20] Then the lawyer asked the question, okay, in order to justify himself. Notice that in order to justify himself, probably for the way he's been behaving, the lawyer asked to Jesus, okay, and who is my neighbor? [00:05:40] Who am I supposed to love as myself? What is my real responsibility here? Now, I don't know about you, but this seems like an easy question. And this week I put an enormous amount of time into this message because I had trouble answering this. [00:05:59] It was because we say, love your neighbor as yourself, right? Well, I love myself, so I provide for myself. I keep myself clean. I feed myself. [00:06:07] I make sure that I have a roof over myself. I do a lot of things for myself. And if I'm to love my neighbor as myself, doesn't that mean I owe them the same kind of treatment? And if I do, holy smokes, I need to earn a lot more money, wouldn't you say? [00:06:24] That's a lot of provision. [00:06:28] Is my neighbor the person you're gonna hate? This list, this is gonna make you not like coming here, but give me a little bit of. [00:06:35] A little bit of leeway here, all right? Is my neighbor the person who mistreated me badly on the phone? Cause I had that happen this week. [00:06:43] God always likes to. Like, I'm studying something, and God goes, oh, you wanna love your neighbor? Here, talk to this person on the phone. [00:06:52] Is my neighbor the person who treated me badly on the phone? Is it the customer service rep who talked down to me? [00:06:59] Is it the person who lives next door? Is it my spouse? Is it my children? All right, that, believe it or not, is the easy list. Let's get a little harder. Is it the sibling who frustrates me? [00:07:10] Is it the angry driver who cut me off? [00:07:14] My wife is saying, amen, Craig, I could see why this was a difficult message for you to do. [00:07:19] Is it the boss who embarrassed me? Let's make it even a little harder. Is it the police officer? [00:07:27] Is it the felon in prison? Is it the robber who stole my stuff? [00:07:33] Is it the Ukrainian whose house got bombed by the Russians? Is it the Russians who got drafted to bomb the Ukrainians? [00:07:44] Who is my neighbor? [00:07:46] And I could go on and on, but now this list hopefully just kind of sparked your thinking. And so I'm trying to get you in the same dilemma I've been in all week. [00:07:57] So let me ask you the Same question, church. If you love God and you are supposed to love your neighbor, who is your neighbor? Who is that? Exactly. [00:08:11] Now, let's make this a little bit harder. [00:08:13] The Internet demands that you are required to have a heart for every person in every situation. [00:08:21] Care about this crisis, and they will give you a new thing to care about every five days. [00:08:27] Care about this crisis, care about this injustice, care about this person, care about this story. And if you don't, you're heartless. Do you feel like that? [00:08:36] And so people are chasing all of these causes, and it's causing a great deal of frustration. And. And if you think that this world is feeling a little bit more angry, I think this might be the reason why. [00:08:48] Nobody likes to be told that they're wrong. Nobody likes to be told that they're less. Nobody likes to be told that they're heartless. But if you don't follow this crisis or this social incident, then you are heartless. [00:09:02] And in a way, they're kind of right. Because aren't those people my neighbor? [00:09:08] But this is impossible. [00:09:12] You go to downtown Chicago, try to walk down Lakeshore Drive, Michigan Avenue, try to do Michigan Avenue from one side to the other, and give five bucks to everybody who asks you for it. [00:09:23] You're not gonna be able to pay your mortgage by the end of the day. Right? [00:09:28] You can't fund every GoFundMe. You can't rescue every child that's caught in trafficking. You can't solve every global crisis. It is a frustrating way to live. People try, and they burn out. So what happens is people end up not caring about what the greatest cause is, but what the loudest cause is. [00:09:50] Whoever makes the loudest amount of noise gets all the attention. [00:09:55] And so we're left with, as Christians, why bother? Why do anything at all? [00:10:01] It's not my problem to begin with. So if you have felt like this, and I hope that you have, because this is kind of where I've been living. Like, how do I meet everybody's issue? How do I help every person? [00:10:15] Let me help you this morning, because we are called to love our neighbor like Jesus loves his neighbors, right? And we are called to love our enemies like Jesus loved his enemies. And we are called to expand our neighbor categories, just like Jesus expanded his disciples. Neighbor categories. [00:10:36] They're sitting there having dinner with prostitutes and Samaritans, and it's like, you know, we've never experienced this as good Jewish kids before, and now they hang out with Jesus, and they're going to all of these questionable places, and Finding out, oh, these are all my neighbors and I need to love them as myself. [00:10:58] But while we do that, we need to talk about it on a practical and wise level. [00:11:03] So I want to take you to our main passage this morning. It's out of the Book of Mark and it starts again with the Shema. It's another time that Jesus talks about the Shema and it's a great one. [00:11:15] It's a day when Jesus is in the temple. It's about two to three days before his crucifixion. [00:11:21] So people are gunning for him. He's got a target on his back. The last place Jesus should be is at the temple. [00:11:27] But he's at the temple. [00:11:29] He is well known by the religious authorities of the day who are looking to kill him. He's just raised Lazarus from the dead. And Lazarus is the new guy hanging out with the disciples. He's following Jesus everywhere because it's really hard to talk down the message of the guy who raised the dead guy from the grave. [00:11:47] So Jesus brings along this illustration and he doesn't have to do anything. He's just walking along and people going, hey, that's Lazarus. He was dead five days ago. [00:11:56] That's a good illustration. [00:11:59] Jesus is walking around and he is a big target. [00:12:03] You can see it in Mark chapter 11 and 12. Because every group comes to hurt him. [00:12:10] Every group comes to trap him. First we have the chief priests, the scribes and the elders. This is in Mark 1127. These three groups, chief priests. And by the way, there's only supposed to be one chief priest. Did you know this? But there are multiple chief priests because Rome has gotten involved. Politics and religion, they mix well, don't they? So Rome has gotten involved and now they could get multiple chief priests. [00:12:33] Go figure. Not supposed to, but. So we got chief priests, we've got scribes, and we have chief elders of the people. They come in order to trap Jesus. Just like the lawyer we read earlier. Mark 12:12. [00:12:48] Jesus answers a question with a parable, and they hate Jesus parables and it ticks them off. Matthew 12:12. They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. [00:13:02] They knew they were the bad guys, the antagonist of the parable. [00:13:08] So they left him and they went away. They're too afraid to arrest him, but they didn't give up. They went to another group that wanted to hurt Jesus, called the Herodians. Now please understand, chief priestscribes and elders don't get along with Herodians. [00:13:24] But the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So let's go get another group and we'll send in reinforcements. So they didn't even like the Herodians, so they send in the Pharisees. Pharisees come in. [00:13:38] These people, they didn't like them. Mark 12:13. And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk. [00:13:48] They failed. [00:13:49] He made them look bad with a parable. So they go. They go find some other people. They say, you go try it. Go get this guy. [00:13:57] They wanted to know how a good follower of Rome should pay taxes to Rome. [00:14:04] After all, don't we owe God our ultimate allegiance? [00:14:09] So Jesus does the whole. You know whose picture is on this coin, by the way? A little bit of background. [00:14:15] The Jewish people hated to have images, faces on things. So Rome had the face of Caesar on the coin because Caesar, they thought they were God. So they put them on the coins. And they could only pay their taxes with Roman. [00:14:33] Yeah, they could only pay with Roman coin. And so they had to carry. They hated carrying around these coins because that's how they had to pay the tax. [00:14:43] So Jesus answers their question with a very famous verse that you probably know. Jesus said to them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him because he said, you can be a good citizen of Rome, even though we hate them, and you can also be a good citizen of the kingdom of God. [00:15:05] It was brilliant. But they were bested. And so they left and they went and they went to get another group called the Sadducees. You don't want to be a Sadducee because they're Sadducees. So they went to get the Sadducees and they jump in and they give Jesus this question. All right, let's say a guy is married to, like, this woman, and. And then he dies. So the woman marries another guy, and then he dies, and then she marries another guy and he dies, and then she marries another guy. I'd say, don't marry the woman anymore. But, you know, he dies. And then they get to heaven. Whose wife is she? [00:15:39] And they think they got him. They think they got him, right? And Jesus says, you morons, here's the thing. Sadducees don't even believe in the resurrection. [00:15:49] So they gave him a story they thought would stump him about the resurrection, because they knew he believed in the resurrection of the dead. [00:15:58] So he's not kind to them. And here's how he finishes. He basically says, listen, God is the God of the dead and God is the God of the living. There's no marriage in heaven. God is the God of your soul as soon as it begins at conception. [00:16:15] Mark 12:27. I love this verse. [00:16:18] Jesus says, our loving Christ says he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong. [00:16:28] Wouldn't you love for Jesus to say that to you? [00:16:31] I think you're mistaken, but you are dead wrong. Like, I'll pray for you because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. All right, each group has failed. [00:16:44] Target's on Jesus. And they can't hit him. They try. Can't hit him. Can't do it. [00:16:49] So one scribe, one lowly scribe. And that's really important. [00:16:54] Not a group of scribes. 1. Say it with me. How many scribes came to see Jesus? [00:16:59] One scribe. I don't know why he was there. I mean, the Bible actually says there was so much of a commotion. There was a huge crowd gathering because Jesus. [00:17:09] People would shoot him. Ching. And they would shoot, Ching. And he would shoot. He would ching. And people were like, oh, yeah, this is good. Come and see this. And so people were actually gathering, the Bible says, because there was so much of a commotion, because Jesus was just nailing him left and right. [00:17:23] So the scribe was there, but he's not with his buddies. He's by himself. [00:17:29] Verse 28 says one of the scribes came up and heard him. Heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, oh, here we go. [00:17:42] Jesus, what is the most important commandment of all? [00:17:49] Unlike the others, he takes Jesus on one at a time. His motives are different. He sees not somebody that he can shoot, not a target he can take out, but he sees somebody that has his admiration. Jesus is answering with smart answers, and he sees that he answered them well. And so he comes to Jesus out of admiration. Admiration. And he chooses his topic carefully. [00:18:13] He chooses his topic. Which is our question from last week. What is the most important commandment? Boil all of the Torah down. Boil all of the prophets down. Boil for us. Boil all of the Old Testament down. What's the most important thing? Because there's a lot of stuff in there. [00:18:30] He wonders what Jesus will say. Now, let me give you a little bit of background about the scribes. [00:18:36] The scribes were. [00:18:38] Well, they were the lawyers. They were the lawyers of the day. [00:18:43] They knew the Torah better than any. They had to memorize the entire Torah word perfect, turn to a page, and, you know, Jimmy at the front, he would say, okay, little Johnny, what's on page 125? And in the middle of the page, quote it. And they would do it. [00:18:59] They knew this Torah better than the Pharisees. [00:19:03] Most likely all of them had the Torah memorized their whole lives. They were called scribes because their whole lives was just copying, copying, copying, copying the prophets, copying the Old Testament and teaching Scripture. And they often debated. Lawyers love to debate. They love to debate how to summarize. The Pharisees had boiled down all of the commandments into 613. [00:19:28] And so they always love to talk about how they're all related and how to summarize all 613. And because of their knowledge of the Scriptures, they love doing debates. How many angels dance on the head of a pin? I mean, they love that kind of conversation, the scribes. Therefore, this one particular scribe asked Jesus the biggest debate question he could think. [00:19:52] He said, narrow it all down. Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? Verse 29. You already know how Jesus would answer, right? Here's how he answers verse 29. The most important is Shema. You want to say it? It's fun to say. Here we go. Hear, O Israel, read it with me. The Lord our God. The Lord is one. That's the Shema. [00:20:15] That's great. And then he added the next part, the part that follows that we talked about last week. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. [00:20:27] And the second commandment is, like it, love your neighbor as yourself. There's no other command greater than these. [00:20:33] God is one. [00:20:35] Therefore our devotion to him should be one, undivided. Like, remember the thermostats last week? We need one thermostat working the furnace of our heart. We are devoted to one God, not multiple. We kill the idols. We worship the one true God. [00:20:52] And so since God is one, we worship him alone as God. [00:20:56] He has all our heart, all our soul, all our strength. [00:21:00] And the scribe said to him, this is the funniest verse in the Bible, right? So if you ever are talking to somebody and they say, what's the funniest verse in the Bible? Underline this. This is the funniest verse, verse 32. And the scribe said to him, you are right, teach. [00:21:17] Hmm. [00:21:18] You have truly said that he is one and there's no other beside him. I want you to get what's happening here. The scribe says to Jesus, the one who wrote the Bible? [00:21:32] The one and true living God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. I mean, this is Emmanuel, God with us. This is Jesus, given to us for the salvation of our souls. This is our Christ. This is Mashiach, Messiah from the Old Testament. This is Jesus. And this is the scribe. [00:21:53] And the scribe says to Jesus, Jesus, you're right. [00:21:59] That's pretty cocky, wouldn't you say? [00:22:02] You're going to get to heaven someday. [00:22:04] And Jesus is going to say, all right, give me your hardest question. And you say, okay, Jesus, I'm going to give you my hardest question. All right, what's the. [00:22:15] What's two times two? [00:22:17] And Jesus says, well, that's easy. That's four. And you say to Jesus, I'm amazed. Jesus, you got it right. Congratulations. [00:22:25] That's the dumbest. That's the cockiest thing the scribe tells Jesus. [00:22:32] Wow, you're smart. [00:22:36] I think that's the funniest verse in the Bible. And if it's not, I haven't done a good job of explaining it to you, and that's on me. [00:22:44] Then to almost prove himself to Jesus, he takes it one step further. [00:22:48] And to love him, verse 33, the scribe says, and to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as yourself. [00:22:58] And this is the key thing is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. [00:23:06] The scribe teaches Jesus, or he thinks that he is the scribe who thinks he knows the Bible better than this young rabbi, 33 years old at this time. [00:23:18] This scribe who has been taught his whole life, probably an older guy, probably a guy that's been versed, and he's probably a teacher taking on Jesus that all the other teams of people have failed to put into place. This scribe says to Jesus, you. You're right, Jesus. And don't forget, there's some other stuff in there that's better than sacrifices and offerings. And Jesus is going, come on, man, you know who you're talking to. [00:23:48] The reason he says it is because the scribe is proving his place in history. [00:23:55] The scribe is proving his existence as a scribe. [00:24:00] The Pharisees would disagree with this. [00:24:02] The Pharisees would say, sacrifice is more important than love. [00:24:07] You don't have to love somebody. You just have to do the right thing. [00:24:12] They didn't understand that loving was over obedience. [00:24:17] This was Saul's issue in the Old Testament. When Samuel comes up to him and he says, what is wrong with you? Why didn't you wait for me before you went into battle. And we why are you disobeying by. By taking things off the field that I said to leave behind. They're unclean. And Saul says to Samuel, well, I just did it because the people made me do it. And I'm trying to control stuff. And it was chaos of war, and I couldn't help it. And Samuel says to Saul, he says, don't you understand? [00:24:42] Obedience is better than sacrifice, because obedience comes from the heart. Obedience is something you give out of a heart of love. [00:24:52] The Pharisees would say, that is not it. They would say, sacrifices protect Israel. It protects our integrity, it protects our identity. We have to keep sacrificing, even if you don't feel like it. So the action is bigger than the love. [00:25:14] This would disagree with the Pharisees. [00:25:17] It would also disagree with the Sadducees, by the way. And you don't want to be a Sadducee because they're really Sadducees, right? [00:25:24] The Sadducees, they control the entire temple system. They benefited politically and financially from what's happening at the temple. They were the keepers of the temple, and so they don't want to lose their temple. So you not only had to do sacrifices, you've got to do all the feasts, you've got to do all the festivals, you've got to be at temple on time, you've got to be at a church on time. And if you're not at church on time, you're going to hell. [00:25:47] The Sadducees were in charge of the religious system, and they would disagree with this too, because they would say, it is more important that you keep religion at the center of your heart than love. Love, forget about it. Love is just a feeling. [00:26:03] But as long as you keep going to church, as long as you keep going to temple, as long as you keep doing the right things and supporting our way of life, then love is not that important. [00:26:16] It threatened their entire institution. [00:26:19] This guy, this scribe was validating his own behavior is what he was doing. [00:26:26] The scribes actually had begun to believe a disoriented view of neighbor. The scribes and everybody else had identified neighbor as something completely different than what God had identified in the Old Testament Deuteronomy. [00:26:39] Here's what happened. Over time, loving your neighbor began to meet other things than what God intended. In Matthew 5, two years before this occasion, two years before what we're reading today, Jesus is teaching. [00:26:51] He's teaching one of his longest sermons that we actually have in Scripture, the Sermon on the Mount, and in Matthew 5. He says, Jesus says, you've heard that. It was said, you shall love your neighbor and read the next one for me. [00:27:05] Hate your enemy. [00:27:07] But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Do you want to know why? Because neighbor doesn't mean what you think that word means. [00:27:16] Over time, these people have begun to think that neighbor meant something different than what God intended. [00:27:28] Can you just hear the words echoing? How many of you have seen Princess Bride? I can just hear the words in my head right now. I can hear the words in my head. Callie, can't you hear the words in your head? Callie, Keep using the word. I don't think it means what you think it means. [00:27:44] Oh, no sound. [00:27:47] That was my punch for the day. Do you think it means what you think it means? Find the sound back there. [00:27:51] No, you keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means. [00:27:55] What you think it means. One more time. [00:27:59] You keep using the horn. I don't think it means what you think it means. Yeah, I worked so hard at putting that right in at the right time. You keep using the horn. I don't think it means what you think. Okay, we get it. All right. [00:28:12] They had been taught that neighbor meant something other than what God intended for neighbor to mean. [00:28:18] They had been taught that neighbor meant their fellow Israelites, those inside their group, those like them. Neighbor implied. [00:28:26] These are your neighbors, the people who are close to you, the people who you rub shoulders with. And so those outside of your group, those are not your neighbors. Those are strangers. And in some cases, those are your enemies. And so while the teaching of Jesus Day that everybody heard came from Deuteronomy, it got twisted. [00:28:49] So that neighbor did not mean what God intended in Deuteronomy. It meant something completely different. It meant the people that you like, the people that are like you. Same skin color, same belief systems, same religious orientation, same political orientation, those are your neighbors. But everybody outside of that, they're in a different camp. [00:29:09] And as that teaching went on, it even got to the point where those outside of your camp are strangers and some are even your enemies. So while you need to love your neighbors, you can hate your enemies. That's nowhere in the Bible. [00:29:24] Nowhere. That's why Jesus said, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemies. And Jesus is going, I don't know where that came from, because that's nowhere in the Bible. [00:29:40] Love your neighbor meant insiders. And that gives you the ability, allows you to hate your enemies. Actually, in The Quran, they have found scenes in, in this area of Israel called Qumran, they buried a lot. This is where we got the Dead Sea Scrolls from. In the Qumran they actually found literature that said, and I put it up here so that you can see where it came from. Love all the sons of light and hate all the sons of darkness. [00:30:09] When it was written in Deuteronomy, God intended your neighbor to be everybody. [00:30:14] And then over time, by the time Jesus shows up on the scene, now neighbor is only a small group of people. [00:30:22] It's not everybody. [00:30:24] And so Matthew 5, Jesus is not quoting scripture. [00:30:28] This is like us believing things are in scripture that they're not. Cleanliness is next to godliness. [00:30:33] Is that in the Bible? [00:30:35] No, I wish it was, but it's not. [00:30:40] How about the truth shall set you free? Is that in the Bible? [00:30:44] Yes, it absolutely is. But it does not mean what everybody thinks it means. [00:30:51] It's so silly. Everybody uses this verse. Do you know what the truth shall say? You can look it up in your Bibles. It's right there in the. Jesus said it. [00:30:59] But what he said before that was, you've got to know Jesus, you've got to know me. You've got to accept me. [00:31:05] And if you know me as truth, that truth will set you free. It's not My truth will set you free. That's garbage. [00:31:15] Everybody on TV is going, you got to believe my truth, that truth will set you free. [00:31:19] You got to read the Bible because Jesus says, you've got to believe in me. I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. He is the truth. And therefore, if you believe in him, you believe in the truth. That's what Jesus meant. We use all kinds of scripture. [00:31:37] God works in mysterious ways in the Bible. [00:31:39] Nope, not in the Bible. [00:31:42] So just like them, we kind of listen to some things and think they're in scripture and they're actually not. That's why Jesus said, you've heard it said, love your neighbor, hate your enemies. I'm telling you, you've been taught wrong. [00:31:56] Verse 34. [00:31:58] When Jesus saw that, he answered wisely. This is the scribe with his answer. Remember, he just said, to love God is more important than obedience. It's more important than sacrifices. [00:32:10] When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, now that's the funniest verse in Scripture. Here's the saddest verse. [00:32:18] They're right next to one another. [00:32:20] When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you're not far. [00:32:25] You're not far from. From the kingdom of God. [00:32:28] And after that, no one else dared ask him questions. [00:32:33] Do you know what you're not far means? [00:32:36] It means you're not there. [00:32:40] Knowing the right answers isn't the same as entering the kingdom of God. [00:32:44] Jesus is saying to the scribe, you know a lot of Bible. [00:32:49] You even know kind of how to apply it, but you're not applying it yourself and you're not there. [00:32:58] He knew the Scriptures, but he refused to apply them. He chose wisely, he accepted poorly because his life was abusing other people. We'll talk about that in just a minute. [00:33:10] Before we get there, I want you to see how Jesus viewed the scribes as a group, because this is important. Here's how he thought of the group of scribes, not this one, but. [00:33:20] But the people this one worked with. Here's what he said. Verse 38. In his teaching, he said, same passage, Mark 12, but down about five verses. In this teaching, he said, beware of the scribes. Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces. And they have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows houses. Does that sound good or bad? [00:33:47] And for pretense, that's plaything, all right. That's play date stuff. And for pretense, they make long prayers. Their prayers mean nothing. [00:33:58] They will receive church. [00:34:00] How great a condemnation? Just a condemnation or greater condemnation. [00:34:07] Why? Because they knew the Bible so well and they didn't apply it. [00:34:15] They operated as lawyers who could apply the law. This was their job. [00:34:19] Scribes would oversee. This is what they did for a living. They overseed disputes about property or estates because they are under the religious law of the Old Testament. [00:34:28] So since the scribes knew the Old Testament better than anyone else, they oversaw all of these disputes. [00:34:34] When somebody died, whose property went to who, they oversaw that dispute. They interpreted contracts between people. They would often oversee the property disputes for widows whose husbands had died and had no one to fight for them. That's where this is coming from. These lawyers were supposed to be standing up for their neighbors, but they weren't. They were using their position to get rich and to take advantage of people. Because they knew stuff, but they didn't love people. [00:35:03] See, these scribes would devour widows houses. That's the bad meaning. They would charge excessive fees to widows. In particular, they had property. They got money, they can pay it. Or pressure widows to dedicate property or to the temple, because they got paid through the temple. [00:35:25] These guys, they were a combination of lawyers and TV evangelists basically. The scribes were often greedy, power hungry, selfish and manipulative. [00:35:39] And they should know the Bible. They stood on the Bible and they validated every wrong opinion they had with God's word. [00:35:48] Here's the thing. The people knew they were getting messed over. The people knew they were getting it. They knew these scribes were crooked, but they didn't have any choice, they had to use them. [00:35:58] They didn't know the Old Testament like the scribes did. This is all the scribes did was Old Testament law. So when they needed something legal done, they had to go to a scribe. And these scribes would hurt people. And Jesus had no patience for them. He said, not only will they be condemned, they're going to be condemned greater than other people. Why? Because they're taking my word and they're making coin off of it. [00:36:18] They fail to love God, they use the Bible for themselves, and they fail to love their neighbor because they use the law as a mean to trick widows and take more of their estates. That's why Jesus said, you're close, but you're not going to get to heaven like that. [00:36:32] You cannot love God while using other people. You cannot honor God while crushing your neighbor. And you cannot love God and not love your neighbor. Get it? [00:36:42] You say you love God, fantastic. But you're not loving your neighbor, so you're not even close. [00:36:48] Again. A whole heart for God requires a whole heart for your neighbor. [00:36:53] A whole heart for God requires a whole heart for your neighbor. [00:36:59] It's on the screen. I think we're a little bit behind. Kelly, I want you to see the heart of the Savior here. Alright. [00:37:07] Jesus has a view of all his scribes who abuse others. [00:37:11] He makes it public in his teaching. These guys abuse people and they are not even close to the kingdom of God. They have greater condemnation. But he deals with one scribe with love and grace. Don't you find that interesting? He did this with Nicodemus. He had no time for the Pharisees. He called them whitewashed sepulchers. He called them graves. He called them graves with dead bones inside of them. [00:37:35] He called them a brood of snakes. [00:37:39] Jesus, who loves everybody, called people broods of snakes. [00:37:48] I find it very interesting that he dealt with the Pharisees in this condemnation language. But when one Pharisee called Nicodemus came to talk to him, he dealt with him with a good deal of love, did he not? [00:38:00] That's where we get John three Out of. Did you know that if Jesus had not had that loving conversation with Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the Pharisees, we would not have John 3:16? For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That's what Jesus said to one Pharisee. And when one scribe came to Jesus from all of the other scribes who were being condemned, Jesus serves him with love and grace and church. There's your answer. That's your answer. [00:38:31] Your neighbor includes anyone God loves. [00:38:34] But your neighbor is also the real, actual person God puts in. Your path to. [00:38:41] Your theology of neighbor love must remain universal, but your application is one person at a time. [00:38:50] Up on the screen, Jesus expands the scope of neighbor love. Everybody is your neighbor. [00:38:57] He even says, listen, reject that stupidity about hating your enemy. I don't know where that came from, because that's nowhere in the Old Testament. You love your neighbor and you love your enemy. [00:39:12] I do this in premarital counseling. I'm sitting down with people and they're going, I just don't love my spouse anymore. And I'm going, what? [00:39:22] Aren't they your spouse? I mean, you're required to love them. Yeah. No, not really. [00:39:28] Well, you're supposed to love your neighbor. Well, yeah, but they're not my neighbor. They just. They hate me, so they're kind of my enemy. I'm going, well, you're supposed to love your enemy, too. [00:39:42] Isn't that interesting? [00:39:45] Jesus expands the scope of neighbor love to everyone, but he focuses on your responsibility, the one who is in front of you today. I used to take our family to concerts. Have you ever been to these concerts? These Christian concerts? [00:39:58] They were real popular when my kids were smaller. And so we would go and we would go to these concerts, and we'd have a great time. [00:40:04] And then during one of the breaks, they would do a little spiel for Compassion International. [00:40:09] If you're familiar with Compassion International, it's a great organization. [00:40:12] If you want to give to some solid organizations, our church has a list of solid organizations that we've researched, and we know where the money goes. And so if you'd like to give to. To organizations like that, we would love to help you figure out, because a lot of the organizations, the money doesn't quite get to where you think it goes. [00:40:29] So, anyway, we can help you with that. But Compassionate International is one of the good ones. And so they get up and they say, okay, you should support a child today. And then they give You a picture, right? So you get the picture of the child. Everybody gets a packet. You're looking at the picture and say, won't you support me as a child today? And you're reading this. And my kids would get these, and. [00:40:51] And they would go, dad, what do you think we should do this? Shouldn't we? And I'm going, well, okay, yeah. All right. So what packet do you have? Because we all have one. And so what packet do you have? And so we found this little girl. Her name was Rosalinda. And we looked at Rosalinda, and I said, okay, do you guys want us to wear this? This is a lifelong thing. [00:41:10] We're doing this for life. And they said, yeah, we want to do this. We want to say, okay, we'll take on Rosalind. And so Rosalinda is a child that we've been supporting for. Well, for many, many years through Compassion International. And she lives in Kenya. And we get letters from her, and she actually is almost in college right now, and so we're pretty proud of that. She sends us thank you letters for getting her through school and everything. [00:41:34] So I said, sure, we should support her. And so that's what we've basically been doing for many years now. Then we went to another concert, and they had the halftime, and then they handed all packets, and Compassion International did another spiel. I'm thinking to myself, I gotta stop going to concerts. [00:41:56] So we got another packet, and the packet came down the row, and the kids turned to me and they said, hey, we should support this child. And so we prayed about it, and we did, and we support another child in Ecuador. And then we went to another concert. And I'm starting to think to myself, like, I see a. I see a trend here, See church. The question is not, can I help everyone? [00:42:16] Because you can't. There's no way that's even possible. The question is, will you genuinely love the person God is placing in front of me today as my neighbor? [00:42:27] This is how Jesus lived. He wasn't a fan of the Romans, but while they were driving nails into his hand, what did he do for them? [00:42:34] He prayed for them. [00:42:36] He prayed that God would forgive them. He wasn't a fan of the Pharisees, but he sat down with Nicodemus because Nicodemus was right in front of him. He didn't heal every sickness in his era. [00:42:46] You might think that Jesus went around and that's all he did for a living. He healed a lot of people who were sick, but he didn't get to everybody that was impossible. [00:42:53] But he got to the ones that were right in front of him. The ones that yelled out to him. The ones that grabbed onto his cloak and were immediately healed. The ones that he stepped almost over, that other people missed. And he would stop and turn back and realize they were there and heal them. [00:43:11] Jesus healed Jesus. Jesus loved the people who were right in front of him. This is the story of the Good Samaritan. [00:43:18] The Good Samaritan didn't go around looking for people who got robbed and beaten and left on the side of the road. [00:43:24] But while he was walking along, one day he saw one guy, one guy who got the living life beat out of him and got robbed by a group of robbers. And he was left there on the side of the road to die. On the road to Jericho, between Jerusalem and Jericho. [00:43:37] It's a tough place. You're going to get robbed if you're all by yourself. This guy did. [00:43:44] And then two people come along. One was a leader of a church, and the other one was like a church, a regular churchgoer. God calls them Levites and priests. [00:43:52] One was the leader of the church, one was a regular churchgoer. And both of them sees this guy and they go, oops, give me a second. And they walk over and they move on. [00:44:01] And this Samaritan, who doesn't even like Jews, the Samaritan comes along and he goes, oh, look, there's somebody dying in front of my feet today. [00:44:10] And the Samaritan stopped. And that's why we know the story of the Good Samaritan after 2,000 years. Because that Samaritan saw the person God put in front of him. He picked him up, he bound his wounds, he put him in a hotel, and he paid for his stay until he got healed. [00:44:26] This is the heart that God truly wants from us. [00:44:29] A heart of love to every person God puts in our path. [00:44:34] One real moment, one real person, one act of mercy. Because you cannot love God while ignoring the image bearer that's standing in front of you or dying in front of you. [00:44:42] You cannot love God while ignoring the image bearer standing right in front of you. So, church, who is my neighbor? Here it is. Here's the answer to the question. Your neighbor is the one in front of you who needs mercy. Even if they are the person you least expect, you're going to have to love. [00:44:58] That's your neighbor. [00:45:03] That's it. That's a message. Want some? So what's Here they are. Number one. [00:45:07] Loving your neighbor is an advanced Christianity. It is basic. [00:45:12] Jesus answered this way because this is what we're supposed to know. What is the greatest commandment, Church? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Right? That's the greatest commandment. What's the second like it? The second is just like it. [00:45:26] Love your neighbor as this is the first and second greatest commandment. All the prophets, all the law hinge on this one idea. Love God and love your neighbor. We don't get. This is basic Christianity. [00:45:42] Jesus doesn't correct our theology. He exposes our limits that we put on it. [00:45:47] Won't you be my neighbor? Actually is a brilliant way to say this, because everyone is welcome into my sphere. Church. Everyone is welcome into our sphere. Those who are hard to love, those who are different from us, those who don't agree with us, those who get on our nerves. Everyone is welcome into our sphere because everyone is in the neighbor category. But not everybody will be able to come into our sphere. But for those who do, when they arrive, they get love. [00:46:15] Make sense? [00:46:18] So my question to you is, what limits your expression of love to the neighbor God puts in your path? Today? [00:46:24] Everyone in your sphere of influence is your neighbor. [00:46:30] Even the person that abuses you on the phone and calls your name, Mr. Harvest. [00:46:38] It is not Mr. Harvest. [00:46:42] It is Mr. Jarvis. [00:46:53] What limits our expression of love to the neighbor that God puts in your path? [00:46:58] The response to who is my neighbor? [00:47:01] Is told after the story of the Good Samaritans. [00:47:05] After Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, the question is, that guy said, you remember? The guy says, okay. Then the lawyer says, all right, who's my neighbor? Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. And then this is what he says. Which of these three? [00:47:20] The pastor, the churchgoer, or the Samaritan? Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And he said, well, that's easy. The one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do the same thing because that's loving your neighbor. My neighbor is anyone within my sphere of influence that I have the capacity to show mercy and kindness to. [00:47:44] And God never asks, are they worth it? Listen, God never will ask you, are they really worth your time? [00:47:50] He never does. [00:47:52] Because everybody is your neighbor. We are Mr. Rogers. You don't have to wear a sweater or his cool little slippers. But everybody inviting people to be your neighbor. Everybody is in that category for us. [00:48:08] But the ones who are in our elbow reach are the ones we really have a Chance to show our love to. [00:48:14] So I put a list together. I know you love lists. Here's a list. You can take a picture of it because it's all on one screen. I'll go through it really quick. This is the won't you be my neighbor challenge. All right. Won't you be my neighbor challenge. Number one. [00:48:27] Some ways that you can do this practically, and you can add a lot more. I actually had a lot more than this, and I narrowed it down to just 105. No, this is just 10. [00:48:36] Learn one new neighbor's name. [00:48:39] Learn somebody's name in here. [00:48:41] They're in your elbow reach. Learn somebody's name and remember it. People love to have their names remembered. All right. Learn a new neighbor's name. [00:48:50] Names create connection. Number two. Pray for the first person who frustrates you today. [00:48:56] Yeah, first person who makes you mad. Mr. Harvest. You gotta be kidding me. What's your name? I'd like to pray for you. All right, so pray for the first person who frustrates you today. [00:49:07] Text one person with a sincere word of encouragement. People love texts. Text somebody and just say, hey, I've been thinking about you today. I just wanted to say I'm glad you're in my life. I'm praying for you right now. Just a word of encouragement. Bring a small gift to somebody in your circle. People love gifts. All right. Just bring a small gift to some. That's why we do it as a church, you know. It's not to give you another cup to take home. I've got like 50 in my cupboard. I'll give you one of those. [00:49:33] It's not because we know you need another cup. It's because we want you to know we're glad you're here. [00:49:39] So give somebody a gift in your circle. Ask a co worker, how can I help you today? Wouldn't you like for somebody to ask you that at work? [00:49:46] You be that person. [00:49:47] You go to somebody else and say, hey, can I help you today? What can I do? To serve you today goes a long way. [00:49:54] There's a person in my life that I love, and I've had children with her. And she has one of her co workers that has started to come to church today. Mrs. Berger. And we talk about Mrs. Berger at our house all the time. You are a star in our home. [00:50:11] Because Mrs. Berger will come to my wife and she'll say, beth, what can I do for you today? [00:50:19] Number six. Sit with somebody who's alone at church. [00:50:22] I want you to know, when I look out there, And I see all you people, my heart just goes, bo, bo, bo, I love you guys. [00:50:30] You know when my heart breaks is when I see one person sitting by themselves. [00:50:35] Find that person and sit with them. [00:50:37] Ask one person, how can I pray for you this week? Oh, that goes so far, too. I do this when I Uber around. You may not know, but I drive a car for a living and I pastor. But when people tell me stories in the car, it's amazing the stories they tell me. And I'll always say, hey, listen, I'm going to pray for you. And nobody has ever said to me, yeah, just keep it to yourself. [00:51:00] Everybody goes, you'll pray for me? That's really nice. [00:51:03] Tell somebody you'll pray for them even if they don't go to church. Just tell them you're going to pray for them. It goes so far. Clean up something you didn't make. [00:51:12] Clean a mess up that you didn't cause, all right? Nobody will see that but God. And let me tell you, as a church leader, God will reward you, all right? [00:51:23] So if you see a mess, clean it up, even if you didn't make it. Bring one household. Do one household task without being prompted. Help your parents out. Help your spouse out. [00:51:33] Number 10. Compliment somebody who others usually overlook. Look for the person that you think doesn't get a lot of compliments and just give them one. Cost you. Nothing means everything to them. That's a good list, wouldn't you say? And you could probably add lots to that list. But I thought, yeah, we're all kind of knuckle draggers, so we need a project. Here's your project that you can do today, all right? [00:51:57] Listen, please understand, you cannot save the world. [00:52:00] You can't save the world, but you can show mercy to one person today. [00:52:05] One person in your circle of influence. Listen, Jesus wants to expand your heart, not your exhaustion. [00:52:13] So do an act of service to one person. And don't buy the idea that you got to make the whole world right. Number two. [00:52:22] Wholehearted love means loving God first and then loving others wisely. Listen, loving other people does not mean compromising your ideals. Good grief. [00:52:32] Okay, I'll try not to make this long, but I gotta just park here just for a second. Because the first command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and your strength. There's no other room in there, all right? You love God with everything, meaning that you want to obey. If you love your wife like I love my wife, I will do whatever it takes to make her happy. She would disagree with that. She would say that there's some other things that I could do, but in my mind, I'm doing a lot already and I need to do more. I need to do more. [00:53:02] If you love God, you're going to do everything you can to please Him. But the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. What that means is if you love God first, you're not going to do something your neighbor demands you to do that goes against your love for God. Get it? [00:53:17] You don't compromise your principles because you love somebody. And you don't compromise God's truth because you love somebody. You still love them, but you love God more. And if they come to you and they say, listen, you got to choose. You either love me or you love God. [00:53:34] My family already knows the answer. I'm going to give them God's first. [00:53:39] My love for him dictates my love for others. [00:53:45] People want to are telling us to put people in buckets, and then they say, if they're in this bucket, they agree with all of these things. And you can't be neighbors with them. You got to hate them. Oh, my goodness. [00:53:58] In spite of our disagreements, we demonstrate love even for those who dislike us for disagreeing. Jesus prayed, father, forgive them as they were driving nails into his. His hands. [00:54:11] Our love for others goes beyond our disagreements. [00:54:15] You can listen, church, you can love somebody and disagree with them. All right, you want to say that with me? Because it's just so affirming. Say I can. I'll give you I can love someone and disagree with them. Here we go. I can love someone and disagree with them. Yes, you can. [00:54:33] You do not compromise your principles because this person demands you. That is not love. That's manipulation. [00:54:40] But you still love them. [00:54:44] Listen, most of the Bible is about God telling us we're wrong. Did you know that? [00:54:49] Check it out. [00:54:51] Most of the Bible is God saying, yeah, you're wrong. You're so wrong. I mean, Jesus talked with the scribes, he says, yeah, you're close, but you're not even close, you know, by the way, you and your whole crew are going to receive a greater condemnation. Pharisees, you're like den of snakes. And, you know, I mean, read the Old Testament. Most of the Bible is God telling us we're wrong. But does God love us? [00:55:13] Absolutely. You see, teaching of the Bible is not that you have to agree with somebody to love them. Teaching of the Bible is that you love them regardless of what they agree with you on. [00:55:28] All right, I'm going to Snake, a little forward. [00:55:31] Let me just put this on the screen. You don't love compromise. You don't compromise truth to show mercy, and you don't wait for agreement to show love. Love is obedience, not convenience. [00:55:42] All right, last one. [00:55:45] This is encouragement. You can love boldly because God equips what he commands. Whatever God asks you to do, he will equip you to do it. Think of how stupid this saying is. All right. [00:55:55] I command you to love your neighbor. [00:56:00] That's hard, right? If I looked at Adrian, Adrian, I respect you greatly. So, Adrian, I command you to love somebody. That's a hard thing to say, right? Like, who are you to. How are you? [00:56:11] Did you know? Jesus told us this, though? [00:56:14] Jesus said to us, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. That's weird. [00:56:20] Jesus says, you are commanded to love. I thought love was an emotion. It is not. [00:56:25] Love is an act of surrender that brings obedience. [00:56:30] Love is not a feeling. First and foremost, love is an act of surrender to God, to obey God as an act of love for him that will flow out as love to others. If you're willing to surrender, I promise you, Church, if you are willing to surrender and demonstrate love for your neighbor who is hard to love, God will give you a new heart, a heart of love. [00:56:54] He'll never ask you to do something you cannot do. He'll change your heart. He'll write his word on your heart. He will empower you to love those who are hard to love, because he loves them and you can love them as well. [00:57:06] Remember, Jesus said, it's easy to love people who love you. [00:57:09] The test of your faith is, can you love those who don't love you? Luke 6. 35. I'll give it to you. It's right on the screen. Do good, lend. Your reward is great, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, therefore, as your Father is merciful. In other words, God has people who hate him, and he's still kind to them, and we do, too. [00:57:32] Our behavior is our real belief, and how we love is our actual doctrine. [00:57:38] Fred Rogers finished his service to our world. [00:57:44] I think, in a sterling way. He did a great job. [00:57:48] And one of the things that he said, and it's up on the screen, he did this quote. It's a famous quote. He said, imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered just one word of kindness to another person. [00:58:02] He said, imagine what our neighborhoods would look like if each of us offered just one kind word to Our neighbor. [00:58:26] Aren't your eyes any good? [00:58:30] Mr. Rogers said. This is what that little font says up there. [00:58:35] Imagine what our real neighborhoods would look like if each of us offered just one kind word to another person. His entire philosophy was built on this truth. It doesn't mean we need to show love to every person in the world, but we need to demonstrate love to those who are closest. Everyone you meet is your opportunity to love. [00:58:57] The pitiful part of the story is in the Good Samaritan, is that he was stepped over by so many people who should have been helping him, so many people who should have stopped, people you expect would stop. [00:59:10] And the one you least expected to stop, that was the one who stopped. The Good Samaritan is commended not because he has been, you know, an outstanding individual in his life. [00:59:23] He's commended because he met a stranger in his path on that day and he showed him love. [00:59:30] And that's exactly what Jesus meant when he said, go and do thou likewise. [00:59:36] Go love your neighbor. [00:59:38] Who's your neighbor? Church? [00:59:41] Everyone. [00:59:42] And who should you love? [00:59:44] Everyone. But who can you show love to? Those who are closest, those who God brings to your circle. Demonstrate that, and you'll be amazed at how God shows changes your heart. [00:59:56] First, Father, we're grateful for the message today. I'm grateful. This was a hard one, you know. You know how I struggled with this one. It was so weird to go through because it's easy for us to say who our neighbor is, but when we put it into practice, it's difficult because it hits us where we live. We, too many times are like the scribe, trying to justify and say, you know, we're doing all the right things, when in reality, you're still trying to build us into who youo need us to be so we can serve those who youo love. [01:00:31] So help us to see them with eyes like youe have, to serve them with a loving heart like youe have, and to use our hands and our time and our talents and our resources to bless them like you would want us to bless them. [01:00:49] We live life with your power, and as your ambassadors, help us to be good representations of what you would do if you were really living through us. [01:01:02] Create in us a heart of love. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.