Embracing Love: The Heart of Jesus' Kingdom

He said, "Jesus, of all the commands, because there are so many in Torah, which one of the commands do you think is most important?" And this was a question specifically about priorities. In other words, Jesus, of all the things we could do, of all the values, of all the things that we've been told to do, what's most important because, you know this, when values collide and every single one of us have experienced this season in life or decision in life where our values collide, like this is valuable and this is valuable but I gotta make a decision. [00:01:00]

And Jesus says back to this gentleman and back to the audience what they've heard so many times, he says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," and they knew what was coming next. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. And then Jesus leaves the script, and he says, "And the second," or in some translations, and the second one is like that one, the second one is this, the second one being this isn't second in importance, this is just second in sequence. [00:01:48]

And the Greek here indicates that Jesus is saying, "What I'm about to tell you next is as important as the first one. You asked for one but there's not one, there's two, and together these two are the one. And the second is this, love your neighbor as yourself." And then Jesus says this, "There is no greater commandment," singular, even though there's two, there is no greater commandment than these. Now, the teacher's response, the teacher who asked the question, his response is really kind of funny and we miss this, but here's what he says, because he considers Jesus a peer. [00:02:32]

He says, "I know that all of those two things are more important than, more important than." In other words, if we have to prioritize things, if everything can't be most important and I have to decide what's most important, Jesus I think you've given us the right answer. Those things are more important than and this teacher agrees with Jesus' priorities. This man in this moment, even though he doesn't know who Jesus is, he actually recognizes and has embraced Jesus' value system. He says, "Those things are more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices." [00:04:01]

And the text says that when Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, that he had thought it through, that he put two and two together. And, again, we don't know what happened physically, but I picture in this moment Jesus leaning in, maybe calling him forward out of the crowd, and whispering just to this one gentleman, not everyone in the audience, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." You are not far from the kingdom of God, which means, the kingdom of God is not far from you. [00:05:03]

And when Peter documents his story, he's in his 50s. Again, he has followed Jesus when Jesus was on planet earth, and then for the next 30 years he traveled around in and out of trouble, dodging being arrested over and over, suffering for his faith in Jesus, being beaten for his faith in Jesus. So for 30 years he's told his story. Any time he would enter a village or a town, he would be invited into the homes of Christians or curious people or God-fearing Gentiles, who'd say, "What was it like? What did he say? What was he like up close? And tell us your story, tell us about the time when, tell us about the time when, tell us about the time when." [00:06:36]

And Peter, interestingly enough, begins his account with his conclusion. It's almost like he says, "Look, I don't know if we're gonna get to the end so let's eat dessert first." Life is uncertain, begin with dessert. Hey, I don't know how much time I have, Mark. I don't know how long we're gonna have this time together. I don't know how many times we're gonna get to sit down with each other. So let me just begin with the conclusion. So as I read from the Gospel of Mark coming from the lips of Peter, this is so important, especially if you're not a believer, you're not a Christian, or maybe you used to be, you lost faith, or whatever reason. [00:09:23]

And the individual narratives that we love, some of our favorite stories in the New Testament, are all like puzzle pieces that fit into a grand picture or a grand narrative. And at the very outset of his story as he's giving, dumping his story out, and it's being coaxed out of him by Mark, he decides that he wants us to know how all the pieces fit together at the very beginning. There's a sense in which he holds up the lid to the puzzle box to say, "Hey, when I'm finished with my account, this is what it's gonna look like." This is the context for everything that follows. [00:17:50]

The kingdom of God has come near. The kingdom of God, God's kingship, that's the best way to understand the phrase kingdom of God, God's kingship, his rule, his right to rule. The kingdom is near because the king is in town. And wherever the king goes, the kingdom goes with him. To which Peter would have stopped and said, "And I'm telling you, the first time I heard Jesus preach this I didn't know what he was about." What do you mean, the kingdom is now, the kingdom is here. I mean, Rome is here. We haven't been an independent state in hundreds of years. [00:22:28]

He was saying, "The future is now, this is fulfillment." It's a kingdom without borders. It's a kingdom without a common language or even a common ancestry. We would discover later that the kingdom of God was a kingdom of the heart. It was a kingdom of conscience. It was a kingdom of conscience, informed by the teachings of a king who had come to reverse the order of just about everything. And in fact, Peter is gonna tell us that time after time we sat and listened to Jesus teach, and we would think, "Surely, you don't mean that? Surely, you can't be saying that?" [00:23:21]

And the message that Jesus, we're taught over and over, and the message that Peter heard and teach over and over, the message that Peter puts right up front so we don't miss in case he doesn't get to finish his story, two imperatives, two imperatives or two thou shalts that no one should take seriously, no one should try to apply until you get to the end of the story, because it's just too much without knowing how the story ends. He said, "Here are the two things that you have to do." "The time has come," he said. This is Jesus message, this is his whole sermon reduced down to a few sentences. [00:27:28]

And suddenly the normal mystery of the randomness of life, things that don't make any sense they settle in over Peter, and yet it did not undermine his faith, because a king had come and a brand new kingdom had come, and he had not been called to understand it, he had been called to embrace it. And he says, "30 years later, it's still the thing I'm most excited about, 30 years later I'm more confident than ever, 30 years after losing James, 30 years after losing multiple of my friend, 30 years wondering when is the world gonna wake up and realize what's happened, I'm still confident, because of what I saw, because of what I heard." [00:31:41]