If the gospel were a pantomime we all know how we’d react when the Pharisees come on stage. We’d boo and hiss. Why? Because they’re the baddies, they just don’t realise it, but we do, we know. Except the danger with thinking like that is that we defuse the explosive power of their interactions with Jesus, which are recorded to challenge and change us.
Which religious group is this description of? “They have a very high view of scripture, they study it, memorise it, and seek to interpret and apply it to every day life. They want those around them to walk with God not just talk about him. They seek to live life in such a way that it pleases God. Dissatisfied with the corruption and half-heartedness of contemporary worship they designed a new way of worship focused around prayer, public reading and exposition of the scriptures. They pray often, fast, value fellowship, hate sin, pursue holiness, give generously and are active evangelists.”
Which group is it describing? It could be evangelical Christians but its actually a description of the Pharisees. As Jesus faces off with the Pharisees they are more like us than we’re comfortable with. And Jesus gets in their face and confronts them because their view of him is too small. Their religion is too constrained and joyless and their love is too half-hearted.
Way back in Mark 3v6 the battle lines are drawn when after Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath “the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” They then react furiously to his clearing the temple and know that Jesus has them in his crosshairs in the parable the tenants(12).
Jesus confronts them, challenges them and their religiosity. And so Mark 12 resembles the scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. When having taken the golden statue from the altar in the temple Indie has to avoid blow darts, jump a pit, get under a descending rock door, and avoid a spear wall before outrunning a giant rolling boulder. He races along facing one booby trap after another after another.
Jesus here in Mark 12 avoids trap after trap, after trap. Trap 1 (13-17)should we pay taxes to Caesar? (18-27)Trap 2 who will she be married to at the resurrection, and Trap 3(28-34) which is the greatest commandment? Jesus avoids every one and challenges the religious leaders about their failure to know the scriptures and love and serve God. And now, in these verses, the questioned becomes the questioner.
Religion that Jesus Rejects
Which religious group is this description of? “They have a very high view of scripture, they study it, memorise it, and seek to interpret and apply it to every day life. They want those around them to walk with God not just talk about him. They seek to live life in such a way that it pleases God. Dissatisfied with the corruption and half-heartedness of contemporary worship they designed a new way of worship focused around prayer, public reading and exposition of the scriptures. They pray often, fast, value fellowship, hate sin, pursue holiness, give generously and are active evangelists.”
Which group is it describing? It could be evangelical Christians but its actually a description of the Pharisees. As Jesus faces off with the Pharisees they are more like us than we’re comfortable with. And Jesus gets in their face and confronts them because their view of him is too small. Their religion is too constrained and joyless and their love is too half-hearted.
Way back in Mark 3v6 the battle lines are drawn when after Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath “the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” They then react furiously to his clearing the temple and know that Jesus has them in his crosshairs in the parable the tenants(12).
Jesus confronts them, challenges them and their religiosity. And so Mark 12 resembles the scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. When having taken the golden statue from the altar in the temple Indie has to avoid blow darts, jump a pit, get under a descending rock door, and avoid a spear wall before outrunning a giant rolling boulder. He races along facing one booby trap after another after another.
Jesus here in Mark 12 avoids trap after trap, after trap. Trap 1 (13-17)should we pay taxes to Caesar? (18-27)Trap 2 who will she be married to at the resurrection, and Trap 3(28-34) which is the greatest commandment? Jesus avoids every one and challenges the religious leaders about their failure to know the scriptures and love and serve God. And now, in these verses, the questioned becomes the questioner.
Religion that Jesus Rejects
Jesus authority is shown (34)as he pronounces that this Teacher of the Law isn’t far from the kingdom. That would have staggered those listening, They’d have assumed this man was in the kingdom. He was a teacher of the law. He’s got the right family background, connections, education, letters after his name, he could name drop more conference speakers than even the best connected networking pastor. He’s just brilliantly summarised the law, even saying that love mattered more than sacrifice and offerings. But Jesus staggeringly says he isn’t far from the kingdom, but he isn’t in. One crucial question remains, who does he say Jesus is?
That’s the key question in Mark. In Mark 1:1 Mark tells us he believes Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. In Mark 8 Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah and then Jesus teach them he’s so much more than their limited understanding, and at the cross the centurion confesses Jesus is the Son of God.
Here Jesus is in the temple as he asks his question. In the very centre of their worship and asks the question that’s really at the heart of Judaism. The question that’s still at the heart of the universe
Entry to the kingdom depends on who you say Jesus is. That’s the issue Jesus raises as he challenges them. (35-37)Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1, where David describes God speaking to the Messiah. The religious leaders think the Messiah is just David’s descendant, born of his line, an anointed king yes, important, yes. But Jesus wants them to see how far short their expectations fall of reality. How small and timid their concept of the Messiah really is. How they haven’t really grappled with what scripture says. If David calls the Messiah his lord then the Messiah is greater than David, not just David’s son. He is David’s Lord, the one who will be exalted to the right hand of God, the place of honour, and whose enemies God will help him overcome.
Jesus is pushing them to think through who the Messiah is, who he is. (37)He’s not just David’s son, he’s God’s Son. He’s the Son of the parable(1-11). And there’s no entry into the kingdom unless you recognise who Jesus is and confess him Son of God and Messiah.
To love God means to recognise his Son. And as the King of the kingdom Jesus rejects the religion he sees around him because that religion rejects him even though he fulfils the Old Testament. Even though he’s everything the sacrifices going on around him and the prophecies pointed to they reject him. So Jesus rejects religion that is full of hypocrisy, whose constraints and expectations are too small, which should have recognised him but rejects him.
You can’t have faith if you won’t have Jesus. Can I ask have you trusted Jesus? Have you actually got beyond your preconceptions, taken off the stabilisers, and really looked at Jesus? There is nothing tame or timid about him. Listen to his claims. Have you confessed him as both Saviour and Son of God? It matters because if we’ve rejected him he will reject us no matter how religious we are and there’s no worse place to be because he is right now at the right hand of God and to be opposed to him is to face God’s anger.
Let me say, if you haven’t yet followed him you’re always welcome in church, there’s no better place to be, but don’t just settle for religion when you really need Jesus. Keep asking that question – Who is Jesus? Ask it as the Bible is read, ask it as you hear the preaching, as you sing the songs?
For those of us who have trusted Jesus, have we grown comfortable with him? Have his words lost the ability to surprise us anymore? Is our Jesus like a pair of well-worn comfortable slippers? Stop and hear his claim. He is great David’s greater Son. God in all his glory made man and he is now at God’s right hand and will come again when every one of his enemies will be put under his feet. And that is great news for us because it means he is able. Able to answer our prayers, able to keep us, able to give us hope that will sustain us in the face of opposition and struggle and suffering because he will return.
We must see the real Jesus, not settled for a scaled down version if we are to live lives for his glory.
Following this Jesus radically reshapes our loves
That’s the key question in Mark. In Mark 1:1 Mark tells us he believes Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. In Mark 8 Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah and then Jesus teach them he’s so much more than their limited understanding, and at the cross the centurion confesses Jesus is the Son of God.
Here Jesus is in the temple as he asks his question. In the very centre of their worship and asks the question that’s really at the heart of Judaism. The question that’s still at the heart of the universe
Entry to the kingdom depends on who you say Jesus is. That’s the issue Jesus raises as he challenges them. (35-37)Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1, where David describes God speaking to the Messiah. The religious leaders think the Messiah is just David’s descendant, born of his line, an anointed king yes, important, yes. But Jesus wants them to see how far short their expectations fall of reality. How small and timid their concept of the Messiah really is. How they haven’t really grappled with what scripture says. If David calls the Messiah his lord then the Messiah is greater than David, not just David’s son. He is David’s Lord, the one who will be exalted to the right hand of God, the place of honour, and whose enemies God will help him overcome.
Jesus is pushing them to think through who the Messiah is, who he is. (37)He’s not just David’s son, he’s God’s Son. He’s the Son of the parable(1-11). And there’s no entry into the kingdom unless you recognise who Jesus is and confess him Son of God and Messiah.
To love God means to recognise his Son. And as the King of the kingdom Jesus rejects the religion he sees around him because that religion rejects him even though he fulfils the Old Testament. Even though he’s everything the sacrifices going on around him and the prophecies pointed to they reject him. So Jesus rejects religion that is full of hypocrisy, whose constraints and expectations are too small, which should have recognised him but rejects him.
You can’t have faith if you won’t have Jesus. Can I ask have you trusted Jesus? Have you actually got beyond your preconceptions, taken off the stabilisers, and really looked at Jesus? There is nothing tame or timid about him. Listen to his claims. Have you confessed him as both Saviour and Son of God? It matters because if we’ve rejected him he will reject us no matter how religious we are and there’s no worse place to be because he is right now at the right hand of God and to be opposed to him is to face God’s anger.
Let me say, if you haven’t yet followed him you’re always welcome in church, there’s no better place to be, but don’t just settle for religion when you really need Jesus. Keep asking that question – Who is Jesus? Ask it as the Bible is read, ask it as you hear the preaching, as you sing the songs?
For those of us who have trusted Jesus, have we grown comfortable with him? Have his words lost the ability to surprise us anymore? Is our Jesus like a pair of well-worn comfortable slippers? Stop and hear his claim. He is great David’s greater Son. God in all his glory made man and he is now at God’s right hand and will come again when every one of his enemies will be put under his feet. And that is great news for us because it means he is able. Able to answer our prayers, able to keep us, able to give us hope that will sustain us in the face of opposition and struggle and suffering because he will return.
We must see the real Jesus, not settled for a scaled down version if we are to live lives for his glory.
Following this Jesus radically reshapes our loves
As Jesus closes this teaching in the temple he deliberately stops and draws a contrast. He pointedly tells his followers that they must be different from the religion they see around them(38). That understanding who he is will transform them. How?
Love God not reputation(38-39)– A young pianist was making his debut at Carnegie Hall, he played magnificently and as he left the stage the audience cheered. The stage manager encouraged him to go onstage for his encore, but the pianist refused. “But look out of the curtains. They love you! Go take your encore!” The Pianist answered “Do you see that one old man in the balcony on the left?” The stage manager looked and said he did. “That man is seated. I will not give an encore until he stands and cheers.” The exasperated stage manager said “Only one man is not standing, and you will not take an encore?” The pianist said “You see, that man is my piano teacher. Only when he stands will I take an encore.”
What distinguishes between religion and faith is love. The disciple loves God because we know how we’ve been loved, we’ve tasted God’s goodness and salvation in Jesus Christ and we cannot but love him in return. And that love means we live for his praise and glory not ours. And everything we do flows from gratitude and thanks not to earn forgiveness but out of an overflowing awareness of grace.
That’s so easy to say but so hard to do. We live in a world that encourages us to crave recognition, to long for respect. We all want that don’t we? We have to ask – am I living as I do for love of God or love of self via the approval of others? Do I love God as a response to his love for me and is that overflowing into active love and concern for God’s glory? Or do I just want a pat on the back, a positive performance management review, a good reputation from others?
Love God not money(40) – The tragedy is that the religious pray in two ways: they pray to God for show and prey like vultures on the poor and helpless for profit. You cannot love God without loving those God loves. Throughout the Old Testament God has shown special concern for the poor, the refugee, the widow. In Matthew 23 Jesus challenges the Pharisees and says “you have neglected the more important matters of the law” … What do you expect to come next? Religious activities, prayer meeting, mission and fasting? What does he say? “justice, mercy and faithfulness.”
Do you see the challenge Jesus gives? It was great last week to listen to your compassion weekend. You are a church that cares for the poor and fatherless. But can I ask you how many of you went home and did as Andy suggested and looked again at how you support one of those 6 organisations? How many actually did it? How many were moved where it is often most painful – our wallets?
Loving God because we’ve been loved by God leads to practical action. It leads to a giving of ourselves for others just as Jesus gave himself for us.
Love God wholeheartedly(41-44) – Jesus makes a deliberate contrast between the religious rich who give lots and the poor widow, who gives everything she has to God and lives by faith.
I wonder how the financial planner in you reacted to this woman. If she came and sat beside you this morning and asked you if she should put her last coin in the offering box, what would you say? My hunch is we’d say no! But Jesus looks at it differently, he praises her generosity because by it she shows her devotion, her love for God, that she’s holding nothing back because God has held nothing back from her in his love.
Instead Jesus calls his disciples to a love which gives all to God just like the widow has. Disciples realise that in Christ God has held nothing back from us, he has done what we cannot and therefore we cannot hold anything back from him.
If we find ourselves struggling to give our all back to God it’s because we haven’t fully understood what he’s given for us. 12:6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved.” God loved us so much that the Father sends the Son who loves us so much that he willingly comes knowing he will die in our place for our sin. Jesus gives up all the glories of heaven out of love for us. How when we grasp that can we hold anything back from him? How can we not love him? How can we say this far I will follow but no farther? You can have this but not that?
Jesus is calling us to a passionate love, a love that is lavish, that is total, that is all absorbing. Why? Because that’s how we have been loved.
Are we, am I, so amazed by how we are loved that it transforms our speech, our living, our loving? Or is our view of Jesus too small?
Do Jesus words shock you? Is Jesus in your face this morning? There is nothing half-hearted about discipleship because there is nothing half hearted about the cost to make us disciples. God the Son, great David’s greater Son clothed himself in flesh, the creator becomes creation, the eternal one experiences death, the sinless one bears the wrath of sin. Why? Because he loves. Do you see the glory of who Jesus is? A wholly devoted Saviour calls for wholly devoted disciples.
Love God not reputation(38-39)– A young pianist was making his debut at Carnegie Hall, he played magnificently and as he left the stage the audience cheered. The stage manager encouraged him to go onstage for his encore, but the pianist refused. “But look out of the curtains. They love you! Go take your encore!” The Pianist answered “Do you see that one old man in the balcony on the left?” The stage manager looked and said he did. “That man is seated. I will not give an encore until he stands and cheers.” The exasperated stage manager said “Only one man is not standing, and you will not take an encore?” The pianist said “You see, that man is my piano teacher. Only when he stands will I take an encore.”
What distinguishes between religion and faith is love. The disciple loves God because we know how we’ve been loved, we’ve tasted God’s goodness and salvation in Jesus Christ and we cannot but love him in return. And that love means we live for his praise and glory not ours. And everything we do flows from gratitude and thanks not to earn forgiveness but out of an overflowing awareness of grace.
That’s so easy to say but so hard to do. We live in a world that encourages us to crave recognition, to long for respect. We all want that don’t we? We have to ask – am I living as I do for love of God or love of self via the approval of others? Do I love God as a response to his love for me and is that overflowing into active love and concern for God’s glory? Or do I just want a pat on the back, a positive performance management review, a good reputation from others?
Love God not money(40) – The tragedy is that the religious pray in two ways: they pray to God for show and prey like vultures on the poor and helpless for profit. You cannot love God without loving those God loves. Throughout the Old Testament God has shown special concern for the poor, the refugee, the widow. In Matthew 23 Jesus challenges the Pharisees and says “you have neglected the more important matters of the law” … What do you expect to come next? Religious activities, prayer meeting, mission and fasting? What does he say? “justice, mercy and faithfulness.”
Do you see the challenge Jesus gives? It was great last week to listen to your compassion weekend. You are a church that cares for the poor and fatherless. But can I ask you how many of you went home and did as Andy suggested and looked again at how you support one of those 6 organisations? How many actually did it? How many were moved where it is often most painful – our wallets?
Loving God because we’ve been loved by God leads to practical action. It leads to a giving of ourselves for others just as Jesus gave himself for us.
Love God wholeheartedly(41-44) – Jesus makes a deliberate contrast between the religious rich who give lots and the poor widow, who gives everything she has to God and lives by faith.
I wonder how the financial planner in you reacted to this woman. If she came and sat beside you this morning and asked you if she should put her last coin in the offering box, what would you say? My hunch is we’d say no! But Jesus looks at it differently, he praises her generosity because by it she shows her devotion, her love for God, that she’s holding nothing back because God has held nothing back from her in his love.
Instead Jesus calls his disciples to a love which gives all to God just like the widow has. Disciples realise that in Christ God has held nothing back from us, he has done what we cannot and therefore we cannot hold anything back from him.
If we find ourselves struggling to give our all back to God it’s because we haven’t fully understood what he’s given for us. 12:6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved.” God loved us so much that the Father sends the Son who loves us so much that he willingly comes knowing he will die in our place for our sin. Jesus gives up all the glories of heaven out of love for us. How when we grasp that can we hold anything back from him? How can we not love him? How can we say this far I will follow but no farther? You can have this but not that?
Jesus is calling us to a passionate love, a love that is lavish, that is total, that is all absorbing. Why? Because that’s how we have been loved.
Are we, am I, so amazed by how we are loved that it transforms our speech, our living, our loving? Or is our view of Jesus too small?
Do Jesus words shock you? Is Jesus in your face this morning? There is nothing half-hearted about discipleship because there is nothing half hearted about the cost to make us disciples. God the Son, great David’s greater Son clothed himself in flesh, the creator becomes creation, the eternal one experiences death, the sinless one bears the wrath of sin. Why? Because he loves. Do you see the glory of who Jesus is? A wholly devoted Saviour calls for wholly devoted disciples.
Devotion seen in our love for him that overflows in our concern for God’s glory, our treatment of others, and our use of our God given resources. In Jesus God held nothing back and when we see who we really we will do likewise.
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