In this episode we look at how Jesus responds to different challenges from the highest levels of religious leaders as they continue to look for ways to get rid of Him. From these challenges we learn more things about Him and also get to process some warnings from His interactions with these leaders.

Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church Podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are gathering with us through the podcast. My friend Megan Pooler brought the teaching for this week. I know it's going to be a blessing to you.

I know the spirit's going to speak to you, so can't wait for you to enjoy it right now. Enjoy. So I'm really excited to be here in Pine Hills with you all now as this new community. And so one of my other things that I love to do when I'm not in school is go traveling with my mom. And we have had a chance to go on several trips to Europe, and we often choose to rent a car so that we can travel on our own schedule and get way off the beaten path, which is great fun, except that cars in Europe are stick shifts, which I can't drive.

And so I end up being the navigator, which I actually like a lot more because I'm a giant nerd and I love maps. I think they're a great way to kind of get a feel for where I'm at, where I'm going. As long as I have an idea where I am in the world, I don't feel like I'm quite so out of control all the time. So one trip years ago, before we had smartphones, my mom and I had printed out page after page of maps in a binder that we took through this route in central France. But we are driving through the pastures.

There's vineyards. It's dreamy and perfect. And suddenly I go, I don't know if we're on the right road anymore, but I don't know where we are. So we're sitting on the side of the road, trying to figure out what to do, looking at maps, and the shepherd comes up the road with a flock of sheep. And so I rolled down my window and I asked in really bad French if he could tell us where we were.

So he pointed out on the map that we were actually where we were supposed to be and asked where we were going. And I said, it's this village. It's on a cliff, stone castle, like, perfect, right? And he says, wait, and draws a pencil out of his little shirt pocket and takes my map and adds this road that we didn't know existed onto my map. And he said, go this way.

It's going to be much prettier. So, because when I'm traveling, I say, sure, I'll try anything. We took his road, and we ended up coming in above the village with this gorgeous view instead of down the valley floor instead. And I think that when we read Mark, we're looking for those pencil lines on the map and trying to find those connections that we would otherwise miss if we didn't have Mark revealing his picture of Jesus to us. So to start out today, I want to look at our whole long passage to try to start finding those pencil lines, and then we'll dig into the details along the way.

So we are in Mark, chapter 12, verses 28 to 40. It's a long chunk, so stick with me. One of the teachers of the religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well. So he asked, of all the commandments, which is the most important?

Jesus replied, the most important commandment is, listen, O the Lord our God is the one and only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these. The teacher of a religious law replied, well said, teacher.

You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared ask him any more questions.

Later, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple, he asked, why do the teachers of religious law claim that the Messiah is the son of David? For David himself, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said, the Lord, said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet. Since David himself called the Messiah, my Lord, how can the Messiah be his son? The large crowd listened to him with great delight. Jesus also taught, beware of these teachers of religious law, for they like to parade around in flowing robes and receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces.

And how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and the head table at banquets. Yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public. Because of this, they will be more severely punished. So we have three scenes going on here. A conversation between Jesus and the religious leader, Jesus's question about the Messiah and then his teaching about the religious leaders.

It seems at first glance that These are really disconnected, but that's where we need to start looking for those pencil lines and trying to understand how Mark is structuring these three scenes to teach us about who Jesus is and what life with him looks like. So the basic outline is like this. In scene one, the religious leader asks Jesus a question, which Jesus answers in two parts. The first part is love the Lord your God. Which then in scene two, when he's talking about the Messiah question, explores who this God actually is.

Second, Jesus says, we love our neighbor. So then scene three answers that question. Who is my neighbor? And what does loving them look like? Jesus criticism.

So with that structure in mind, we'll keep digging into those details. As we saw last week, Jesus interactions with the religious leaders are getting more and more tense. They keep asking him questions, he keeps answering in ways that they don't expect, and they're getting madder and madder. But the crowds are more and more excited about who Jesus is. So as Jesus is speaking in this situation, we've got the crowds who are ready to crown him king, and we have the religious leaders who are in the background plotting how to kill him.

So that's this tension in the room right now. But then this one religious leader steps out of the hostile crowd and asks Jesus a question because he's honestly curious about what Jesus has to say. So that brings us into scene one with verse 28. One of the teachers of religious law asks, of all the commandments, which is the most important for this guy? This kind of question was a really common way to have a conversation, because if you remember, when God freed the Israelites from Egypt way, way back, he then gave them a set of instructions on how to live the Ten Commandments.

He. He also gave them additional instructions about how to live well and how to worship him. But this was all meant to be in response to the fact that he had freed them. These expectations we mainly find in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. And at some point along the centuries, the religious leaders had counted up all those expectations, and there's 613 of them.

Yeah, I can ever keep track of all those. But what we'll focus on is that God's people had come to believe that they had to follow these 613rules to remain God's people. They had gotten the order mixed up, forgetting that God chose them and then asked them to live a certain way. They thought they had to live a certain way to be chosen. So in an effort to remain God's people, the religious leaders then started adding all These other details, trying to unpack daily life situations to apply those 613 rules.

So one of my favorite examples, God's one rule to rest on the Sabbath to honor him. By the time we get to this moment in history, the rule was a woman isn't allowed to look in the mirror on the Sabbath because she might see a gray hair, be tempted to pluck it out and plucking it out as work. So then she'd be breaking the rule of resting on the Sabbath. So with details like that, of course they're going to keep debating about how does this rule work in daily life. So this guy comes to Jesus looking for an explanation, and Jesus engages him in this familiar form of conversation.

But as he always does, Jesus isn't going to answer in the way that people expect. Instead of expounding on one command, he says that there are two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. So what he is saying is these two out of the 613 plus all the details are the only two that matter.

So we want to make sure we understand what he's saying. His first instruction. Listen, O Israel, the the Lord our God is the one and only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. That comes from Deuteronomy, chapter 6. This passage, by this point in history, had become a key text for the Jews.

They called it the Shema, which is the Hebrew word for the first word in the sentence, Listen, O Israel. And the observant Jews of this time, like those religious leaders he's talking with, repeated it twice a day, every day. And it emphasizes God's supremacy in a world where all the cultures around them have gods and gods and gods and gods. The Jews are saying there is one God and he is the God, full stop. So Jesus affirms that belief God is God.

And loving this one and only God is meant to be the obsessive purpose of our lives. By breaking down heart, soul, mind and strength, Jesus is saying that our love encompasses all of who we are. Your heart is about your emotions and also the sincerity of your commitment. Your sole purpose is loving God, your soul, your inner self. It's about your meaning, what your life is about.

Without loving this thing, your life doesn't mean it anything. Your mind is simply your intellect, your intelligence, and then your strength is like your hustle for God. It's that oomph that you put into the things that you care about. So what does that look like in practice? Because those are four areas that we tend to think are kind of separated.

For me, it's super easy because I am a nerd to love God with all of my mind, but when it comes to my emotions, it's a lot easier for me to kind of keep some distance and be a little bit more reserved and not love God with all my emotions and get distracted instead. Maybe you're the opposite and your emotions are really easy, but your mind's a little bit harder. Or maybe you're really good at hustling to serve God, but in being that busy, you've forgotten what it means to actually have your purpose, sit still with God. So that brings us to our question, what areas of your life need to change so that you can love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? And if none of those are first, then what needs to change?

Because everything else that we're committed to, that we enjoy thinking about or spending our time doing has to come underneath our love for God.

Jesus then continues, love your neighbor as yourself. Those instructions come from the book of Leviticus. And I think when we hear love your neighbor, we tend to think really big picture ideas, things like serving in a homeless shelter or donating money to a missionary. And those are good things. But what do we do in our day to day life?

One thing that I've learned is to stop and talk to my neighbors. Most of you know I have a dog, she loves people. So when we're out walking, we get stopped constantly. A five minute walk turns into a 30 minute walk all the time. That used to drive me nuts because I'm like, I'm on my schedule, this is my life, don't bother me.

But now I've really learned that it means it's a chance to love my neighbors and to actually stop and get to know them a little bit. So yes, those are my literal neighbors. But that could be something similar for you in your life. Whether it's cooking for a sick friend, taking a sibling out for coffee, it's really about what am I doing to commit time and energy to those people in my sphere. So what are some daily ways that you can practice showing love to your neighbors?

Whether those are your actual neighbors or other people in your life, Jesus is challenging us to do both. And then the religious teacher agrees. Well said, teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart, understanding and strength and to love my neighbor as myself.

This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. Unlike the religious leaders we've seen in previous sessions, this teacher stays. He doesn't walk away in a huff. He agrees with Jesus and then adds an important last sentence that these birds it is more important to love than to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices. Because part of his job was knowing those 613 rules, all of the details that went with them, and then what offerings and sacrifices to give if you messed up on all of those details.

So for him to say those aren't as important is for him to recognize that relationships come before rules, which for someone like me is really hard because I like clear expectations, I like having a plan. And I think most of us like to know that we are operating within a set of expectations. And then it's easier to grade others based on this written standard of perfection. But Jesus and the religious leader are saying that's not the point. Relationships have to come first.

When we get into this idea that relationships aren't first and that we can follow checklists instead, we end up right back where the religious leaders have started, thinking that what we're doing is earning our place with God. Instead of recognizing that God's grace came first and then we live in response to his grace. This religious leader is on the right track and Jesus praises him for his understanding. He says, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared ask Jesus any more questions.

So Mark leaves us hanging. Jesus says this thing, we don't hear the religious leaders response. And then the scene shifts to a whole nother scenario. So what is this idea of the kingdom of God? Why does Mark leave it open ended?

It's a really important theme in his gospel. So we have to kind of dig back into what he said before looking for those pencil lines on his map. First we have to understand that Jesus and the religious leader both have an image in their mind of what the kingdom of God is. But they wouldn't have been identical pictures. There would be some overlap.

So that overlap is this idea that God is reigning now in heaven. Overall, he's in control, but he's not yet reigning here on earth. The religious leader would have thought that his reign to come here on earth would be enacted in a political kind of way. A military victory that makes Israel and the religious leaders the winner and everybody else the loser. But Jesus says, nope, my kingdom is the opposite.

The least will be the greatest. And it's not about nations. It's about people being invited into relationship with the king. So when Mark writes kingdom of God, we understand that it's now. God is in control now and not yet.

We live as citizens of the kingdom now and we wait for Jesus to come back in the future. So when Mark leaves us hanging, we have to cut to his next scene because that's all we get to do. We just have his word with us. So this next scene will help us understand why this kingdom of God idea is so important. Jesus asked the crowd, why do the teachers of the religious law claim that the Messiah is the son of David?

For David himself, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said the Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet. Since David himself called the Messiah my Lord, how can the Messiah be his son? The crowd listened to him with great delight. So now we're in scene two, which is exploring the love the Lord your God part of Jesus answer in scene one. So the word Messiah here is key.

It's this idea that comes back to the religious leaders once again that they were so intent on following all of God's instructions because they believed that when everyone did so, it would usher in the rule of this king known as Messiah. He would be an ideal leader who establishes this political on earth kingdom of God and generations before. Now God had promised that a descendant of David, the Israelites ideal king, their hero, would always rule as king. But in this moment where Jesus is on the scene, Israel is under Roman occupation, they aren't a nation anymore. So they are hoping and praying that if they can do everything the way they're expected, expected to, this Messiah will come.

And Jesus knows that this is what they're expecting. And he knows that it isn't the way God's going to do things. So he points to this Psalm 110, verse 1, written by King David to try to get the people to see things differently. Essentially, what David is saying in the Lord said to my Lord is that God, the one Lord says to David's master that God will establish the Master's rule. People understood this verse to be about the Messiah, who is also supposed to be a son of David.

But in their culture, a son is never going to be greater than his father. It's never going to be his father's master. And certainly David would never say, my descendant hundreds of years from now is better than me because David's the perfect king. So Jesus is saying, how can David's son, a human son, Be greater than him, because that's culturally not possible.

And Mark, once again, if we keep looking at those pencil lines, will help us understand who the Messiah actually is. Mark opens his whole story in chapter one, verse one with this sentence. This is the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. Then in chapters 10 and 11, people start calling Jesus the son of David, which is a term, a title for the Messiah. And Jesus doesn't silence them, he allows them to call him Son of David.

So we see that he's Messiah, son of David, son of God. And then we get to today's passage with the word Lord. If the Lord said to my Lord in scene two, and love the Lord your God, and scene one are connected, which is what Mark is doing with this word Lord, it's a way that Jewish people often connected verses, then the Messiah, the Son of God, is the one Lord that we love with all of our lives. So Mark is trying to get us to see that Jesus, the Son of God, is the Messiah that these people are waiting for.

So who do we believe that Jesus is? Does our understanding of him come from him or come from these outside ideas like the religious leaders had developed, thinking he was going to be a political hero instead? If Jesus is the Messiah that we are to love with all of our lives, then why should we love him with all of our lives? Why does it matter? We get another pencil line guide from Mark to try to answer that question.

In chapter 10, verse 45, Jesus tells the disciples that he came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. So Jesus is telling us, in his upside down kingdom, the hero king is actually going to be a suffering servant, giving his life so that we can enter into citizenship of the kingdom. So that is why we choose to love him, because he has given us grace first, and then we can build our lives around him.

The crowd really enjoys what Jesus has to say, but they're not catching these pencil lines along the way. And Jesus gives them a stern warning. In scene three, Jesus also taught, beware of these teachers of religious law, for they like to parade around in flowing robes and receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces. And how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and the head table at banquets. Yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public.

Because of this, they will be more severely punished. So those religious leaders have gotten so caught up in all of their rituals that they've shifted the emphasis onto doing the right thing instead of actually loving their neighbors. And instead they're looking for that pride and honor that comes from doing the right thing. But they're the ones who should actually know better because they have these commands that Shema that they repeat twice a day, perfectly memorized, but they've been blinded by their efforts to do the right thing. And that is what keeps them from understanding that Jesus is the Messiah.

Everyone's missing the point. And the same thing can happen to us because our understanding of who Jesus is will affect how we treat others. If we don't see that Jesus is the Messiah, the one and only Lord, then we won't pursue loving him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. And if we can't do that, then it will domino into how we treat other people. We might act like we love them, and we might even do the right thing, but we'll be doing it because we're trying to follow the rules and not because we're trying to love them.

And that makes it easier following the rules. But if love is our motivation, we just have to keep figuring it out along the way because people are complicated and we can't have 613 rules plus all of those details, because every single situation we're going to enter into is going to be different. But that's where Jesus comes in. Because as a sacrificial Messiah, he gives us the grace we need to keep trying, failing and trying again. We just have to find a way to keep loving our neighbors.

That means there's no guide and there's no expectations. I want to take a second and just make it really clear that love does not mean lack of safety. So we have healthy boundaries for our spiritual, emotional and physical safety. If that's the case, that's a separate conversation. If you are not safe, love doesn't mean stay unsafe.

But if you are safe. We are instructed to love and to love others just because we love God, not to get them to follow Jesus or act the way that we think they should. It's just love in action. Love for God and then love for others. And it's made possible by Jesus because we have his example of sacrificial love that then we can follow.

And when we fail, we can come back to his grace and try again. It becomes an endless loop. We love God, we love others. They show us where we're weak, we drive back to God, soak in his love, and keep going forward.

So, Josiah, could you come up, please? Thank you. We've looked today at three scenes that are connected by those pencil lines on Mark's map that teach us who Jesus is and what it looks like to follow him. If Jesus is the Messiah, the King who came not to conquer but to serve, then we love him with all of our lives as citizens of his kingdom, and that gives us the strength and grace we need to extend his love out to others. When we are following Mark's pencil lines, we see that he's actually always just pointing to Jesus because Jesus is the way to our grace and our love for others.

So let's take a few minutes to talk with him about how we need to learn and grow in love in our daily lives. Which of the questions we've discussed today do you need to answer as we continue seeking Him? Hey everybody. Welcome back. Thank you Megan Poehler for bringing just an incredible teaching for our community to think through and to process.

Want to invite you to continue to do that through your week where the Spirit might be stirring you to maybe experience God in a new way as you continue to commit every part of you to following him or to listen for the invitations from the Spirit from like the things that break into our day. Maybe those are invitations to love and serve those that God has put around us. Maybe the evaluator we really putting God first or are we not? Those are great invitations for us all to consider. Again, if you need any more information about our community, please Visit us online.

Pinehillschurch.org if you're in Bend, can't wait to see you 4pm south side of Bend. Again, you can find all the information online, but can't wait to see you in the next conversation. Have a great day by.