April 27, 2008

Lesson: Mark 12.30b

Sermon Title: Soul

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Expenses (1)

The teenager lost a contact lens while playing basketball in his driveway. After a fruitless search, he told his mother the lens was no where to be found.

Undaunted, she went outside and in a few minutes returned with the lens in her hand.

"How did you manage to find it, Mom?" the teenager asked.

"We weren't looking for the same thing," she replied. "You were looking for a small piece of plastic. I was looking for $150."

XXX

Dewey Check (2)

I walked into my sister's kitchen and found my nephew, Dewey, having a snack.

Where's your mother? I asked.

She said she was going to have a shower. Just a second, I'll see.

Dewey went to the kitchen tap and turned the hot water on full blast.

An indignant yell came from above.

Dewey calmly turned off the tap and said, Yep, she's in the shower.

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. In the gospel of Mark 12:29-30 NRSVA, Jesus answers the question of the scribe by saying: 29..."The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

    1. Mind we know is the intellect.

    2. Strength is energy.

    3. Heart cannot be emotion, otherwise there would be no mention of soul.

    4. Heart is fidelity, faithfulness.

  2. Howell E. Lewis wrote the poem: Whom Oceans Part, O Lord, Unite

Whom oceans part, O Lord, unite
To love Thy Name and seek Thy light;
Though from each other far we be,
Let none, O Christ, be far from Thee.

On many a distant island shore
Still let men see Heav'n's opened door;
'Mid silent hills, beneath fresh skies,
Let Bethel's shining ladder rise.

Our sons and daughters guide in truth;
Take for Thyself the flower of youth;
Afar from home, through gain or loss,
Keep them true hearted to Thy cross.

Whom oceans part, O Lord, unite--
One commonwealth for God and right;
A ransomed people, strong and free,
To bring the whole wide world to Thee!

    1. He uses the express true hearted.

      1. Keep the sons and daughters true hearted to the cross.

      2. This is to create a ransomed people strong and free, and a people who may not be able to save the world, but can help to save some in the world.

    2. True Hearted is whole hearted.

  1. How then do we understand soul?

Jamison Fawcett and Brown in their exposition of Mark 12.30 observe:" But next, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" with thy soul. This is designed to command our emotional nature: Thou shalt put feeling or warmth into thine affection." (3)

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MAIN BODY

  1. Whole heartedness is weak and wimpy with passion.

    1. Passion may be understood as:

      1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.

Two quotes from a Tennessee mountain preacher put emotion in the right perspective.

"Today we go to the football game to do our shouting, to the movies to do our crying, and to the Church to do our freezing."

"I don't care how high you jump or how loud you shout, as long as when you hit the ground you walk straight." (4)

      1. The opposite of passion is apathy.

    1. First of all we all realize that we need to keep our passions under control.

      1. Barry Boulware tells the story of a community-wide Easter pageant where various people in the town were recruited to play the different parts. (5)

The character of Jesus went to a most unlikely person - a big, burly, barroom brawler, an oilfield worker, the most unlikely person to be typecast as our Lord. After several weeks of rehearsals, the day of the Easter Pageant finally arrived.

When they came to the part of the play where Jesus was being led away to be crucified, one little man, filling in as a part of the crowd, got caught up in the emotion of the drama.

He joined in the shouts of Crucify him! Crucify him! as Jesus was led away toward Calvary. Then, in the midst of shouting insults at the top of his lungs, he accidentally sprayed some spit in the face of the character playing Jesus as the actor walked by carrying the cross on his back.

The oilfield worker stopped in his tracks, reached up and wiped his face dry. And then he looked at the little man and said: I'll be back to take care of you after the resurrection.

      1. Well?

    1. This teaches us that we need to keep our emotions under control so that we may do the right thing.

      1. You heard the story of a young man walking home from work through the park. (6)

It was late and he was alone. In the middle of his trek, he saw someone approaching him on the path. There was, of course, a spasm of fear: He veered, the stranger veered. But since they both veered in the same direction they bumped in passing. A few moments later the young man realized that this could hardly have been an accident and felt for his wallet. It was gone. Anger triumphed and he turned, caught up with the pick-pocket and demanded his wallet. The man surrendered it. When he got home, the first thing he saw was his wallet lying on the bed. There was no way of avoiding the truth: He had mugged somebody.

      1. We do not want to mug anyone.

      2. We do need to give expression to our emotions.

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  1. What Jesus is attempting to communicate is that you cannot have love without giving expressions to your passion, your emotions.

    1. Note what it says in the Bulletin Insert under John 11.33-38:

"John 11:33-38: John stresses that we have a God who cares. This portrait contrasts with the Greek concept of God that was popular in that day-a God with no emotions and no messy involvement with humans. Here we see many of Jesus' emotions-compassion, indignation, sorrow, even frustration. He often expressed deep emotion, and we must never be afraid to reveal our true feelings to him. He understands them, for he experienced them. Be honest, and don't try to hide anything from your Savior. He cares."

    1. Jim Valvano coached the N. C. State Wolfpack basketball team.

      1. After he left coaching he did broadcast work for ESPN.

      2. He was diagnosed with a fast acting and fatal form of cancer.

      3. Shortly before his death, he spoke at the inaugural ESPY (7) Awards, presented by ESPN, on March 4, 1993.

          1. While accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award, he announced the creation of the "V Foundation", an organization dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

          2. He announced that the foundation's motto would be "Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

          3. During his speech the teleprompter stated that he had 30 seconds left, to which Valvano responded:

    "They got that screen up there flashing 30 seconds, like I care about that screen. I got tumors all over my body and I'm worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds."

          1. His speech has become legendary, and he closed the speech by saying,

    "Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you and God bless you all."

          1. One particularly poignant section of Valvano's speech is as follows:

    "To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

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      1. That's better than being a "Joe Friday."

        1. Some of you may remember the TV program Dragnet."

        2. Joe Friday, as Sergeant Friday, when faced, as he often was, with a somewhat hysterical person who'd witnessed some dreadful crime, would pull out his notepad, stare coolly back at him or her, and say in his trademark monotone voice, "Just the facts, ma'am."

          Joe Friday's just the sort of person you'd want to have as a witness in court: on your side. He's cold, analytical and utterly unfazed by extremes of emotion. He's dead-on task-oriented: a law-enforcement bulldog who stays on the job till it's done. Sergeant Joe Friday would make the ideal witness -- or would he?

          Joe Friday would be the ideal witness if the goal were simply to unearth the facts. But he'd be less than ideal for another sort of witnessing: the witnessing that leads others to faith.

    1. Each facet of our Christian experience has its own emotion.

      1. How can you sing the great hymns in a monotone?

      2. What does it mean to repent?

      3. How can you be sorrow for sinning?

      4. How can you pray without feeling?

      5. You have to be willing to be hurt.

        1. Grow calluses

        2. Be sensitive

          1. Norman de Puy observes: (8)

    If you haven't viewed a congregation from the chancel, you should seek the opportunity, or several opportunities. Some congregations look like an oil painting, no sign of movement. In some cases, it's because they are despondent and haven't felt any sort of hope or movement since before the Civil War. Others are so full of themselves and protecting their sensitivities that they have long since lost any saving sense of humor about their pomposity. And then there are infinite stages in between.

          1. John Dalrymple, writes: (9)

    The journey inward is the journey from the issues of this world toward God. It is a journey toward the mind of Christ, beyond feelings of expediency or fear of what people will say, to truth itself. It is followed by the journey outward, back from the depths where we meet God, to the issues facing us in our everyday life, a journey which we now undertake with a new sensitivity to the will of God in all things.

        1. You have to be willing to be used.

          1. People are going to use you.

          2. You set limits, but not too narrowly.

          3. You have to be willing to endure the consequences of human folly.

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CONCLUSION:

    1. I was preaching in a church in Janesville.

      1. As I looked out over the congregation I was moved with an overwhelming sense of need.

      2. I could feel the struggle in a way that I had never felt before.

        1. I began to weep.

        2. Getting my emotions under control, I finished the service.

      3. As I was greeting the people at the door, I overheard one person say to the other, "Pastor Shultz is quite an actor."

        1. Well, I was not acting.

        2. I was feeling my own inner struggle and beyond myself to those with whom I was worshiping.

      4. As Paul writes you have to be able to "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep," (Romans 12:15, NRSVA)

    2. You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul.

      1. It is a passionate love.

      2. It does not get any better than this.

    Amen!

    1. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

    2. Received from Pulpit Supply. The Good, Clean Funnies List [gcfl-info@gcfl.net]

    3. The Commentary on the Whole Bible by Rev. Robert Jamieson, D.D., Rev. A. R. Fausset, A.M., Rev. David Brown, D.D., Database © 2000 iExalt, Inc. iExalt Electronic Publishing

    4. Retrieved from: http://www.christianity.co.nz/born5.htm

    5. -Barry Boulware, via Robert Allen, via Norman Neaves.

    6. Joseph Sittler, The Anguish of Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966),10. (Told by Charles L. Rice, The Embodied Word, Preaching as Art and Liturgy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 130-31.

    7. The ESPY Awards is an annual sports awards event created and broadcast by American cable television network ESPN. Begun in 1993, the event confers eponymous awards, fully styled as Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards, for individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performance during the calendar year preceding a given ceremony.

    8. Cabbages and Kings, October 1994, 6.

    9. The Longest Journey: Notes on Christian Maturity (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1979), 17-18.

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