OCT 23, 2011  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN

The text for our meditation today is the Gospel Lesson for today from Matthew 22:34-46. There we read these words:

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, " ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

We begin in Jesus’ name, AMEN

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love." While I’m not a big fan of Burt Bacharach, it’s hard to disagree with that line of the song. This world would certainly be a better place is there was more love around — not just for some, but for everyone. We have a better witness than Mr. Bacharach to this, however.

In the Gospel lesson for today, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself declares that the greatest commandment is "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

He then goes on to make this remarkable statement: "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Mt. 22:37-40).

Did you hear it? Did you hear it? If you get love wrong, then you’re going to get all of Scripture wrong.

So what is this love? The kind of love that Jesus speaks of here is the love of sacrificial service to others. It’s the kind of love that puts others and their needs before your own. When I’m talking to a couple about their upcoming marriage, I define this love simply as "hard work." It’s not easy being selfless and putting others first all the time.

If you want practical examples of this love, look to the Old Testament lesson for today in Leviticus 19: "You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor."

"You shall not go about as a talebearer, a gossip, among your people."

"You shall not hate your brother in your heart," even if your brother is a jerk, but you’ll work hard to take care of him.

"You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him." Love doesn’t excuse wrongdoing and pretend it didn’t happen; it calls people to repentance and forgiveness.

"You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

It’s a pretty good list of examples in that reading: love isn’t easy. It’s hard work. But then again, good things don’t come easy in a sinful world; and you have to admit that the more people work hard at love, the better off this world is. You see, there is a real danger of love growing cold, of Christians failing to love their neighbor as they should.

If you cease to work hard in love of neighbor, the neighbor who is in need will suffer as you look only to your own interests. Your failure to work hard at love for others is a bad witness to the faith that you confess—for if God is love, how can His people not be loving?

Dear friends, it is important that you love, for God has commanded you to do so. And yet, can you truly end any day saying that you have loved others enough? Admit it, there are always times when you give into selfishness. There always more people who need love than you are able to take care of.

This can lead to a second, greater and more dangerous sin. Rather than speaking of your treatment of others, it is a sin that hurts the proclamation of the Gospel. It is a teaching that goes like this: "God is love. Therefore, love is our central focus as Christians. As long as we are acting toward each other in love, then we are acting as God would have us act."

It sounds okay so far, but there’s an unspoken agenda that goes along with it. If your central focus is love, then other things don’t matter: moral purity, for instance. I’ve heard more than one unmarried couple say, "We may not be married in the legal sense, but what matters is that we love each other."

In that case, while "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" sums up the command ments, it apparently deletes the Sixth.

More serious is the argument that doctrinal purity isn’t as important as love. This idea is wreaking havoc in the Church, and in our own Synod, today. If you love people, goes the argument, you’re willing to sacrifice pure doctrine in order to care for them. On the other hand, if you insist on pure doctrine, then you are unloving. Therefore, you can either be loving or doctrinal. What a terrible either/or! What a false choice!

First, let me say, it is absolutely true that God is love: the Bible says exactly that in 1 John 4:8. However, the Bible also declares that God is holy—in fact, as our Old Testament lesson begins, God declares, "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2).

He then spends the rest of the chapter telling you how to be holy—by loving your neighbor. Love and holiness go together. That means that love and purity go together. Furthermore, Jesus—the Son of God who is also therefore love—declares in John 14:6, "I am…the truth."

Love and holiness and truth all go together. So it is true that God is love. He is also holy, so He hates impurity. He is also truth, so He hates error. To say that He is love, but not holy and true, is to try to cut God into parts and set Him against Himself. It’s to say that the Word made flesh must oppose the Word. That’s hardly loving God with all your heart, soul and mind.

Secondly, let me say that in the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus declares that love of God and love of neighbor are the two greatest commandments. These are the two greatest laws, for indeed they sum up the Ten Commandments. Thus Romans 13:10 declares, "Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law."

What is the purpose of the Law? It is not to save you, for you can never love enough. The purpose of the Law is to accuse you, to show you your sin, to demonstrate that you in your sinfulness cannot save yourselves, but you remain lost and condemned in your efforts.

When Jesus commands you to love, He does so to show you how much you can’t love. He’s telling you that you are neither loving nor holy nor righteous nor pure.

Thirdly, let me say this. It is neither good nor true to say that the central focus of Christianity is your love. That is to say that the central focus of Christianity is the Law, and the Law cannot save you. No, the foundation and central focus of the Christian Faith is nothing else but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

This is your Good News, your joy which will not depart, your hope which will not disappoint: you are not saved by your love and loving, but by God’s love for you.

And I mean that in the sense of Jesus’ words to His disciples at the Last Supper, just hours before the nails are driven: "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends" (John 15:13). That’s the love, the hard work, the sacrificial service that has won salvation for you.

Love is the fulfillment of the Law. In perfect love for you, Jesus has fulfilled the Law.

Look again at those examples in Leviticus 19. Where you have done injustice, He has been perfectly just.

Where you have unjustly favored the poor over rich or rich over poor, He has dealt with all righteously.

Where you have spread tales and gossip and groundless speculation, He has only spoken the truth

Where you have borne a grudge against others, He sacrificed Himself to save even His accusers.

Where you have failed to rebuke your neighbor and call him to repentance, Jesus proclaimed His Law and called all to repentance.

He did not take vengeance upon those who hated Him, but prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

And having perfectly kept all the commandments, He then suffered God’s judgment for every sin and every lack of love of all mankind. He laid down His life as the Sacrifice for the sins of the world. He laid down His life out of love for you, to redeem you from sin for eternal life.

That is why I gladly and joyfully proclaim Christ and Him crucified, for that is the message of God’s love for your salvation.

And that is why I preach God’s love—not yours, not mine.

And that is why I declare,

Christ Is Risen.