God’s love fulfills the law, so that we are loved and love others !

Sermon October 22, 23 2011 Russ Tkac

Text: Matthew 22:37-40
37And 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. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

There’s a story of young man of 15. He would be getting his driver’s license in a year or so and decided to do a little practicing.

He backed the car out of the garage and then would drive it back in. He did this a number of times and every time he got a little better at it. As happens many times with something we’re new at, we have a tendency to get just a bit over confident and lose a little concentration.

As it happened in this case, this young man’s concentration slipped, just a bit and on entering the garage he missed hitting the brake and hit the gas pedal instead. He eventually found the brake but not before he put dad’s table saw through the wall and into the family room.

Dad eventually got home and upon pulling into the driveway saw his son and wife waiting for him. The son was covered in fear and guilt while his wife felt her son’s pain as most mothers do. Dad looked at his son and at the damage to the wall and seeing the remorse and sorrow in the boy’s face said, “Boy, it’s a good thing your mom and I love you.”

God’s love fulfills the law, so that we are loved!

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"

Now, the question was not asked because he didn’t know the answer. The Pharisees were the ones who made a living out of keeping the law. The question was asked so as to once again find fault with the answer Jesus gives. This would then give them a reason to accuse Him of false teaching and to look for a way to bring Him down.

37And 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. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Martin Luther had this to say about it:

"Take, then, before you this commandment: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and think upon that, seek after it, and try to understand it, what kind of a law it is, how far you still are from fulfilling this commandment; yes, that you have not really begun to fulfill it rightly, namely, to suffer and to do from your heart what God wants of you.

It is pure hypocrisy if one will crawl into a corner and think: Yes, I want to love God! Oh, how dearly I love God: He is my Father! Oh, how well-intentioned I feel toward Him! …and similar things. Indeed, when He does according to our pleasure, we can say many such words, but when once He sends us misfortune and adversity, we no longer consider Him to be a God or a Father. A true love toward God does not act thus, but feels it in the heart and says it with the mouth: Lord God, I am your creature, do with me as you will, it is all the same to me; for I am yours, that I know; and if it should be your will that I should die this hour or suffer some great misfortune, I should suffer it with all my heart; I shall never consider my life, honor, and goods, and whatever I have, higher and greater than your will, which shall be well-pleasing to me all my life." (Luther.) Kretzmann NT vol. 1 pg. 125

The Pharisees knew not love. Their love was in how much better they kept the law in their own eyes than the sinners and tax collectors who were in there midst to which Jesus relates this parable in Luke 18:

11The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' 14I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

God’s love fulfills the law, so that we are loved!

But ... we too fail to show love. We too measure ourselves against our neighbor. We too have a bit of a Pharisee in us. Don’t we?

We see it at home. “Look at all that I do around here and nobody else does anything!” Or at work, “I’m always the one on time. So and so is always late and never prepared as well as me!” And we see it even at church too. Our sinful flesh is always trying to self justify us …to make us right for ourselves, in the eyes of the world and before God.

But, Christ says: Love - God first and then you can and will love your neighbor. Jesus covers both tables of the Law. The first three commandments deal with how we should relate to God and then the next seven tell us how we can and should relate to one another.

The truth of it all reflects our utter failure to do what God requires. We can’t keep the law. We can’t love God or our neighbor as ourselves. In our flesh we stand condemned. “Boy, it’s a good thing God loves you.”

God’s love fulfills the law, so that we are loved!

41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42saying,"What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." 43He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
44 "'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet'?
45If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Whose Son Is He? Our bulletin cover today tells us.

The only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made;

Our corporate confession of the Nicene Creed confirms what the Pharisees were unable to do. Confess Jesus as God’s son and David’s son, both God and man.

God in Christ became man to show God’s love for His creation and to fulfill the law as only He could. No amount of righteous deeds from the Pharisees could pay for even one sin because that one sin in the garden cast us all away from God’s presence only to be restored by God Himself, in Christ, who takes away the sin of the world and then by the power of the Holy Spirit creates faith in you and me by this blessed Good News!

God’s love fulfills the law, so that we are loved and now love others as Christ has loved us!

13 Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 (ESV)

Jesus has laid down His life for you. He came to do what you and I were unable to do, to make satisfaction for our sin; to satisfy God’s justice and to appease His wrath. Our Lord Jesus Christ has been seated at God’s right hand and the enemies of sin, death and the Devil have been placed under His feet.

The Law and all its requirements have been fulfilled in Him for you by His coming in the flesh, His sinless life, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection - for you. By this act of love you too are given faith by the power of the Holy Spirit to believe and receive His righteousness in exchange for your sin and in gratitude you love your neighbor as yourself.

If Jesus, went to the cross only as God’s son we would be sill in our sin without hope but as both God’s son and David’s son both God and man he came and has stood in your place and mine accomplishing our freedom from sin and giving us the blessed hope of eternity with Him.

Christ has died, risen and will come again - for you!

When dad looked at his son he didn’t see a boy who just busted a table saw, smashed through a wall or dented a car. No, he saw a boy who had the weight of the law place on him by his deeds and actions and the law did its work. His sin was evident and his remorse genuine.

Dad didn’t need to show him his sin …it was all over his face. Dad needed to do what God has already done for him. Forgive one another as I have forgiven you. As the Apostle John tells us:

9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:9-11

In the name of the Father and of the Son+and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen

And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in and through Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior now and forever.

Amen