Sermon for 19th Sunday after Pentecost--“Loving in Word & Deed”—Matthew 22:34-46

“Loving in Word & Deed”—Matthew 22:34-46

1.         Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word this morning comes to us from Matthew 22:34-46, specifically from vs. 35-40, which says, “35And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 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. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  Also we will look at the words of 1 John 3:18, where the Apostle writes, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.         Recently a man knocked at the door of a lady who lives in the town of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Since she is in a wheelchair it took her a while to answer the knock. When she opened the inside door to see who was there, he pulled on the outside door, and broke the chain. When the man told her he needed money, she gave him $5. The man then said, "That's not enough. I know you have more."
Apparently the woman had forgotten she had $20 in her purse. That's why the man pushed past her and helped himself to the cash. Of course, he did not do so without a polite apology. He said, "I'm sorry. I've never done this before. I'm desperate."  When the woman began to pray, the man, most respectfully, knelt down. When she was done, the man got up and ran away. It almost seems sad the police felt it necessary to arrest such a mannerly individual.

3.         Both you and I know it doesn't make any difference if the man was polite, or if he prayed, or if he apologized. The bottom line is that thief broke into a lady's house, frightened her, and then took that which didn't belong to him.  In short, his words didn't support his actions.  Sadly, this is the same thing unbelievers say about many Christians.  They are pleased to point out that there is, quite often, a big gap between the words and the actions of many Christians. The words of the Apostle John from 1John 3:18 remind us that things really have changed that much over thousands of years.  The Apostle writes, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 

4.         John knew, as every generation of Christians discovers, the world judges the Master by what His servants do. If the witness of our words harmonizes with our actions, the Savior, who gave Himself for us, is glorified. On the other hand, if we are inconsistent, people make the unfair assumption that Jesus' salvation story is hollow.  We do fail to keep the Law of love on earth and for heaven as Jesus reminds us here in Matthew 22:34-39.  The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were zealous for heaven, but failed the test of love on earth, much like the Apostle John points out in his letter to the Christian church.  The Pharisees followed strict rules of fasting, tithing, praying, and so on, supposedly for God and heaven.  But, they neglected, even abused, their neighbors on earth (Mt 23:13–29).

5.         We, too, fail the test of love on earth don’t we?  Our love for others doesn’t match up to our love of self.  We love money for ourselves, and good grades for our kids, which makes us look good.  We love our spouses, as long as they make us happy; our co-workers, as long as they give us due credit for a job well done, the victim of poverty or tragedy, as long as he isn’t too demanding or inconvenient to love.  If we can’t love our neighbor here on earth, whom we have seen, we surely don’t love God more than all else, even ourselves, as the Law requires (1 Jn 4:20).  We can’t see God’s sad face—the way we can see our wife’s when we’ve ignored her to spend another evening the way I want to spend it.  We can’t see God’s disappointment—the way we can our children’s when we let them down by being too busy with our jobs.  No, we don’t fulfill the Law of love—either here on earth or for God in heaven.

6.         Recognizing this failure to keep the Law of God is essential, because on the Law of love hangs the understanding of the entire Scriptures (v 40).  We, like the Pharisees, might think the Scriptures are all about our keeping the Law.  That Christianity is a moral code to earn our way to heaven.   But, Jesus shows that the Scriptures cannot be about our keeping of the Law, because we cannot do it.  By the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus showed the lawyer who wanted to “justify himself” (Lk 10:29) that loving his neighbor as himself was beyond his ability.  And Jesus shows the Pharisees in this text that the “first and greatest commandment,” love of God, cannot be fulfilled without also that love for the neighbor.  Then those who, like the Pharisees, are confident of their own ability to love and serve God will never understand the Messiah, because they will never understand their need for his coming.  Jesus was promised throughout the Old Testament that they knew so well, and he was standing right before them.  But unless they understood their need for a Savior, they could never understand the purpose of his coming.

7.         The right understanding of Scripture is Jesus’ coming as the Messiah to fulfill the Law of love for us as Jesus points out for us in Matthew 22:41–46.  There are two questions asked here in our text.  The first is from the Pharisees, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” and the second question comes from Jesus, “What do you think about the Christ?  Whose son is he?”  Martin Luther made an important connection between these two questions.  He pointed out that Jesus preached the law when he answered the question about the greatest commandment, and then he preached the gospel when he declared himself to be the Son of David who was prophesied in Psalm 110.  Also, that it is through faith in Jesus the Son of David that the Holy Spirit gives to us the desire and the strength to love God and our neighbor as ourselves.  And it’s in the Son of David that we find forgiveness for all those times when we have failed to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  And it’s in the Son of David that we find forgiveness for all those times we have failed to love our neighbor as ourselves.

8.         Jesus, quoting Ps 110:1, invites us to recognize that the prophets foretell a Messiah who is not just the Son of David, but also the Son of God!  This makes the Messiah the connection between earth and heaven.  The purpose of his coming is to bring heaven’s love to them.  The point of the Scriptures, then, is his loving God and neighbor, not their—our!—loving.

9.         The Messiah, Son of David and Son of God, loved his neighbor, you, me, the Pharisees, by giving himself for our failures of love.  He did all the loving for us, fulfilling the demands of the Law of love upon us.  He loved God perfectly by obeying the Father’s will—through a sinless life and the suffering of the cross.  He loved his neighbors—us—perfectly by doing all this for us.  Thus the Law of love has been kept for us, and we are forgiven for our failures to love.  His love is our motivation for love of neighbor (1 Jn 4:19).  Our spouses and children.  Our co-workers and friends.  Each is an expression of our love for God.

10.       God the Father planned for your salvation from the foundation of the creation (Eph 1:4). Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah, the promised Son of David, who fulfilled the Law of love and made you his own, for here on earth and for heaven!  Amen.