TITLE: “A Sermon on the Love of God”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for today is from the Gospel lesson, particularly these words, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

In this mixed up world of ours, we do things for all the wrong reasons, as we can see from our text.  Our text starts with a young lawyer going up to Jesus and putting him to the question: Which is the great commandment?  Now you and I may think we know the answer to that, but the answer was not so obvious to the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were convinced that keeping the Law could save them.  They had 613 laws that they found in the Torah, which they divided into 248 positive laws that corresponded to the parts of the body, and 365 negative laws, one for each day of the year.  So out of this myriad of laws and rules, the question of which is the great commandment was an important one for them.

But they missed the point entirely.  Saint Paul tells us in Galatians that the Law of God is fulfilled in one word: love.  Love is the fulfillment of the Law.  The point, in other words, is not keeping a set of rules, or keeping pure.  No, the point is a heart that thinks not of itself, but thinks of the other.  Love for God with heart, soul and mind leads to love of the neighbor.  In other words, love defines us and makes us who we are as human beings.

This is why love is the fulfillment of the Law.  Love makes us who we are.  It defines us.  It’s what makes us different from the animals.  In Bible class lately we’ve been talking a lot about Law and Gospel, and how the Law is about understanding that being human means giving of ourselves.  In other words, being human means to love, to give of oneself, and even to sacrifice for others, not for the sake of gain, but simply because that is the nature of love.  It’s what makes us human beings.

This is why selfishness is so dangerous and contrary.  To be selfish, to hold on to our possessions and time and money simply because it’s what’s best for me, well, that’s just plain not human.  Oh, sure, it’s what everyone does.  But it’s not right.  It’s not how God created us to live.  From the very beginning, God created human beings to give.  Adam and Eve gave to each other and loved each other, and their love grew into the family we call the human race.

Love for the neighbor is the second half of the great commandment.  Whoever God has placed in our path, to love that person, to sacrifice and give to that person, that is a gift from God Himself.  In the next weeks and months ahead, we’re making decisions that will impact the future of our church.  Decisions involving time and energy.  Decisions involving money and resources.  At the heart of these questions must always be the underlying question for you and I: How does God want me to use the gifts that God has given me in my life?  How does God want me to use my time, my talents, and yes, how does God want me to use my money?  Now we can make that question complicated, or we can make it very simple.  The simple answer is that God wants you to use everything you have, indeed everything you are in service to God and to your neighbor.  For these two things go together.

You serve your family, your closest neighbors, by giving to the Church and insuring that the Gospel is preached.  You serve your neighbor by buying a house or a car, or contributing to our economy.   You serve your neighbor by going to work, by the big things and little things that each one of us does every day of our lives.  And God’s Law serves as a mirror, so that we may constantly look at and examine our lives to see how we’re doing.  Am I loving God enough?  Am I doing everything I can for my neighbor, my church, my family, and all those God puts into my path?

If you are honest with yourself, if you look at the life you lead and the way you use the things God has given you, you have to answer an emphatic no.  You know far better than I do your own selfishness.  You know that you are cheap and chinsy when it comes to giving to those in need, but you are as quick as I when it comes to buying something you want, and justifying it.  Our sinful human nature turns us in on ourselves, so that we don’t ask how do I serve my neighbor. We ask, how will they serve me?  It is our nature to love and to give, but that nature is so tarnished that we can barely even recognize it at times.  As the Psalmist said, He who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Psalm 10:6).  When you love this selfishness, this evil sin that lurks within you, you are hating yourself and the image of God within you.

God doesn’t do fractions.  He either wants ALL of you, your heart, soul and mind, or He wants none of you.  There are no part-ways.  There are no half now, half later deals with God.  To be in the image of God, to be truly human, means to give all of yourself to Him and to your neighbor.  And you can’t do it.

That is why to truly understand love and self-giving, we have to look into the very heart of God Himself.  We are made in God’s image, and the Scriptures tell us that God is love (I John 4:16).  It is God’s very nature to give, to create, and to sacrifice for the sake of His love.  This is His true character.  This is who He is.

So what this means is that God’s very nature and character is to love you, to take care of you, and to give you what you need.  Part of what you need is the Law.  You need to recognize your sinfulness and weakness.  You need to see that only God can help you.  This is why God’s Law is so demanding, so absolute and unbending.  But that isn’t the end.

God’s final word to you is not Law, not demands and threats of punishment.  God’s final word to you, His word of love, is that He will give everything for you.  He gave His only begotten Son over to the death of a common criminal, so that you, His wayward child, would have life in His name.  That, my friends in Christ, is love.  That is giving.  That is a glimpse into the heart of God Himself.

This is why Jesus has this little argument with the Pharisees over how the Messiah is the Son of David and yet David’s Lord.  Jesus had to be fully human so that He could reach down into our nature.  But He also had to be fully God so that He could redeem the whole human race.  This is the depth of God’s love.  David’s Son is David’s Lord.  And that is what they couldn’t understand about the nature of God.  They thought God’s nature was receive our honor and worship.  But God’s true nature was to give.  God’s true nature was to give and give and give, to the point of His own death.  That is love.  That is God.

And so let us sing with the Psalmist, I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord!”  It is here where we are given His grace.  It is here, at this font, at this pulpit, at this Altar, that all of God’s love and mercy won for you on the cross flows into you.  God’s love is here for you.  He gives it to you freely, because God is love.

In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.