Sermon for Trinity 15, September 12, 2021
Deuteronomy 6:4–7
4Hear, O Israel! The
Lord is our God. The Lord is one! 5Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6These words that I am commanding
you today are to be on your heart. 7Teach
them diligently to your children, and speak about them when you sit in your
house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (EHV)
Love
the God of love and mercy.
Dear brothers and sisters of the living Savior,
Every
religion demands obedience to its gods.
The ancient pagans insisted that their idols be respected and worshipped
lest the city, or state, should suffer the wrath of its imagined deities. Modern religions expect the same allegiance
to whatever god is worshipped, some demanding allegiance at the point of a
sword or a gun. In one respect,
Christianity is the same as other religions: our God expects our love and
allegiance—demands it, in fact. However,
this is the only similarity between Christianity and other religions, for no
religion other than Christianity worships a living, loving God, a God who
provides for all people and all living creatures regardless of faithfulness,
and a God who gave His own life, so that we might live and never die. Therefore, dear friends, Love the God of love and mercy.
After Moses broke the two tablets of the law
that God had given him to guide Israel, Moses was instructed to carve out two
new stone tablets on which God promised to write out again His Ten Commandments. At that time, Moses asked to see God. The Lord God of heaven and earth agreed to
pass by Moses so that Moses might get a glimpse of God’s glory, yet lest Moses
be destroyed by the glory of God’s face, the Lord sheltered Moses from seeing His
face. God had Moses stand in a cleft in
the rocks and covered Moses’ face with His hand as God was passing by declaring,
“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and
overflowing with mercy and truth, maintaining mercy for thousands, forgiving
guilt and rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7)
It is in these words that we meet the God of
our sermon text. Without this context,
one might assume that the God of Israel is like all the idols of earth. Everything else people worship demands
service with the illusion of receiving something good in exchange. The Lord, our God, on the other hand, invites
us to love Him for all the mercy and love He shows to us generation after
generation. The fact that this world
still exists shows that God is merciful and compassionate. St. Peter later wrote, “The Lord is not
slow to do what he promised, as some consider slowness. Instead, he is patient for your sakes, not
wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
Moses called out to the people, “Hear, O
Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is one!” For much of the world, this idea that there
is only One true God is a novel concept.
Even when our friends and neighbors assume that everyone worships God,
they do so assuming that anything goes when it comes to worshipping God. For far too many people, today, God is a construct
of the mind, something far out there but not really connected with every day
living. In that way, God becomes sort of
a friend you used to know but don’t see much of anymore. That allows them to imagine that God has no expectations
of them and no restrictions on their behavior.
For some others, though, God becomes this scary force who is trying to
hurt you for past wrongs, so they believe God cannot be trusted and you must
handle all problems yourself.
The One true God is neither of those false
images. The God who created this world
and everything in it wants you to know Him, personally, just as He knows you. He wants you to know His love for you and for
everyone who trusts Him. He also wants
you to know His holiness and perfection.
For that reason, at creation, God walked with the first man and woman,
side by side as friends. When that close
connection was destroyed by Adam and Eve’s rebellion, God didn’t abandon those
He loved but gave them a promise of the Seed of the woman, a Son who would
restore the connection of peaceful harmony between God and man. That message of salvation was to be passed
down from generation to generation so that everyone would know and love
God. Of course, we know that ball got
dropped as wickedness and violence increased, and God’s promise was ignored and
forgotten. Ultimately, God brought
destruction upon the world in the form of a world-wide flood to wash away
wickedness.
Later, after the remnant of mankind had begun
rebuilding the population of humans on the earth, God continued His quest for
all people to know Him by sending prophets with messages of grace and promises
of a Savior and how to recognize Him when He would come. Especially, God chose one family through
which He would make His salvation plan be known and through whom the Savior
would be born. This family was descended
from Israel, Abraham’s grandson first called Jacob. God called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to faith
in this promised Messiah. God led their
descendants out of Egypt with Moses as the intermediary.
“The Lord is our God. The Lord is one!” The Bible makes it
clear from beginning to end that God is three persons in One God—Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. This Triune God is at
once Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of the world. But, how can we know Him? The Bible tells us that we best see God at
the cross; by the inspiration of the Spirit, St. Paul wrote, “For all the
fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ.” (Colossians 2:9) To know God, and especially to know His
inherent goodness, mercy, and love, as well as His perfect justice, you have to
meet God at the cross in Christ Jesus.
At the cross, God punishes all the sins of the
world. There, God takes possession of
every evil deed, word, wish, misunderstanding, and thought you and everyone
else have ever had. There, the
punishment that you and I and everyone else has rightly deserved was laid on
God’s Son, Jesus.
The devil is rightly called “The Accuser,”
because whenever we are tempted, or fall into sin, Satan is right there
accusing us of being guilty before God and unworthy of God’s love. Yet, at the cross, we find the depth of God’s
love for the human race. Despite the
fact that we have all rebelled against God and fallen in league with the devil
against our Creator, God gives Himself as the Victim and the Substitute who
must die as the just penalty for the sins committed against God. The Accuser is thus defeated, because the
only righteous Judge has paid the full penalty for all the guilty.
Our God left nothing to chance. When evil entered the world, God had the
solution already planned. When man lost
the knowledge of God’s love and mercy, God sent messengers to show us His
love. Because none of us could come to
Him, God came to us in human flesh to win us back to Him. Because only God could restore true life to
dead souls, He sends His Spirit in Word and Sacrament to claim us as His own,
to restore us to His kingdom and family, to replace our stone dead hearts with
living hearts of faith, and to dress each of us in the pure righteousness of
the Son who lived the perfect life of faith, humility, kindness, and service
that God expects of His dear children.
Because of the great love God has shown to us,
He calls to us through Moses, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your might.” Love is a connection of faith, fellowship,
and service. We love when we set aside
our own desires to devote ourselves fully to what is best for others. In this case, that means we commit ourselves
fully to what God commands. It means we
will strive to trust Him without doubt or worry. It means we run to Him as a little child runs
to earthly parents with every trouble, hurt, or need, fully expecting that in
God we will find our help. It means we
trust God’s wisdom for our lives by trusting His Word as the source of all
truth and the solution to every evil.
In God’s great love for us, we have the answer
for all the ills of this world. In His
Word, we learn right from wrong. In His
Word, we learn of the great love He demonstrated for us on the cross. In His Word, we learn of God’s passion for
defending His people from the devil’s assaults.
In His Word, we learn of how God continues to sustain those who trust in
Him, how He feeds us His own body and blood as fuel for faith, medicine for our
lives, and forgiveness replenishing hurting souls.
Because God loves us, He also loves our
children and our neighbors. Therefore,
He wants His love to be evident in our lives so that those around us also learn
of His great love and mercy. Moses
taught, “These words that I am commanding you today are to be on your
heart. Teach them diligently to your
children, and speak about them when you sit in your house and when you walk on
the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” It is our connection with Christ that
satisfies God’s law. Through Christ, we
are counted as holy, and through faith in Christ, we are empowered to live holy
lives. It is God’s fervent desire that
the Good News of what Jesus has done for us be seen continually in everything
we do.
We all know how poorly hypocritical instruction
works. Telling a child to do the right
thing while doing the thing you speak against seldom accomplishes your
goal. St. James wrote to fellow
Christians, “Be people who do what the word says, not people who only hear
it. Such people are deceiving
themselves.” (James 1:22) To ignore
God’s law is to walk away from the love God has given us in Jesus. Mindlessly repeating God’s law does nothing
to save the lost. Rather, giving of
ourselves to walk with the holy Savior—that brings peace to the world and
salvation to many.
Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord spoke
about Jesus, 'It is too small a thing
that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore
the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.' " (Isaiah 49:6)
The God of love and
mercy “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4) He wants
everyone to hear, see, and believe what Jesus has done to reconcile the sinner
with God. Therefore, the One and Only
wants His Gospel message to be our focus, morning, noon, and night, so that we
don’t lose Christ’s free salvation. He
wants us to be continually shining beacons of His Gospel, so that many more
people will enter His kingdom of grace.
Dear Christian
friends, because He so loved us, Love the God of love and mercy. Amen.
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