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Yesterday I shared that the Ten Commandments are God’s instructions on how to love. When Jesus was asked what commandment was most important, He gave a beautiful little summary of God’s Law in Matthew 22.

Matthew 22:37-39 ³⁷ ”‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

The Commandments all boil down to this: Loving God above everything else, and loving your fellow man. Paul put it even more succinctly in his letter to the church of Rome:

Romans 13:10   Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

That is what God’s commandments are all about: Love. If you love God above everything else, you keep all the commandments God has given. That sounds pretty good. On the other hand, if you slip up just the least bit, you have not kept any of the commandments. That is the message we read in James:

James 2:10  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

And Scripture makes it very clear that those who do not keep God’s Law deserve punishment, severe punishment. Adam and Even knew that eating of the forbidden fruit would bring death, and it is no different for you. Because of sin, that is what you have earned.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death

Thinking about God’s Laws, your lack of obedience, and what He tells you in His Word can leave you feeling depressed. You realize that you are inadequate. You have not done what God requires. He tells you to love, and you have not done it, at least not the way he tells you to. When you understand how serious this is (the wages of sin is death), when the gravity of your situation hits you, it hurts. You want to do what God demands. Your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak.  What can you do?

The God who is LOVE had a plan, a plan the world sees as “foolish.” God would make His love incarnate. He would become one of us in order to take our disobedience on Himself and pay the price our sins demand. He would do this to restore us to God’s favor. Christ Jesus did all that for you by loving you and living a perfect life for you. He loved you and rose from the dead for you. His love has given you pardon and peace with God, in spite of what is going on in the world. He has brought you forgiveness and life and salvation. That passage I read earlier from Romans 6 – I only read part of it. Listen to the whole verse:

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That is what God’s love is. Knowing what He has given us in Jesus, we strive to live according to that “to do” list He has given us. It is our response to what He has already done for us in Jesus. Or, as John put it:

1 John 4:19  We love because He first loved us.

A group of students were asked to list what they thought were the “Seven Wonders of the World.” Though there were some disagreements, the following received the most votes:

1. Egypt’s Great Pyramids
2. Taj Mahal
3. Grand Canyon
4. Panama Canal
5. Empire State Building
6. St. Peter’s Basilica
7. China’s Great Wall

While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one quiet student hadn’t turned in her paper yet. So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there were so many.”

The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.” The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ are:

1. to see
2. to hear
3. to touch
4. to taste
5. to feel
6. to laugh

7 to love.

The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. The things we overlook as simple and  ordinary, the things we take for granted, are truly wondrous!

Over the next few days, my devotional thoughts will be on the last thing on that little girl’s list: to love. It is truly a thing of wonder to love and to be loved. It is at the same time easy and difficult to love. As we consider this topic today, I want to be sure we are all on the same track. Love can be and is defined in a variety of ways. But rather than thinking of it in terms of liking something or having romantic feelings toward a person, I want you to focus with me on the Bible’s definition of love. So today I leave you with this thought:

1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

Romans 5:1-5 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We live in God’s grace. That means even though we don’t deserve it, God has established peace with us because of what Jesus did in our place. And we rejoice in the hope, the certainty, that we will enter into the glory of God’s presence because of our faith in Jesus.

 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Paul said that we can also rejoice in our sufferings. That doesn’t sound quite right to our ears. Rejoice in sufferings?

• How can you rejoice when your body is wearing out and your organs are failing and there is nothing anyone can do about it?
• How can you rejoice when you lost all your retirement savings?
• How can you rejoice when you are a man whose entire family is killed when a drunk driver plows into the car your wife is driving?
• How can you rejoice when you are going through a bitter divorce.

These are real situations, real suffering and hardships. Rather than rejoicing, people in these situations often cry out “Why me, Lord?” They are searching for answers that they may never find. They verbalize the frustration that has built up inside. While they may never get a specific answer for their individual circumstances, God does answer us in His Word. He tells us why He allows suffering, trials, tribulations and hardships to come into our lives. Paul says REJOICE and be happy in your suffering. Be glad when it is bad. He says you should rejoice in the face of such things because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope, and hope will not disappoint us.

That may not sound like a great deal of comfort while you are in the midst of a traumatic situation, but actually, it is. No matter what is going on in your life, look to the cross and the empty tomb. Focus on the hope that is yours in Christ Jesus, a hope that is always yours. Paul called it the hope of the glory of God. That is yours through faith in Jesus. You live in the confident knowledge that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, you have peace with God.

In the 1930’s in his native England, then Prime Minister Chamberlain said: “I believe it is peace for our time.” That statement prompted a huge cheer from the listening street crowd, from the House of Commons and from every newspaper in the land. There was the feeling that Mr. Chamberlain should receive the Nobel Peace Prize. It wasn’t long before England realized that Hitler had lied to them. He got them to agree to peace so he could trample Europe underfoot. Great Britain learned a hard lesson: peace, real peace, comes at a great cost.

One lesson that should be learned from history is that Peace is costly. Peace comes at a price. Peace does not mean closing your eyes and pretending your enemies don’t exist, or that what is happening somewhere else doesn’t concern you. Because of sin in this world, we will continue to have tyrants and terrorists and forces of evil that work against peace. In order to have peace, sometimes war is an unfortunate necessity. Years ago there was an article The Lutheran Witness about the concept of a just war, one that has peace as its goal. Such a war is not an act of aggression but an attempt to end aggression. Yet Christians continue to come down on both sides of that issue.

As we ponder on this, we should do so, as we should ponder all things, in light of God’s Word. Speaking to His disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus said:

John 16:33  “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

And a little earlier that same evening He had said:

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Something Jesus makes very clear is that His peace, the peace most often spoken of in Scripture, is not of this world. It is the peace that He established between God and man, and it was more costly than any peace in this world has ever been. He accomplished it by coming into this world, living a perfect life, and offering that life in payment for the sins of all people. In this world we will have trouble, but Jesus has overcome the world for us. We know that this is not all there is. Because of the peace that Jesus has established between God and His fallen creation, we know the message of forgiveness, the message of life, the message of salvation that is ours in spite of all that is going on in the world around us.

That is the peace we need for our time.

Philippians 2:1-18 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

This passage speaks about the attitude Christians should have. It convicts us of our self-absorption. We may try to race past those words Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in reality, we have to admit that much of what we do in life comes from those motivating factors.

A man had his boss over for dinner. The boss kept saying, “You know, I’m a self-made man!” After the umpteenth time, the host’s six-year-old son asked, “Daddy, if he a self-made man, why did he make himself that way?” Our efforts to “make” ourselves fall short. Selfish ambition and vain conceit cause us to focus on self and not what Jesus would have us do.

The solution to being self-absorbed is to be Christ-absorbed. Let Jesus fill your heart and mind rather than your own self-centered thoughts. If Christ fills you, the sin and selfishness will be pushed out. And this is how it happens. Christ comes to you in water poured over you in the Triune name, through the written and spoken Word, through a holy meal of bread and wine, through hymns and songs of praise. Christ lived a perfect life for you. He poured out that life for you on the cross, taking your punishment. We see that and recognize how great His love is and how puny we are, especially when we are full of ourselves. But the more Christ fills us through Word and Sacraments, the less room there is for our selfish selves and the more His Spirit will shape our minds.

It doesn’t just happen, and it certainly won’t happen overnight. It is a process that is achieved by spending time with Jesus, listening to His Word, pondering the meaning of your Baptism, receiving Him in Holy Communion. The more you do this, the more you will lose your sinful self and become like Him, having His attitude. You need to be confident of who you are in Christ Jesus.

Christian Herter, former U.S. Secretary of State, was running for reelection as governor of Massachusetts. One day he arrived late at a barbecue. He had not eaten breakfast or lunch and was very hungry. As he moved down the serving line, he held out his plate and received one piece of chicken. The governor said to the serving lady, “Excuse me, do you mind if I get another piece of chicken? I’m very hungry.”  “Sorry,” the lady responded. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”  “But I’m starving,” the governor said. She repeated, “Only one to a customer.” Herter, normally a modest man, decided it was time to pull rank and throw around the weight of his office. He said, “Madam, do you know who I am? I’m the governor of this state!” The lady replied, “And I’m the lady in charge of the chicken, so move along, mister!”

That lady’s stubbornness is noteworthy for two reasons. First of all, she knew who she was: the lady in charge of the chicken. Secondly, she knew what she was supposed to do: she diligently followed the instructions given to her. If only we were that steadfast. We need to be convinced of who we are: disciples of Jesus Christ. We have received His cleansing, His pardon, His forgiveness, and His authority. And we are to follow His instructions. We are to share His love with everyone else. We are to have His attitude. We are to live according to His instructions. If only we could be as convinced and as faithful to our calling as that chicken lady!

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32  The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: “`The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?  “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son– both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. …  “Yet you say, `The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust?  If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die.  But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.  Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.  Yet the house of Israel says, `The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?  “Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall.  Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?  For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

 Ezekiel was a prophet before the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and during the first part of the Babylonian captivity. These were hard times for God’s people. God allowed the children of Israel to be conquered and the people to be carried off to Babylon as slaves. This captivity was something they brought on themselves because of repeated disobedience to God, refusing to even acknowledge Him as God. The part about the fathers eating sour grapes and setting the children’s teeth on edge is a complaint that they think they are being punished for what their ancestors did. Ezekiel responds that they were not paying for the sins of their fathers – they themselves are sinful: Is it not your ways that are unjust?

 This passage points out sin and calls people to repentance. The wicked will die. The righteous will live. Those who are sinning must repent and turn from their offenses. That is God’s desire for His people, because when they repent they will find life.

This reading focuses on individual accountability before God. The wicked will die. The righteous will live. But what makes a person righteous before God? Outward deeds or the condition of the heart? A righteous standing before God demands a righteous heart. And that is something that comes from outside of us. Ezekiel wrote about this earlier:

“And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh…” Ezekiel 11:19

God gives us a new heart. He provides righteousness through His Son, Jesus Christ. It is something our Father gives us in faith. The people of the Old Testament were made righteous by looking forward to the Savior in faith, while we are viewing our Savior from the perspective of history. It is through Christ that we have been set free.

Thinking about the Israelites in their captivity reminded me of a story I read about Harry Houdini, the great magician and escape artist. He boasted that he could escape from any jail cell in the country. He demonstrated this ability many times, but one time things went wrong. When the heavy door clanged shut, Houdini pulled out a piece of metal that had been concealed in his belt and started to work on the lock. For thirty minutes, he picked away, but couldn’t get the lock to open. An hour passed, and now he was bathed in sweat, not understanding why he could not open the lock! Two hours passed, and he finally collapsed in frustration against the door he could not unlock. When he fell against the door, it swung open. It had never been locked. In his mind, it was locked, and that’s all it took to keep him “locked” in and frustrated.

The bondage and imprisonment of our minds is often like that jail cell. Jesus has freed us from sin, but often sin captivates our minds and convinces us that we are still in bondage. Many live and think and act as though they are still captive to sin, when the truth is that Jesus has already set them free. You discover that if you read the Bible.

John 8:31-32  … Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (NASB)

Matthew 21:23-32 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?” Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’  “ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

Your faith is something you need to put into action. Putting on a good front or a show won’t cut it. It has to be more than lip service. You need your faith to be shown by the way you live.

The Jews in Jesus day were proud of their privileged status among the nations. True, they may not have had earthly power, but they were, after all, God’s chosen people. This led many of them to become smug. They lived outwardly correct lives, but they saw no need for repentance or a change of heart. They rejected John the Baptist’s call to repentance. They rejected God’s offer of salvation that was accomplished by Jesus.

How many today view themselves as being superior because they have agreed to follow the demands of Christ’s teachings? Aren’t we better than those who reject the Gospel and engage in obvious sins? Most of us have been Christians for a long time now. Do we really have anything that we need to repent of? Are we falling into the same trap that is so easy for us to identify in the Jews of Jesus’ day?

When God calls people to Himself, they can react in two ways. The first son says no, but later does the will of his father. That represents the tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners of Jesus’ day. Their actions said loudly that they would go their own way, but later the Spirit of God led them to go His way after all.

The second son, who says “Yes, I will” but then does nothing, is a depiction of the nation of Israel as a whole. They were quick to profess allegiance and obedience with their mouths, but their actions did not match their words. The rendered lip-service, not real service to God. These are the kind of people Jesus was speaking of when he quoted from Isaiah: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. (Matthew 15:8)

God’s desire is that we say it, believe it, and live it. Knowing of the salvation and life we have through the death and resurrection of Jesus should not lead us to smugness or a feeling of superiority, but to a heartfelt response of living the new life.

Two brothers were found guilty of stealing sheep. In that time and country, the punishment was to have their foreheads branded with an S and a T, standing for sheep thief. The first brother was embarrassed and bitter and ran of to another country. He nursed his resentment the rest of his life and died there forgotten and unknown. The second brother stayed home. He repented of his crime. He reasoned, “I can’t run away from the fact that I stole sheep. I will stay here and try to win back the respect of my neighbors.” As the years passed, he established a reputation for honesty and integrity. One day a stranger came to town and noticed the brand on his forehead. He asked one of the locals what the S and T stood for. After thinking about it a moment, the local responded, “It all happened so long ago I really don’t remember the details. But I think those letters are the abbreviation for ‘saint!’ ”

Repentance is a turning, away from sin and to God. Repentance is a way to receive God’s pardon and salvation. And that will be expressed in your life.

Isaiah 55:6-9 6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.   Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.   “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.   “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Since God’s ways and God’s thoughts are higher than ours, we need to examine our ways. When we say we seek justice, we usually mean what seems fair to us, what is in our own best interest, without taking the other parties into consideration. Our ways tell us that if someone does you wrong, get revenge. If someone hurts you, don’t get mad, get even.

God’s ways are not like that. His thoughts are different.

God’s thoughts include forgiveness. Even though your sins have earned punishment and death, God does not hold sin against those who put their faith in Christ Jesus. Instead, He forgives you.

God’s way includes grace. He gives you eternal life freely, a gift with no strings attached. It was earned, but not by you. Jesus earned it for you with His life and death. It is God’s to give, and He does that to those who have faith in His promises. You get it because of God’s love, not because of anything you have done.

God’s way includes mercy. You are undeserving, but He wants you to have salvation. It comes from mercy, which is more than simply taking pity on us. It comes from His compassion, His heart, wanting the best for us and being merciful.

God’s ways and thoughts could never have been conceived or dreamed up had He not told us about them. Our lives deserve to be punished because we have not met the high standards God established for His people. But because of God’s grace that reaches out to all people in Christ Jesus and our faith in what He did for us, we will get off without even a slap on the wrist.

The first part of this passage reveals just how different God’s thoughts and ways are from ours: Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

Why should we be able to find God? We don’t deserve it, but we live in a time of grace. God could be remote and inaccessible, wanting to stay as far away from the stench of our sins as possible. And He would be justified to come into the world and wipe it all out because of sin. Yet He chooses to be approachable, to invite us into His presence. He is readily accessible.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

What sweet sounding words to our sinful ears! All you have to do is turn from your sins and to the Lord. You have been called to repent of your sins and trust in Jesus. God is then merciful and forgiving. Instead of coming to destroy, He came into this world to reconcile, to pardon and to save. Now He is patiently giving people the opportunity to call to Him for mercy and be saved.

When you think about the relationship you have with God through faith in Jesus Christ, the pardon in spite of sin, the life instead of death, blessing instead of punishment, you should be thankful that His ways are not our ways.