Pentecost 24
Notes
Transcript
(NIV84)
7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him. 11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today. 12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you.
As we near the end of the church year, the church focuses on end times. Last week we noted that we can look forward to eternity as triumphant saints who have been redeemed by Jesus and that when he returns, we will enjoy the blessings of heaven even with those who had died before Jesus’ return. Another theme of end times is the Last Judgment. We confess this in the Apostles’ Creed when we confess that Jesus has ascended into heaven and that from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Although you may never have appeared in court or witnessed a trial first hand, the court room scene is a popular venue for many books, movies, and TV shows. In the 1960’s there was a long running court show featuring an imposing lawyer with keen deducting reasoning, he faithful secretary, a P. I. name Paul Drake and an older police detective and a prosecuting attorney who usually opposed him. In almost every episode this lawyer is called on to defend a person who has been wrongfully accused of murder and that defendant must appear before the judgment seat. After awhile you realize that Perry Mason always wins but you are entertained in reviewing the case and wondering how that person would be judged according to what they had or had not done. In the end, Perry always exposes the murderer and the real motive behind the murder is exposed.
Being judged by what we do is very common in this life even if it is not in a courtroom. We are judged by family members, coworkers, fellow students, neighbors, people we socialize with, even fellow members of the congregation. We may at times come under scrutiny and feel as though we must prove ourselves to them by our actions.
This is a truism we cannot escape. What we say and do is observed by others and is the evidence that is used to determine how we will be treated. Even the Bible tells us about how God judges his people and their behavior influences his actions toward them.
16 You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. 17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. 19 When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.” This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. 20 The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. 22 Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it. 23 The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. 24 All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?” 25 And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26 They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. 27 Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. 28 In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.” 29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. 1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.
And this truism of blessings for those who obey and curses for those who disobey is not limited to Moses and the people of Israel.
Proverbs 24:12 (NIV)
12 If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?
Matthew 16:27 (NIV)
27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
Romans 2:6 (NIV)
6 God "will give to each person according to what he has done."
Revelation 22:12 (NIV)
12 "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.
But this truism was never meant to be the motivation for why we do or don’t do what happens in our lives. We are not to approach our worship of God with the attitude, “If I’m good enough, God has to reward me.” And “If I have sinned too much, he will condemn me to hell.” Our being saved is not dependent on what we do but on what God has done for us and is received by trusting in his promises in connection with His saving work.
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
So if we aren’t obeying out of hope for reward or fear of punishment, what is our motivation for obeying God? It is a response to what God has done for us and promises us in love. This is what Jesus is teaching in our Gospel lesson. John 15:9–17 (NIV) 9“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
It is what Moses taught in Deuteronomy. God loved, chose, and redeemed his people before he gave them the laws they were to live by and his promises of reward and threats of punishment. God’s people were to relish and enjoy God’s love and in loving response joyfully commit themselves to him. And when they would sin (as they often did and we did too), they were to return to the Lord trusting in him for forgiveness. That forgiveness can be given because Jesus paid for the sins.
So this leads to our motivation for Christian living.
MOTIVATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
Let’s just be honest for a second. With the exceptions of Christianity’s ethics toward sex, money, and power (which I understand are pretty big things), Christian ethics look a lot like secular ethics. In fact, secular ethics borrow much of their ethics from Christianity. The 10 Commandments is a prime example. Everyone seems to inherently understand that stealing is wrong, murdering is wrong, false witness is wrong, and sleeping with someone else’s spouse is wrong—even for the most seasoned relativist.
However, the motivations that lie at the bottom of Christian ethics and secular ethics could not be more different.
In fact, the motivations behind Christian ethics even differ from every single other world religion, too. On the surface, each ethical system—secular or religious—calls forth similar external behavior, but Christianity makes a case that only it can deliver the best type of ‘external’ behavior, because only it starts with a radically different set of ‘internal’ motivations to cause such a type of behavior after all.
So, what is this motivation, and why is it even important?
Author and theologian, J. I. Packer, brilliantly explains the power of biblical motivation, and what sets it apart from every other world religion or ethical system. Check out what he has to say:
The secular world never understands Christian motivation. Faced with the question of what makes Christians tick, unbelievers maintain that Christianity is practiced only out of self-serving purposes. They see Christians as fearing the consequences of not being Christians (religion as fire insurance), or feeling the need of help and support to achieve their goals (religion as crutch), or wishing to sustain a social identity (religion as a badge of respectability). No doubt all these motivations can be found among the membership of churches: it would be futile to dispute that. But . . . a self-seeking motivation brought into the church is not thereby made Christian, nor will holiness ever be the right name for religious routines thus motivated. From the plan of salvation I learn that the true driving force in authentic Christian living is, and ever must be, not the hope of gain but the heart of gratitude.[1]
In a nutshell, the distinctive factor that sets Christian ethics apart from every other secular or religious system is that its motives starts as a response to what has already been gained—not a response to gain.
Do you do good deeds to gain reward from God or do you do good deeds for God because you’re grateful that in Christ God has given you everything that you could ever want or need by His grace, and that there is nothing left to be gained by your works?
In fact, when we think that there is more love, acceptance, and approval to be gained by our good works, we are essentially implying that Jesus’ work on the cross for us was lacking, and that we must or can even add to that.
Austin Gentry is a NC-native millennial who has had a life-long passion for teaching, writing, and engaging the culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received his Master of Divinity. He currently serves as the Young Adults Pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX. You can read more of Austin’s work at www.austingentry.com and connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at @AustinGentry.
As Lutherans we are more familiar with Martin Luther’s explanations to the Ten Commandments which often begin with “We should fear and love God so that . . . “
Conclusion: Someday we will all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ and receive according to what we have done. But we should not fear that God will condemn us because what Jesus had done for us perfectly trumps all of our actions. Nevertheless, in love for the one who has loved and saved us, we will make it our goal in life to please him and live according to his will.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.