What We Believe Teach and Confess - Love Your Neighbor (Part 1): Body and Possessions

What We Believe, Teach, and Confess - Love Your Neighbor (Part 1)

Today we begin a mini two week sermon series within a sermon series. I am not quite sure if that is possible, but we will go with it. As a brief recap over the last couple of weeks, we discussed how God is God and we are His people. He makes a way for us to dwell with Him and He with us through His law which Jesus fulfills. This is all summarized in the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Last week, we discussed the order of creation. God created the world to have a certain order that reflects His goodness and mercy. This is most evident within our own families and marriages - which is the one institution that was not completely destroyed after the fall. Last week was the beginning of the second greatest commandment which is like the first, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Today we will continue with this second commandment that Jesus says to the lawyer who challenged Him. What we will find is that at the heart of this commandment we see that Christianity is truly a peaceful religion. In our readings today, especially in our Gospel, we hear how we can have no enemies. And we can have no enemies by being made perfect in love.

And truly today because of Christ we have no enemy among people because He has reconciled us to Himself and one another. This does not mean that we have people who oppose us for our Christian faith, nor does it mean that we as the body of Christ always see eye to eye. It does not mean that we do not get angry with one another. But rather it means that when we love one another, giving forgiveness, putting the best construction on disagreements and conflict, encouraging one another and explaining everything in the kindest way gives us the opportunity to never perceive someone as an enemy, but as a brother or a sister in Christ.

Today our Lord teaches us that we should have no enemies among people, especially within His church. Rather,

WE OUGHT TO REPROVE SOME, AND PRAY FOR SOME, AND SOME WE SHALL LOVE MORE THAN OUR OWN LIVES.

We ought to reprove one another and come to terms quickly, even if we are angry with our brother.

“YOU HAVE HEARD THAT IT WAS SAID TO THOSE OF OLD, ‘YOU SHALL NOT MURDER; AND WHOEVER MURDERS WILL BE LIABLE TO JUDGMENT.’ BUT I SAY TO YOU THAT EVERYONE WHO IS ANGRY WITH HIS BROTHER WILL BE LIABLE TO JUDGMENT.” With these few words Jesus convicts every single one of us, judging us, because we have been angry with someone else. Anger is a sin that receive the judgment of God. It is something that we confess to God through our Savior, Jesus Christ. After all it is because of Christ’s atonement that God is not angry.

“Ah! But Pastor Johnston, if God can be angry why can’t I be angry as long as my anger is under control?” Now that’s a good question. Anger is God’s prerogative alone. When we get angry, it is not just a moral failure. Our anger is intolerable because it takes the prerogative that belongs to God and makes it our own. When we get angry, we are taking matters into our own hands - matters that belong to God. And God’s anger has relented because of the reconciling work of Christ. Because of Christ’s death on the cross, God’s anger is set aside. No longer is God angry with you. Rather, in Christ, God reproves you of your sin and comes to terms with you quickly in His forgiveness.

Therefore, anger has no place in the Christian life. Rather, we who live in the reality of peace with God through Christ ought to have peace among each other. To be angry with our brothers and sisters in Christ is to be “diametrically opposed to God, who is no longer angry” (Scaer, Sermon on the Mount, 109). When we are angry with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we forfeit our place in the Christian community.

So what must we do when we do get angry. After all, I like you am succumbed to anger in many and various ways. And the first thing we ought to do is confess it to God and let him forgive it. The second thing we ought to do is what Christ instructs next, “BE RECONCILED TO YOUR BROTHER, AND THEN COME AN OFFER YOUR GIFT.” At the altar of God is where reconciled people come. And it begins by reproving one another. Instead of turning to anger, turn to the one that you’re angry at and have a tough conversation - even an uncomfortable one. And the best thing about tough and uncomfortable conversations is that they are tough and uncomfortable for everyone involved. Face your accuser first, if you still can’t work it out, bring a couple of Christian brothers and sisters along with you, if you still can’t work it out, then come to your pastors. Hopefully by then it’s worked out, but if not, we will still keep trying to work it out because the goal is to not have each other as enemies or foes, but as brothers and sisters in Christ - as people who reflect His love to one another and among our whole community. Therefore, some we will reprove to bring to reconciliation and unity in Christ which ultimately takes place at this altar in the Lord’s Supper.

Instead of retaliation and getting even we ought to pray for our enemies.

“YOU HAVE HEARD THAT IT WAS SAID, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A TOOTH.’ BUT I SAY TO YOU, DO NOT RESIST THE ONE WHO IS EVIL. BUT IF ANYONE SLAPS YOU ON THE RIGHT CHEEK, TURN TO HIM THE OTHER ALSO.” An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is all about getting even with the one who assaults us. And this is very prominent in our culture. Our understanding of justice and fairness is all about getting even. Often times this justice and fairness we like to take into our own hands, instead of letting God through the institutions that He has ordained, handling the abuse.

Afterall, it is very easy after someone hits you that you hit back. That would be my natural response to it. I grew up with three older brothers, we fought all the time. If I hit one of them, they hit me back and next thing you know we are slugging it out.

But certainly violence today is not only considered physical, but violence today is considered verbal as well, and certainly in some instances silence is perceived as violence. What are we to make of this?

Well, if we look back at Jesus’ words on anger, He says, “WHOEVER INSULTS HIS BROTHER WILL BE LIABLE TO THE COUNCIL (THE SANHEDRIN); AND WHOEVER SAYS, ‘YOU FOOL!’ WILL BE LIABLE TO THE HELL OF FIRE.” These are verbal results of anger. Granted these are just examples. Insults are not limited to the term “fool.” But certainly when we are assaulted with insults and slurs, or when even rumors a made behind our backs it hurts. It may cause us to shut down and withdrawl from conversation. It may even cause us to retaliate back with our words.

But instead of retaliating with violence, either physically or verbally, we ought to turn to prayer. Praying for our enemies hands our afflictions over to God to execute justice. And there are even times when we do not get justice on this side of heaven. While we do not have to stay in abusive situations we certainly must maintain self control to not take justice into our own hands. Allowing the one who is evil to continue their evil act heaps burning coals upon their head. God will give you justice, as He already has in Christ.

For even when Christ was struck, stripped naked, and forced to carry His own cross to death, He did not once retaliate. Rather, He let His crucifixion be a sign of judgment upon evil doers, while giving justice to those who put their trust and confidence in His death. This is how He loved the world. His love is shown through the prayer that He prayed as He was dying on the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

We are to be made perfect in love as our heavenly Father is perfect, even loving some more than our own lives.

This is Christ’s perfect love. And We are to be made perfect in love as our heavenly Father is perfect, even loving some more than our own lives. “YOU HAVE HEARD THAT IT WAS SAID, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AND HATE YOUR ENEMY.’ BUT I SAY TO YOU, LOVE YOUR ENEMIES AND PRAY FOR THOSE WHO PERSECUTE YOU, SO THAT YOU MAY BE SONS OF YOUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN.” Loving people the way that Christ loves is hard, and we fall desperately short daily. But in loving people the way that Christ loved people we have no enemies among our neighbors. It keeps in perspective who our real enemies are - sin, death, and the devil.

And the great thing about our only enemies being sin, death, and the devil is that they are already defeated by Christ’s victory over them on the cross. And by that same cross our neighbors who may be difficult to love are now our friends because we have the love and forgiveness of Christ.

The life of a Christian is seen in large church in a small town where brothers and sisters in Christ argue, disagree, and get angry with one another. They acknowledge that arguments and disagreements are a part of working together to best share the Gospel with everyone in their community, but they first confess their anger and all their sins to God knowing that their sin is forgiven for the sake of Christ. Knowing their sins are forgiven, they work to reprove one another, encourage one another, build each other up, constructing everything that is said and done in the kindest way. They are unified in what they believe, teach, and confess as they come together to their Lord to receive His word and sacrament, knowing that all the challenges that lay before them they face together following their Lord who is their reconciliation, peace, and unity. They love one another by reproving one another, praying for one another, and sacrificing their lives for one another in any way that takes form. They do this because that is the love that they have received from their Lord and Savior who has relented from His anger toward them, who desires to give them everlasting peace, unity, and blessings in His kingdom which has no end.

Amen, and amen.

The peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.