The context of our text for this morning is the fact that God is the prime mover. It all beings with the Lord. We love, because He first loved us. We cannot love, except that He first loves us. As a matter of fact, we have no love, except that He first loves us. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but merely reflects the light of the Sun, so we have no love of our own, we merely reflect the love of the Son of God. It is important that we keep this fact in mind as we hear words of law and words of encouragement, especially as those words of law or encouragement expect something from us.
In the Gospel reading for this morning we have the account that we call the Good Samaritan. This parable was told by Jesus to a man who wanted to test Jesus to see if He would give a right answer. The man’s original question and response implied that he believed that he was saved by his good character, by his doing something to save himself. Interestingly enough, this man’s question and response shows how his is not any different from many in our world today who believe they too are saved by their own good character, by their doing something to save themself, by being obedient, by their pointing to themselves instead of Jesus for their own salvation. Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to help the man to see that he was not as good as he thought he was because he did not know what it truly meant to love his neighbor. Interestingly enough, because of the man’s prejudices, he so despised the Samaritan that he could not even say that the Samaritan was the man who showed mercy, but simply answered that it was the “one” who showed mercy.
In the Epistle reading for this morning, we hear Paul’s words of encouragement to bear good fruit, which is the fruit of faith. And of course, Paul speaks these words because he knows that the Lord has given them faith and it is the Lord that works these good works, these fruits of faith in and through them. Here Paul gives us a proper understanding of the third use of the Law, that is that we are obedient, not because we can be by ourselves, but that any obedience we demonstrate flows from God loving us and working obedience, even if it is imperfect obedience, in and through us. Here again, notice we get it right when we point to Jesus.
Now, getting to our text for this morning. In the first half of our text we have words of encouragement to the children of Israel that they are to live in the world but not be of the world. We begin at chapter eighteen, verse one, “18:1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. 3You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. 4You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord’” (18:1-5). God is giving His people the promised land, yet He is giving it to them with a warning, they are not to live either as the Egyptians, the people of the land they left, nor as the people of the land of Canaan, the land they are entering and inheriting. Instead they are to follow the rules and statutes of the Lord.
The second half of our text is speaking specifically of loving one’s neighbor. We pick up at verse nine of chapter nineteen, “19:9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God. 11“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 13“You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. 15“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord: (19:9-18).
The words of the Lord flow out of His love, care and compassion for His people. As we listen to the Lord’s words of love here in our text, in Leviticus, certainly His words are appropriate for us today and show His continued love for us even today. The Lord knows that we will always have the poor among us and in caring for the poor, He tells His people that during the harvest they are to leave some for those who have nothing. Even today we know that there are those who will go out after a harvest and glean the fields.
The Lord summarizes several of the commandments when He tells His people they are not to steal, deal falsely, lie, swear or profane God’s name. Here commandments one, two, three, seven, eight, nine and ten are brought to mind.
The Lord reiterates His care and the care of His people for their neighbor as He tells them they are not to oppress their neighbor. Again, this deals with commandments four through ten as all these last commandments deal with our relationships with one another.
The Lord warns against frivolous accusations and lawsuits, as He speaks words of warning to bear no injustice in court. Certainly, as Christians, we are to use the courts as needed and as necessary, especially since we do live in this secular world, however, we are to remember that if at all possible it would be better to settle our differences outside the courthouse, if for no other reason than we would not want to clean our dirty laundry in public as the saying goes.
And the Lord warns against seeking vengeance, and says that rather we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. And this brings us back to the fact that we cannot love expect that God first loves us.
So, what does this mean? God is not giving any new commands. God had already given His people the Ten Commandments which cover everything from our relationship with Him to our relationships with all other people. God’s commands are perfect and with ten being the number of perfection and completion, certainly the Ten Commandments are perfect and complete. The first three commandments help us in getting our relationship with the Lord right. The last seven commandments help us in our relationships with each other. God did not give us these commandments in order to stifle us, nor to take away any freedoms from us, but He gave us these commandments because of His love for us, in order to give us boundaries, in order to keep us safe, in order to give us order so that we might have peace.
It is in particular, when we are being disobedient to the commandments, which is ninety-nine percent of the time, that they seem like a burden to us. And I always like the way we sinful human being attempt to find some gray area in the commandments in order to justify ourselves and our actions, instead of simply letting the commandments do what they were intended to do, show our sin so that we see our need for a Savior, our need to repent and be given forgiveness so that we might have life and salvation. And so the summary of the Law is Love. If we could love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind, we would never break any of the first three commandments and for that matter if we could keep the first three commandments then we could keep them all. The problem is we cannot even keep the first. And the rest of the summary of the commandments is that we love our neighbor as ourselves, which, if we could love our neighbor as ourselves, we would not break any of the last seven commandments. Here again, in and of ourselves we cannot keep even one commandment.
So, how is this done? As always, it starts, flows from and ends with God. God is the prime mover. God loves us. God shows His love in the fact that He created us and He created us in order to love us. God needs nothing from us and truly He expects nothing from us. What we consider to be the demands of the law are only demands because of our sinful nature and the fact that we cannot live as the people God would have us to be. If we could live as God would have us to live, then the demands of the law would simply be a response of faith and something we would rejoice in doing.
Again, it all starts with God. God loves us. God showed His love for us in the fact that immediately after Adam and Eve sinned God promised to send a Savior. Because God demands perfection and because we cannot be perfect, God sent Jesus to be perfect for us. Jesus lived as one of us under the law, obeying the law perfectly, because we cannot. The fulness of the Gospel is the fact that Jesus lived for us, in our place, doing everything we cannot do for us. And after living in perfection, after fulfilling all God’s promises and prophecies perfectly, Jesus took all our sins and all the sins of all people of all places of all times on Himself and suffered the eternal death penalty, eternal death in hell for us in our place. And He died and rose.
It all starts with God even for us today. God gives and we are given to. God gives us faith, forgiveness and life. He gives us faith through the means of Holy Baptism as well as through the means of His Holy Word. And God strengthens and keeps us in faith, again, through the means He has given to strengthen and keep us in faith, through our Baptism, through confession and absolution, through His Holy Word and through His Holy Supper. Through these very means He gives, strengthens and keeps us in faith, He gives faith, forgiveness and eternal life.
But God is not through giving. He also stirs in us a response of faith, that is He moves in us to live lives of faith, to live out our vocation, serving Him by serving others. As we live as priests in the priesthood of all believers, as we live lives as living sacrifices, so we are giving glory to His Holy Name.
And so, God gives to us so that we reflect His love to others. How can we not love as He first loves us? How can we not reflect His love that He shines on us? God is not a demanding God, but He is a gift giving God. God needs nothing from us as if we would have anything we could give to Him anyway, at least that we would have anything that would be ours without having first been given to us by Him. We simply offer to Him a portion of what He has first given to us.
Too often we fail to realize that by being given the gifts God has to give, we are indeed giving glory to His Holy Name. Remember, God created us to love us and so He delights in lavishing us with all the good gifts and blessings He has to give.
This morning I would continue to exhort and encourage you. First, I would encourage and exhort you to be given to. And second, as you are filled with all the good gifts and blessings our Lord has to give, I would encourage and exhort you to love your neighbor as yourself, as that love flows out of the Lord first loving you. In so doing, we rejoice as our lives say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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