The Highest Authority

Matthew 22:34-46

We gather in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; The Risen One.

Jesus and the the father are of one substance, they cannot be separated. The Holy Spirit which comes from the Father and from Jesus is of that same substance. The relationship between the Father, the Son Jesus and the Holy is spirit is what we Christians call God. And God is the audience of our worship today and every Sunday.

We gather in the name of the Lord Jesus, The one who died, defeated death and lives eternally at the Right hand of the father because it is through Jesus that God restores us. It is through Jesus that God saves us. It is through Jesus that God loves us and gives us a means by which we may love God in return.

Before Jesus offered his life for us, our broken human nature, our unholiness, kept us from approaching the Most Holy God. We are impure, while God is pure. We are corrupt, wile God is perfect.

We have been granted life by God. It is by his word what we came into existence. It is God's very spirit that is the breath of life in us.

If we are lucky, some of us will have about a hundred years to live this earthly life, for most of us that number will be less. And as the birthdays continue to march on, I come to an increasing realization that that is not a lot of time.

At the end of that time the hope that we all have and the promise That God gives is that we will continue to live. Not in this mortal body of flesh but in a spiritual body. A resurrected body. And we will live eternally. We have that promise when we give ourselves to God in a loving relationship.

God first loved us and is waiting for our love to return.

The Bible records Jesus once saying “If you love me you will keep my commandments (John 14:15).” If we love Jesus we will do what he says. If we love Jesus we will live as he commands us to live. IF WE LOVE HIM. If we don't then we won't.

If we don't love Jesus then our lives will look just like the lives of unbelievers. If we don't love Jesus then our fate will be the same as unbelievers.

Can we earn God's love? By no means. God loved while we were yet sinners and he gave his live for us. But God is asking for the love in return. You have been saved by His love. What are you going to do about that?

In the Gospel lesson today, we started with an expert in the law of Moses coming to test Jesus. He asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” and he said to him, “You shall love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” “this is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as as yourself.” On these two commandments depend the whole law and the Prophets.” From Jesus' mouth, we are to love God with everything we've got and he ties loving our neighbor right in with that!

We are Christians. We must assent to Jesus as the highest authority in our lives. We have only a brief amount of time on this earth to get it right.

Yet we fight for control. We lose our focus on God's priorities and follow our own. When we are violated in some way we seek our own justice rather than trust in God's. There is a group of us that meet in the back of the sanctuary every Sunday. Currently we are reading a book by Bishop Reuben Job called Three Simple Rules. The rules are: do no harm, do good and stay in love with God. Simple and yet as we have discovered and discussed these rules can be very difficult to carry out in every situation. When we are committed to these rules the whole of life is transformed. This week and the next we will be finishing up this profound little book, then we will be starting something new. It will be a book that will help us celebrate Christmas. We are starting it in November so that we have it finished by the beginning of Advent. I invite and I pray that most of you will be able to participate in this upcoming discussion about the baby Jesus who was God in the flesh and yet was born in humility.

It may seem like I am getting off track, advertising a study after church but it gets us back to the scripture for today. The Pharisees were probing Jesus with questions to test him. But then Jesus finds them and asks them a question that reveals where there heart is. He asks them what they think about the messiah and whose son is he?

They answer, “The son of David.” Which to the people of that time is a term for the Messiah the one that they were waiting for to come and make everything right again. They were expecting an earthly leader, a politician or a military leader to restore Israel to the way things were. They were thinking in earthly terms. But Jesus directs our attention to the Kingdom of Heaven. And he did this with those Pharisees that day. He asked this confusing follow up question, “if David then calls him 'Lord,' how his He his son?”

Jesus was saying that they were thinking in too narrow of terms. They were thinking of only the material world. The Christ, the anointed the Messiah is the son of God. Our gaze should not be downcast looking for someone to deliver us out of our earthly concerns our gaze should be upward to god looking for His guidance, seeking his will and live according to his commands.

It is just like the birth story of Jesus. One would think that the king of Kings would be born in a palace in a beautiful place to much jubilation. In reality all that earthly stuff would have been a distraction. Jesus was born in a stable amongst the animals, announced to the outcasts in an unheard of town in the middle of nowhere. Jesus whole earthly life seems to shake us from our attention from the earthly and direct it to the heavenly. We need to be reminded of this constantly because for now we live in both.

We talked a little last week about giving to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. And we do have to live under earthly authorities. But everything that is done. Every decision that is made on our behalf should be steeped in the Love of God. We should first acknowledge Jesus as the highest authority in our lives. We should also hold accountable those who make decisions for us to that same standard.

So, how is it with you today? How are you loving your Loving God?

Would you pray with me?