In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On All Saints’ Day we remember our loved ones who have died in the faith and are now in heaven with Jesus. For many of us, this is one of our favorite days of the Church Year. Even though there are many things about it that make us sad, nothing gives us more joy than to think about what Christ has promised to those who love Him. I think it is fair to say that on All Saints’ Day we get to sing some of the best hymns that have ever been written. Hymns like “Lord Thee I Love with All My Heart,” or “Behold A Host Arrayed in White,” and my own personal favorite, “For All the Saints.” On top of that, there are also these magnificent readings. Jesus’ words from Matthew chapter 5 about how despite their suffering, God’s people are truly blessed in Christ no matter what they experience in this life. Or the words of Saint John from his first epistle, and how we are God’s children now, and even though we don’t know everything about what our life will be like in eternity, we know that will be like Jesus, because we will see Him as He is. And, of course, who can forget the beautiful picture of heaven from Revelation chapter 7? The saints of God from every time and place gathered around the throne of the Lamb, free from sorrow, free from sin, free from sickness and suffering, singing praises to the Lord forever and ever.

The entire service today reminds us of what a good Lutheran funeral should be all about. It shouldn’t be about how great the person was who died, or all the things that they liked to do while they were still living. What does it matter what our favorite football team was or how many mountains we climbed when we are lying in a casket and our family and friends are standing next to us wondering what to do next? Memories, however powerful they might be, do not have the power to bring our loved ones back from the dead. And that is why they should not be the main focus of the service. Rather, a good Lutheran funeral should be about Christ. It should be about the comfort that is found only in the Word of God, and what the death and resurrection of Jesus means for those who put their trust in Him.

And so, that is what I would like to talk more about in today’s sermon. As we sing these wonderful hymns, and hear these wonderful readings, and think about the wonderful things that Christ has done for us and those we love, let us consider together the true comfort of All Saints’ Day.

The first comfort of All Saints’ Day is that everyone who has died in the faith is not truly dead, but is even now alive and with the Lord Jesus in heaven. Again, that is what we see taking place in our first reading from Revelation chapter seven. As Saint John writes, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Who is it that Saint John is talking about in this passage? He tells us just a few verses later, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

What Saint John saw was a vision of what we call the Church Triumphant. We are the Church Militant, those Christians who are still fighting the good fight of faith in this world. The Church Triumphant are the people of God in heaven. They the baptized children of God who are now at rest from their labors. They are the saints of Jesus Christ, who were made holy not by their own strength, merit, or works, but by the precious blood of Christ. They are those who put their trust in Jesus in this life and are now with Him in eternal life.

The Word of God tells us that when a Christian dies and their soul is separated from their body, immediately, they are transported to the nearer presence of Christ and experience unending fellowship with Him and the whole company of heaven. In fact, that is what heaven is. Heaven is unending fellowship with God. It is communion with Jesus and all His saints that never comes to an end. Remember what Saint Paul says in Philippians chapter 1, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” and “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Remember also what happened to poor Lazarus, and how the Bible tells us that when he died the angels came and carried his soul to Abraham’s side. And remember, of course, what Jesus once said to the thief on the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” 

Nowadays, when people talk about heaven, they usually describe it in terms of whatever they like to do the most here on earth, especially while skipping church. “So and so” is having a great time working on their car in heaven. Or “so and so” is have a blast fishing and playing cards in heaven. But that is not what heaven is like according to the Bible. According to the Bible, heaven is unending worship. As Saint John also tells us in his vision, “Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple.” Heaven is a Church Service that lasts forever. The only difference is that unlike how things can be for us now because of our sinful nature, heaven is the kind of Church service that we won’t ever want to come to an end. 

There are a lot of questions that we Christians still have about eternal life in heaven. Will my dog be there? Will that person be there who I desperately want to be there, and if they aren’t there, will I even be aware of it? Even though God does not give us all of the answers about heaven in His Word, He does give us the one answer that we need. As Saint John writes, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Whatever heaven is like, there is nothing about it that will cause us grief. Regardless of who is there, or what is there, we will be there with Jesus, and Jesus will be enough, because Jesus is always enough. Again, that is the first comfort of All Saints’ Day. It is that everyone who has died in the faith is not truly dead, but is even now alive and with the Lord Jesus in heaven.

The second comfort of All Saints’ Day is that our loved ones who have died in faith will one day rise again from the dead and we will join them in the resurrection on the Last Day.  Sometimes people forget that heaven, or that “in between time,” when our souls are with the Lord while our bodies are buried in the ground, is not actually our final destination as Christians. As we confess every Sunday in the Creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” Eternal life is not complete until we are complete. It is not truly begun until Jesus returns in glory and brings us back together as we were made to be in the first place.

Listen to how Saint Paul describes it for us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them.” And remember what Job said in the middle of his terrible suffering, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”

We live in a time where people have a very low view of the body, and that especially comes out when a person dies. Sometimes when a person died the body is ground up into dust and scattered into the wind as if it were being reunited with the earth like the pagans teach. Sometimes even well-meaning Christians will try and comfort others at funerals by saying that it is not really their loved one who is lying there in the casket. But if that isn’t our loved one, then who exactly is it, and why are we so sad about it? We are sad, because we know deep down that it is them. We know that our bodies are just as much a part of who we are as our souls, and that without our body, something would always be missing. We don’t just want to be with our loved ones someday spiritually. We want to be with them physically. We want to talk with them again. We want them to open their eyes and hug us with their arms. We want to hear the sound of their voice and we want to see the smile on their face.

And the Bible tells us that for those who endure in the faith until the end, we will. Again, as Saint John writes in his first epistle, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that we he appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” No, we do not know exactly what our bodies will be like in eternal life, but we do know that they will be our bodies. They will be the same bodies that we had in this life except they will be free from all of the things that made them wrong in this life. They will be free from sin. Just like Jesus is free from sin, we will be free from sin too. Just like Jesus has a body, and it is the same body that died and rose, except now it is a body that has been glorified so that is incapable of ever dying again, that is how it will be for our bodies. If there is something that is not right with our body now, it will be made right in eternity. If there something that we don’t like about our body, even if it is not something that needs to change, what will change is how we see our body. We will see it for the gift that it truly is. 

One of the things that always get asked when this topic comes up in Bible class is, “Will I be able to recognize my loved one in heaven?” While there are many questions about heaven that we do not have the answer to, that is a question that I actually think that we do. And the answer is a resounding, “yes.” When Saint John saw a vision of the Church Triumphant, he recognized people for who they were. He saw a multitude from every nation, from every tribe people and language. John saw all of our distinctiveness and everything that makes each one of us unique. John could tell who was who. On top of that, we also have the witness of Saint Peter from the mount of Transfiguration. Even though Peter had never met Moses and Elijah before in his life, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was still able to identify them by their appearance. How could we be in perfect fellowship with God and all His saints if we didn’t even know their names? No, as the Bible says, “We shall know fully, even as we are fully known.”

Again, that is the second comfort of All Saints’ Day. It is that our loved ones who have died in faith will one day rise again from the dead and we will join them in the resurrection on the Last Day.

And the last comfort of All Saints’ Day is that our loved ones who have died in the faith are with us now in the Means of Grace. Yes, the souls of our loved ones are in heaven with Jesus. And yes, the souls of our loved ones will be reunited with their bodies at the return of Jesus in glory. But let us not forget that Jesus is still with us. As Jesus promised in Matthew chapter 28, “Behold I am with you always, to very end of the age.” And because Jesus is still with us, we know that our loved ones who are with Jesus, are with us too whenever we are with Him. 

The place where we Christians have fellowship with Jesus is always in God’s Word and Sacraments. The Bible tells us that when we are baptized into Christ we put on Christ. It tells us that where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ Name there He is among them. And it tells us that whenever we eat and drink the bread and wine of Communion, we are consuming the true Body and Blood of Christ. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 Saint Paul writes, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one Body for we all partake of the one bread.” I don’t know if you have ever thought about what those words means for you when you take the Lord’s Supper, but I know when I first started to think about it myself. As some of you know, my parents are both already with the Lord in heaven. When my dad died, I was very young. I don’t remember everything that happened, but I do remember what my mom told me and my brothers the first week back to church after his funeral. She said to us, “Your dad was there with us at the altar.”

Mom was right. And it was not just wishful thinking on her part. It was what the Bible teaches and what the Church has always confessed in the Liturgy. As the author of Hebrews tells us, “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” And as the pastor says right before we sing the Sanctus, it is “with angels, and archangels, and the whole company of heaven that we laud and magnify God’s glorious name.”

If you want to be close to your loved ones who have died in the faith, go to where Jesus promises to be close to you. Jesus doesn’t tell you that you get closer to Him by taking a walk in the woods or playing eighteen holes of golf. He doesn’t tell you to search for His presence hidden in your feelings or bound up to your emotions. He doesn’t tell you to look for Him in bird signs, in sunsets, or reincarnated in the form of cat. And that is not where we find our loved ones either. If they were Christians, we find them in the place where all Christians are found. We find them in Church. Again, that is the last comfort of All Saints’ Day. It is that our loved ones who have died in the faith are with us now in the Means of Grace.

There are many things about today that make us sad. But in the midst of all of that, we Christians still have comfort. We have the only comfort that matters and the only comfort that lasts. We have the comfort that comes from Christ. It is the comfort that is ours because of His death and resurrection which paid for all our sins and promises eternal life to all believers. As we remember our loved ones who have died in the faith today, let us also remember what the Word of God teaches us about them. They are with the Lord in bliss. Jesus will raise them up on the Last Day. And until then, we are united with them every time we take Communion. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On Reformation Day, we Lutherans give special thanks to God for His servant Martin Luther, who boldly stood up for the truth of the Scriptures even in the face of grave personal danger. When we hear about Luther’s speech at the Diet of Worms in 1521, and how he refused to compromise on God’s Word despite the threat of his own death, famously saying, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” it sends chills down the back of every good Lutheran’s spine. But not everybody, of course, feels the same way that we do. Not everyone views Luther as a hero. In fact, many people, still to this day think of him as the villain. “Luther is the one,” they say, “who destroyed the Church.” “If it wasn’t for Martin Luther,” some argue, “then there wouldn’t be so much fighting among Christians today and so many different denominations.” “It’s Luther,” they maintain, “who was the real problem.” Many people in our time see Luther’s insistence on fighting for the truth of the Scriptures down to the very last teaching not as admirable, but as arrogant and misguided. They say that about him, and they also say that about us too.

So, in today’s sermon, as we celebrate once again the great Reformation of the Church, allow me to explain to you all on the basis of our Gospel lesson from John chapter 8, why we must never give up fighting for the truth of the Scriptures.

The first reason why we must never give up this fight, regardless of how difficult it might be, or what kind of things we might have to go through on account of it, is because there is only One truth that exists, and it is not our possession but God’s. As Jesus told the Jews so clearly in our text this morning, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth.” Here our Lord reminds us plainly that when we are defending the things that are taught in the Bible, we are not defending our own ideas, but the very Word of God. 

Yes, it would be one thing for us to fight over what we think, or about what we believe, but it is another matter entirely when it comes to fighting for what God says. And the content of the Bible does not consist in the thoughts or opinions of any mere man. It is the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Everything that we learn from the Scriptures, down to the smallest of details, is an accurate and reliable account of God’s very own truth. As we read in 2 Timothy chapter 3, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”

The truth of the Scriptures, therefore, is not our property or possession that we can simply give away or give up if it is too inconvenient or too burdensome for us to hold on to. It is God’s property, which we are called as His servants and stewards to protect and administer faithfully. Even though it may be easier to ignore certain teachings of the Bible, so as to avoid conflict, we would do so at the peril of our own souls and the souls of others. We would do so at the cost of losing out on the fullness of the truth, and turning it in to half-truths, or partial truths, which are really no truths at all.

There is no such thing as an unimportant or unnecessary teaching of God’s Word. There is no such thing as something that God tells to us in the Bible that doesn’t really matter. Those individuals in our day who maintain that we should only talk about the basics, so as to avoid conflict in the Church, may have good intentions, but they are still wrong. Who gets to determine what the basics of the Bible are in the first place? Which one of us has permission from the Lord to stand over the Scriptures and pick and choose which doctrines are essential and which ones aren’t? Where in Old or New Testament does God ever tells us to minimize anything that the Holy Spirit has chosen to reveal to us? He doesn’t tell us that anywhere. In fact, one of the very last things that God says to us in the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is this, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city.”

Saying that we Christians should stop fighting about the things in the Bible that we have trouble agreeing on is just another tool of the devil to get us to stop studying God’s Word and suppress His truth in the process. And for those who argue that the full truth of the Scriptures can never really be known, and that striving for pure doctrine is a naïve and impossible pursuit, that is not what the Bible says either. Again, as Jesus tells us in our text today, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth.” Through the humble study of God’s Word, where we allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves, and interpret themselves for us, we can come to the knowledge of the truth. We can understand exactly what God wants us to believe.

And again, that is the first reason why we must never give up fighting for the truth of the Scriptures. Because it is not our truth, but God’s.

The next reason why we shouldn’t give up this fight is because the loss of the truth of the Scriptures would be something far worse than all of the strife that we experience now on account of defending it. According to Jesus, not only is the Bible God’s very own truth, but it is also the instrument that He uses to set us free from our sins and save us. As He says in our text, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” God uses everything that is written in sacred Scripture to guide us to eternal life. Through the various teachings of the Bible, we learn what we need to know in order to be saved. We learn about what God wants from us in our lives, and how we have failed to do it. We learn about what Jesus Christ has done in our place to make satisfaction for our sins. And we learn about how we receive God’s forgiveness through faith alone.

Every single false doctrine that exists is an attack not only on Divine truth, but on our faith in Jesus. It is an attack on our salvation. Since all of the teachings of the Bible are intended to lead us to Christ, every time that something from the Bible is ignored or contradicted, it leads us away from Him instead. Even the smallest of errors, over time, can corrode our trust in Jesus and cause a person to fall away from the faith. Remember what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 16. He says, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees.” And what does Saint Paul write in Galatians 5, “A little bit of leaven, leavens the whole lump.”

What happens when you teach that salvation doesn’t come by grace alone, but that our own good works need to contribute to it too? Eventually, people will trust in themselves instead of Jesus, or they will despair that that they haven’t done enough to be saved. What happens when you claim that conversion is not entirely the merciful work of God but an act of our own free will? Either people will rely on their own decision to follow Christ, as if their decision is what saved them, or they will doubt that they were sincere enough when they supposedly made it. What happens when you deny that Baptism saves, or that the Lord’s Supper is the true Body and Blood of Christ, despite the clear passages from the Bible that say so? You take away the comfort of the Gospel and you deprive people of the certainty of God’s love when they are burdened by their sins. And what happens when you declare that the earth evolved over billions and billions of years, that marriage isn’t the life-long union between one man and one woman, and that life doesn’t begin at conception? You contradict the plain witness of Scriptures, cause people to have a low view of the Bible, and sometimes even make them reject the forgiveness from Jesus that they so desperately need.

Even though all of these examples are different false teachings, if left un-checked, or embraced, the result of every single one of them has the potential to be the same. All of them can enslave us. All of them can put us back in bondage to our sin and rob us of the freedom that we have in Christ. All of them can lead us away from Jesus. It's not that a person is saved by knowing every teaching of God’s Word perfectly, but God uses every teaching in His Word to save us. He uses all of it to build up our faith in Christ. And that is why, we should never stop fighting for any of it, regardless of how unimportant or trivial it might seem to others.

And the last reason why we must never give up the fight for the truth of the Scriptures is because defending that truth is commanded by God Himself, and has His blessing. Jesus tells us in John chapter 8 to “abide in His Word.” To abide in something means to stay as close to it as possible and never leave it. Obviously, if fighting for the truth of the Scriptures and defending the pure doctrine of God’s Word was an activity that we came up with on our own, it wouldn’t be necessary. But who would ever say the same thing about something that God Himself tells us to do? Who would be so bold as to reject the clear command of our Lord and Savior?

Jesus tells us to abide in His Word. He tells us to stay close to the Scriptures and not to depart from anything that they teach us. This is not just something that God’s Word tells us in one passage but in many other passages too. In 1 Timothy chapter 4, we read, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers.” And as Saint Jude tells us, “Contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.”

We do not have a promise that things will be easy for us if we hold fast to God’s Word and refuse to compromise on the truth of the Scriptures. But we do have the promise that God will bless us. God always blesses those who do His will. Even if they should suffer for doing the right thing, He promises to use their suffering for good, and strengthen their faith in the midst of it.

Many times today we hear people argue that the reason why our church, or even our own congregation, is shrinking is because of what we teach. They say that if we only would stay away for those topics that make people uncomfortable, churches like ours would be bursting at the seams. And perhaps they are right. But that wouldn’t mean that they are in the right. Just because a lot of people go to a certain church doesn’t mean that the things that it teaches are true. Just because a lot a people agree on something, doesn’t mean that what they agree on is correct. Truth comes from God. And He reveals that truth to us in the Bible. Therefore, the mark of a good church is not how many people attend it, but whether or not it is faithful to the Bible. 

When you are the faithful to the Bible you can expect to suffer for it. You can expect people to call you names and not understand why, in their mind, you are being so arrogant and stubborn. But it is not arrogant to submit yourself to the Word of God and confess it boldly no matter what anyone else says. It is not arrogant to fight for the truth of the Scriptures and reject everything that contradicts them. In fact, that is what every true disciple of Jesus does. We do it is because the truth is not ours but God’s. We do it because losing out on other things isn’t as bad as what we would lose out on if we lost the truth. And we do it because God tells us to. 

So, may the Lord bless us as we do it. May He strengthen us to be faithful unto death and never give up the struggle of fighting for the truth of the Scriptures. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

All of the teachings of the Bible from the both the Old and New Testaments can be divided into two main categories: the Law and the Gospel.  The Law is God’s Word of command that tells what to do and how we’re supposed to live. The Gospel, on the other hand, is God’s Word of grace through which He teaches about what Christ has done for our salvation. Understanding the difference between the Law and the Gospel is so essential that without it, it’s actually impossible to read the Bible. If a person doesn’t know what parts of the Scriptures are Law and what parts are Gospel, he or she will become easily confused and think that God’s Word is full of all kinds of contradictions. In one place, for example, the Bible offers forgiveness for all sinners, and in another place, it condemns all sinners. In one place, the Holy Spirit tells us to do certain things if we want to be saved, and in another place, He tells us that salvation is a free and unmerited gift. This puzzle can only be solved if we know the difference between the Law and the Gospel.

And one place where we get to see this difference shown to us very clearly is in our Gospel lesson today from Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew chapter 22, we are presented with two different questions that get at the heart of these two main teachings. First, the Pharisees ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and then, Jesus asks them who the Christ is. So, on the basis of these two questions, allow me to explain to you all a little bit more about the differences between the Law and the Gospel and how these teachings go together.

Again, the first teaching of God’s Word that we get to see in our text this morning is the teaching of the Law. After our Lord silenced the Sadducees, who asked Him about the resurrection of the dead, the Pharisees sent one of their own representatives to ask Him a question too. But just the like Sadducees were trying to trap Jesus and prove that He was a false teacher, that’s what the Pharisees were up to as well. As we read, “And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law.’”

If you remember, the Pharisees loved to debate with one another about which one of God’s commandments was the most important. They had identified 613 different ones, and each Rabbi, and each school of theology, would identify themselves by which one they saw as the most significant. Are the Sabbath laws the most important or are the food laws? What about the cleansing laws and the laws about tithing? Some said this, and some said that. The Pharisees were not actually concerned with which commandment Jesus picked, but rather they simply wanted to draw Him into a debate in order to demonstrate that He was just like all the other Rabbis who each had their own opinion. But notice how quickly Jesus answered their question. Without any hesitation at all, He responded, “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 first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

As is always the case, our Lord’s answer was perfect. And the reason why it was perfect was because Jesus did not pick out one commandment over another, but rather He summarized all of the commandments at once. He got to the heart of what each commandment is really all about. What do the first 3 commandments, for example, in the Ten Commandments have to do with? They all have to do with loving God. That’s why God tells us not to worship other gods. That’s why He tells us not to take His Name in vain. And that is why He tells us to remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Those are the ways that we show Him love. And the same is true for commandments 4 through 10. Do you want to know what it looks like to actually love your neighbor? It looks like honoring your father and mother, not killing people, not cheating on your spouse, not stealing, lying, or coveting things that don’t belong to you. Just as no one wants any of those things to be done to them, God tells us not to do them to our neighbor. Jesus was exactly right.

But what made Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees so perfect, was not just that He summed up all of the Law at once, but also that in doing so He showed us what the main purpose of God’s Law even is. The main purpose of God’s Law is to uncover our sins and teach us that we need a Savior. As Saint Paul tells us so clearly in Romans chapter 3, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Yes, knowing which one of God’s commandments is the greatest is a very important thing to know. But that knowledge by itself doesn’t actually save a person. In fact, that knowledge condemns a person. That knowledge reveals to us even more that we cannot save ourselves by the things that we do. The Law tells us what God wants from us, but it does not give us the ability to do it. On the contrary, it proves that we haven’t really done it at all.

Which one of us has loved God with his whole heart, soul, and mind? To love God with your heart means that you love Him with your will. It means that you always want the things that God wants and you never want anything different. To love God with your soul means that you love Him with your emotions. You always feel exactly the way God feels about everything. You despise the things that He despises. And you are happy with the things that make Him happy. And to love God with your mind, means that you love Him with your reason. In every situation, you always think the way that God thinks, and you never doubt His Word. Only the most delusion kind of person could possibly believe that he or she has loved God in that kind of way.

And that is only half of what it means to keep His law. The other half has to do with loving your neighbor. Who has truly loved his neighbor as himself? Loving your neighbor as yourself means putting the needs of other people always before your own. It means treating others with the exact same kind of respect that you want to be treated with by them. Whether it is your friend, or your enemy, or someone that you just met, it doesn’t matter. Anything that you wouldn’t want others to say about you, God says don’t say it about them. Anything you wouldn’t want others to think about you, God says don’t even think it about them. And anything that you would want others to help you with, if you were in the same situation as they were, God doesn’t just tell you to do it, He tells you to do willingly and gladly.

When a person examines himself according to this standard, that is, God’s standard, if he is being honest with himself, he must confess along with the Psalmist, “Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for no one living is righteous before You.” He must admit that he has not kept God’s Law. And again, that is the main purpose of the Law. God gave us His Law not so that we would try and save ourselves through it, but so that we would learn that we need salvation from it. We need the forgiveness of our sins.

And that leads us to the second question from our text today, the question that Jesus asked the Pharisees. After our Lord showed them how God’s Law demands perfect love toward Him and perfect love toward our neighbor, thereby proving that no one can be saved by keeping the Law because every one of us has broken it, Jesus said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” In response the Pharisees said, “the son of David.” Then Jesus added, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls Him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’

The reason why Jesus asked the Pharisees who the Christ is was because that question gets to the very heart of the Gospel. When you know who the Messiah is, and what He has come to do for you, then, and only then, will you know the real answer to how a sinner can be saved from his sins.

The problem with the Pharisees was not only that they had a completely false understanding of God’s Law, where they thought that God gave it to us so that we could be saved by keeping it, but they also had a completely false view of the Messiah. They thought that the Messiah would be someone just like them. He would be a man just like they were, except that He would finally deliver them from their earthly trouble. He would save them from the oppression of the Roman government and restore the Jewish nation to the same level of success that it had in the time of the Old Testament.

And yet, Jesus shows them from their own texts that they cherished, how the Messiah was much more than that. How could King David call the Messiah His Lord, even before the Messiah was born? How could God speak to the Christ, if the Christ didn’t already exist? And that is the point. He did already exist. And David could call Him his Lord even before He was born, because even though He had not yet been born in the flesh, He was begotten from all eternity. David’s Son and David’s Lord is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is the very Son of God Himself.

If the Pharisees would only recognize the true identity of the Messiah, then they should also have been able to recognize that He has come to do more than what any other man can do. In fact, He has come precisely to do what all men fail to do. He has come to fulfill the Law. He has come to keep all of God’s commandments on our behalf and then suffer the punishment for breaking those commandments as our substitute. The Christ puts all of our enemies under His feet, by allowing those enemies to kill Him. He takes His seat at the right hand of God, by first taking His seat on a cross, and dying for the sins of the whole world. That is how the Messiah ushers in His Kingdom. That is how He delivers us from our sad situation, we brought upon ourselves through our failure to keep God’s Law.

When you know the answer to the question, “what is the greatest commandment,” all that that does is bring you shame. You know what God wants from you, but you don’t have the ability to do it. But when you know the answer to the question, “who is the Christ,” then you can have true peace in your heart. Then you can have confidence in your salvation, even though you are still acutely aware of your sins.

That is the difference between the Law and the Gospel. That is the difference between these two distinct teachings of the Bible. The Law and the Gospel are not contradictory to each other, they are complimentary to each other. Through the Law, God shows us our sins, and through the Gospel, He shows us our Savior. Through the Law, God makes us realize that we need forgiveness, and through the Gospel, God gives us that forgiveness. Through the Law, God tells us how we are supposed to live, and through the Gospel, God tells us how Jesus has lived a perfect life in our place.

No, we have not loved the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. And no, we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth. But there is One who has. There is One who is like us in every way except that He is without sin. We have a Christ. He is David’s son and David’s Lord. And He is the answer to everything that we need. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.