Without You, We are unable to Please You

October 16, 2022

Without You, We are Unable to Please You

Matthew 22:34-46 T Trinity 18

INI

There’s one central truth to Christianity,

that’s often forgot by the most religious and pious people.

No amount of study can bring you to this truth,

Only true humility and faith,

As you examine your life before a holy God.

 

We prayed this truth today in the Collect of the Day,

It’s the theme of this sermon,
“Without You, O God, we are not able to please You.”

 

Without God, we stand condemned before God’s Law.

And thus, God isn’t pleased.

 

There’s nothing sinful man can do to please God.

That’s something that the Pharisees didn’t understand.

As a whole, the Pharisees were so consumed with the Law.

Though to be fair, the Pharisees were at least thinking about God’s Word.

They talked about God’s Law a lot,

Hence why they asked Jesus this question:

“Teacher which is the great commandment in the Law?”

 

We could assume that this question was talked of frequently among the Pharisees.

It’s not as if the thinking about the Law is bad.

It’s actually quite good!

Psalm 119 talks at length about how a Christian centers themselves on God’s Law.

 

But the Pharisees weren’t able to ensnare Jesus with the question,

because He gave the perfect answer.

It’s the only answer that encompasses and summarizes all the other commandments of the law!

Jesus replied saying, “The greatest commandment is this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind.”

Notice the repetition of the three “all of’s”.

This indicates that even the slightest sliver of ourselves can’t be closed off to God.

Loving God can’t be half-done. It can’t be done only 95 %.

Love and obedience to God must be full, complete, and genuine.

That’s what pleases Him.

 

That’s the first and greatest command.

No part of ourselves can be against God, but rather, aimed towards Him.

Everything we do, say, feel, think – it’s all about God and serving Him.

Our whole person aims to please Him with everything we have.

Anything short of that displeases God.

 

Even in sinful man’s attempts to do God-pleasing things,

God sees works done outside of faith as dirty rags.

Isaiah 64:6 says “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”

We end up doing the right things with wrong attitudes and intentions,

Like the Pharisee who prayed in the temple in Luke 18,

“God, thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; and give tithes of all that I get.

 

When looking at the Law, a Christian must see themself correctly.

Utterly broken. Totally incapable of keeping it. Needing help and mercy from God to keep it.

With even the best of intentions, sinful man falls short of pleasing God.

Yet, God isn’t pleased with our intentions.

He’s pleased with our whole being oriented towards Him.

 

So, we start off not pleasing God in the great and first commandment,

But we also obviously fail in the second which is like it –

“love your neighbor as yourself.”

 

So, Jesus answer to the Pharisees gives the two commandments of love –

love God and love neighbor

The entire Old Testament is written on these two commandments.

Take away these two commandments,

and the entire Scriptures become a house of cards.

 

 

Jesus answered the Pharisees’ question about the Law.

But then Jesus posed to them a question about the Gospel.

Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”

The Pharisees responded, “The Son of David”,

which confesses the truth that the Messiah was going to be a man.

But then Jesus presses them to see the Messiah as more than David’s Son,

But as the Scriptures testify, as David’s Lord!

 

As we know, Jesus speaks of Himself in this text.

He’s teaching them that He’s not just man, but God!

And that’s important!

Because man cannot fulfill God’s law of love perfectly.

If God’s law were to be fulfilled, it must be done by God Himself.

So, if the Christ were just “the Son of David”, that is, just a man,

Then He would be just like anyone of us – guilty of sin before a holy God.

 

But since the Messiah is not just the Son of David, but David’s Lord –

Then He IS able to fulfill the Law perfectly!

He lived the perfect life of obedience under the law.

He was perfect, sinless,

Which is something no one who walked this earth was able to do.

Yet He was killed and convicted as a blasphemer,.

He was unjustly convicted of breaking the first and great commandment.

Yet by submitting Himself to this death,

He fulfilled the first and great commandment from His Father.

 

Jesus tried to get the Pharisees to yes, imitate and love the law,

But they must look for the promise and favor of God in the God-man, Jesus.

Jesus teaches them, and us, to read the law correctly.

God’s Law reveals one important truth to us:

Without God, we stand condemned of our sin before a holy God.

God’s law reveals our own inadequacies of pleasing God and loving neighbor.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore the Law to move on to the Gospel,

But we should seek to do the Law with the help of the Gospel.

 

Because on its own, the doctrine of the Law cannot save you.

Instead, look to the Gospel in Christ, for He has saved you.

Look where Christ points the Pharisees, and you, towards.

Look to Jesus, who has taken away your sin on the cross.

Look to Jesus, who has covered you with Himself with the lavish washing away of your sins in the font.

Look to Jesus, who speaks words of forgiveness through the Word of God, and the word of His servants.

Look to Jesus, the man whose body and blood is given as a substitute and sacrifice for you.

Repent of your sins, and receive this Gospel,

because it puts you IN CHRIST.

 

With THIS gift, when God sees you, He doesn’t see you in your sin.

He sees the righteousness of His Son.

Thus, the good works the Christian does in faith in Christ are cleansed by Christ,

And are pleasing to our Father in heaven.

 

Without Jesus, we cannot please God.

But with Jesus, God is pleased with us.

 

INI