The Fulfillment of the Law

Season 5, Ep 54

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All Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

‘Meditations Daily Devotional’ is published by Northwestern Publishing House (www.nph.net/periodicals) and is used by written permission. Thank You NPH!

What is most familiar about this world and this life? Ever thought about it? You know what it is, what it really is?: Laws! Yep, laws.

Laws tell you what to do and what not to do.

Laws are the sum and substance of your life, all of your life.

Laws . . . give you something to do, something to work for, something measurable.

LIKE WHAT?

--Moral improvement. Utopia! The good life!

The Law came through Moses.

Moses gives you something to do.

You DO keep the Commandments of Moses, don’t you?

God sent them.

Moses delivered them . . . to the people of Israel, right?

To you too, right????? ONLY . . .

The laws point out your shortcomings, failures and most of all your SIN AGAINST GOD,

and even moreso

when you try to earn HEAVEN

by keeping the laws, keeping the Commandments.

And if at first you don’t succeed . . . try harder to get your act together , your life, and secure Heaven! and expecting God to “cut you some slack” cuz you tried so hard!

You DO? Don’t you?

When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

What they were fed with from their preachers and teachers AND EXAMPLES, was rules, regulations and laws. What’s a good citizen today?: one who keeps the laws. What’s a good citizen of God’s Kingdom? A keeper of God’s Laws.

Laws upon laws. Demanding, un-keepable, unkept even by those who preached, taught and exampled them; those who claimed to be the “true keepers of them” and therefore the “true members” of God’s Kingdom. They preached, taught and exampled the Divine Law,

the Commandments,

the very voice of God,

His Commandments that must be kept . . . otherwise you’re OUTSIDE of God’s Kingdom . . . .

And the harder they tried the worse it got.

Why? Because it was never THAT from the beginning!

No wonder they were harassed and helpless?

Like sheep without a shepherd. Foundering around, hope against hope that somehow . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Are you?

Recognize it?

Laws, rules, regulations, court cases and decisions. More rules and regulations.

Follow the laws-life’ll be great!

Big brother is watching . . . watching YOU!

Know what’s most harassing and helpless about those laws?:

You’ve broken how many?

Huh! You just haven’t been caught yet!!

Especially when it comes to your eternity, heaven, and on the Last Day giving an account to God!

At every funeral . . . do you assume the deceased went to heaven? That’s what it seems like, Right? That’s so much of what THEY appear to suggest.

In the text, Jesus is traveling through the territory. Jesus is no Moses, no lawgiver.

Matter of fact, Jesus gives you something certain to believe.

--The Law measures what you deserve.

--Faith----belief on the other hand receives

what the heart knows we don’t deserve: love and mercy!

The Savior is on a mission: FOR YOU!

--His face is set.

--His eyes are fixed.

--His hands are outstretched.

--His voice is lifted high.

The Savior is on a mission and His mission is the salvation of the world, not legislation.

--With Jesus it’s not about some Heaven on earth that you do or don’t deserve based on the last election!

--With Jesus its all about

what He has to freely give FOR YOU

and what YOU receive from Him by faith.

It’s not about deserving, it’s about believing.

Believing what? Believing God is love.

Believing Jesus is God’s Love made flesh and blood FOR YOU. Believing Jesus is God’s love incarnate to redeem and save you!

We are given to believe this!

. . . to believe in God’s Incarnate love Jesus

setting aside and not always and fully using His Divine Power and Majesty,

To redeem and save us from sins,

From our NOT KEEPING God’s Law!

By the doing of the Law shall no one be justified!

Jesus’s going throughout the towns and villages of the region. What’s He doing?

--He’s preaching the Kingdom of God,

--teaching the people the Love and Mercy of God. --He’s healing every sickness and disease that confronts Him: there’s not a single manifestation of sin that even comes close to challenging Him.

--He deliverers God’s peace in the forgiveness of sins. The laws didn’t do that or bring that!

Jesus DID!

The stories of the miracles spread everywhere,

as did the Gospel of the kingdom,

. . . and the people flock to Jesus,

. . . . . . . sheep in need of a shepherd.

So the Lord Jesus, God’s Love in the flesh,

has compassion on them.

In His Humanity He identified in every way with their plight and their pain. Theirs IS HIS!

As they are weary and scattered, sick and heavily-burdened, are we not?

--He is Whom Isaiah said and Matthew reiterated:

“He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

In fact, He desires that all be healed, relieved, forgiven and gathered . . . into His Kingdom!

It’s not about more laws and justification by works!

It’s not about you deserving,

it’s about believing.

With Jesus

is all about what He has to GIFT TO YOU.

For His sake, . . . to receive and believe!

Here’s how God loved YOU, by giving into death His Only-begotten Son FOR YOU!

He gives YOU Jesus. Freely Giving, freely gifting . . . . . is what God is all about.

Giving Jesus happens as Jesus teaches and preaches the Word.

--as Jesus goes about all the cities and villages

--teaching, preaching the gospel,

--and—same time-- healing every sickness and infirmity.

Everyone needs the forgiveness of sins and the healing that only Jesus can give!

Everyone can have freedom from sickness, want, pain and death.

Jesus only offers life and peace to all!

OFFER? . . . Thus He says to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Mt. 9:38).

AND Jesus sends them, as He sends pastors today. He tells the Twelve:

“Proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”

“At hand" means The Kingdom has drawn near and therefore is now here."

The miracles DECLARE it—TO YOU.

God’s Word DELIVERS it!—FOR YOU!

This is the work Jesus came to do AND DID—

and He continues this work today in His Church FOR YOU!

--He is FOR SINNERS and those burdened with the curse of sin

as they know deep within that they have failed to love God above all things and neighbor as self AS THE LAW OF GOD REQUIRES.

They deserve condemnation and they know it.

Its why the people of the text flock like sheep without a shepherd TO JESUS

--because He fills them up with hope and joy in a God who is FOR THEM,

--a God who freely in love REDEEMS and SAVES!

In other words, He is FOR YOU, all of you, each of you, male and female, slave or free, Jew and Gentile, elderly and infant. HE IS FOR SINNERS.

FOR YOU, and me . . . who labour and fret

--under all these laws that are supposed to

--make life utopia, bring hope by closing loopholes and passing stricter laws, and solve problems and societal ills

--establish your opinions, interpretations and solutions

as the best, final ultimates to all our problems

--and at the same time call it God’s work to get you into the good graces of God in Heaven!

It ain’t so!

If laws and more laws and laws-on-top-of-laws could bring about the utopia so lustfully chased after

then why did Jesus need to come and Bleed and Die? Why not . . . . . more laws, better laws!?!

And we can go to the funerals and heaven won’t be evident there . . .

not in the face of laws understand me here,

because the laws were broken

and God’s Word declares

“by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

because there isn’t a just man upon the earth who doeth good and sinneth not

and the soul that sins shall die.

And to make matters worse

The sin in us, through and through

Has set us contrary to God

--Our thinking that OUR way is the best way,

--OUR word better than God’s Word,

--OUR being better gods than God!

. . . as we think that “it doesn’t do you any good unless you live it!”

God says something OTHER! Jesus said, John 6:

“ThisistheworkofGod, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

St. Paul repeated it:

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Galatians 3

The harder we work to make ourselves righteous —that is, more laws--

. . . the further from God we find ourselves.

In fact, those who try to walk such a path to salvation

are walking the wrong way.

are actually working against God.

Pin your hope for heaven on YOU? Come on, you gotta be kiddin’ in the face of God’s Word!

Pin your hopes in this world? Jesus, John 16:

In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Like sheep without a shepherd.

Repent your sin.

--Confess your believing that Jesus did His part now you gotta do yours! WHAT BLASPHEMY!

--Repent, that your word is NOT a better word than God’s

--Repent your relying in any other word than God’s Word, the only source and standard for Christian faith and life.

--Repent any and all your false notions that God would remit sin’s penalty forever in any other THAN washing it away in Jesus holy precious Blood and innocent suffering and death FOR YOU on the cross, TO THE COMPLETE EXCLUTION of any of your worthless good intentions and vain works.

This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us first. His love is the fulfilling of the Law—FOR YOU! In Him . . . is the Kingdom!

Salvation begins with God in Christ

and ends with God in Christ.

There are no works for you to do for Him, only what Jesus works FOR YOU by His Holy sinless life lived FOR YOU and His Bloody sacrificial Death FOR YOU on the cross . . . AND gives TO YOU by His grace.

This is love: that Christ dies for the ungodly.

This is love: that having died for humanity He rises from the dead. That having been laid in the tomb He not only bursts the bars that held Him in death for three days, but He shatters the gates of every tomb for all who are under the curse.

This is love: that those stung by death, though they die, never die forever.

For whoever believes in Him yet shall they live.

For the death He died He died for all,

And all means you and me and every man, woman, and child.

And the life He lives He lives to God FOR YOU.

Death no longer has dominion over Him.

If death has no dominion over Him,

death has no dominion over all those who believe in Him and receive His death and resurrection in His baptism.

This is love: Christ crucified and Christ risen FOR YOU.

Look to the cross. There is your savior.

Look to God’s Word, there He comes TO YOU and ASSURES YOU.

Look to the waters of your Baptism, He is there baptizing, washing, regenerating, clothing YOU with His death and resurrection.

Look to the altar. From this altar He feeds you with the Body that will never die again and the Blood that is rich and full of eternal life. His Body, His Blood, His Life FOR YOU.

This is how the Lord of the harvest plants His seed in the soil-bed of your heart and gathers in the sheaves.

This how the Lord loves you:

He speaks to you.

He gives His Son to you.

He empowers you with His Holy Spirit

and upholds you in the midst of a world gone crazy and torn apart by sin, death, devil and hell.

He saves you one at a time, like He healed those people “one-at-a-time.” And then He preserves you in that salvation through His preaching and teaching, preaching and teaching that happens right here in this place called His Holy Christian Church.

In the Saving Name of Jesus. Amen.

St. Mark Lutheran Church

The Fulfillment of the Law

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