The Law of God's Love: Matthew 5:17-20

Is God's law rooted in punishment or Love?  Join Aimee Copley Mulder in this reflection about Matthew 5:17-20 in where her dog, Goodyear, is the prime example of the law being loving!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. All glory to God with Amy Cobley Mulder. Today we're talking about God's love, the love of God's law. We're continuing our series on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 17 through 20 is today. And could law be full of love? Join me and find out.

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All the glory to God. And let's get all the glory to God.

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Good morning. All glory to God, people. I hope you're being able to give God glory and you're waking and sleeping and walking and talking like I tried to do. Not sure I made it this morning as I was chewing everyone off the door. Oh, this is Amy Coughlin Mulder. Thanking you for joining me on our continued series, Reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount. As you awaken this Tuesday morning, I just want you to know that I have been praying that God will use these words to enrich you and encourage you in your Christian walk, and that you will find real truth from a real person, me, Amy Coughlin Mulder. Welcome to this Tuesday as we continue our series on the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5, 17 through 20 is our focus today. And the question is, is God's law full of punishment and retribution, or is it full of love? Matthew 5, 17 through 20. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill. For I for truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5, 17 through 20. So Jesus is continuing these this incredible teaching, and he has just finished talking about being the light, the light that shines on the hill. You cannot stop the light. And then he's saying to them, Listen, I know that this stuff that I am telling you is so radical that you are blessed when you're making peace. You are blessed when you're mourning. This is this is weird stuff. And when you're a light, you are the light and you cannot be hidden. So right away, he kind of downshifts and says into this scripture, do not think that the law is inconsequential to me. I know what I'm saying is so radical and different that you're going to think that I'm doing a whole new thing, that I am, I'm coming up with new stuff for you to figure out. And you have to understand the people there listening have spent the entirety of their faith journey, their following of Yahweh. They watch their parents and grandparents, and it's about the law. It's about have we upheld the law? What have we done? Have we picked up a stick on the Sabbath? Like the law keeping was the way you showed your devotion to Yahweh. And so here we are, Jesus is saying all of this radical stuff, and he's saying, Listen, I am not some new fangled gadget that you need to play with with these teachings. What I am is I am the completion of the law. I have come to fulfill the law. And don't think that you can be more righteous and follow the law better than all these other people that are doing so much to follow the law. Don't come to the conclusion that you can follow the law to the letter and you will be able to experience God's love anymore. When you follow me, you are on the journey to complete the law. It's really a radical thing that Jesus is claiming the law of Yahweh, but he's also saying such new stuff that they've never heard. He's wanting them to position themselves into loving the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and having that love be the love you show to your neighbor, beyond this carrying the letter of the law. So much of the law, the Levinical law is just so complicated. And he's saying, I have come to fulfill all the law, and I know what I'm saying is gonna blow your world away. I love that Jesus is saying that he is the completion of the law. He's saying the law is important. And it's really easy to look at God's law and even the Ten Commandments, if we just took the Ten Commandments, it's easy to look at that and say, boy, God is saying a whole lot of thou shalt and thou's, this is what we should do. Boy, God is just about what we're doing, our behavior. It's just really easy just to focus on the behavioral nature of the law. But if you understand God as having a system that would help people get together, if you understand God as God having a system of the way we interact with each other that would help our community the best, and if you believe, like I do, I really believe that God gave us these parameters, these boundaries to show us great love. If that's the foundation you're coming for, that the law is an expression of God's love, then you don't see these laws as burdens or millstones around your neck that you have to really work hard to fulfill. That's a daunting task. But if you claim and cling to the truth that God loves you and these laws are to help us, it's really different, it's a different way of looking at it. And she's just saying, the law of Yahweh is my law too. And I am here to complete it. This morning I really want to finish our devotional time together thinking about God's law's love by telling you a story from my life. I have two dogs I absolutely adore. I I don't know how to tell you how much I love my dogs. I do love my children and my husband and my mama more than my dogs, but you know, it's really a close second. If you're a dog lover, maybe you understand, or maybe I just am sounding like a horrible person. I don't know. We have had miniature schnauzers, we had Zoe that we had to put down a couple years ago, which devastated our whole family, even though she was 16 and it was time to go. And we have a 10-year-old miniature schnauzer. Her name is Portia, and she's this little ball of a bunny. She's so cute, and she's our little dog. And when Zoe passed away, we knew we wanted to get, we had to put Zoe down. We knew we had to get another dog. And my husband said, I really want a bird dog. I want a dog to take hunting, which I am all for. If if I had my way, we would live in a big estate, and it would be like lots of dogs. There would be many. We do not. We live in a neighborhood, and we're having this bird dog in a schnauzer, and that is quite plenty for our space in our house. So here we are. We get this adorable bird dog, and she's black and roan. So she has this beautiful velvety black face, and then that like mottled um black and white fur, and she's just gorgeous. And she just she doesn't know she's beautiful. She's a big galumphy idiot, you know. I just love her so much. And her name is Goodyear. And we, I can't even tell you how much I have fallen in love with this dog. This dog is a precious creature. She's God's gift in my life. I have let her eat through my shoes. I haven't thrown her out, and she's, you know, ate through a couch and I didn't let her out. The couch was old and it probably needed to get rid of. But anyway, I have been in love with this dog. And we started noticing that we were having an extreme hard time. This was the first year of her life, after about six or seven months, when she's about seven months old. We started noticing that we were, she we had no impact on her. When we said, Goodyear, come, she would not come. She wasn't obeying. And she was doing this wonderful game for her and just terrifying for us, where she would just leap out of our fence or out of our backyard when we let her out, and she would just do these runs where she was just running and running and running, would not come to us. And so we were really stressed out about this situation because it was seeming like she was just gonna run into traffic and she was, we were not having any impact on her as her parents. As much as we all loved Goodyear and we wanted to have her, and I would go on these big long walks with her, try to get her five, six miles a day, and she still wouldn't tire out. And she just would do these huge, huge, huge runs. And I was about to go get my doctorate of ministry and spiritual formation, something I worked for really hard for a long time. And we were going to have someone come over and like check in on our dogs. And she ran away from me, and I could not get her to come to me. And it was an hour, and I didn't know where she was, and I was crying and screaming, I don't want anything to happen to my dog. I trapped her in a neighbor's backyard, and it was 45 minutes, and it was a backyard, and she would not come to me. My husband is a UPS driver. I had to, I had to ask him, I had to ask him to come off the road and help me, and he couldn't get her to come. So we decided not to leave her home when I went to go get my doctor, and we took her to the trainer. We had this wonderful trainer that's a bird dog rescue guy. He kind of operates a kennel out of his farm, and he was gonna take her when we were gone. I said, I don't care what it costs, we've got to make sure she's okay. In about two hours, I was about to walk across and get my doctorate, and all my boys were there, and my mom was there. We're so excited. Go, Amy. You know, it was just such an incredible thing. Two hours before I go to the thing to walk across and get my doctorate, the trainer calls. And the dog trainer says to us, Your dog is a mess. Your dog does not think that she is a dog. She is, she thinks she is a human. She is she is crazy. She doesn't know how to be alone. And he says to us, has she been alone? Has this dog been alone as a dog? And we said, Well, we put her in the kennel at night. He goes, other than that, is she alone? Are you with her all day? And I realized as I was writing my doctorate, I was talking to her all day. I would go to church to do some work at church, and I would take her to church. And she was just a complete mess. She didn't know how to be a dog. We had loved her to the point and she was going to be unsafe. And I thought it was just so hysterical that I was about to go off for this big academic achievement. Look at me, I may be a smart person, and you have failed, honey, at being a dog mom. Your dog is a mess, and it's really you. So we went home and we asked the trainer, are we, should we be trying to re-home her? Like, I don't want to lose her, but maybe we're being being horrible. And he said, You can do this. And he gave us this plan. And the plan was basically, you are it, you are in charge of this dog. This dog is not in charge of your family. You are the master of this dog. And I didn't know that I had given up my authority. It's something I never would have done as a mom. I would have been very careful to not spoil my kids, make sure they know that I'm the mom or whatever it is. And the our trainer had been with Devin and our sons, and he goes, It's so hilarious that you have your sons under control and you don't have this dog under control. We had just, our love had become so, so much. Oh, we love you, oh, we pet you, oh you never alone, that we had kind of damaged our dog. I mean, it's just the way it is. So we went home and I had her on a strict schedule. I had her on, this is your time in the kennel, this is your time over here, this is your time here. And we did training every day where we made her obey us and, you know, no treats, just you come and obey. No good, you're come here. But I'm gonna tell you having her on the schedule and having the boundaries and having her know that we are in charge of her. She is a happier dog. She is, she doesn't run away from us. She just is full of joy. She's able to relax. She does these naps and she's just peaceful. And she checks in with us. Now she's still our lovely girl, and I still just, oh, I love you so much. But she is a happier dog knowing that she is, and that there are boundaries, and that we know that we're the people and she's the dog, and that she's a part of our family, not in charge of it. Now, I I know that about kids. I tried to make sure my kids weren't in charge of my life. But my love for my dog went over, went to indulgence and an issue. Now, I'm not trying to totally relate this to the law of God. But, you know, we really have to reckon with the thought that God's authority in our life, and I'm not talking people's authority, I'm telling you God's plan for the people of Israel, God's laws that are that are important for us. These laws, not all of them, but this the law in a whole, God's law was put into place so the people of God would know how to deal with each other. And even as the people were working out how do we live with these laws and they came up with 600 million and God's law is how he shows he loves us. It's really, it's really the love of boundaries that God's law is. Because if you believe that God is comes from love and he's giving us this rule book um from the from Mount Sinai or from the from the people of God to work with each other. It's been going on for centuries since creation, that these laws, these boundaries, these rules, these restrictions are not to kill your good time, they are to shape you. So the the question I have for you this morning, as I pet my good year who is who has made my life extremely good, my question is, do you really trust that God's law is for you? That God's love came through the expression of God's law. Because Jesus doesn't throw the law out. He says, I have come to complete the law. Now, of course, this is always a conversation. In the recent current time, I've been protesting certain laws in America and um doing my best to in nonviolent protesting to um make my voice known on the way immigrants are being treated, uh, plus a myriad of other things in my disagreement with this at current administration. And people have said to me, Well, if you're a Christian, you should not protest, you know, because you should follow the law. And so I look at God's law, I look at the ethic that Jesus put in front of the law, which is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself primary. And then the other, the other law from the Ten Commandments, that's a paradigmical law that I look at through my life. And I go, Well, am I am I uh am I not following the law? No, the law is that we can protest. That's part of being American, and this ethic that Jesus said, the second most important commandment is love to your neighbor as yourself. I feel like I am fulfilling that law. So I have to look at it. So just laws from God's law that we get in the Bible and the tradition of following God's law, culture does impact it, but it also like we have to work that out in our present modern mind. So I'm not trying to be, you know, dogmatic or or legalistic on this is the law. What I'm saying is that God's law is the way he shows his love for us. And as we live life with people and try to work out what's important for me to do, what's important for me to follow, just look to Jesus. Jesus says, I have come to fulfill. And just your essence of being a Christian is this leaning into Jesus, like Jesus, what did you say to do? And he's like, We're not throwing out all the law to love our enemies and to love our neighbors ourselves and the love of the God. The law is here with me, it's the completion. And it's okay to know that the boundaries that God places for the people of God to work together is an expression of him saying, My people, I know the way that you should be living. You should be encouraging each other, lifting each other up, and living in the seed and the truth and the fruit of forgiveness. This is what you should do. So, God's law, it's about love. And know that the boundaries that God has put into place are for you to live a life of abundance. Just like Goodyear is so much happier knowing where her authority lies. Just remember that God's love can be that guiding force in your life as we work out our salvation together and we lean upon the beautiful name of Jesus. All glory to God, the love of God's law, Matthew 5, 17 through 20. I hope your day is filled with an incredible amount of God's grace that you can see all around you. And join me Thursday as I continue talking about why I still love the church, even though she's broken my heart. Next Tuesday, we continue with our reflections on the Sermon on the Mount. And just remember today that God's love is there to express his love to you as you try to tramp through the meadow of life like my happy German short hair pointer. Good year. God's love. All glory to God. This is Amy Codley Mulder saying, keep joining me.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

So it's done. It's the back time. So that's all the glory to God.