IN CHRIST ALONE!: FROM OUR BRETHREN... A CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION THAT IS IN UNION WITH US IN OPPOSING THE FALLACIES OF THE RH/RP BILL: “Excellence follows Love"

“Excellence follows Love"

November 4, 2012

The 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Tine

A.K.A.

Kingdomtide

and

Time of the Church

Deuteronomy 6: 1 – 9/Psalm 119: 1 – 8/Hebrews 7: 23 – 28/Mark 12: 28 – 34

His Eminence

The Most Reverend Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines D.D.

Archbishop of Manila

and

Primate

of the

National Church in the Philippines

and

the Territorial Church of Asia

International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church

The lessons today, if we would categorize them, would be very simple and yet the most important. It is amazing how Christianity especially has thought that if we could make things complicated and difficult, it would show their value and their importance. What happens sometimes in the midst of theology and other religious doctrines and traditions is that they become very confusing to people. What happens too often is that people shut off their mind and don’t really pay attention with their understanding, “I can’t understand that. It is beyond my ability to comprehend.”

Today’s lessons tell us that the whole kingdom of God is based on two facts which are presented to us in the Old Testament, reiterated and brought back into reality in the New Testament. Very simple and yet if we were to discuss them, probably these are not things that we would pay attention to.

In Deuteronomy, God in speaking to the children of Israel gave them commandments. We call these laws. The definition of these laws is not a legalistic definition that lawyers would deal with. When God talks about Law, He is talking about how things work. This is how they function. He is not telling us, “You must do this.” He is telling us out of love and compassion for us how He put everything together and how we will get the most out of it if we would just simply follow that which is the foundation of creation.

Deuteronomy 6:1, “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you.” For what reason was He going to teach them? Very plainly spoken, “…that you might do them.” My questions to each of us, “Why do we come to Church? Why do we listen or pretend to listen to the homily? Do we listen in order that we can gain understanding and know how we can live out our lives? Do we go to sleep during the homily? Do we let our minds waver and wander and think about other things? ‘What am I going to do this afternoon? What am I going to do tomorrow morning?’’ We begin to weigh things out, ‘I’ve got this problem, I’ve got that problem.’ Some people look like they are so bored that they be better off staying home.

Our purpose of hearing the Word of God is one and one alone: that we might do them. I can’t say this is a secret but this is the principle of life and Christianity which is to do it. “Not only you but so that you and your son and your grandson.” We are to teach the whole family to do the commandments of God. Verse 3, “O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the god of your fathers, has promised you.”

We wonder at times why things aren’t going the right way, why we are not blessed, why we are missing out on things. Probably, we could just stop and look at it and we are not doing anything. We come to Church, yes, but when we leave Church, we go back to the old life. We are so consumed by commercialism, by our profession, and by other things. We think, think, and think that and that alone! It is totally contrary and against the very principle that God gives to us.

God says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.” This means your desire, your intentions, your drive, all that you are – your heart, your soul, and your might. Do we really put much effort into our Christianity? Do we put this much effort in knowing God? We put much effort into knowing our profession; we put much effort into our business; but do we put God first in all of these things in our lives?

Verse 4 says, “Hear, O Israel.” This phrase is the one that literally saying to us, the Shemah Israel: pay attention, listen and do. “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” There is one God. Our business is not our God. Our profession is not our God. The system of the world around us is not God. This wakes us up to the very roots of our foundations. This was the beginning of Christianity: hear, O Israel! The Lord your God is one God. It is an attention getter. You have to pay attention to this because this is the most vital thing that you can know and that which you can follow.

Verse 6, “And these words, shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.” The whole day is consumed thinking about God; putting God first in our lives. Whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God. Is this our attitude? Is this the foundation of our lives? “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand – what you do; “and they shall be as frontals on your forehead” – what you think; you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Identifying our faith and confidence but doing it so that we can do the things that God has shared with us. We don’t learn so that we can have it our minds, so that we can understand them. We study them so that we can do them.

Mark12 tells us these in the gospel. The Pharisees were giving Christ a hard time. As they were questioning Him about things of the flesh, He said to them, “You don’t understand. God is the God of the living, not the God of the dead.” They were asking, “What would happen after a person dies and then comes the resurrection? What is going to happen?” Christ challenged and corrected them, “God is not a God of the dead. What are you talking about the dead for? His principles are for life. He guides us so that we can manifest His provision in this life that we can manifest His love, His covenant for us.”

One of the scribes heard what He was saying, “Yes, He really answered well.” The scribe asked, “What then is the most important commandment?” He was talking about now, “How am I going to live out my life? What is the most valuable aspect of walking in my faith? How can I do this? How can I manifest myself in this way?” In 1Corinthians 13:1-3 which is talking about the gifts say, “If I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but I do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

This love that it is talking about is this reverence and respect for God, understanding and putting Him first in our lives. This prophecy, this tongues, these gifts, feeding the poor are not the priority. These are the results of the priority – the love that we have for God and our principle of walking in that love.

Jesus responds to the scribe, “The foremost is, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.’” God sets this not only in the Old Testament but bringing now the importance of this as being the most important thought, the most important direction, the most important aspect of our life – the Lord God is one God. I cannot have another god in front of me. My profession is not to take my whole life. My business is not to consume all of my energies and all that I am. My thoughts, the work of my hands, everything that I do, I am not consumed with them. I am consumed with my attention to the one God.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Jesus brings it a little more intensely to us in definition. Not only the heart, not only the soul, not only the mind, but also the strength. Here is our energy. Where are we putting our energy today? What takes the strength of our lives? The strength of our thoughts? The strength of our hands? What do we give of ourselves as to be most important for us? Is it making God one? Is it making Him the Lord of our lives? Is it submitting to His ways?

Jesus is emphasizing what was set from the very beginning. It doesn’t change. The principles of God do not change. For some reason, somebody thought that the Bible was to be divided into two books: the Old Testament and the New Testament. They are all one. It is a progression that God is bringing man through, bringing Him to a higher level of walking with God, but they are all the same. He does not change the foundation. He does not change the principles. They are still the same.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” What does leave for other things? Not much! Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the other things will be added unto you.” We twist this around and we put all of our energy in our profession, in our business, and in what we are doing in life; and then we add God to the end. God is not an addition, but the very foundation.

When we put this love where it is supposed to be, everything else will turn into excellence. He causes the profession to excel. He causes the business to burst. He causes life to become full because we put Him first in our lives. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.’” These two efforts of life; these two principles.

The scribe said to Jesus, “Right, Teacher, You have truly stated that He is One; and there is no one else beside Him; there is one God; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

The sacrifices are meant to make thing sacred and holy. You don’t need to worry about making things sacred and holy when you put God first in your life. Everything is sacred; everything will be holy. The response of Jesus was, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” He did not tell him that he was in the kingdom but He said, “You are not far from the kingdom.” This is because you have to do them for it is one thing to know them.

Deuteronomy says, “You must do them.” It is the way we live our lives. It is the standard for life that God has given to us. James 1:22, “But prove yourselves doers of the Word, and not hearers only who delude themselves.” They fool themselves just because they know the Word. Many people can quote the Scriptures and tell you all kinds of things. But do they do them?

James 2:14, “What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” Verse 20, “Faith without works is useless.” We must put them into action. It is vital that it is part of our lives that we act out our faith. It is not just enough to sit here and listen. It is not just enough to know and understand, but we are required to live it out and do it.

This is what Christ speaks to us. Very simple, not complicated at all: listen and do; hear and act. This is what God expects of us.

LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION

WITH