Luther for Lent
Fear and Love: The Ten Commandments
Martin Luther did not pull any punches when it came to learning the faith. On more than one occasion he said, “If you do not know the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer” you should not be considered a Christian.
If the Christian faith is only confessed in church and not in your home, not in your daily life, if it is not your habit to pray and to confess God’s Word out loud, then do not be surprised if your children and your grandchildren do not stay in the faith. Do not be surprised if your neighbors want nothing to do with Jesus.
For this reason, Luther, in his parish in Wittenberg took up the catechism four times a year, every year. He lived in a different time in which church was held everyday so he would preach 10 sermons, Monday through Friday in the afternoon for two weeks, and ordered his members to be there. Fathers, get your children there. Masters get your servants there. If your children resist, don’t feed them. If your servants grumble, throw them out.
We are not living in rural Germany in the early 1500s, but Luther’s bluntness calls us to repent. Can you recite the Ten Commandments? with meanings? Have you looked at them since confirmation? Did you review them with your children? Tried teaching them to your grandchildren? Repent.
Tonight, I’m not going to preach on all Ten Commandments. I did that throughout Lent of 2016 and I’m sure you remember it well. This evening I’m going to preach on fear and love in the 1st and 4th commandments.
If there is one thing every Lutheran remembers about memorizing the Commandments from the Small Catechism it is the opening six words of every meaning.
“We should fear and love God”
We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use Satanic arts, lie or deceive by His name.
We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word.
We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation.
Thanks to Luther you could always get a good start on the meaning of the commandments even if you didn’t remember the end.
Luther used that phrase to explain each and every commandment because he always wanted to bring you back to the first commandment. The reason for the last nine commandments is the first commandment. If you keep the first, you’ll keep all ten. The last nine explain what the first means. Sounds like the 3 musketeers – all for one and one for all.
You should fear God, and that does not mean respect or honor or revere. It means be afraid of God. Why? Because right after He gave the first commandment He told Moses, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Fear losing your salvation. Fear losing God as your Father. Fear losing your faith in Jesus Christ. If you want to examine yourself to find out if you have any false gods ask yourself this, “What do I fear losing most?” Do you fear fear losing your health or your mind? Married couples fear the death of a spouse. Parents fear the death of a child. We fear losing control over our lives as we get older. A far greater loss would be to lose your faith, to lose God because you’ve made people, prosperity, or pleasure your God.
Fear losing God because He is your life. The God who gave the commandments to Moses came in the flesh as the greater Moses to lead us, the new Israel, out of slavery to sin and the Devil, to the promised land of heaven. Our Red Sea is the water of baptism where Christ Jesus drowns our sinful self and raises us on the other side to live with Him forever. The Ark of the Covenant where we find God is the supper of our Lord where He is present for us. The new Temple is both the body of Jesus and also your body, for the Holy Spirit dwells in you by faith. God has given you Jesus, that you might have life.
For all the hedonistic pleasure Hugh Hefner had and told us to have he’s dead and likely in hell. The healthiest people in the world die. No amount of money or donations to the World Health Organization will keep Bill Gates alive. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alone creates, redeems and gives life. Fear losing Him.
Fear losing Him and love Him. Love Him for the same reason you fear Him. He has given you life. Life is a gift. It is not something you deserve or merit. You deserve death and hell, that’s why there’s ashes on your forehead. By your sin you reject God, despise God and therefore should lose the life He has given you. But, those ashes are made in the sign of the cross because Jesus took your sin and suffered your hell. The Father’s anger burned against the Son at the cross. You should have been abandoned by God, but it was His own Son who was forsaken in your place. We love God because He first loved us and gave us life in His Son.
The First and Fourth Commandments direct our love. The first commandment directs the love of faith – you should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. That’s what this whole sermon has been talking about. What have you set your heart on? What do you fear losing? What do you love above all things? Those are your idols. They likely aren’t bad things. Health is good. Money is good. Happiness is good. What’s evil is putting your faith there, because those things cannot deliver life to you – that’s God alone in Christ alone.
The Fourth Commandment directs your love to God’s order and wherever He has put you in that order. Even before sin entered the world God established the order of marriage – a man to lead and a woman to follow. Once sin entered the world, we needed even more authority to keep us from harming ourselves and others. Children need parents to order their lives, protect them from themselves, and teach them the way of life, the way of faith in Christ. Children obey your parents and God promises it will go well for you now on earth and forever with Jesus. Citizens obey your rulers, pray for them. They have been charged with ordering society. You would not want to live where there is no government.
Why do you obey the government? Or your parents? Or your pastor? Because you fear and love God. You may not like Joe Biden because you didn’t vote for him, but it doesn’t matter. You may think your parents are weird and feeble or are out to ruin your life. You may have no regard for your pastor because he’s living back in the 16th century. So what! None of them deserve your respect because of who they are or aren’t. You honor and obey them because you fear God and love Him, and trust that He is at work even in the most foolish people you can imagine.
And if God has placed you in authority, then use your power to serve not yourself, but God, by serving others according to His will. Government should protect freedom and defend the defenseless. Parents should teach the faith to their children. Pastors should be faithful to God’s Word and preach the full counsel of God. Why? Not because the people you serve deserve it, but because you fear and love God and trust that God is at work in you.
During this Lententide dust off your catechism. We’ll give you a little catechism tonight when you leave to use during Lent. This week add the commandments to your devotions or bedtime prayers. Reading all Ten Commandments and their meanings will only take a few minutes. That will help you repent of your sins and learn the good works you should do as you fear and love God in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Good sermon, I am sorry I just couldn’t get out in this weather.