God

Love God and Neighbour – Are you a “why” person, or a “how” person?

July 13, 2025 — Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Psalm 25
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37


May only the Truth be spoken, and may only the Truth be heard,
in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I have a question for you this morning.
Are you a why person, or are you a how person?
What’s your mind’s go-to response?  Why? or How?

Our lessons today deal with the law of God – the wonderful, life-giving, freedom-filled gift which is God’s law. Not a burdensome set of rules, nor is it something that should fill us with fear because of our natural and universal inability to fulfil it without a lot of God’s help; but a gift.  As we read in Deuteronomy, it’s in living into and living out the Lord’s vision for how we should live that we will find true blessing, true prosperity, the lasting inner peace that can carry us – together – through the ups and downs of life.

And Jesus sums it all up for us in a way that I’m sure many of us have committed to memory.  

Hear what the Lord Jesus Christ says: (say it with me!) you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

If you haven’t committed that one to memory, take it home.  It’s on the front page of your bulletin.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And Love your neighbor as yourself.

What does it mean to live a Christian life?  Love the Lord your God…
What does it look like to follow Christ? Love the Lord your God…
How should we live if we want to see the Lord’s blessing?  Love the Lord your God…

It’s all pretty straight-forward, right?
Look again at Deuteronomy: God, through Moses, suggests that this is all rather easy!  The Law is not far away, hidden in heaven or buried in the depths that we need someone to bring it to us.  The Law, God says, is not too hard for you.  In fact, it’s very near, it’s in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

Easy, right?

(…well, lets just say I won’t ask for a show of hands for those who think they’ve succeeded!)

But I will say this: the Law is easy, in as much as it is easy to understand. 
When God says something, He means it.  He doesn’t throw words around lightly.

When He says “all”, it’s simple enough to understand – He really does mean all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.  Hold nothing back.  Go all in.

And when He says “to love your neighbour”, again it’s simple enough – there’s no bones about it, no beating around the bush: the word is agapeo, agape, that fullest, sacrificial definition of love, the love that prefers the other above the self, the love that is defined as a desire to see and bring about the well-being of another.   On the one hand, it’s that simple: love your neighbour, desire and seek to bring about what is best for him or her, all the way.

It’s Simple enough… until our minds get in the way!

“It’s in your mouth and it’s in your heart”, God says, “so that you can do it”.

But did you notice what God did not say?

The Law is in your mouth and in your heart… the issue, though, is that, for us sinful human beings, we like to follow our minds. 

And that’s not where God says the Law has been written, even for those who are redeemed, who are filled with the Holy Spirit.  The Law isn’t found in your rational mind. Yes, by grace, over a lifetime of sanctification, we pray along with Romans 12 that with God’s help we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind, or with Ephesians 4 to be made new in the attitude of our minds, or with Philippians 2, that we would come to have the mind of Christ in us as we learn to decrease our self-interests so that the Body of Christ may increase.

My brothers and sisters, we have to be aware of this: yes, the Law is to be found in your mouth, each and every ordinary Christian, sharing that Good and life-giving News, and yes, God’s law is written deep on each and every human heart… but be aware – your mind, my mind, won’t live out God’s law naturally.

So let me as you… are you a why person, or are you a how person?

When you hear the law of God, what is your first response?
Are you a why person?  No shame, I think all of us are “why” people by nature.

You hear someone like me say “God wants you to go all in”… and, the natural human response is to say “what?  Why would I do that?  I’m not a preacher. I put my money in the plate, I pray for my church family, I come out on Sundays, I read my Bible most days.  Surely that’s good enough, or it at least counts for something, right?

Why should I need to do more?  Why should I need to be made into more or “transformed” any more than I already am? I’m already doing so much more for the Lord than most people are, most can’t even be bothered to get out of bed on Sunday morning. …No, I can’t say that I love God with all my heart or all my mind, but come on, why should I need to?  And hey, while we’re at it, it’s not like you’re living a perfect life either… and on and on and on it goes.

Are you a “why” person? 

Are you one whose nature, whose natural reaction, is to hear the simple, straightforward, but all-encompassing law of God, and whose first reaction is to explain why it’s not asking anything more of you than what you’re already doing, or why that simple command might apply to someone else who is doing less than you, but you’re alright.

Or, perhaps you hear “love your neighbour as yourself” – and you hear a crazy preacher who went back and looked at the Greek in Luke and Matthew and at the Hebrew in the quote from Leviticus that Jesus was referencing, and who says, no, it doesn’t mean “care about your neighbour”, it actually means agape, that all-in, self-sacrificing, deeper-than-your-love-for-your-own-blood sort of love, and your mind’s first reaction is “that doesn’t make sense, why would I do that?”. 

I care for the poor, I give money and sometimes even volunteer for stuff.  I pray for the homeless and addicted, I even stick around for coffee hour after church for a bit of fellowship with other church people… but what does God want of me?  Seriously? To have agape, all-in, sacrificial love my neighbour who I don’t even really know, and who wouldn’t do the same for me, why would I do that?  I already do more than most people, why would I actually love some random person as myself. 

A ”why” person.  Like the lawyer in today’s Gospel, who says “yes Master, I hear you… but let’s define our terms so that I can tell you why I’m off the hook”.

Now let’s be clear – there’s no shame in admitting you’re a “why” person, if that’s where you’re at right now.  I will confess that I lived most of my Christian life as a why person, including the first 5 years of my ordained ministry.  Yes, the law was in my heart, yes, it was even in my mouth on a daily basis… but my mind did a very good job of comforting myself to justify why other people needed to grow, but I had probably come far enough when it comes to being “all in” with love for God and neighbour.

There’s no shame in admitting if that’s where you are.  And I say that precisely because admission and confession – giving up that denial – those are the first steps to continuing in that journey of who God is calling you to be: someone who really is all in.

Someone whose mind has been transformed from “why”… to “how”.

You see, a “why” person – and we’re all why people by sinful human nature – uses their mind to decide what is right for them, what is good enough for them, and sets about explaining why they’ve already grown and been transformed enough, why the dead simple, totally straightforward, but breathtakingly hard “all-in” language of God doesn’t mean what it says, or at least doesn’t call them to do any extra.

A ”why” person uses their mind to set their priorities.

What’s the alternative?

But, by grace, we can become “how” people. 
You see, a “how” person knows that their mind is not trustworthy for setting priorities.
A “how” person knows that the law is on their heart, but that the transformation and renewal of the mind is still very much a work in progress. 

A “how” person says: ‘ok Lord… you’re right, I haven’t gone all in.  How can I make that simple command more visible in my life?  What’s the next step?”

A “how” person says ‘Lord, it’s hard… I barely know my neighbours… in fact, there are people I worship with each week and I don’t even know their names, and this is a pretty small church!  And Lord, I don’t feel like I have much time or energy… but you say I need to love my neighbour as myself, and I don’t, so how I can I do that better?  What’s the next step?”

Our homework: some practical obedience!

Friends, put that to the test this week.  I will too.
Take your bulletin home, and each day, recite that summary of the law that Jesus gave us, found on the front of your bulletin. 

And catch yourself… because, like the lawyer in the Gospel, your mind will naturally go to why you’re not called to do more, why this isn’t asking anything of you.

But switch, consciously, intentionally, from “why” to “how”.  Each day, read it, and then pray: Lord, this is your command.  How do I make this more visible in my life?  What’s the next step?

That’s the sort of obedience to God’s Law that changes a life; that changes a church; that changes a community.

Because, when we offer something to God – especially when we offer it off the top and out of our poverty, rather than offering God what is left over, He takes it and blesses it and opens the windows of heaven to multiply it.

It’s like the person who tithes of their money before all else.  Anyone’s rational mind can explain why it makes more sense that you should pay your power bill and pay for the repairs on your car before you give money to the Lord… but anyone who has ever tithed knows that by trusting God and saying “Lord, show me how”, you end up with more than you could have asked for or imagined.

So go all in.  Ask God how that should look, for you to love Him first and fully, and to really have agape, sacrificial love for your neighbours – and, lets start that close to home, right here, with getting to know your church family better, taking someone out for coffee, inviting someone over for tea, meeting up for lunch – like tithing, you offer the time and energy in obedience off the top, and God will give it back multiplied.

This is the law of God.  It is amazingly simple. It is wonderfully straightforward.  But it is also breathtakingly difficult to put into practice.

Say it with me.  Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it; You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Now… will you start to explain why… or will you ask God to show you how?

To God be the glory, now and forevermore.  Amen.

Relationship: Three in One

June 7, 2020 — Leave a comment

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness… so God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female.” (Genesis 1:26-27)

Every time we gather, we profess our faith in the Trinity, God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We see the Trinity at work in scripture, and by faith, confess that we were created by the Father, redeemed by Jesus Christ, and are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

But let me admit – if your head hurts when you stop to think about how all that works, you’re in good company.  Every analogy, every sermon illustration fails to accurately describe the eternal majesty of God, at least in part because, in this broken and fallen world, we can’t even imagine what it would be like for even two – let alone three people to be perfectly united, without pride, without fighting and holding grudges, without manipulation, and without wanting to hoard the power or opportunity for themselves.

At the end of the day, we can’t even imagine that perfect unity of perfect love, absolute trust, and complete understanding, because, no matter how hard we try, it is so very different from our own experience of relationships.

But, right there, is perhaps the most important thing we can say or learn about the Trinity: God, in his very essence, is not only eternal, all-powerful, and all-knowing; God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is perfect relationship.[1]

The Importance of Relationship

God is perfect relationship.  And that’s incredibly important not just because it tells us about God, but because it tells us something about ourselves.

At Creation, God said “Let us make humankind in our image”.  It’s no accident that the scriptures use the plural there: the Trinity are active together in creation, the Father, the Creator as the source of life; Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word which spoke all things into being, and the Holy Spirit, the breath of God who swept over the chaos of the universe, and breathed the spark of life into our nostrils.

God, who is perfect relationship, created us to share that image and likeness.  God Created us to share in His own ability to create, and to think, and to have control over and responsibility for the earth he created.  And God, whose very essence is united in the perfect relationship of the Trinity, made us to reflect that likeness as well: we were created for relationships, to be in relationship with God and with each other.

Have you ever stopped to think why it is that we crave relationships?

Even in this broken and fallen world, where even something as pure as love gets twisted as it is bumped and bruised, we all crave relationships; we all crave to be heard, to be understood; we all crave to be noticed and cared for; and we all crave to have someone or something else depend on us, even if we don’t know how to express it.

To be created in the image of God is to be created for relationship.  We were created with the intention that we would freely choose to accept God’s love, and to perfectly love, trust, and obey Him in return.  But, of course, you know how it went: we just couldn’t bring ourselves to believe that the boundaries God put in place were truly for our benefit, we wouldn’t trust that God’s simple invitation to trust and obey was truly the best thing for us.

And so began the rest of human history.  Relationships were replaced by pride and power.  Our fellow men and women, our families, our siblings, even our own spouses are no longer those to be trusted and loved as people perfectly united; no, instead each person becomes an way for us to exert power or to be oppressed, as relationships are no longer a gift for us to experience the joy of God’s unity, as I become the centre of my universe, and my rights – not my responsibilities – become the law by which all others must live.

Lessons from the Trinity

As Christians, at baptism, we’re called to repent of the ways that the world uses relationships.  We’re to put off oppression and injustice, to renounce evil, and to live as brothers and sisters united as one body with Christ as the head.

But, if you’re like me, there’s times you’re not good at that.  As much as I want to be like Christ, even the most faithful among us have been formed by a world built not on unity, but on protecting and building up ourselves.  More than we’d like to admit it, in place of honest conversation, we’ve become skilled at manipulation; in place of offering ourselves freely to those we love, we’ve become masters at ensuring others need us, as we pat ourselves on the back.  In place of the vulnerability that comes with trust, we shield ourselves with sarcasm or a public persona, and when we don’t feel noticed, we allow ourselves to boil over so others will react and give us our way.

We’re wired for relationship from creation, yet so much that is wrong with our world comes from relationships gone wrong, right back to that original sin, where we just couldn’t trust that God knew best.

In this fallen world, with scarred, bruised, and broken people, relationships are hard.  But as Christians, we can begin to put things right if we look to God as our example.

Satisfaction

There’s one simple thing that separates the relationship of the Trinity from human relationships; one simple thing that keeps our minds from even imagining the unity between the Father, Son, and Spirit: satisfaction.

The Eternal, Unchanging God is eternally satisfied.  The Father is satisfied in the Son and the Spirit.  The Father’s self-worth, the Father’s self-esteem, the Father’s future hope and joy doesn’t depend on the Son going to university and getting a good job; the Father’s happiness isn’t dependent on the newness of their car or the size of their house; the Son isn’t trying to prove his worth or earn the Spirit’s trust; the Son doesn’t wait for extravagant gifts to prove the Father’s love; neither feels any jealousy or competition that almighty love and power is shared with the Holy Spirit.  All are satisfied knowing that they are united in love, expressed in trust and sacrifice. [2]

If there’s only one thing we learn from the mystery of the Holy Trinity, it’s this: we were created for relationships, but we’re doing it wrong.

Relationships aren’t about me; what they do for me, how they make me feel; how they build me up.  Relationships are about what we become, together.

If I come to a relationship, any relationship, looking to increase my value or my self-worth, if I come looking to gain power or to exert control over another, if I look at another, even if a parent looks at a child as a way to increase my pride, to increase my image, to give me hope for the future, then those relationships can never have any satisfaction.  Those are relationships built on yearning, longing for something we don’t have, jealous of what isn’t ours – even if we don’t realize it.

There can be no satisfaction in a relationship built on wanting what another has, or hoping that a friendship or a relationship or a marriage will make you appear better.

No, the Father and the Son and the Spirit are united because neither is jealous of the other, neither views the other as a source of pride to build themselves up.  They are bound together in perfect love, each aware of themselves, yet each aware that they’re fully and equally part of a relationship bigger than themselves, each offering themselves to the others, not for what they offer to be hoarded by one, but to be united in their offering, and satisfied in perfect peace.

If we want to understand the height and length and width and depth of the love of God, we have to start with our own relationships.

How many of my relationships, or even my day-to-day interactions, are built on longing for something better for myself, instead of being satisfied to offer myself as I am?  How many of our disappointments or fights aren’t because of our concern for another, but because their decision means myplans or the image I want to project can’t pan out the way I wanted, the way I hoped and longed for.

Even in our relationship with God, how many of us come simply acknowledging that He’s God, so I’m not; that he’s powerful, but I’m weak; that he’s righteous, but I’ve sinned, and come not yearning for a taste of God’s power or healing or to make my life more like I hoped it would be, but just to be satisfied, to be still and know that He is God, seeking only the forgiveness of our sins, and the gift of faith to trust simply in his goodness and follow, rather than yearning for a future we cannot see.

 The overflowing love of the Trinity brought this world into being, and brought us here today.  This week, consider your relationships with God and with each other.  Are we content to be still and be satisfied, to offer love freely without expectation of reward, or are we longing, hoping for others to build us up and feed our pride?  May God give us his grace to love Him and love our neighbours as Christ loved us, who, while we were still sinners, gave himself up that we could share in his unity and peace of a relationship with Him.  To God be the Glory now and forever more.  Amen.

[1] The theological idea here is perichoresis, a concept fleshed out from its scriptural basis most notably by the Cappadocian Fathers and accepted as a core teaching of Christianity in the Nicene Creed as adopted at the First Council of Constantinople (381).

[2] Theologically speaking, “without passions”.  See T.F. Torrance’s The Christian Doctrine of God, or, from a Reformed perspective, the Westminster Confession of Faith.