Sunday 29th September 2024. Trinity 18.
Pastor Pete Myers explains Matthew 22:34-46.
What’s the point of life?
What’s the point of life?
What’s the point of life?
We chase all sorts of things. There’s so many personal goals we can give ourselves: Being a great footballer. Passing on a legacy. Making a difference to the NHS.
Is the point and purpose of your life something that you have to find? Are we all lost until we find our own individual purpose?
What’s the point of life? And in fact: What’s the point of my life? is a question all of us have pondered and puzzled over.
In today’s Gospel passage, that is basically the question that the Pharisees ask of Jesus. Verse 36:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
That question basically boils down to asking: What’s the point of life?
Now, it’s a particularly Jewish way of looking at the question. But it’s the same questions nevertheless.
And so as we look at this Gospel passage together, not only are we going to see Jesus’ answer to this ultimate question; we’re also going to him tell us how to achieve it.
So, three things:
- The point of life is to love
- You only get to that point with Christ
- So, without Christ, there is no point to life
The point of life is to love
The first of those: The point of life is to love
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
These Pharisees have a clear sense of purpose they have given their lives, you can see it from v. 34, and that purpose is to win:
when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees
The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the major denominations of first century Israel.
The Sadducees were the established church, connected to positions of political power with huge financial resources.
The Pharisees were obsessive radicals, more traditionally connected to the working classes.
But at this point, their different perspectives have been mostly eclipsed by their desire to win—and beat the other side.
You see that today don’t you? The desire, the purpose, to win; to see the other side crushed. If I’m honest, there’s many times when that’s become my purpose, my point in life.
Do you recognise that in yourself?
Despite their hostility, the Sadduccees and the Pharisees were united in their hatred of Jesus.
And so seeing the Sadduccees fail to catch him out, the Pharisees move in to try and get him.
That’s why this lawyer tests Jesus by asking him
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Listen to Jesus’ response again, vv. 37-39:
And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
“What is the point of life?” the Pharisees ask Jesus.
And Jesus replies: To be a perfectly loving person. To love God. To love others.
That is our purpose. That is the point of our existence. That is the highest goal you can possibly achieve.
Being loving is greater than a wonderful reputation. Being loving is greater than a glittering career. Being loving is greater than a fat bank account. Being loving is greater than all sorts of successes.
The problem is we hear that and all immediately qualify it with the internal “Yes but….”: “Yes but I can want an amazing career and still be loving.” “Yes but I can build wealth and that will make me more effective at loving.”
Which seems logical… but that “yes but” hides our real intentions.
Because the fact of the matter is, all of us love ourselves more than we love others and love of self is not real love at all.
Every time we hear the Law’s call to love, we want to qualify it, not because of some clever nuance, but because all of us want to hide what we’re truly like. Jesus hints at this in v. 40,
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Because true love looks like obeying the entire Law. And that is how we fail to love, because partial love is not really love at all.
Walk through the commandments for a moment:
If talking to my parents is exhausting, and I just salve my conscience by attempting it twice a year, is that really love? Or am I just serving myself?
If I feel concern for a homeless man, but in under a second convince myself his situation is too complicated and so do nothing, is that really love? Or am I just concerned about myself?
If I know that marriage should be honoured, but just draw the lines of what’s acceptable to fit what is comfortable for me, is that really love? Or am I just living for myself?
If I look down on people with less than me who steal to feed a habit they can’t help, but I freely download copyright material, is that really love? Or am I inconsistent with myself?
If I care what people say about me, but protect my own reputation by gossiping about others, is that really love?
The answer to all these things, of course, is no. And we all have our own pet hypocrises, our own secret inconsistencies.
“What is the point of life?” The Pharisees asked to try and trump their opponents.
“The point of life is to love” Answered Jesus: holding before us at one and the same time our greatest goal, but also our ghastly guilt.
Whoever you are, whatever you believe, wherever you come from: All of us know we should be loving people.
But all us are trying to kid ourselves that deep down we’re not as bad as we secretly know we are.
But the thing about Jesus is: he’s a great pastor. Because while he gives the Pharisees all the rigor of the law, he doesn’t leave his preaching there.
Jesus never leaves his preaching there. He preaches the Law, yes, but he always goes on to add to it the Gospel.
You only get to that point with Christ
And so while it’s true: The point of life is to love. That leads us to the second thing Jesus teaches us here: You only get to that point with Christ. Please look again with me at vv. 41-42:
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
See here the kindness of Christ, even toward those who were trying to trap him in his Words. He doesn’t leave them just with a preaching of the requirements of the Law and the implication of God’s judgement.
If you remember the story of Jonah, that was exactly how that prophet behaved. Jonah never truly repented of his disobedience to God, and he hated foreigners who weren’t Jewish. So when he was reluctantly forced to preach to Nineveh, he walked through the city for three days, only preaching God’s Law. Leaving the king and the people to only guess at God’s character of mercy and love.
Not so with Jesus. Seeing the Pharisees gathered together, Jesus took his chance to help them—even those who were plotting his death. And he asks them to consider David’s prophecy of Christ.
What an amazing example for us: there is nothing more loving we can do, than tell people about God’s promises to them in Christ, which Jesus does even for his enemies.
But the Pharisees’ answer to Jesus’ question reveals the root of their problem. The Pharisees have the scriptures, the Word of God, but they read the Bible in a way that elevates themselves and diminishes Christ. Look at vv. 42-45:
They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
The Pharisees’ confusion comes from the strange truth that David prophesied in Psalm 110: that Christ is both God and man.
That is impossible to understand without the Spirit, something Jesus hints at by reminding them that David spoke in the Spirit when he prophesied this.
Why is it so difficult to understand? Because God’s glory is only understood in his humility. Divine power is only seen in weakness That’s what the incarnation of the Son of God means. God become man precisely so that he can suffer for you.
That is true love. That is perfect love. That is selfless love. That love is the precise opposite of what I naturally am. That love is abundant and free for me, despite what I naturally am.
And what is amazing is how so much explanation of this love is packed into this one verse from Psalm 110 that Jesus quotes in v. 44:
“‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’
The Lord said to my Lord
David’s Lord is God himself. As we sing every week in the Gloria: Glory to God in the highest. You alone are the Holy one.
But at the same time:
The Lord said to my Lord
This Lord has given himself to David. So everything he has, everything he wins, he shares with David.
Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.
So this incredible victory of Christ, of David’s offspring is ours because he shares it with us. Everything good about Jesus becomes good about you:
Psalm 110 describes the Messiah, Jesus, as God’s king and 2 Timothy 2:12 tells us
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
It describes the Messiah, Jesus, as God’s priest, and 1 Peter 2:9 tells us
you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood
The point of life is to love. And You only get to that point with Christ, because he has loved you with a double love: He is king, he is priest for you. And he is king, he is priest with you—because he shares everything.
Without Christ there is no point
And those who receive that love by faith, start also living a life of love themselves.
In this life none of us will walk in perfect love, but because the Spirit of Christ lives in us by faith, we enjoy starting to walk in love.
And these were blessings Jesus held out the Pharisees, even to those who were trying to defeat him.
Sadly, though, the Pharisees rejected Jesus’ Word, and did not receive his love.
That’s the last thing we learn in this passage, a final warning: Without Christ, there is no point. Please look again at v. 46:
And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Because they reject Jesus’ Word, the Pharisees themselves are left with nothing to say.
They started by asking him: “What is the greatest commandment?” In Jewish terms they were asking: “What’s the point of life”
And Jesus has answered them straightforwardly: The point of life is to love. You only get to that point with Christ. But they have rejected Christ, And So, without Christ, there is no point. And so, sadly, they end in silence.
What’s the point of life?
We started out earlier with three questions: What’s the point of life? Is the point and purpose of your life something that you have to find? Are we all lost until we find our own individual purpose?
I hope you’re encouraged that The point of life is to love but also that You only get to that point with Christ.
So this week, let’s do the opposite of the Pharisees. Let’s read the Bible and as we do so see ourselves as smaller and smaller and see Christ as bigger and bigger.
Because he is not just the Son of David: He is the Lord. He is sitting at God’s right hand, and all his enemies are being put under his feet.
But he’s not just the Lord: He is my Lord and your Lord. He shares that victory—won through his suffering—with us. That is the love of Christ. That is the point of life.