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Law Matters: The Law and Kingdom of God (6)
“The greatest among you shall be your servant.” Mathew 23.10How shall we attain to greatness in the Kingdom of God? By learning, obeying, and teaching the Law of God. How shall we know when we are fully engaged in this curriculum and regimen? When we are serving others as Jesus did.
But serving others does not come naturally to us, as the disciples demonstrated during their sojourn with the Lord Jesus, and as each of us undoubtedly knows as well. Our natural inclination and disposition is to get others to do for us. But in the Kingdom of God, following the example of our Servant/King, we take up the Law of God to serve others with the love of God and thus fulfill the requirements of the Law (Rom. 13.8-10).
We “force” our way further into the Kingdom, therefore (Lk. 16.16), as we suppress and mortify our sinful desires, yield our souls to the teaching of God’s Law, and command and discipline the members of our body to carry out the requirements of the Law in loving service to others (Rom. 6-8). Jesus Himself is the example and epitome toward which we must aspire (Jn. 13.1-15; Heb. 12.1, 2).
We do not use the Law of God to “lord it over” others, as the religious leaders of Jesus’ day did. Nor do we expect through obeying the Law to gain favor or salvation with God. He gives that by grace, and we receive it through faith. But if we are truly saved and know the love of God through Jesus Christ, that love in us constrains us to love as well, according to the teaching of the Law and the Prophets and all the counsel of God (Matt. 22.34-40). We use the Law lawfully in the Kingdom of God when it forms us for loving service, according to the teaching of the Gospel (1 Tim. 1.5-11).
And that love will show itself in knees bent in worship to God and backs bent in serving the needs of our neighbors. Yes, this is a struggle, but it is a glorious struggle, and one to be engaged every day of our lives.
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