The Matters which Matter

By Pastor Kent Hodge

So many people get caught up on minor points of doctrine which end up dividing us. But God called us to love and care for one another. We need to major on the major.

1 Timothy 1:1-4

There are things which are of major importance to Christians – and they are faith and love. They had people in Ephesus who were debating the peripheral things. You can make a big issue out of small things. People can get in a twist about things and put them ahead of their brethren. But the important thing is our brother and sister in Christ, not the way we worship or whatever. To put these things ahead of the brethren is totally against God’s will. He died that we might be one. His will is that we should be happy together in the Father’s household.

In Ephesus, people were making their righteousness of things which had nothing to do with righteousness. Our righteousness is in the blood of Christ, not in the way we do things.

1 Timothy 1:4

What builds the church up is faith. Godly building is faith. Faith that works through love – that was really Paul’s Gospel.

1 Timothy 1:5

The end of the whole thing is that we love one another. Anything which will hinder that is not according to God’s will and purpose for our life. The end of the matter is that we are brethren and love one another. Jesus said the most important commandment was that you love the Lord God with all of your heart and mind, with all of your strength, with all of your being ... and that you love your neighbour as yourself.

1 Timothy 1:5

“Pure” in the sense of there being just one thing in the heart, wanting to walk God’s way.

These are the main things.

I want to talk about the brother of the Prodigal Son. We’ll get to that later on. But there are many parables Jesus gave. When Jesus spoke about the Prodigal, He was with the publicans and sinners. The sinner was the prodigal son, and the publican was his brother. As far as the Father was concerned, both were His sons, and He accepts both according to His redemption.

The most wonderful thing we have from God is redemption. God’s ability to take someone like the prodigal and by His love alone change their life and heart and make them a new person in Christ. On Sunday we’ll look at Hosea, who was told to take a prostitute to wife. It was a picture of God redeeming Israel. I want to look at how there is power in the Gospel, in the love of Christ, to change someone. I’m not talking about lowering our standards in Christ, but I’m talking about the heart of God and His redemption. Somehow His love is able to work through us in a miraculous way and reach out to people who are living wrong or don’t know Him. There’s a love in us which reaches out to these people whereas others would reject them.

The way we sometimes deal with other people, and the things we say about other Christians, are wrong. We write people off. We speak things which ought not to be said. If God is working in us, the challenge is that there is a love which is able to reach through us and touch other people’s lives.

This thing about the publicans and sinners ... Jesus dealt with this issue many times, and it got Him into trouble, because it wasn’t what the religious people expected of Him.

Mark 3:1-2

I’ve heard people talk about how they baptise only according to specific principles. A man came to me and said he was getting baptised again because they hadn’t used the right words the first time. But you’ve been baptised into Christ when you are born again and repent and turn to Him.

I remember people making a big deal about how old you should be when you are baptised, and it caused a split with other brethren. They thought their doctrine was better than other people’s.

If God was ticking people off about things like this, He would have ticked me off years ago. When we tell people off, there are three fingers pointing back at us. There has to be a different way. And that is the way of love.

I’m not talking about lowering our Christian standards. Truth is truth, righteousness is righteousness. But we’re talking about people, and God changing them as He has changed us.

Mark 3:2-4

These people were taking the letter of the law. But the law furnished us with principles. In the law it talks about a woman who is taken by force. The law says if the woman screams, it’s by force, otherwise it’s by consent. That was a principle for judges to use in courts. But the law isn’t giving the letter there. Maybe the person was unable to scream – maybe their mouth was bound. The judge has to look for the principle of consent. The reason the law furnishes the principle is that God loves the lady. To take the law and kill with it is contrary to the purpose of the law, which was to protect. If we refuse to talk or eat with people, we’re like Peter when he was sent to Cornelius, and initially baulked against it.

Mark 3:4-5

What mattered to Jesus more was the person, not the sabbath. Not the law, but the person the law was made to protect. The Pharisees had turned this around and put the law above fellowship and love and restoration and healing of our inner man, not just our body.

Matthew 12:1-4

One of the reasons for this was that it wasn’t lawful for a king to presume to be a priest. So it was something to keep people out of this. People weren’t born again in the Old Testament and had to go by these strictures. And we also have the division of powers today where the legislature is separate from Parliament etc.

But David wasn’t going against the law here. He wasn’t presuming to be a priest; he was simply hungry. David loved the law, read the word. All the Psalms are about his respect for the law of God. He could see Christ in the law. He could see the shepherd heart in the law. Because of the Holy Spirit on his life, he was able to see this. He wasn’t bogged down in religiosity, but he loved the Lord.

Matthew 12:3-5

God says He wants mercy. Brethren are to be walking in love, not to be divided by doctrine etc. We’re one body redeemed by His blood. In my own life in Nigeria, the more direct I get in my preaching, the more I have to love people.

Matthew 12:6

The Pharisees didn’t like that. They had made a religion out of law, and the temple was the symbol of it.

Matthew 12:7-8

The kingdom is faith that works through love, not a question of abstaining from certain kinds of food and so on. We have liberty, but we don’t use it in a way that might offend people. The main thing is to love our brother. The main thing in our own lives is not the meat, but to love one another. And that’s the will of God for us. We are all baptised into one body and all drink of one brook. That’s the issue. Cornelius and Peter didn’t eat the same meat, but they both drank from the same brook.

At our conference, I asked why, if we all drank together, we couldn’t have a communion. That brought a stunned response. But we were eating of Jesus together. I said I’d invite the Anglican Archbishop to do it. He has been persecuted and stood faithful and true to the Gospel. They have come through persecution. But he wasn’t available. So we didn’t do it.

What we want is one body with spirit-filled reformed theology. I love it. Let’s go on with the Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation.

We are one body and eat of one bread. That’s what matters. Basically we need to exercise patience with one another, so God can move. Give God space to move in someone’s life.

Mark 2:23-28

Mark 2:27

This is one of the things in the parable of the prodigal son. When he came back, the other son recounted all the things that he had done. And that wasn’t what the father wanted. He wanted both sons. Some people have called this the parable of the prodigal’s brother. Jesus was peaking both to the publicans and to the sinners.

The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. The law was made to help and protect man, not to destroy him.

If we get someone who has messed up in the past, we don’t want to destroy them with the law. We want to think about how we can move on. When we take the Gospel out into the world, it’s not a perfect world. When I was first saved, I had an issue with restoration. You had to think about all the things you did before you were saved and sort them out. What God says about us is, “Let him who stole, steal no more.” God wants a changed heart and life. If I were to go back and restore everything, I’d have to leave my family. I don’t even know the people any more.

1 Timothy 1:7-9

The law testifies against sinners and protects us. But we know the law is good if it is used lawfully – and that means using it to help and protect, not to pull down.