So many, like the apostles in this sermon, wish to take what they want from the message of faith, and to leave the rest, have nothing to do with it. As Martin Luther King so wisely points out, this is a problem for all of us.
People wish to have the power to otherwise do what they will. They wish to use God as a sort of vending machine, a compliant God, if one knows the right words to compel Him to give them what they want. And they think that they have no sin, when they choose to give what they wish to Him, grudgingly, as they serve themselves. And this pride, and refusal to serve, is the sin of the Fallen.
"This is how we know who are the children of God and who are the children of the Satan: anyone who does not do what is good is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their neighbor." 1 John 3:10And Martin Luther King corrects this tendency to be self-serving, rather than serving, in a most remarkable way in this famous sermon, an excerpt of which was played at his funeral observance.
"And he answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
'You have answered rightly,' Jesus replied. 'Do this and you will live.'
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' Luke 10:27-29”
