Are You Living to Die, or Dying to Live?

 Romans 6:3-11

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?    Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.  Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday After Trinity                                      7/27/25

Are You Living to Die, or Dying to Live?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Shakespeare once wrote that the coward dies a thousand deaths, but the brave man dies but once.  Of course, he was talking about the way fear works on a person.  If you are a coward, you imagine that death over and over again.  A brave man only faces death when he actually faces it.

But we can die more than once.  Many do and will.  First, there is the death of the body.  Everyone gets to do that one.  The Bible speaks of "the second death" in the book of Revelation.  By that, Scriptures mean eternal damnation.   There is one other death we could add in here, the death our text speaks of, the death which is "in connection with Christ Jesus." That is a death which every Christian – and only Christians – die.  But that death is really already past for those who believe and have been baptized.  So the only question is, are you living to die or dying to live?

On the face of it, the question sounds silly.  If you were already dead, it seems that you would not be here listening to the sermon and taking part in the service.  Even if you were going to ask that question, you would probably reverse the two clauses and ask if someone was going to die, first.  The reason the question applies is that the text talks about dying with Christ in Baptism – or literally  hav[ing] been buried with Him through baptism into death.  The latter, Paul writes about how we have been crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with.  That was accomplished by our Baptism.

Now in a sense, we each face two deaths.  We will all die physically, unless the Lord returns first.  But the death of the body for the Christian is a release from this world of corruption and pain into eternal life, not actually death at all, if we are to believe what the Bible teaches – and we are!  So we who have died with Christ by means of Baptism have done our dying.  Our death is in the past in every important sense, except in the sense for which we hold funerals.  Those who do not believe and will not be baptized still face death of the body, and the second death, as future realities of tremendous significance and power, for the second death means eternal death and hell for he or she who does not believe.

Our text addresses what theologians call the Mystical Union – although Paul never used those words in our text..  The Mystical Union is our union with Christ through Baptism.  It is called "mystical", which, according to the dictionary, means it deals with A) things not open to human sense, B) a spiritual event, and C) it refers to contact and communion with God.  That is the sense of "mystical" we intend when we talk about the mystical union.

In our Baptism, we are connected to Christ.  Our union with Him is as real as the pew you are sitting in, but it is not as tangible.  Whether you know it or not, your Baptism linked you to Jesus Christ.  What is true of Jesus as true Man is true of you, although not in the same way necessarily.  We share in His holiness, His death, and His life – and in a way we cannot clearly define or perceive.  We also share in all that He has done and will do.

For example, we are united with Jesus Christ in connection with His death.   We died with Him and were buried with Him, although we did not die physically, yet.  It is a very real thing – Paul writes that our old self was crucified with Him.   And yet we do not feel it.  That is part of the glory of the Gospel.   That is also part of what we mean when we say that Jesus died in our place.  The death He died was our death - actually our death because of the Mystical Union.

And we are united with Him also in connection with His resurrection!  Our spirits have already died and been "born again" – yes, that is what the term means, not some human decision, but a real death and a real re-birth.  We have eternal life already, but we still wait the physical, bodily sharing in the resurrection.  It is this Mystical Union which makes the resurrection of our bodies so certain!  The body of those who have been raised from the dead in connection with Christ cannot remain in the grave!  It too shall rise!

Our Baptism unites us with Jesus in connection with His life!  Because He lives, we shall also live.  We have been linked by Baptism in the Mystical Union with Christ.  When He died, we died.  When He rose from the grave, we rose also.  As long as He lives, we must also live.  This is the Gospel promise.

It is also, in part, how forgiveness works: we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.  When you die, sin no longer has a hold of you.  Since you died with Christ, in your Baptism, your sin is gone.  Jesus took it.  You have died and those sins have no further claim on you for death or hell or anything.

This Mystical Union is the mechanical description of how the Gospel works.  We live in union with Jesus Christ.  It also has certain implications for us.  It means some things about our lives and how we live them, and how we cannot live them, for we are united with Jesus Christ and we cannot be and cannot do what Jesus cannot be and what Jesus cannot do.

First, we live in newness of life, according to our text.  That is the result of being united with Christ.  We are no longer slaves of sin.  We cannot be, for we are united in connection with Jesus Christ who has conquered sin, and is freed from sin.  No matter how it feels, the reality that the Word of God reveals is that we are no longer slaves to sin, ergo, a newness of life.  That slavery was broken in our Baptism.  Verse 14 says plainly,  Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.  You may have noticed the lack of weasel words here.  It doesn't say that sin should not be master, or may not be, but sin shall not be master!

Secondly, we have been set free from sin.  Although it sounds like I am saying the same thing again, I am not.  We have not only the power to resist sin through our Baptism, we have been set free from the power of sin to accuse us and condemn us, as I mentioned earlier.  That is the very Gospel!  Again, this is part of that mystical thing - meaning it doesn't always feel like this.  That is why Romans 6:11 says to consider yourselves to be dead to sin.  That means to count yourself dead to sin, even when it doesn't feel like you are.  It will feel quite the opposite.  But when we allow ourselves to sin, particularly deliberate sins and on-going, life-style sins like stealing, adultery, homosexuality, grumbling, and gossip, when we surrender to sin, we are doing something unnatural and potentially very deadly to our new life in connection with Christ, for we cannot force Christ into sin again.

Our union with Christ also means that we are alive forever already – death is no longer master over Christ, so it is no longer master over us!  As long as we live in connection with Christ -- and that connection was established for us in our Baptism -- we shall not die.  We cannot, even though our flesh – our bodies – will surely die one day.

Of course, all of this good news is predicated on the Mystical Union with Christ which God established in our Baptism.  But this is not to teach, nor do we believe, any doctrine of eternal security which says that once you have a relationship with Jesus, you cannot possibly fall away.  There is no ‘once saved, always saved." All of this applies only to Christians.  Either you are a Christian, or you are not.  Wishful thinking, feelings, and personal proclamations have no relevance here.  Many people like to fool themselves about this.  They don't believe anything in particular about Jesus, or their relationship to Him, but they like to think that somehow they are still Christian.  Some don't go to church, but they think they have some sort of indelible stain of Christ on them.  Some people go to church all the time, but it has no effect on their lives or their behavior.  They think that it is all about going.  Their sacrifice for Christ is that hour or two on Sunday.  The truth is, either you are a Christian or you are not.  Christians are in connection with Christ, and all others are not.  It really isn't that hard to tell – you trust God, you hope in Jesus Christ you live in repentance and forgiveness – or you just pretend something.

Which brings us to the question of your death.  Are you living to die or dying to live?  Our text says that either you have died with Christ or you will surely die in sin.  Now, none of us is perfect and without sin, even as Christians.  But those who have died with Christ have also risen with Him to walk in newness of life.

Either you have died to sin or are dead to God.  Since Adam and Eve, we are born naturally dead to God. Dead to sin, on the other hand, is a matter of faith and trust and life.  Living comfortably in sin of any sort, from murder and fornication to grumbling, gossip, and foul language, any sin will surely mark you as one who is not dead to sin.  We can be at peace about former sins of which we have repented, for they have been forgiven, but we cannot afford to even be casual about present sins and temptations and lusts.  That is why Christians are always struggling to put to death the deeds of the flesh, to do all that we can to be sure that sin has no power over us and that our lives are controlled by Christ, that we remain in connection with Christ, and not under the control of our sins and lusts.

Either you walk in newness of life or you are dead even while you live.  It is fair to say that a Christian lives like a Christian, behaves like a Christian, or they are not Christian.  This type of behavior is that life of repentance that Luther wrote about in the 95 Theses.  It is true that the behavior and the works do not make us Christian, or save us, but we cannot happily live on in sins – ignoring the Word of God, for example, or regularly choosing not to gather together with the body Christ, or doing that which we know God has condemned – and remain a Christian.  It may work for a short while, but living as a slave to sin will destroy faith and mark you as one who is dead to Christ and alive to sin.

Christian virtues and Christian goodness are signs of the life of Christ within us.  The good works a Christian does are evidences that he is alive, and in connection with Christ Jesus.  Every sort of life, be it physical or spiritual, is invisible and intangible in and of itself, but it always shows itself to be present by a thousand activities – hair grows, it breathes, it moves, it does things – activities which are all absent in death. 

To sum it up, either your death is past or your death is future, so, are you living to die or dying to live?  The Christian has already died – in connection with Christ s death.  Only the unbeliever and the hypocrite has a real death, filled with horror and pain, ahead to look forward to.  Like the brave man in Shakespeare, we who believe only die once.  We who have been Baptized into Christ know that we have died with Christ and have eternal life even now.  Our death is past - and this life in connection with Christ is our future forever.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Overcoming Evil with Good

 Romans 12:16-21

Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.  "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS UPON HIS HEAD."  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity                        07/13/25

Overcoming Evil with Good

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Many people think that Christians are supposed to be better than others.  We are supposed to behave better, be more caring, understand more.  The difference is a difference in degree.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Christians are claimed by God when they are just as bad as anyone else.  God does not make us His own because we are better, or to make us better, but to save us.  God's aim in creating the Church was not to improve the world, but to rescue us out of it.  As His children, we are not expected to be better – God expects us to be totally different from the world.  That difference is illustrated for us in our Epistle lesson, and so I invite you to look at the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, with me, and consider how God expects His children to be – in the words of the sermon title, Overcoming Evil with Good.

There is nothing natural about being a Christian.  We do not have the power or ability naturally to become a Christian.  We cannot decide to be one, and we cannot keep ourselves in the faith once we are.  We depend on God.  Now the truth is that we human beings depend on God everyday.  We count on Him to keep the air breathable, and we daily expect food and liveable weather.  And God is so good and so dependable that we can actually mislead ourselves into thinking that this is just how it is, that nature is this giant machine working on our behalf, that life just goes on this way and it is all natural.  God is consistent and consistently good and supporting and blessing us.  He is so consistent that most people have forgotten Him and cannot even see a need for Him.

But every day He is there, keeping the chemical reactions going that make life happen.  He is there protecting us from the thousand dangers that surround us.  He is there stopping the arrows of Satan that he throws at us to destroy us.  He is opening doors of opportunity before us and blessing what we do so that we have success and satisfaction and joy in this world.  We depend on God, whether we acknowledge it, or even understand it, or not.  

In matters of faith, however, God has so arranged things that we who believe cannot escape knowing that we depend on Him.  He tells us that we cannot choose faith – the best passage to make that point, in case you were wondering, is 1 Corinthians 2:14:  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  If we are to believe it depends on Him, Romans 9:16:  So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

God then tells us that His choices do not depend on us, but totally on Him and what He calls "Grace."  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  He even tells us in that verse that one of His reasons for doing things the way He does is that we know it is Him, and so not one of us boasts about ourselves in this regard.  That doesn't stop people from boasting, of course, it just stops those who believe and possess salvation (as His gift to them through faith) from boasting.  They know better.  They know they depend of God.

Depending on God is not natural, not since Adam and Eve fell into sin.  Their first sin was failure to trust God.  While we all people depend on God, not very many are conscious of it, or are willing to admit it, even to themselves.  Just Christians, and for many of them, it is difficult.  So when God tells us how He expects us to deal with life, it isn't going to seen natural or make good sense to us, necessarily.

I mean, if someone hits you, the natural response is to strike back.  That natural tendency surfaces in children – "I'm rubber, you're glue, everything you say bounces off of me and sticks on you!"  It sounds childish, because it is the way a powerless child tries to hit back verbally.  If I can't think fast enough to be clever, I can dump back on you!  Revenge.  It is the most natural impulse in the world.  So, God tells us never to pay back evil for evil, or take our own revenge, but to leave it in His hands.

Instead of evil for evil, we are to be good.  We are to love one another, and do good even to those who make themselves our enemies.  The goal is not mere survival, it is winning the lost and calling all men to repentance and faith.  That is radically different from what seems like the best way to handle things.  With our fellow-believers, we are called on even to forget who we are in our own minds and associate with the lowly – the humble, with those we think are below us.  We are called on to make everyone else our equal in our own minds and thinking – or our betters, essentially.  It is so unlike us.

Instead, it is like Jesus.  He is God.  He rules the world and created everything.  He could destroy us with a word, or choose to command that we would all behave like robots and do just anything He said.  But that isn't how He does things.  He gave us our freedom in the Garden of Eden, and when we got it wrong and chose death instead of life, He planned our salvation.  He didn't just wipe the slate clean, although He could have.  What He decided to do was to overcome evil with good.

God didn't just pretend we didn't sin, in order to forgive us, or simply excuse our sins.  He kept His own counsel and followed His own sense of right and justice and worked out our salvation.  He planned to be both just and so, punish sin, and yet preserve us, who earned death and destruction by our sins, from the very death and destruction we have earned.  To do that, He had to take our sins on Himself and suffer and die in our place so that the penalty was paid out for our sin, and yet we are preserved alive.  He became one of us, human in every respect, except sin.  He kept His own Law and earned what none of us has or could, everlasting life.  Then He exchanged what He had earned for what we have earned, and died on the cross in our place.

Then He rose from the grave.  The resurrection declared the completeness of our forgiveness and the sufficiency of the payment for our sins.  The resurrection demonstrated what is in store for us in Jesus Christ, and showed us clearly that Gods has the power to accomplish all that He has promised to do.  Then Jesus sent out His Apostles to declare this all to us and to hold out the free gift of resurrection, life and salvation.  It is a gift that is grasped and received by faith.  He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.  Our salvation is the clearest and most abundant example of overcoming evil with good – not something one would calculate or expect – and human reason chafes against the free gift and the grace of God even today.  It just isn't the way we would have done it.

So God lays before us His own conduct as our example, and invites us to be like Him, and overcome evil with good.  This isn't a new thought.  It is the way it has been from the beginning.  You shall be holy, for I, the Lord Your God, am holy.  The only difference here is that St. Paul is describing what holy looks like.  It looks like humility – considering everyone else – at the very least every other Christian – to be our equal and worthy of our time and attention.  Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  God did it for us, we can do it for each other.  It is often important that we do.

Then, we are to be like Jesus in forgiveness and compassion, showing love and goodness to those who never have any for us.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  But even more than simply not paying back evil for evil, God wants us to be positively good toward those who are not good towards us – just as God was good toward us while we were yet enemies and hated Him.  "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS UPON HIS HEAD."  

We don't do good to others just to cause them trouble, of course, but God says that our goodness in the face of their wickedness will work an even greater judgment on them, if they are not shamed by our holiness and brought to repent.  We never have to worry about them "getting away with" anything.  We don't need to seek revenge, but God will repay – Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.  There is no such thing as getting away with it.  Either you repent, and it is forgiven because Jesus has been punished in your place already, or you do not repent, and God exacts eternal retribution.  Which one finally happens is not our concern.  God alone is Judge.  WE have been rescued, forgiven, and set apart for eternal life, and that is our joy, and our motivation to be God's holy people in this way.

The rest of our Epistle lesson is simply good advice, divine instruction – the basic principles of living as God's child.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never think you know better than God.  Simply follow His Word, and be faithful.  It works.    Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  We cannot be holy if we are not doing right.  Of course, God doesn't want us to accept their twisted ideas of what is right, as in approving of abortion or euthanasia or homosexuality, but when something is generally and clearly seen as right, we should honor it.  That is why we would oppose those who kill abortion providers and bomb abortion clinics.  It is simply not right, even in the face of so great an evil as abortion.  Killing babies is wrong, but so is killing adults.  God will settle accounts, in the end.  We do not need to.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Peace with everyone is unrealistic.  Some people will hate you for being good, some will hate you for being faithful, many will hate you for being a Christian.  But that hatred is their problem.  As far as it depends on you, be at peace.  Don't look for trouble, and don't create it without a good cause.  Be at peace, peace with God because of forgiveness.  Be at peace with world events because God is with you.  Be at peace with sickness because God is with you.  Be at peace.  Overcome their evil by refusing to join it, become like it, or answer evil with evil.  Instead, overcome evil with good.

Be humble.  God took on humility for you.  Be willing to go that extra mile.  God did.  He still does, in order to save us.

All of these rules are detailed instances of one over-riding principle,   Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  And that principle is not just pie in the sky, or unrealistic – it is how God has dealt with us.  He forgives and He blesses.  He has rescued us from sin and death and given us the example that He invites us to emulate.  Don't just do what comes naturally, and don't just be different from the world around you by degree, but be totally different, and overcome evil with good.  Be faithful, and God will grant you the victory in Jesus Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
(Let the people say Amen)

Given as an Example

 1 Timothy 1:12-17

12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service; 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. And yet I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; 14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. 15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity                                      7/06/25

Given as an Example

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One of the things that fascinates me most when I read the Scriptures is how the lives of the people and the experiences they go through are meant for us as instruction or as examples. The children of Israel on the Exodus for example, are an example to us about faithfulness and how easy it is to fall away from God and grumble.  We also have the example of Samson, with his great strength and stupidity as he looks at Delilah, the marvelous example of King David, who was a man of weakness and yet great faith, who sinned greatly and deeply with Bathsheba, and yet later in the Scriptures God says that David was a man after His own heart. The nation Israel gives us examples time after time of faithfulness and unfaithfulness and repentance, and stumbling again, and of how God can use us – His people – even when we are not faithful, to accomplish His good will.  

In the New Testament, of course, we have Jesus as our primary example of holiness and obedience to His Father, and what the will of God looks like for His very own Son. Our epistle lesson to day teaches us another example. The Apostle Paul, says that his blessing by God and use by God Is an example demonstrating God's perfect patience, and obviously his forgiveness, since Paul was a persecutor of the church at first.  Nonetheless, Paul was an example of how God forgives and blesses and uses us. Paul called himself chief of sinners, foremost is the word in Greek, and the Apostle tells us that God's blessing him and strengthening him and using him in the mission of the church was an example.  We cannot argue that God did not use him in the church, Paul is the author of almost all of the New Testament aside from the gospels.  Our theme this morning is, Given as an Example.  

Paul, previously known by his Hebrew name, Saul, was not a nice man.  He was religiously good, being a Pharisee.  He was aggressively pharisaical. He once described himself as more zealous for the his religion than his compatriots.  He says he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent aggressor against the Christian Church. He said all of that was forgiven by God because he was doing that in ignorance.  Now, Paul was a very learned man, who understood the Old Testament Scriptures very well, and was well read in Greek and Roman literature. He was not stupid, nor ignorant about worldly things. He was ignorant about Christ. When God called him to faith on that dramatic Road to Damascus Experience, Paul learn the truth about his religion and about God.  What he learned from Damascus road was what he had been ignorant about before, Christ.   

We could take that as an example of how we ought to appoach our own lives. Regardless of how much we know about farming, or business, or theology we need to know Christ and how He fits into our lives or rather, how our lives are shaped by Him.  The example here would be how knowledge of Christ resolves our ignorance and everything else we know really doesn't matter in the long run.  What matters is knowing Christ, knowing His grace and forgiveness, and knowing our own sin and how Jesus has paid for that and forgiven us.  That is one way that Paul was given as an example.  

The primary focus of the example that Paul speaks of is found in verses 14 and 15 of our epistle lesson :  And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.   It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 

In spite of everything Paul did he was forgiven.  The grace of our Lord was more than abundant, Paul says, overwhelmingly so.  It is a trustworthy statement, Paul says that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Then he adds a personal confession, among whom I am foremost of all.  He considered himself to be the worst sinner.  On a purely social level, Paul was probably a very, very decent man. He was a true Pharisee.  But his rejection of Christ before Damascus road experience and his violent attacks against the church, which he now understood were also attacks against Christ and God himself, painted himself in his own mind as the worst sinner possible. In other places in the Epistles, he talked about how he counts all his righteousness as a Pharisee as garbage and throws it away for the sake of Christ. But here he simply acknowledges he is the Sinner And judges himself to be the worst sinner of all. And that sinner is covered by the grace of Jesus Christ, which Grace is particularly found in forgiveness.  

We easily confess that Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost, sinners.  The hard part for most of us comes at saying that we are the worst sinner in the room, or the worst sinner possible.  For the most part we feel pretty good about ourselves, don't we? Face it, if that were not true how could we criticize our neighbor? How could we get up in somebody's face and challenge what they have said or what they have done and expect them to back down and apologize?  I hear people challenge what the elders have done or said, challenge what the trustees have done, are doing, or haven't done.  We kind of easily take for granted that our judgment is somehow significant. We are not chief of sinners, we are of the morality police, we are the piety police. Our opinion of what ought to be done takes precedence over other people and other people's opinions.  Sometimes some of you run rough-shod over other and take no thought for them or their feelings as you run your thoughts out of your mouth,

But we don't seem to realize oftentimes, is that our attitudes and our behaviors are judging others.  But the Bible says "judge not and you shall not be judged." But it's so common that we don't bother thinking about what it means, and when somebody else takes it the way we didn't intend it to be we manufacture injury, wander around injured as though somebody had said something about us that wasn't true. Many times, we have become so comfortable in sin and with certain types of sin that it offends us when we are reminded that we are sinners.  We are good people, we say.  I'm doing my best, we say, as though doing our best is insulation against sin. But it is not. We are not good people. I say "we" because I include myself with you in this condemnation. We are sinners.  Chief of sinners.  Here is where Paul is given to us as an example.   

And just like Paul we must confess that our Lord is more than abundant in grace and bestowing faith on us, the love that he shows us day by day, and all our blessings.  We don't deserve it. Any of it. And yet the love of our Lord that brought Him to the cross to bear our sin, shame and guilt is more than abundant, for by it your sins are forgiven. And that doesn't mean you never sin again, it means that Jesus took your sins, bore them on the cross and paid the penalty. Do you want to sin? Not if you are truly repentant.  Will you sin again? Absolutely, without question. But not deliberately, not intentionally, Except as a matter of weakness when the devil gets his hand into your head, and you say or do something you know you ought not to say or do. But then we turn our hearts and minds toward the cross and humbly there confess that we are still chief of sinners, in need of forgiveness, and we trust in that abundant, more than abundant, Grace, forgiveness, and love.  

Your sins are forgiven.   That is the Gospel.  The desire to do better is praiseworthy, but not salvific - It does not work toward your salvation.  It works toward your sanctification.  

In the Apostle Paul, he says that God demonstrated His perfect patience. Jesus Christ extends that same perfect patience, forgiveness and Grace, to you.  Just like he did to the Apostle Paul, he does toward us. Paul tells us that this grace was given to him that it might be given to us as an example.  

I really can't think of a better way to conclude this sermon then the way the Apostle concluded this short pericope which has served as our text.  Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)