Law and Gospel

  Ephesians 2:1 - 10

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity                                    8/31/25

Law and Gospel

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

I was baptized when I was two months and 5 days old. I have never been aware of a time when I was not a Christian. The "feeling," My consciousness of being a Christian has varied from time to time. Some days I feel absolutely wonderful - marvelous - walking on air in the grace of God. At other times, I'm not aware, consciously, of anything unique. Now and again, I have a very painful awareness of my sin, but I continue to understand that the gospel covers me and I am a forgiven and beloved child of God despite my sins because of Jesus Christ.  

So, You can imagine that reading the first sentence of our text almost seems like it doesn't apply.  "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air." Except for those first two months and five days, I don't have any familiarity with the idea of being dead in trespasses and sins or walking according to the course of this world. I know that Original Sin placed me in that category, theologically aware, but I'm not certain that it makes the passage any easier for me to apply to myself. I am going to guess that that's true for most of you.  

But this is the Word of God. It describes us accurately. It doesn't talk about how we feel, What it is, is true. Even as Christians, we walk in sin. I don't like that fact, I don't like having to admit it, I do not like having to confess it in public, let alone a sermon. But there it is. We are all sinners.  

And sin makes us children of wrath, as our text says. The Apostle Paul writes we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and later in the epistle he says, we were dead in our transgressions. It is an ugly truth. This is the law part of our text today. But it flows over into the gospel.  

The Gospel, the Good News, is stated in several different ways in our text. Paul talks about God being rich in mercy, he speaks of God's great love for us and then tells us that He raised us up with Christ, and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. I've never been able to actually nail down what "the heavenly places" means. It could mean what we call "heaven." It could mean being seated in the grace and love of God. I am pretty sure that it means something about where God shows us "the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus."  

Whatever "the heavenly places" are, I'm pretty sure it's good. The reason I'm not sure exactly what the phrase means is that it is in the plural "heavenly places." We tend to think of heaven as one place, and perhaps it is. We just don't know. The other confusion for me is that the Apostle is talking about being placed us in those heavenly places. He was clearly writing while He was still standing on earth. We read those words while we are firmly fastened to earth. Those realities suggest that what the Apostle is talking about is like eternal life, which is the gift of God for us in our baptism.  

Paul was writing about this by inspiration, so I'm not sure he even knew precisely what every phrase meant. The only thing we can be certain of is that it is divinely wonderful. In Christ, we have been transferred from this world of sin and death to life everlasting enjoy and peace in the presence of the Lord. But, just like everything about our salvation, It's not immediately obvious to us -- it's not always open to our senses, it is in fact the promise of God. We live in a reality that is completely and fully ours, and yet we are unable to sense it with our fingers and our noses and such.  

God intended it to be like that. That's why he tells us in this passage that God is going to show us their surpassing goodness of his love and mercy. Then Paul writes that we are saved by grace. Within two sentences, he repeats himself. First, he says you are saved by grace, and then he goes into that wonderful passage in verses 8 and 9 about how we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves it is the gift of God, not on the basis of work so that no one should boast.  

The full, experienced reality of the wonders of our salvation is that they are future, in the next world, in the next life. We have them. We possess them by the gift of grace, but we do not experience fully the reality of them. That awaits us in the future. It is all the gift of grace, and it is all received by faith.  

Take note: the promises of our salvation are listed in the text in the past tense; it is already done. God has rescued us, God has transferred us to this new heavenly kingdom, and God has given us all of the things that the gospel promises. But the joy, the significant blessings, the experience of the great love and mercy of God, which is discussed in our text, is in the future tense. It is coming, but we are not there yet. The surpassing riches of His grace in kindness are yet to be revealed to us. That is part of the future glory that God has set aside for us, laid out for us, but has not given us the immediate sense of it, that it might be by faith.  

And then the apostle brings us back down to the reality we have and that we know. He talks about the purpose that God has for us in this world. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works, which God has before ordained, laid out in our path, that we should walk in them."  We are brought at the end of this passage from the glories of heaven which lie ahead of us, not within our sight, to the Hard Rock reality of this world, in which we have things to do. God doesn't leave us sitting and wondering what they are, although many people tend to waste their time trying to dream up exactly what they might be, but He has ordained in advance what those works are so that all we have to do is walk in faith in Him, doing what comes to hand to do, and we will accomplish His will. That's why He left us here. Period. To do his stuff.  

This part seems to be law. It seems to be demanding something. But the truth is it's still part of the gospel. God has planned something for us to do, but it is His plan, and the works are His works, and all we have to do is walk by faith, which means live according to what we believe. Live as the Christian truth would guide you to live; the truth of forgiveness, the truth of salvation, the truth of this amazing love of God. Then you will be doing what God wants you to do. But even that is His gift to us, not a command for us to go out and work something up, or do it ourselves, but simply live in His goodness, grace, and love, and we will be accomplishing all that He has set before us to do. Even the works He would have us do are the gift of God – the gift of His grace.  

The only thing we can be certain of is that the will of God for us is not to do evil. The works which He has laid in our are in accord with His will, both the will of God to save us, and the will of God expressed in commandments. 

Which are not two wills, but one.  And what is the will of God for us?  Our Salvation

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

Amen.

Christ is the End of the Law

Romans 9:30 

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith;  but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.  Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,  just as it is written, "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed." 

Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.  For not knowing about God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Sermon for the 10th  Sunday after Trinity                                      8/24/25

Christ is the End of the Law

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The biggest secret of the Christian faith is the Gospel. Of course in the time of Jesus it was a secret of sorts. The Jews were all about the law, the commandments, the demand to be righteous.  They freely ignored the gospel passages in the Old Testament.  They ignored God's words about forgiveness and reconciliation. They only heard Mount Sinai; the Thunder, the lightning the commandments, Thou shalt not.  

The only way the Jews could conceive of God dealing with them was through the law and legal righteousness.  Many Gentiles, on the other hand, had never learned the law. The God of the Jewish faith was an appealing God to them, but they did not know the rules. When they heard that God would forgive them their trespasses and grant them salvation, they trusted the word of God and received the righteousness which comes by faith.  

Our theme today is "Christ is the End of the Law."   

The situation presented to us in our text is a common situation today.  The significant difference is that, when applied to the Christian church, we're not dealing with Jews and Gentiles. We're dealing with one group who calls themselves Christians and another group who actually are. The world around us today is lost. They all are like the Gentiles in the time of the Apostles. The Jews of today stubbornly cling to the traditions of their fathers and are still as described in our text, lost in the Law. The rest of the world are Gentiles. They don't know Judaism, They are lost in the darkness without any true knowledge of God. They think they know God or about God but they do not.  

We still see the same divide the ancient world saw between Jew and Gentile believers.  Many who call themselves Christians still try to establish their righteousness before God on the basis of their works as judged by the law. It might be the Law of decision theology.  It might be the law of prayer. It might be the Law of an imagined relationship between them and the Lord which they believe they maintain by their careful pursuit of outward holiness in obedience to the law, in avoiding what they call sin. All of their talk about Jesus and salvation, and however they may phrase it, is based on a false understanding of what it is that God is looking for and how it is that you establish a relationship with God, and what His responsibilities are and what your responsibilities are in that relationship.  

Those who are truly Christian depend upon the grace of God and the forgiveness of sins, and the righteousness of Christ.  They understand they cannot do anything on their own. Their faith tells them that they are entirely dependent upon the grace of God, the forgiveness of sins, and the gift of salvation. They stand in precisely the same relationship as those Gentiles mentioned in our text who did not follow the law but received their salvation and forgiveness by grace through faith - by believing what the Apostles preached to them. What they understood is that Christ is the end of the law.   

The phrase "end of the law" Can be understood in a number of ways. One understanding is that Christ ended the law. That understanding is false. The law of God is eternally valid. It is His will. The 10 commandments are just as binding and true as they were when they came down the slopes of Mount Sinai in the arms of Moses. Christ did not put an end to the law.   

The phrase "end of the law ," can be understood also that the Christ is the purpose of the law, Of the law, if you will.  The word used in the original Greek is telo~, TELOS, "outcome, goal, aim, purpose" according to a Greek dictionary.  For this purpose that Jesus came into the flesh. He said so Himself, saying, he did not come into the world to end the law but to fulfill it.   And he did.  

Actually, our text did not say that Christ was "the end of the law," it said that he was "the end of the law for righteousness." The law still stands. It still convicts us of our sins. Everyone of you sitting here today knows your sin. I don't know it, at least not all of it, but you do. Except that part of your sin that Psalm 19:12 tells us no man knows his own sin. It says that we have, "hidden faults."  According to Romans six verse 23 The wages of sin is death. We all deserve that judgment. 

But Christ came in human flesh to keep the law on our behalf, earning eternal life. Then, contrary to the law of God, He died. His death was unnecessary. unneeded, undeserved, according to the law of God.  But not according to the plan of God. The plan of God was that Christ would keep the law, earn eternal life and then share it with us by dying in our place and pouring out His grace, mercy, and life upon all flesh, every man, woman, and child in this world. 

 The gift is to be received by knowing about it, believing that it is true, and trusting in it.  That means undoing, after a manner of thought, the sin of Adam and Eve. They did not trust God. They took matters into their own hands. In the Gospel, everything is taken out of our hands. Eternal life and salvation, and perfect righteousness, and so forth, are given to us as a gift.  

In Ephesians 2:8-9, the Apostle Paul writes,  "by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not on the basis of works, lest any man should boast." Your salvation is a gift based on the merits and worthiness and sacrifice of Christ. It cannot be earned because the standard is perfection and we are all born with sin. It must be by grace, the gift of God. So, when Christ died on the cross and rose again triumphantly and ascended into heaven, our salvation, our righteousness, became Christ Jesus.  He is our righteousness. He ended the use of the law to achieve that righteousness. It's pointless. It is impossible. And so it is the gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.   

The righteousness which God demands in the law, you shall be perfect for I the Lord your God am perfect, is met only by the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ poured out on us as a free gift by grace through faith it is received.   

No other righteousness will do.  Jesus said it himself, "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of God."  And the scribes and the Pharisees were the best at keeping the law of God - outwardly.   

The righteousness required is the righteousness of God, and that is only available to us by the gift of God through Jesus Christ.  Christ is the end of the law, that is the purpose of the law, that is the final goal of the law, and the termination of the law for anyone seeking righteousness.  He fulfilled all righteousness, and he bestows all righteousness, So he is both the termination of the law as a means to righteousness And he is the purpose the law was given.   

To those who do not believe, the Law is still the standard. They must be perfect on the basis of their works before the law of God. A truly hopeless situation. 

The law was given to lead us to Christ. Having done that, it serves no other purpose.  The only place to go for righteousness that stands before God is Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen, our Savior and our Lord.   

I know I am a bit repetitive in this sermon, but our text holds out before us the complete Gospel. I repeat it over and over again to set it firmly in your hearts and minds so that you, too, may believe and be righteous in Christ and rejoice.   

 Christ is the End of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.  

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

Amen.

What a Marvelous Promise

 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved.  And do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY."  Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.  Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents.  Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.  

Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.  Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.  No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity                                      8/17/25

What a Marvelous Promise!

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Contrast.  It is one of the realities of this world that makes things interesting.  Light and dark and how they interplay in a picture makes the photo fascinating.  A white flower stands out in a sea of greens, a luscious red rose stands out in a light colored setting.  The high trill of a clarinet quickens the tempo in a field of  baritone oboes in a piece, and it is always the unexpected that makes a joke particularly funny.  Contrast, whether it is visual or mental, auditory or olfactory always draws ones attention – and usually in a positive way.

That is what we have in our text today.  We have a marvelous promise, but it is set in the context of such deep and visceral law that it stands out as a brilliant and wonderful promise of God.  I invite you to consider this Epistle with me this morning, and take note of the striking and welcome promise of God to us.  Our theme is, "What a marvelous promise!"

First we must paint the background.  The Apostle Paul writes to us about the things that happened to the children of Israel.  Before our text, he reminds of how the children of Israel were all alike – all members of the chosen people, all part of the "church" if you will, and experienced the same things, the baptism, the spiritual food and the spiritual drink.  Yet even though they shared in that calling of God and the sacred things, they did not all share in the consequent favor of God - God was not pleased with all of them, and He laid them low in the desert.

Then, our text begins, with the words, Now these things happened as examples for us.  Paul seems to be telling us in this message that not everyone who is part of the outward people of God makes it.  We all actually know that this is true.  We can all remember people who joined the church, and seemed quite excited about it for a time, who have since stopped coming, or going, to church.  Those people were not necessarily hypocrites.  They were probably true believers, and had salvation full and free within them, for a time, and then they turned away.  Such people are the seed that falls among the rocks, or among the thorns, in the Parable of the Sower.  They are the ones who fulfill the proverb that Peter tells us about in 2 Peter 2, "It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT," and, "A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire."  The plain truth is that it – meaning faith and salvation –  can be lost.

Now these things happened as examples for us.  God cares so much for us that He used the lives and the sins of these people as examples and instruction for us.  Their lives were their lives, lived before God for their own blessing or hurt.  This use of their lives as examples for us does not make a difference to the reality of their lives for them.  But God put them through their paces for us.   He used their lives and their situations and their decisions for our blessing and our learning.  That is how deep is God's love for us.  Such a love should encourage us to trust Him.  When you think about it, the problems of Ancient Israel were not simply sin (although they certainly had that problem too), but lack of trust in God – unbelief, as it were.

Of course, they had no problem believing that God existed.  They knew that He was real.  They personally witnessed His power and wisdom in ways that would shake our world as clearly as it shook theirs, but they did not believe in the sense that they trusted God as God would have them trust Him.  God paints the background for that marvelous promise in our text.

We should not crave evil things, as they also craved.  – The specific things that they craved were the meat and the drink on the Exodus, the stuff of Egypt that they had left behind.  They craved abundance and pleasure.  Their craving revealed that they did not trust God.  They did not trust where He was taking them, and they did not trust God that He would supply their needs and their desires.  The result was that they actually preferred a secure slavery to the uncertainty of walking in faith with God who had demonstrated such love for them, and such power in saving them, and such a marvelous goodwill toward them that they left Egypt wealthy with the plunder of the Egyptians, and then God fed them daily with this wonderful mystery food they simply called "What is it?" – The Hebrew word was "Manna".  God's gift and providence wasn't enough because they did not trust Him to maintain the supply – and once they had that, they wanted more and other.  So they craved something else, something other that what God had planned for them, and any such craving is evil, and what we might crave for other than what God would freely give us in His love are also "evil things."  How often are we tempted to want more or something different than what God has chosen to give us?

And do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY."  – Here they children of Israel turned to a very American religion, the worship of pleasure, or the pleasures of false Gods.  The ritual meal which traditionally followed the sacrificing to a pagan idol and the "play" – the harlotry of ritual prostitution which made pagan worship so appealing for so many – mark more than just sensuality gone rampant, although they clearly reflect that, they also demonstrate a complete collapse of trust in God.  The chosen people of God turned to another god to keep them secure, to bless them, and to make their lives make sense.  

W face the same temptations today; the temptation to give ourselves over to sensuality or the temptation to deliberately follow ungodly choices in order to secure a brighter future, to make our own lives richer and make more sense to us?  We are tempted to give up on God and take care of ourselves, and put meaning into our existence by chasing pleasure – travel, hobbies, family gatherings, and sporting events - rather than the more serious and less entertaining work of encouraging one another in the faith and sharing the news of God's goodness and love.

Paul writes next that they acted immorally – that was a sexual problem.  It is another pleasure thing.  They did not trust God to give them good things.  They had to take it where they could – They had to "reach for all the gusto you can get," just like the beer commercial said.  They tried the Lord – That means they demanded signs, they put the Lord to the test, they expected God to perform like a servant.  It also means that they did not trust the Lord to do what was right or good, but they wanted to make Him jump through hoops to prove His love and goodwill, as if the mighty act of the rescue from Egypt were not proof enough.  It was like they said, "What have you done for me lately?"

Their faithlessness demonstrated for us that putting God to the test is unbelief.  And Jesus underlined that truth during His temptation in the wilderness, when the devil invited Him to jump from the pinnacle of the temple.  Putting God to the test is actually to doubt that He will do what He has promised.  If we trust God, we walk through life and simply expect that when the need arises for God to act on our behalf, to rescue or protect or feed or clothe us, that God will act and God will keep us!  But how often are we tempted to make God jump through one hoop or another just so we can see for sure that He is there and ready?

Finally, they grumbled – they grumbled against Moses.  They grumbled against Aaron.  They grumbled about the food.  They grumbled about the promised land.  In every case they were actually grumbling against God – against God's choice of the man to lead them, against the worship God gave to them, against way God chose to supply their needs, against the hope which God held out to them, the promises He asked them to trust in.  This is just like those moments when you are tempted to grumble against the doctrines we teach from the Word of God, or against the Church -- her members, or her worship services whatever.  When you surrender to the temptation to grumble, rather than giving thanks you are giving witness to the fact that you don't trust God's judgment or that you think you can do better.

Now these things happened to them as an example, Paul writes and they were written for our instruction.  So what are we supposed to learn?  We are supposed to learn to trust God, to take Him at His Word, and believe.  We, upon whom the ends of the ages have come - Paul means to indicate that the fulfilment and purpose of the ages is salvation in and through Jesus Christ.  The goal of this world has come upon us!  We are the ones for whom all of this has happened.

That is the backdrop against which God lays out the marvelous promise of our text.  It's quite a backdrop, isn't it?  If you can read those words and not feel personally challenged, and just a bit guilty, you aren't paying attention - wither not paying attention to the words, or not paying attention to your life.  Paul intimates as much when he writes, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.  The danger which overcame so many of the children of Israel is a very real danger to us.

Paul gave us the example of Israel.  They were God's People.  They certainly thought so.  I am sure it will not surprise you to realize that the temptations they faced, and which we face, are precisely the same in nature as what caused Adam and Eve to stumble and fall.

So God gave us this wonderful promise, No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; – God knows where you are.  God knows what you face.  God knows what traps the devil lays before you and what troubles cause you pain and fear, and there is nothing beyond Him or His understanding.  God is faithful, look at what He did for you already.  He saw the problem of sin, and how we had all sold ourselves into death and hell, and He found the solution for that.  He sent His Son.  He earned life for us, and then exchanged His eternal reward for our sentence of condemnation – and died in our place on the cross.  Your sins have been forgiven, and God loves you.  He has given you the greatest gift He possesses, Himself . . . His Son . . . He has claimed you as His own and adopted you into His family and called you His child!  What else would He withhold?

Then He promises us through the pen of the Apostle that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also.  What a Marvelous Promise!  You are never out of His sight, and your life is never really out of control, however you may be tempted to think that it is, or that you may have slipped out of His sight.  It is not so!  And He will preserve you, for His will is for your salvation.

I want you to consider the holy meal He has set before us this morning.  Some despise this humble fare as "that miserable Manna," but you, receive it as it is, the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the form of the bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink for our forgiveness and strength and life.   Eat and drink, and live. 

And it is guaranteed to us by the cross.  This is how deep His love is.  He became sin for us, who knew no sin of His own, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  He suffered in our place, and pours out life and forgiveness upon all, and has chosen you and me to be among those who.  We have the sign of the cross. 

And the cross tells us how much we can count on God as we wind our way through this life!  Temptations arise during the Christian's life.  They come into our minds both by the temptation of the devil and by our own sinful flesh.  Nonetheless, as Luther used to say, "You may not be able to keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair."  When temptation arises, take heed.  Paul reminds us, "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and then promises us God's help, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it."

What a marvelous promise!  As Solomon wrote in Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight."

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Under Obligation

 Romans 8:12-17 

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.  For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity                                      8/10/25

Under Obligation

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I couldn't wait to become an adult.  When I was a teen-ager, even pre-teen, I thought that once I became an adult, everything would get better.  There would be no one telling me what to do.  I would no longer be under obligation to do my parent's chores and listen to my parent's lectures.  I would be free to pursue adult things and enjoy life.  Then, people would take me seriously.  It is the standard childhood/teen-age fantasy, I suppose.

Then I grew up, or at least I grew old enough to be considered an adult.  Sadly, nothing changed.  I was in the Air Force, so I still had someone older bossing me around.  I discovered that I was still under obligation, only this time to the military.  I had to do their chores and listen to their endless and often mindless lectures.  Then I got married, and I was under obligation to a wife, to do her chores and listen to her.  Then I had children, and I found other obligations.  Mind you, not every obligation is burdensome.  Some are quite joyful, but they are obligations none-the-less.  Life seems to come with multiple – and often enduring – obligations.

Our text addresses one of those obligations.  This obligation is for Christians only.  It is consequent to the Gospel.  So, I invite you to consider this passage from Romans with me this morning, and our theme is "Under Obligation".

If our Epistle seems to begin in the middle of something, it does.  The first words, "So then, brethren" clue us in that what is about to be stated rests on the things which have come before our text.  What came before was that there is no condemnation to those who are connected to Jesus Christ, and that since God has rescued us from sin, living according to the desires of the flesh leads again to death, but living from the Holy Spirit leads to life.  Since we are connected to Christ, and to His death by our Baptism, we will also rise in His resurrection to everlasting life, because the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of Christ - dwells in us and that indwelling will procure our resurrection just as it did Christ's.

Then comes the "So then."  "So then, brethren, we are under obligation."  Yes, even life in Christ comes with strings attached.  We have an obligation as Christians.  The obligation is not to our human nature and what just comes natural to man - what St. Paul  calls, "the flesh".  That is not to be what guides our lives or our thinking.  Our obligation is to the Spirit, to the One who will raise our bodies from the grave.  Of course, that obligation only exists if you want Him to raise your bodies from the grave.

Christians – no less than other people – are always drawn to living according to the flesh – you know, doing what comes naturally, doing what we want and desire, doing what feels good and appeals to our sense of fun or pleasure or rights, as in, "I have my rights!"  Frankly, living according to the flesh is doing anything without first thinking about what God says, or comparing our will to the will of God as expressed in Scripture.  Living according to the flesh is to live in sin and will cause you to die the eternal death of condemnation to hell.

Paul writes that we have no obligation to that, but instead our obligation is to the Holy Spirit, who has saved us.  The obligation we have to the Spirit is to put to death the deeds of the body, because if you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  Salvation comes with the obligation to live in it and live from it.  The Christian faith comes with strings attached – particularly, that you be a Christian.

I have always found the phrase, "putting to death the deeds of the body", to be a wonderfully descriptive phrase.  It certainly says quite clearly what we are to do with those things which naturally flow out of us, but not from faith.  We are to put them to death.  That is, we are to end their existence and power in our lives.

The phrase is also wonderfully descriptive of how it feels while we do it: it hurts!  Resisting sin and temptation feels like we are cheating ourselves, missing out on something delightful and important, denying ourselves something we need and want so terribly much.  It feels like we are dying, or putting something precious to death.  We can start the fight against sin with a triumphant air, but if it is a real temptation for us we may well end up feeling empty, and like we have just denied ourselves true joy.

Of course, it is not always that way – but once is enough, and you never quite kill a lust or temptation.  You can silence it, but it will come back now and then to see if you are ready to surrender to its fatal charms - and you may have to do the whole "putting to death" thing again.  And you want to, because living deliberately in sin is the end of Christian faith, and robs the believer - someone who was once a believer - of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  But those who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.  You mark your true nature by following the Spirit and turning from sin, and living out the realities of the Spirit.

Unfortunately, the deeds of the body are not just open acts of wanton sin, but whatever does not flow from faith, for, as Paul teaches in chapter 14, whatever is not from faith is sin.  That means that we not only need to stop our favorite sins, we also want to measure all of our lives by the standard of the Spirit - and of the Word of God.  Your favorite pastimes may not be openly wicked, and yet they may stand between you and living out your faith.  Your toys may be innocent, but, then again, they may be a distraction or less appropriate stewardship.  They may not be wrong in and of themselves, but perhaps they are out of proportion in your lives, claiming time and energy and resources that belong somewhere else in your life.  I cannot tell, and I don't mean to judge anyone – but if you don't take the time in self-examination to see for yourself, can you say that you have put to death the deeds of the body?  Remember, we are under obligation.,

The obligation is to be God's free child.  Some of what I say may make you wonder how free it is, or what you have to do now, or if you have something to be worried about.  I am sorry, but I cannot answer all of those questions for you.  Certainly not in a public sermon.  I can say, however, that God doesn't intend it to be a cause of fear or worry.  He says, "you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!'" God wants you to be confident, and to know Him as your heavenly Father.  He wants you to serve Him with your life because you want to.  He wants your relationship with Him to be so close and familiar that you can call Him "Papa", or "Daddy", or whatever your home custom was for referring to your Father with affection as a little child.  This isn't about being frightened.  But about being faithful and confident and walking as you know God would have you walk, and not fooling yourselves by saying, "I know I should be like this, but I am sure I can be this other way and God won't mind."

When we walk deliberately as Christians, the Holy Spirit also bears witness with us that we are God's children.  When you walk faithfully and deliberately as God's own, you know who you are and that you are secure – and the Spirit of God Himself joins your spirit in bearing witness to God that you are His.

That testimony is not all that silent and "spiritual" either.  He bears witness here, at the altar of the Lord when He places His body given for you into your mouth, and His blood once shed for you is passed through your lips.  Here, in the Supper of our Lord, God proclaims loudly to the whole world that you belong to Him, that you are a treasured member of His family!  It doesn't seem loud to us, but that is because we are accustomed to the values and judgments of the world around us.  But here, God gives the body and blood of Jesus to you under the bread and wine, to cleanse you, and strengthen and refresh you, and to bear witness publicly that you are His own, one for whom He sent His Son to die.  Don't mistake the witness of the Spirit by the size of the crowd here.  This is public, and anyone who wanted to know, and could bear the witness of the Spirit, could walk in here and see that you are numbered with the Holy Ones of God.  Besides, there are those who see this witness that you do not observe.  We talk about them every Sunday when we pray "with angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven".  The Spirit is owning you as His before all of creation.

And if you are His child, you are His heir.  That means that you are the heir of all that is God's - glory, everlasting life, and . . . well, I don't know how to describe all of it, nor has God given us an exhaustive list.  You are heirs as beloved children, to be dealt with just like Jesus.  Heaven and earth belong to you, and exist for your welfare and blessing, and eternal glory awaits.  The Epistle today say, "heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ".

Of course, it continues with "if".  Remember, we are under obligation.  We are fellow heirs with Christ if, indeed, we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

Salvation is in connection with and in union with Christ.  But Christ came to suffer, and if you are connected with Him and united to Him, you, too, will suffer.  Remember how I described the "putting to death" as painful and difficult?  That is part of, perhaps the beginning of the suffering with Christ.  But there is more.  There is the stigma of being a Christian, a Lutheran, a confessional Lutheran!  Now, do I mean to suggest that if you are not a confessional Lutheran, you are not a Christian?  Yes, I do.  There are many who do not know the name, or call themselves by it, but Christians all believe what we confess - Christ for the forgiveness of sins, salvation by grace through faith without any merit or deserving in me, and the abiding truth and power of the Word of God.  All Christians are Lutherans, in the final analysis – they just don't all know it.  But not all who call themselves ‘Lutherans' are Christians either.  Only those that believe and confess Christ in truth.

And the world doesn't like that confession, and they don't like people who look and act like Jesus.  So they will make you suffer right along with Jesus.  They will persecute you for no good reason.  They will call you all sorts of names, and suggest that you are ignorant, superstitious, feeble-minded, or secretly evil and try to seize control of you, or your world, or your money, or something.  They will marginalize you, that is place you at the outer margins of acceptable society.    They will exclude you where they can.  At certain times and in the places where it can be done without too much risk on their part, they will even kill you - as happens even now to Christians in Islamic societies, like Egypt, or the Sudan, or Malaysia, or England, or France, or even in the U.S., more and more, and the Philippines, anywhere where the Moslems are dominant.

Not all suffering for Christ is to death, but it can be - and I cannot tell you what you may have to face, but we are under obligation.  If it comes, we must bear it faithfully, for to abandon Confessing Christ in order to keep your body comfortable - or even just to keep it alive - is to live according to the flesh – and if you are living according to the flesh, you must die.  But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.   And we are under obligation to the Spirit, to walk by the Spirit, and put to death the deeds of the body.  Suffering with Jesus is just part of that living according to the Spirit.  May God grant us strength, and His Spirit that we may be faithfully His own.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Choose Your Service

 Romans 6:19-23

I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.  For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.  But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity                                      8/03/25

Choose Your Service

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our text today is a classic text for understanding the condition of man.  Luther used it in explaining the bondage of the human will when he was debating the issue in print with Erasmus of Rotterdam.  Erasmus believed, as do so many today, that mankind possesses a free will, particularly in regards to religion.  Luther followed the Scriptures and taught that man was never truly free.  He merely seemed to be, or felt that was.  The truth is that man is always enslaved to someone or something.  He either serves God and righteousness, or he serves sin and Satan.  St. Paul gives us this spiritual information, and then challenges us, by implication, to choose your service.  And so, that is our theme, today, "Choose Your Service".

The Biblical witness is that we are always slaves.  Even our freedom in the Gospel is a form of slavery.  While we are free from sin, we are slaves to righteousness and to God.  If we set ourselves free from God and righteousness we must inevitably become slaves to sin and Satan.  We are never absolutely free - nor should that bother us.  In one sense, we are not slaves, but free children of God.  Yet, in another sense, we Christians are not free.  We are not free to think just whatever we want.  We are not free to do just whatever enters our minds to do.  We are perfectly free to live as God's servants – slaves.  To do anything else is to make ourselves God and do things our way, instead of His, which is sin – and the agenda of the devil.

Paul writes in our text, "I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh."  If he were writing today in our modern idiom, he might have written that sentence like this, "I know that this is difficult to understand, so let me put this in familiar human terms."  He is using picture language to help us understand the spiritual reality of our condition.

Life has only two possibilities: holy or profane, righteous or sinful, good or evil.  There are no actual shades of gray.  We see shades of gray because we are sinful by nature and live in a world dominated by evil.  We can see the difference between a little white lie and outrageous fraud.  We mark the difference between inadvertently taking something, even something insignificant, and grand larceny.  But, if we are honest, both the little white lie and the outrageous fraud are lies, and both the accidental walking away with something that does not belong to you and the deliberate theft of precious commodities are stealing.  It is just that we live in a world where absolute good is rare, impossible actually, and we often measure between one evil and another to find the lesser of two evils.

God doesn't.  He is absolutely good.  Sin is sin, and evil is evil, and there are no gray areas with Him at all.  Oh, yes, He recognizes the difference between one evil, seemingly insignificant, and another evil, one that is tremendously destructive.  Old Testament Law addresses some of those distinctions.  All evil is not the same - but it is all evil.  God sees evil for what it is, truly evil.  But He also marks the difference between one evil and another, just as you can clearly see the difference between absolute darkness, and a dark room with a dim light shining somewhere in it.  

God is not unreasonable, He is perfect.  That seems unreasonable to us, but we measure by ourselves, and by our sinful standards.  When we measure ourselves and our righteousness by God's Law, God wants us to know that His basic standard is perfect holiness.  Everything else has missed the mark, fallen short, and demonstrates a predilection, that is to say, a helpless slavery to sin.

That is, in fact, why the Gospel is about the free gift of God in Christ Jesus.  God knows full well that we are capable of no pure good holiness.  We have been corrupted and enslaved to sin by our very nature.  It is, in fact, in our blood.  We inherited it from the first two people, Adam and Eve.  The sinful world tries to glorify sin, because the world around us does not accept God or understand the truth about sin and death and hell – and does not want to.   The world has chosen its service.  

The sinful world tries to make holiness sound like some awful bondage and limitation on our spirit, Our sinful flesh judges the ability to freely choose to be wicked to one degree or another, or embracing an evil choice deliberately, as a marvelous freedom which empowers people to be truly human, and makes this world so fascinating, and gives true depth of meaning to our lives and all of human existence.  You hear it in the movies.  You read about it in the best novels.  That is their choice of service.  People who resist the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word cry out this twisted world-view when pressed to explain how they can turn away from so marvelous a gift as everlasting life and salvation.

If you listen, and think about it, you can see that the world also teaches that we are always slaves.  They simply refuse to describe their bondage as "slavery".  No!  They are free, and we are slaves!  We contend that they are slaves of sin, and we are free.  St. Paul tries to answer the debate by saying that both of us are right– just looking at it from opposite perspectives.  They are slaves of sin and free in regard to righteousness, and we are slaves of righteousness, and free in regards to sin!

Then he asks us, which slavery do we prefer?  Which outcome is more inviting to us?  In short, "Choose Your Service."  Do you want to be free from God and His nagging interference in your life and your choices?  You can be, at least as long as this life endures.  But the end of that life of slavery is death, and He is pointing to something deeper than the grave - and consequences more horrible to contemplate.  The result of doing sin and serving evil is more sin and greater evil – and lawlessness – living without regard for the will of God.  Paul tells us, the outcome of those things is death.  That death to which he refers is hell, eternal death, separation from Him who is life, and eternal torment and misery of both body and soul.

The other slavery, which some of us are loathe to call "slavery," results in our sanctification, and ultimately life everlasting which transcends the grave, and knows no pain, or sorrow, or sickness, or regret, or any more death.  

Righteousness feels good, and feels like freedom, because it is – freedom from sin.  But if you live in righteousness as the chosen child of God, from the perspective of sin, you have no other choice.  You cannot choose the evil path.  

You cannot choose the perspectives of the devil.  You cannot choose to obey your lusts, or the temptations of the world, or choose to succumb to the seductions of the devil.  Your flesh will want to, and you will need to fight it.  You will not be perfectly successful, but, as a faithful servant, you will fight it and struggle to obey Him who has bought you with such a terrible price.  You will seek to stay on the roster, so to speak, of the slaves of God who have all that good, and only good, to look forward to as the outcome of their slavery.  You will fight with all of your wit and intelligence and values and energy to remain faithful.  Anything else is unfaithful, as a slave, and unthinkably unfortunate in outcome.

One struggles to be a faithful servant because he or she is a faithful servant.  The struggle and the works accomplished are not what makes one His slave, they exist and they are done because one is His slave by God's own choice and doing.  And He promises to help you in the fight and give you the power and the wisdom for the struggle.

  But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.  Note well that you have been freed – you did not free yourself, and you derive a benefit, you do not earn something.  It is a gift.  And the first benefit is sanctification.  You are made holy.  It isn't an work of yours, it is the gift of God through Jesus Christ.  You are given His holiness.  You are declared righteous before God because of what Jesus Christ has done.

His death on the cross was your death.  He did it for you, that you might be redeemed and rescued.  He died to take the penalty you have so richly earned by sin, and then He rose from the grave to proclaim His victory and tell you that it worked!  Your sins are forgiven!  God loves you, and you will live forever, even if you die – for you will rise from your grave unto eternal life in glory with Him.  Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.   But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

So, having been cleansed and forgiven, having been made righteous and given a holiness which you did not work out but received by grace through faith, what do you want to do with it?  That is where our theme comes in: Choose Your Service.  Do you want to walk away from this sanctification, and serve sin?  Do you want to sully this gift of holiness and smear the filth of more sins on it?

Of course not!  You desire to remain holy.  You want to live out that good will of God in your life that the good will of God for you might finally come to pass.  And what is that good will of God for you?

And so you are a slave.  You are a slave of God and of righteousness, but not unwillingly.  You are slaves who willingly present your bodies as instruments of righteousness, freely – serving the One who gives you both the will and the power to do so.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

ark those works well.  You earn and deserve death with sin.  Sin pays wages.  But your righteousness is a gift, and your holiness is a gift, and your life in Jesus Christ is a gift.  Not a bad reward for a slave.

But you are a slave, ALWAYS.  Either you are a slave of sins and Satan and you earn and deserve death and hell, or you are a slave of God and righteousness and He gives you holiness and life everlasting.  The free gift of God (we call that "grace"), is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

So, Paul tells you that you have a choice.  You can accept what God has already given you, and be His slave, or you can walk away from Him and become the slave of death and hell.  But one way or another, you are always a slave and you must choose your service.  Paul also makes the explicit appeal later in Romans, and I close with his words from Romans 12:

I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

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

(Let the people say Amen)