Sermon June 29th 2008

Sunday, June 29 2008 @ 10:35 AM CDT Contributed by: jared Views: 123 Sermon June 29th 2008 Jared Rakness Sermon June 29th 2008 First Reading Jeremiah 28:5-9 Second Reading Romans 6:12-23 Gospel Matthew 10:40-42 “Death to Life” Dear hearers of the Word of God, Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Let us pray: These are thy words heavenly Father, thy word is truth, lead us now into your truth. In this world of journeys and spiritual exercises we pray that your word would break into those things that we use to preserve the old self, and that through your word you would bring the old self to death and in its place raise up a new creation, one that is centered upon you our Lord God and our neighbor, amen. Do you ever find yourself sitting at your desk, or in your favorite chair or just sitting behind the wheel of your car and your mind beings to drift off to some faraway place where you begin to think or dream about what could be, about the potential you might have if this falls into place or that comes through? Now your dreams may not go exactly like this but I’m sure that most if not all of you have these experiences, thinking about what could have been or what might be. I have to admit that I am often in one of these places thinking about what could be, how things might go, if this or that happens, I suppose this is just part of who I am, it is perhaps the long term planner inside of me, as I always have a pretty good idea of where I’ll be in the next five years. The problem with these is simple to see, you can begin to live more in your head then in the world, you begin to live for your dreams instead of for the day that God has given you today. But there is also another danger to day dreaming, especially when it comes to theology and faith. It goes something like this, if I would just do better then maybe God would give me that raise or the right numbers for the lottery. If I just do better then maybe God will see fit to introduce me to my future spouse today instead of waiting for tomorrow, if I just do better than maybe God will grant me that deeply desired pregnancy and child. If I just do better than maybe God will work a miracle in my life and rid me of this or that pain, if I just do better, after all I have potential right. The problem with this is of course the I, the subject of the verb being the self and what you want to try and “do” for yourself and of course for God, in order that you might gain something for yourself, be it a divine favor or long desired pious wish of your own self righteousness. Today we are going to call this living your life from life to death; this is living your life according to the Law so that you might become righteous in yourself. But there is no way out according to this old system, it is broken, unfixable, it is old and in fact has never worked, not even for Abraham the founder of the faith, for even his righteousness was reckoned or given unto him through faith. What now is the remedy to this dilemma where we seek our own paths, our own way through this world? Well under the old way you are slaves to sin, thinking that your freedom is actually freedom, but you are in fact slaves to the flesh, slaves to sin and death. But in this old way there is still hope for the old self, the old Adam and Eve in all of us, in the old way of thinking there is still possibility you might say, which makes it very appealing. So something must break through to you in order to free you from your bondage to sin and death, and that finally and absolutely is the radical, pure Gospel of Jesus Christ that the Apostle Paul so brazenly puts before you today. “Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace.” Here Paul lays out what it is that happens when faith is made in the sinner, you are brought from death to life. Now that is a trick, after all this world in which we live says that we go from life to death, but Paul now breaks that open and says that in faith, you are brought from death to life. What now does this make of your journey in life, or your faith journey, after all the world tells you that it is the journey that is important not the destination, that is unless you find yourself on your death bed, or find a loved one on their death bed, then the destination is very important, in fact it is the most important, often being the very thing that everyone focuses in upon. But Paul now says that death is behind you, that it no longer has dominion over you, and neither does the law. But these are two of the most important aspects of the world, death and the law, and now in one foul swoop Paul lays them aside and says they are done, they are over, they no longer have dominion over you. Even before you can respond to Paul he now asks the very same question you were about to ask, what then, should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! This of course is the question that everyone always comes back to, especially when Orthodox Lutheran’s get a hold of these verses in Romans and hold on to them with all we’ve got, but if we are free from the law then what of moral virtue, how will we live as freed-humans? Translation, we are now free from the law so of course everyone is going to abuse it to no end and what of our children, will they have no morals or values? This is the danger of freedom after all; idol hands are the devils tools didn’t you know. But what happens when there is nothing to do? You see in Christ there is nothing for you to do, you are rendered passive, Jesus Christ is out to do it all. Your salvation, your justification are his, and they have been given or bestowed upon you. So what now is his that has been given to you, death of the old, and a new life. For in baptism you have been drowned to sin and death, they are now behind you, in baptism you have died the big death, the spiritual death, the most important death, so the end has come to you, even before you knew it. So what is left in front of you, well what is left in front of you is nothing but life. In Christ your sins have been forgiven, they have been taken unto him upon the cross. What does this mean, well looking at the old we know that the law is there to accuse you of your sins, it is to show you that you are a sinner, but in faith your sins have been taken by Christ, so the law has nothing to do in relation to you, there is no longer anything for it to accuse, for you are now in faith no longer under the law, the law now has nothing on you, because you are now under grace. You have been made dead to the old and alive to Christ in the new. But what about the sin that you see every day, what about the sin that you do every day, well do we now withhold the gospel so that people have something to be afraid of? By no means, as Luther wrote “as to your fear that many who are inclined to wickedness will abuse this freedom, this should be reckoned as…part of that temporal leprosy which has to be endured and that evil which has to be borne. Such people should not be considered so important that in order to prevent their abusing it the Word of God must be taken away.” In this country we have a problem with obesity, we have a fat problem, but do we take all food away from everyone because there are some who cannot stop with just one pass through the buffet line? Or do we just put up with it hoping that those who have an eating problem will one day see that they might need to eat a salad every now and again, and maybe go for a brisk walk in the evenings. Food is vital to this world, it is vital to the survival of humanity, so we do not take away food from everyone because some people have a problem with eating too much of it. Instead we live in that reality and work to bring to those with poor eating habits a word of nutritional help, so that they might become healthy. So do we remove the Gospel because some abuse the freedom within it, not on your life, for it is as vital to life as the very food we eat and the water we drink; instead we live in that world, we live in that leper colony, loving such people. As for me, I’ll take freedom in Christ even if it means a life in a leper colony where God’s word actually needs to be heard. This after all is the funny thing about the Gospel, we often withhold it from the very people who desperately need to hear it, those who abuse it. Saying, we better not give them too much lest they lose their morality and virtue. Instead we must now boldly proclaim that very same Gospel to them so that the Holy Spirit might work in them a new thing, bringing them to death, so that they might experience a new life in Christ.

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