Sermon for Sixth Sunday after Trinity - Rom 6:3-11

         Trinity 6

                                                                                                Rom 6:3-11

                                                                                                7/12/15

            No one wants to deal with a person who is two faced.  It is an unpleasant revelation to learn that when we are with a person they act as if they like us, but when they are apart from us they are saying negative things about us.  Trust is betrayed when we learn that we can’t take a person at their word and that they aren’t honest with us. We find ourselves in the uneasy position of having to play a role.  Just as the two faced person is friendly with us, so we need to be friendly when we are around that person.  And yet we know the whole time that it is a sham, and that when the individual goes off elsewhere he or she will run us down.

            As we listen to our epistle lesson this morning, it is easy to wonder whether Scripture is two faced when it comes to describing us.  On the one hand, what we hear this morning from the beginning of Romans chapter 6 makes it sound like we can stop sinning.  But by the time you read further and get into chapter 7, it sounds like we can never avoid sin. So which one is true?  And what does this mean for how we live life as Christians?

            Our text this morning is a response to what Paul has just said at the end of chapter five.  In that chapter he had described how the sin of Adam brought sin and death to all people.  He writes, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”  However, the good news is that since the sin of Adam trapped all people in sin, God responded by sending a second Adam to undo all of this.  Paul says, “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”

            At the end of chapter 5, the apostle has described God’s grace like a rising tide that envelopes sin.  He says, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

            For the person who is troubled by their sin, there cannot be any better news that this!  It is not possible for your sin to outstrip God’s grace, forgiveness and love.  There is nothing you have done; there is no mistake you have made, that is too big for God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ.   When Jesus died on the cross he bore every sin and received God’s judgment against it. This was God’s way of being just and also justifying the ungodly. 

            God did not cease to be holy.  He did not cease to be a just judge in dealing with sin.  He did in fact condemn your sin in the flesh.  But he did it in an utterly unexpected way.  Earlier in Romans Paul wrote, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

            This is the comfort of the Gospel.  Whenever we confess our sin and believe in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we are forgiven.  We are justified.  We already know the verdict of the Last Day now.  There is no sin too heinous for God’s forgiveness.  The repentant child molester is forgiven.  You are forgiven.

            But as long as you are dealing with sinners, there are problems.  And the problem is that we are tempted to take advantage of this.  Paul has just said that God’s grace abounds and overwhelms sin with forgiveness.  And so in the first two verses of chapter six Paul asks a rhetorical question: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

            As many of you have heard me say before, the Christian life does not work this way: “I like to sin. Gods likes to forgive. This is great!”  Paul attacks this idea by going to the foundational event of your life as a Christian – by going to baptism.  He says in our text, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

            Paul assumes that, yes, they do know this.  He draws upon a common shared belief of first century Christianity that in baptism a person shares in Jesus Christ’s saving death.  In the water of baptism we died with Christ. We were buried with Christ. Through baptism we receive the forgiving work of the cross and so we confess in the Nicene Creed “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”

            But notice what Paul does here.  The subject at hand for him is not forgiveness of sins. Instead, he is focused on avoiding sin.  His point is that through baptism we have died to sin and sin no longer rules us. And his thinking on this is grounded in the Holy Spirit and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Paul says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” 

Now if you listen carefully to this, you will find that it doesn’t go where we expect.  Paul says that Jesus died and in baptism we have shared in Jesus’ death.  Then he says that Jesus rose from the dead. We expect him to say that we too will rise.  But instead he says that because of baptism, “we too might walk in newness of life.” This life is Christ, but it is also the way we live because of Christ.  Only after saying this does Paul give us what we expect to hear as he goes on in the next verse to say, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

            Paul connects Jesus’ resurrection and the fact that Christian live in ways that are dead to sin.  The reason for this is the Holy Spirit – something Paul makes clear in chapter eight as he writes, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”  The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is in you because of baptism. That same Spirit will give you a share in Jesus resurrection on the Last Day.  Yet the Spirit isn’t just “hanging out” until that happens.  Instead, the Spirit is the resurrection power of Jesus Christ already at work in you now.

            Paul says that something big happened in your baptism.  He writes in our text, “We know that our old man was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” The apostle says that because of baptism we are no longer enslaved to sin, and so he concludes our text by saying, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

            It all sounds great!  But then in the verse right after our text the apostles writes: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”  And this is when Paul starts to sound two faced.  Because if I have died to sin and am no longer enslaved to sin, why is he having to tell me, “Don’t let sin rule you”? And before we know it in chapter 7 Paul is saying (using the pronoun “I” no less!): “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”

            Yet it is not Paul who is being two faced.  He is just being honest about our spiritual condition. Instead, we are the ones who are two faced.  We live in the now and the not yet.  In Christ we are a new creation through the work of the Spirit – we are new man.  But until Christ returns, the old man – our sinful fallen condition – still clings to us as well.  And these struggle against one another.

            This is a reality that we must recognize as Christians. Struggle will be a defining feature of the Christian life.  Because of Jesus and the work of the Spirit we will find ourselves struggling against sin and its temptations.  If you are going to be a Christian, you can’t avoid it.

            As we think about what Paul says in our text, and also about the other side of things – the old man still present within us - I want to leave you with three thoughts.  First, recognize that the struggle is a good thing. You sense the struggle because of the salvation God has given you in Jesus Christ through the work of the Spirit.  In fact, growing and maturing in faith will probably make us perceive the struggle even more, not less. The truly frightening thing would be if we didn’t sense it – if we were simply carried along by sin.

            Second, remember what was said earlier in this sermon.  Whenever we confess our sin and believe in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we are forgiven.  We are justified.  There is no sin too heinous for God’s forgiveness.  There will be times when you fail. There will be times when you fall. The important thing is how we view that sin.  Do we see it as no big deal, or do we confess it as sin so that we can take comfort in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

            And finally, understand that Paul really means what he says in our text today. The old man is present and we must contend against him, but the two sides are not equal. By his death and resurrection Jesus Christ has defeated sin and death.  That same power is now at work in you through his Spirit. This is what gave you rebirth and made you a new creation.  This is why you are new man. Because of the Spirit you are on the winning side and so you can win. Your baptism is the continuing source of this ability to win.  It continues to be nourished through all of the Means of Grace.

            Let me leave you with this illustration to help you think about our life.  The relation of new man and old man is like the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs this season.  This season – and mind you, the illustration only applies to this season – the two teams are not equal.  The Cardinals are the better team.  Over the course of the season they will win more games and win the division. That doesn’t mean the Cubs aren’t a difficult opponent.  There are days when the Cubs sweep the Cardinals in a double header.  There are times when a dramatic late inning homerun is needed just to split the series. But it would be foolish to think that because those occasions occur the Cardinals should just stop trying.   They are better.  They are the winning side.

            That is how things are for you.  The Spirit of the risen Christ is more powerful than sin.  Because you are in Christ through the work of the Spirit, you are on the winning side.  So take up the struggle against sin.  Find peace in Christ’s forgiveness on those occasions when you fall. And know that the Spirit you received in baptism gives you the ability to put to death sin, and to live as what Christ has made you to be, as you look for the final victory and transformation when Christ returns.    

  

           

                       

           

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Trinity - 1 Kings 19:11-21

          Trinity 5

                                                                                                1 Kg 19:11-21

                                                                                                7/5/15

            Perhaps you have wondered at some point how I choose the text that I will preach on each Sunday.  Now obviously there are only three options available as they are found in the lectionary – the readings assigned for each Sunday in the church year. But still, there are three choices – so how do I choose?

            During the first half of the church year – the time when we have all the major seasons and feasts – there is a general orientation toward the Gospel lesson.  We focus on the word and deeds of Jesus.  Normally the Old Testament lesson has some kind of connection with the Gospel lesson, and so this is often the second choice. During the second half of the church year that we are in right now – the Trinity season – the emphasis is more generally on the teaching of Scripture, and so the epistle lesson becomes a good option.

            But taking those factors into consideration, what determines the choice of the text?  Sometimes it is the theological content – that there is just great stuff in there for preaching.  But quite often a more pragmatic criterion helps make the decision.  If a good introduction for a sermon occurs to me, I am likely to go with that text.

            I maintain - and I know many pastors would agree with me – that the most difficult part of writing a sermon is the introduction.  You must begin the sermon from a dead stop.  You have to get it going in a way that begins to engage the congregation so that they are at least somewhat interested in what you are going to say.  The introduction also has to relate to the text in some way. There has to be something about it that is going to tie in to the text and what the sermon will say. And you have to this over and over again.  I am guaranteed to preach just about seventy sermons a year.  The pastor is constantly facing the question: How am I going to get this sermon going?

            But things worked out a little differently on Tuesday of this past week when I sat down and looked at the assigned texts.  On this occasion one of them was the obvious choice, not because an introduction occurred to me or because the theological content was something on which I wanted to preach.  Instead it was the obvious choice because it speaks so directly to what we are experiencing right now.

            In the Old Testament lesson this morning, dramatic events have occurred in the northern kingdom of Israel and the prophet Elijah feels alone.  He feels like the earth has shifted under his feet and that he is the only one remaining who wants to be faithful to Yahweh.  In fact he says twice in his encounter with God, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

            Elijah was a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel during the ninth century B.C.  It was a time when things were good – at least economically.  The southern kingdom of Judah, the northern kingdom of Israel and the port city state of Tyre had a thriving commercial relationship going.  In order to cement this relationship, Ahab the king of Israel was married to Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre.

            The problem was that Jezebel was a committed follower of the false god Baal.  She promoted the worship of this god vigorously in Israel and opposed the worship of Yahweh.  Finally, there was a shown down on Mt. Carmel as Yahweh sent down fire from heaven to burn up a sacrifice, while the prophets of Baal weren’t able to make anything happen.

            After Yahweh’s victory, Elijah ordered that the prophets of Baal who were misleading the people were to be killed. Queen Jezebel was angry about this.  And she had the power to do something about it.  She sent a message to Elijah after she heard about the death of the prophets of Baal saying: “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”

            Elijah knew that Jezebel wasn’t messing around. And so he fled for his life.  Eventually he came to Mt. Horeb – which is also called Mt. Sinai. He came to the very mountain where Yahweh had entered into his covenant with Israel – the same covenant that Israel was now violating.

            Twice God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  Twice Elijah replies: “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

            Unless you have been living in a cave during the last week and a half, it is impossible not to hear in these words the lament of Christians in our nation who believe what God’s word says about sexuality and marriage.  The Supreme Court decided that same sex marriage – marriage between homosexuals – is a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United State.  The implications of this are going to reverberate for years.  Armed with this decision, a new phase in the suppression of the Church and the truth of God’s word in our nation has begun.  How far and how fast this will extend, only God knows. But it’s not going to be good.

            Yet more disturbing than the implications for the future is the terrible sense that we are alone. It seems as if Facebook has become one big rainbow.  The media, entertainment industry and big business couldn’t celebrate same sex marriage enough.  Even the White House – the people’s house - was bathed in rainbow colors.

            We want to ask, “How did this happen?”  Yet the truth is, you aren’t going to like the answer.  You see, we did it.  Or at least, we were part of it.  Same sex marriage is nothing more than the outcome of a new view of sex and marriage.  Contraception and the Sexual Revolution separated sex from babies.  Marriage became fundamentally a matter of personal happiness instead of producing and raising children.

            Who’s to blame? We are. Because we have gone along with it.  Have you had sex outside of marriage? We did it. Have you lived with someone outside of marriage? We did it.  Have you looked at pornography? We did it.  Have you listened to music that glorifies sex apart from marriage?  We did it. Have you divorced for reasons that are not biblical? We did it.  Have you separated sex from procreation, determining the number of children you have in order to fit your definition of what a comfortable life is? We did it.

            We certainly weren’t alone. But you can’t do these things and then act surprised and upset that it has led to this outcome.  To be fair, sometimes we didn’t understand how all of this was related – I certainly didn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Law confronts us on it now.

            So what are we to do? The first thing is to repent.  We need to confess all of the ways that we have abandoned God’s will for sex, marriage and family.  We need to confess all the ways that we have made ourselves god as we focused on our pleasure, our version of happiness, our desired lifestyle.

            And that brings us back to our text. Elijah is the persecuted prophet.  He is alone.  He has fled for his life.  God comes to him, not in the might of a wind that tears rocks apart; not in an earthquake; not in fire.  Instead in a low whisper – in a voice – he comes to Elijah and assures him that Yahweh is still in charge.  And he sends Elijah off with things to do.

            But don’t be mistaken.  It helped in that time, but it did not make everything all better.  Instead, Israel and Judah continued in unfaithfulness.  They kept persecuting and rejecting the prophets. The writer of 2 Kings summarized it this way: “Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, ‘Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.’ But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God.”  The end result was God’s judgment and exile.

            The prophets were called to speak a word from God that people didn’t want to hear.  Like the prophet Jeremiah in the sixth century B.C., they were called to face persecution and suffer.  And this is important because God had promised through Moses: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.” 

            God did raise up this prophet like Moses.  He did it when he sent his Son into the world in the incarnation.  Jesus Christ came not like a wind the shatters stones, or an earthquake, or fire.  He came as a low whisper – voice that said God was acting to deal with sin.  Yet the paradox of God’s action was that his might could be rejected.  His salvation could be persecuted.  In fact it was by being persecuted – by being nailed to cross – that his salvation was accomplished.

            Jesus died on the cross bearing all of your failures.  And then on the third day he rose from the dead as he won the victory over sin’s progeny – death.  On that first Easter he said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  The suffering and death of Jesus had looked like it was failure. But it was not.  It was God working salvation in his way.

            That truth holds in our day as well. God is still in charge. He is still bringing salvation in his way.  And guess what?  It looks a lot like Jesus. In the proclamation of his word and the administration of his sacraments God’s reign is present bringing forgiveness and victory over death.  Yet it does not appear powerful.  It is easy for people to reject.  It is easy for people to persecute.  It is something that is persecuted.

            But because of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ we know the reality.  We know how things really are.  We know Jesus’ victory. We know that just as the persecution of Jesus Christ was always leading towards God’s intended goal, so also the persecution of his people is doing the same.  For you see, it is the risen Lord who is at work forgiving and sustaining his people.  And this work leads to the goal of his return in glory on the Last Day.  It leads to resurrection and eternal life when all things will perfectly reflect God’s will.

            We do not know what the years to come will bring for Christ’s Church – for those who are faithful to what God’s word says.  But we do know what we need to do.  We need to teach our children about the inherent connection and goodness of sex, marriage and babies.  We need to allow this to guide our own lives as well. And we need to trust that the crucified and risen Lord gives us forgiveness and will sustain us in his truth until he brings the final victory and vindication on the Last Day.

           

Interview on Issues, Etc. "I was born this way"

Today I did an interview with Todd Wilken on Issues, Etc. about the LGBT claim "I was born this way," and how in fact the call to view those urges as sinful and not to act upon them is the same calling that all Christians have as they live as repentant sinners in Christ.

Mark's thoughts: No my LGBT friend, you have not cornered the market

When people discuss the fact they identify as LGBT they often say that they were “born this way” (cue the Lady Gaga).  They say things like, “God made me this way, and God doesn’t make mistakes.”  Of course such statements are meant to bolster the belief that their status as LGBT is a good thing.  And in turn they are meant to reject the idea that it is sinful and wrong.  It is often objected that if LGBT individuals accept the biblical view of sexuality and marriage then they will be condemned to a life of struggle and hardship.  They will face a lifetime of identifying their desires as sinful.  They will be sentenced to a lifetime of struggle against acting on those desires.

But what they (and those in general who support the LGBT agenda) don’t understand is that a person who is LGBT does not have a corner on the market of identifying desires as sinful.  They don’t have exclusive claims to the struggle against acting on sinful desires. This is in fact a description of every Christian. 

What Christians know is that that the root problem of all that is wrong in the world is sin.  The first sin of disobedience (Genesis 3:1-7) brought pain, suffering and death (3:16-19).  It warped humanity and creation itself (Romans 8:18-23). The sin of Adam and Eve brought more sin and death to all (Romans 5:12-14; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).  This sin has warped us – all the way down to our DNA.  It is the source of every sickness and every condition and predisposition that is passed on to us.

Sin is the source of sexual desire for those of the same sex.  But sin is also the source of sexual desire for those of the opposite sex outside of marriage.  So do the LGBT individuals feel desires that will have to be labeled sinful and against which they will have to struggle?  So do I as a Christian.  When given the opportunity to look at a beautiful scantily clad or naked woman and lust after her (and those chances abound in our world, even if you want to avoid them), every fiber of my being wants to look.  Well, it would be more accurate to say that every fiber of the old man in me wants to look.  It is a struggle not to look.  It is a struggle in which most times the new man in Christ wins (more on that in a moment) … but not every time.  There are times when sin wins.

It is true that in the case of LGBT individuals the only answer to struggling against sin may be a celibate life (though we can never lose sight of the fact that there are individuals who had lived this life and then later enter into a biblical marriage).  On the surface it may appear that this makes their situation completely different.  Yet there are many Christians who, because of their life circumstances and the desire to settle for nothing less than a spouse who believes the same thing and will receive the Sacrament of the Altar with them each week, face the reality that almost certainly they will have to remain celibate.  I know people like this.  And one could argue that because there is technically the possibility of having sexual union with a spouse, the reality that it will never happen makes the situation even worse.

The LGBT individual does not have a corner on the market of the struggle against sin’s impact in a condition that may have a genetic basis.   Many Christians struggle with the hardship of anxiety and depression.  The Christian who faces the crushing weight of depression struggles to get up from bed and get going – even as he or she struggles to believe God’s promise of love and care.  When the only respite from the depression is sleep which ends too soon, and there is only the prospect of struggle day after day, a Christian can be tempted by despair and thoughts turn to suicide – perhaps even plans begin to be formed. 

Christians are sinners.  They are people who face the challenge of sin and fail. They face the hardships produced by the sin of a fallen world.  What makes them different from the world is that through the work of the Holy Spirit they confess their sin. With the psalmist they say, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD” (Psalm 32:5 ESV).  And in faith they look to Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. They believe that he was pierced for their transgressions and crushed for their iniquities (Isaiah 53:5) and then rose from the dead so that, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 ESV).

But there is more to it than that.  It is true that Christians continue to struggle against sin.  The old man is still present.  As Paul said:

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:22-25 ESV)

Yet through the work of the Spirit the Christian is new man in Christ.  They delight in the law of God in their inner man.  They have received regeneration – rebirth – in the water of Holy Baptism (Titus 3:5; John 3:5). They are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). They have shared in the death of Christ through baptism (Roman 6:2-4) and now because the Spirit who raised Jesus is in them (Romans 8:11), just as Christ was raised from the dead they walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).  Now by the Spirit they “put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13 ESV). They struggle against sin, and though they do not succeed all the time, they do in fact succeed in that struggle.

The life of the Christian is a struggle against sin.  St. Paul wrote of himself: 

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:25-27 ESV).

It is the Spirit of the risen Christ who makes this struggle possible.  It is the death and resurrection of Jesus that provides forgiveness when we fail.  This is the difference present when LGBT individuals acknowledge their desires as sin, and believe in Jesus Christ.  This is the difference that is present in Christ for all people who struggle with sin in a fallen world.

Confessing the desires as sinful will mean that LGBT individuals leave the world.  They leave a world that tells them to embrace their sin – to let it define their life and provide their identity.  But as Christians they receive a new identity and a new community that supports them.  St. Paul wrote, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13 ESV).  In the Church – the Body of  Christ – they receive brothers and sisters who face the same struggle against sin.    Together because of the Lord they, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15 ESV).  Together as the baptized they, “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 ESV).

Christians do this because they know what Christ has done, and they are encouraged in doing so because they know what Christ will do.  All Christians face the struggle against sin. But we know that the struggle will come to an end. We know that the impact of sin will be removed and the old man will be destroyed.  For as Paul told the Philippians, “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself”

(Philippians 3:20-21 ESV). 

LGBT individuals are urged to confess sin as sin so that they can receive forgiveness in Christ. They are encouraged to take up the struggle against sin through the work of the Spirit. But like all Christians, they can do so in the knowledge that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that struggle will come to an end and everything will be “very good” once again (Genesis 1:31).