With God for us, everlasting victory is ours.

 

Sermon for New Year’s Eve, 2022

To all those loved by God…called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Romans 8:31-39  ³¹What then will we say about these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  ³²Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?  ³³Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect?  God is the one who justifies!  ³⁴Who is the one who condemns?  Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us!  ³⁵What will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  ³⁶Just as it is written: For your sake we are being put to death all day long.  We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.  ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (EHV)

With God for us, everlasting victory is ours.

Dear beloved of God,

            When we reach the end of the year, it is almost always the case that we consider how the past year has gone.  Would we consider it successful?  Did we win or lose?  Did we put more money in the bank, or suffer losses?  Did the crops measure up to our hopes?  Are the local businesses flourishing, or are some in trouble?  How much was lost or gained in the markets?

At the same time, many lament the year past.  Personal losses piled up; physical health may have become challenging.  Some of us may have our independence threatened as we age.  More than a few of us suffered some physical ailment, and some have lost loved ones in the last year.  At the very least in our considerations, most of us would say that the year seemed to go by awfully fast.  Does that indicate that our time is running short?  Should we worry?

As we consider the world around us, certainly there are many things that worry us.  Politics is often filled with unethical or slanderous tactics.  Our culture seems to be in a war with itself, which depending on your point of view, may be winning or losing its future.  Gazing around the world, wars of various types certainly lend an uneasiness to our thoughts.  When a foreign power keeps hinting at using nuclear weapons to further its cause, everyone begins to tremble at the thought of what might happen.  

Now, as we consider our sermon text, it might be easy for someone to flippantly say, “Don’t worry; be happy.  None of this stuff matters!”  However, I think most of us understand that our lives here on earth do matter.  We are human after all, with feelings and emotions.  We also know that we are in this world to be shining lights to a world walking in darkness.  How can we do that if the world fights against us?  How much persecution will we have to bear to proclaim Jesus as Lord?

In his letter, Paul recognizes that we will face much trouble.  He lists all kinds of things that might lead us to be afraid.  One thing he didn’t mention, here, is how prosperity and easy times can often lead us into danger.  When there is little to no persecution, and little to no trouble around us, it is easy to grow complacent and forget the Lord, as Moses warned the Israelites before they entered the promised land: “When you eat and are satisfied, and you build nice houses and move into them, and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and everything that you have prospers, watch out so that your heart does not become arrogant and forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.” (Deuteronomy 8:12-14)  If we are honest, we must admit that God has blessed us richly, certainly in our daily lives, but especially in rescuing us from the devil’s control.

What this long introduction leads up to is the question, are we winners or losers in life?  What the Holy Spirit would have us understand from Paul’s writing, here, is that what is truly important is that With God for us, everlasting victory is ours.

Our lives on earth certainly matter, and the ups and downs of life have a tremendous influence over our feelings of prosperity.  Still, should that be how we judge our success?  Paul wrote, “What then will we say about these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?”  This is a rhetorical question, of course, for no one can stand against God.  Immediately before this text, Paul mentions that he is speaking about God’s elect—those whom God has brought to believe in Jesus through the work of the gospel in Word and Sacrament.  The implication for us is that God chose us from before the beginning of time to believe and be saved.  Out of the wretched refuse of mankind, God chose us to hear the Good News of Jesus’ life and sacrifice which reconciled us with our Creator, who had every right to reject us for our sin.  Yet, in love, God not only refused to reject us, but He gave His own beloved Son to be our Redeemer and Lord.

Paul tells us, “Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?”  This is in no way an invitation to be greedy.  Paul isn’t saying that every selfish desire we might have will be fulfilled.  What he is saying is that we have been given so much more than any sinful human could ever deserve. 

Because we are all sinners, what we deserved was God’s wrath and eternal condemnation.  Instead, in His mercy, God gave us purity of life by taking away all of our sins and counting them to Jesus while crediting Jesus’ holy life to us as though we had lived the perfect obedience of the Son.  God gave us peace by sending His Son to die in our place so that we are reconciled with God. 

Furthermore, God gave us citizenship in His holy heaven by allowing us to be born in a time and place where we could hear His holy Word and the promises of forgiveness and life through faith in Jesus.  Through this Good News, God worked that saving faith in our hearts, hearts that had been stone dead in unbelief, but through the power of His Holy Spirit working faith in us to give us new life.  God opened the gates of heaven for us and gave us sure and certain hope of living there by raising His Son out of the grave, fully alive, never to die again.  Finally, God gave all authority in heaven and earth to His Son who lived and died to make us right with God.

You and I know that accusations fly very easily in our world.  People accuse friend and foe alike of every kind of evil.  Even if we don’t do it to each other, certainly, the devil takes every opportunity to accuse us and make us fear God’s wrath.  To counteract those fears, Paul writes, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect?  God is the one who justifies!  Who is the one who condemns?  Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us!”  This truth is intended to lift us up in good times and bad.  Whether we are winners or losers in the eyes of the world, With God for us, everlasting victory is ours.

No matter what happens to us here on earth, at some point all people will have to stand before the Righteous Judge.  Those who stand on their own record face certain condemnation and eternal banishment from God.  The wicked will spend eternity in the dungeon set apart from God to hold Satan and those who follow his rebellion. 

You and I will also have to stand before Jesus.  However, when the world, or the devil, or any other enemy you might have, tries to accuse you, Jesus will hold up the record of the righteousness He lived on our behalf, which His Father has credited to you.  Because of faith given to you by God, God will count you who believe in Jesus as perfectly righteous in His eyes.

Thus, the question, who can accuse you before the Judge when the Judge has already taken all your sins and shortcomings upon Himself and has accepted the just sentence of death and separation from God in your place?  “Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us!”  The resurrection of God’s Son from the grave shows that His mission of reconciliation is successfully accomplished.  Therefore, God has given His Son authority to judge the world, and He will not only judge you and me in the end, but He is already interceding for us continually, and His plea to the Father is for your forgiveness and your welcome in God’s heavenly mansions, because Jesus died for you and me, and for all, to erase any record of our sins. 

Of course, the Father knows this already.  He has called you from eternity to believe in His Son and live.  Together with His Son, through Word and Sacrament, God called you out of darkness into His glorious light, so that you might believe in Jesus and share in His righteousness.  In His immeasurable love, Jesus knows those who are His.  He declared, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” (John 10:27-28)  Therefore, through all the trials of life on earth, through the ups and downs, the good and the bad, celebrate this, because of Jesus and the grace He has given through faith, With God for us, everlasting victory is ours.  Amen.

May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and in His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.  Amen.