God gives us what cannot be earned.

 

Sermon for Trinity 7, July 18, 2021

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 6:19–23  ¹⁹(I am speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your flesh.)  Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.  ²⁰For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.  ²¹So what kind of fruit did you have then?  They were things of which you are now ashamed.  Yes, the final result of those things is death.  ²²But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification—and the final result is eternal life.  ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (EHV) 

God gives us what cannot be earned.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            Have you ever tried to make it rain?  Can you force the sun to shine on a cloudy day?  Can you make a forest grow by the words you say, make a man out of a lump of clay, or tell the Tyrannosaurus where to play?  Imagine having to make an ocean or putting the stars in their place.  If we can’t do those things, how dare anyone imagine that we can match God’s fame?  Humans can do many amazing things, but some things are simply beyond our abilities, and it will stay that way.

Sometimes when one ponders the texts of a given Sunday, it can be hard to see a connection between the readings appointed for the day.  At first glance, you might think that is the case today.  Yet, there is a connection, for all three texts point us to what God does for His people, so this Trinity 7 service centers on God’s providence, how He provides for our earthly lives, and especially how He gives us what we need for eternal life.  We learn that God gives us what cannot be earned.

In our Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah, we saw God give hope to an exiled people.  A nation that lost its way had been conquered by foreign powers and its people carted away into exile without any hope of returning to their beloved place, but God promised that He would be with them and return them to the homeland He had granted to their forefathers.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus provided sustenance to a large group of people who had neglected to plan for the journey they took to see Jesus.  In their eagerness to receive a blessing of healing and life from the Lord Jesus, they had failed to plan for their bodily needs.  Lest any of them grow faint and succumb to the strain of their pilgrimage, Jesus fed thousands of people with what, to us, was less than a loaf of our bread and a can of tuna.

Then in our Epistle lesson, we visit God’s primary concern which is providing for our greatest need—our need for a righteousness and holiness that we did not possess and could never earn or achieve.  Apart from the righteousness that comes from God, we would be lost in eternal death.  Yet, because He is love, God gives us what cannot be earned.

Paul wrote, (I am speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your flesh.)  Because natural man cannot understand what God has planned for us, Paul wrote using terminology and a picture that the people of his day could comprehend.  Slavery was extremely common in the Roman empire.  Some cities had more slaves than free men, and women and children often had status not much above that of slaves.  So, when Paul talks about being enslaved, those people understood.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote, “Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”  I suspect that in our times, unless a person has been caught in some form of human trafficking that led to slavery or involuntary servitude, these words may not seem so serious, but people truly caught in slavery have no control over their lives or even their own body.  Their labor, skill, time, and indeed their bodies and lives are under the control of the one who rules them.  Still today, we hear scattered reports in the daily news of tragic, devastating consequences that many have experienced when put in that position unwillingly—as is almost always the case.  Children forced to work in hard labor.  Women and girls forced into sexual servitude.  Victims of kidnapping, betrayal, or false and deceptive promises.

Most of us can’t imagine the terror of being used and abused that way.  However, when one is born into slavery, there are times when it seems normal, and it can be hard for the enslaved to imagine a different life.  That is the story of the human race.  We all were born into slavery to sin under the devil’s control.  Since we and all our neighbors were born into that condition, it seemed normal, and the natural soul can’t imagine anything better.  We look around the world and we see all the many things that people do that go against God’s commands and to many around us, it seems normal.  Many think, why shouldn’t we do the same?  That is, until we learn about real freedom.

Paul showed his audience that true freedom enables us to give our service not to the one who opposes God by oppressing us in every way, but to serve the loving Savior who rescued us and gave us a future.  While under the devil’s control, everything we did was tainted with sin.  The commands of God, if we knew them at all, were seen merely as stumbling blocks to doing what the devil tells us to do.  The result, Paul says, is that “when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.” 

Apart from God, we could do nothing good.  Free from righteousness meant we were hopelessly separated from God.  The prophet Isaiah wrote, “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth.” (Isaiah 64:6)  When sin entered the world every last one of us was trapped in the devil’s control.  He owned our souls, and we could do nothing to escape his condemnation.  Thus, the question came, “So what kind of fruit did you have then?  They were things of which you are now ashamed.  Yes, the final result of those things is death.” 

Sinful man is not always ashamed of his sin, but after we learn what pleases God shame enters our minds for sure.  Of course, because the law was written in our hearts from our creation, though that knowledge of God’s will was fractured and corrupted in the fall, guilt often weighs heavily even on those who don’t know Jesus, because subconsciously, they know that sin brings punishment.  Furthermore, our experience of wickedness against ourselves tells us that evil deserves to be destroyed.

Today, the world is so corrupt that it often tries to shame God’s people for turning away from the evil ways of the deceiver.  Yet, as believers in Christ Jesus, we now understand that sin leads to death, and not just physical death (because our natural man pretends that death is normal), but eternal death as in the separation from God forever in hell.

So, there we sat by nature—ashamed of ourselves for the guilt we bore, yet shamed by the wicked world if we tried to follow the leadings of our conscience, fractured as it was.  Afraid of the one who tormented and accused us, yet groveling at his feet with our willingness to serve evil.

I can’t think of a more hopeless condition than the sinner lost without God’s gifts of forgiveness and life, which is why we find comfort in Paul’s writing when he says: “But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification—and the final result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

When we were slaves to sin, we were completely without hope.  Even the gods we had could do nothing for us.  They only made us labor for a lost cause.  Yet, God in His amazing mercy and love saw our hopelessness and came to set us free.  Making us right with Him is the main providence of our God—that He took upon Himself to rescue those who couldn’t save themselves and didn’t deserve His intervention.  Completely to His own glory, God came to free us and bring us home.

Because we were all born in sin, we all deserved nothing but to be cast away from God into eternal death, but God would not, could not, stand by for that tragic outcome.  The Lord God of heaven and earth created us to be His people.  Therefore, the Lord God of heaven came to earth to make it so.  Jesus, the only-begotten of the Father, came down to earth in human flesh, living for us in perfect righteousness, and suffering the cruel death we all deserved, including separation from God and His love. 

Jesus went face to face and toe to toe in battle with our kidnapper, the cruel tyrant who had controlled all people since Adam and Eve disobeyed.  Jesus took on the devil’s lies, the temptations to disobey, the misuse of God’s Word, and the slanders of His name.  Jesus endured the attacks of the devil’s henchmen as they falsely accused Him, struck Him in the face, whipped and clubbed Him, and nailed Him to the cross in supposed disgrace.  Jesus took all of that in His battle with evil, but evil couldn’t win.

On the third day after they nailed Jesus to that awful tree, the third day after He lay dead in a tomb with His side riven open by a Roman spear, Jesus rose to live again, glorified and nevermore to die.  This is the King we now serve, the Savior who sent the devil down to hell with his head crushed and his tail between his legs.  Our Savior now lives triumphant in glory at His Father’s side, ruling all things, and providing for us righteousness, peace, and hope.

On our own, we still wouldn’t have the strength the walk away from the devil’s control, but Jesus doesn’t leave us to battle alone.  He sent His Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament to rescue us with the proclamation of His grace.  By the power of His Word, He gives us new hearts of living flesh that replace our hearts of stone.  With the water and word of baptism, He washed away all the stench and stain of sin, and then so that our souls will never again go starving in this wilderness world, Jesus offers us His true body and blood in the bread and wine of His Supper as living food to strengthen faith, so that we are enabled to continue on our journey home.

Once, the whole human race had no hope to stand in peace before a righteous God.  Today, we stand at one with God, united in holiness with His Son through faith.  Once, the thought of serving God brought only fear, but now clothed in Jesus’ righteousness, we see that His righteous apparel fits us perfectly.  Once we were homeless slaves serving an evil overlord, but now with a home in God’s kingdom of glory, we gladly serve the Savior of all God’s people.  None of this was our doing.  All of the praise and glory belongs to God alone, because God saw our need and didn’t turn away.  He saw our sad state, and out of love for His people, God gives us what cannot be earned.  Through His Son, God gives us forgiveness, peace, holiness, a home in glory, and life that never ends.  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.