Sermon for Trinity 1, June 7, 2026
The grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Ephesians 2:4-10, 19-22 4But
God, because he is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved
us, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
trespasses. It is by grace you have been
saved! 6He also raised us up
with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 7He did this so that, in the
coming ages, he might demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8Indeed,
it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is
the gift of God—
9not by works, so that no one can
boast. 10For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in
advance so that we would walk in them. … 19So then, you are no
longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the saints
and members of God’s household. 20You
have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ
Jesus himself as the Cornerstone. 21In
him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the
Lord. 22In him you too are
being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (EHV)
Enlivened,
saved, created, and built up in mercy.
Dear fellow
redeemed,
“Like
all the others, we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.” (Ephesians
2:3) These are the words St. Paul uses
to introduce us to the blessings of God’s mercy and grace. It truly is amazing, astounding really, when
you consider how we, who deserved only God’s wrath and condemnation, have been richly
blessed by the mercy God shows us through the power of His Word as provided by
the Holy Spirit who worked in us to bring these gifts into our hearts which
caused Paul also to exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are
his judgments and how untraceable his ways!” (Romans 11:33) In view of the love of God for us, we celebrate
how we are Enlivened, saved, created, and built up in mercy.
Now, many may ask, why
would we be considered objects of God’s wrath?
Why does God count children as guilty before they have even begun to
cause trouble in the world? Why does God
have the right to judge us or rule over us?
In answer, we must recognize that people polluted by sin cannot produce
pure and holy offspring. Plus, the devil
has certainly continued to influence people with his lies. Therefore, sin infects every one of us.
But, why does God have the
right to judge us? Even though so much
of our modern world imagines that the world created itself, this world has
become a society of fools, because regardless of what the educated elite might
imagine, God created this world and everything in it and still sustains
it. Now, He has been kind enough to
allow even those who reject Him to live and have opportunity to come to faith
and be saved, but when the end comes, God, as Creator, will exercise His
rightful authority to judge all people.
Why then, does God count
even newborn babies as objects of wrath?
Again, we must recognize the truth that children are born of the same
flesh as their parents and in that flesh, they inherit the same weaknesses, faults,
and natural rebellion against God.
Because sin has corrupted all parts of creation, not one child has ever
been conceived without sin except Jesus who is the Son of God. Everyone else has needed to hear the Good
News about Jesus and all He has done for us before having any faith or trust in
the God who has given us physical life in this marvelous creation. Consequently, David rightly observed, “Certainly, I was guilty when I was
born. I was sinful when my mother
conceived me.” (Psalm
51:5)
So, why were we all once
counted as objects of God’s wrath?
Because we all have sinned against Him.
Our inherited sinful nature leads us away from trusting God. From birth, our desires are selfish. Even in our best moments, selfishness creeps
in keeping us impure before our holy God.
All of this should make it
obvious to us how amazing God’s love truly is.
St. Paul observed, But God, because he is rich in mercy, because of
the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ even when we
were dead in trespasses. It is by grace
you have been saved!” Oh, the words
we could explore here. God is so rich in
mercy, so overabundantly kind to people who don’t deserve it, that He sent His
Son Jesus to live holiness on our behalf and to suffer the ultimate torment of
hell in our place so that the Holy Spirit could work forgiveness and redemption
in our hearts. We remember how God had
promised to give new hearts and new spirits in His people. This is what He has done for each of us. God shows how one sided His love for us
really is, in this, though we were dead to Him in sin, He washed us clean and
enlivened us through the power of His Spirit in Word and Baptism.
“He also raised us up
with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He did this so that, in the coming ages, he
might demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus.” What an amazing promise the Holy Spirit gives
us, and what God promises is always immediately as good as done. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead that
first Easter morning, so God already counts us as having been raised to new
life and a new home in heaven.
Justified (that is
declared righteous) by faith in His Son, God counts His people holy, innocent,
and prepared to dwell in His presence forever, not because of anything good in
us, but because Jesus has already accomplished righteousness for us all. Just as Paul was moved to write to Titus, we
have this confidence, “based on the hope of eternal life, which God, who
cannot lie, promised before time began.” (Titus 1:2)
Again, all of this is the
work of the Holy Spirit, who is sent by the Father and the Son to work faith
and sanctification in us. In his
explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Martin Luther wrote, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or
strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost
has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept
me in the true faith; just as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the
whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true
faith.” This is perfectly in line with
what the Holy Spirit breathed into Paul as he wrote, “Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is
not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared in advance so that we would walk in them.”
Grace
is undeserved kindness that moves God to give us what we don’t deserve. Instead of condemnation for our guilt, God
charged our misses, shortcomings, transgressions, and rebellions against His
own dear Son, so that by the death of Jesus, He could count us free of all
guilt. Faith is that confidence and
trust in the Triune God that the Spirit grants to us through the hearing of the
Gospel. When hearing what Jesus in His
great love for us downtrodden sinners has done for us, the soul sorrowing over
sin and repenting of faults and shortcomings receives, through the action of
the Holy Spirit, a breath of life and a stream of cleansing, life-giving water
that drowns the old man of sin and raises us up for immortality.
Through
the hearing of the Good News and the washing of Baptism, the Holy Spirit is
building up a new temple for God crafted of the souls of the newly spiritually
alive believers as living stones. If you
look at the outside walls of our church made of brick, you will see that the
bricks all look pretty much one like the other, other than a slight variation
in color. However, when constructing this
magnificent temple for the Lord God Almighty, the Holy Spirit takes of a wide
variety of stone-dead hearts from every land and nation all over earth, gives
them life, and chipping away any rough edges, then by molding and shaping, He
aligns them into a perfect fit in the holy temple for our God, perfect in His
design.
Consequently,
Paul writes, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared in advance so that we would walk in them. … So then,
you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with
the saints and members of God’s household.
You have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with
Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone.”
Jesus alone aligns us so that His goals become ours. His righteousness makes us righteous and
perfect in the eyes of God who commissioned this temple. Furthermore, a person’s background,
nationality, color of skin, or previous guilt do not matter, for “all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)
It
is by Jesus’ holy life and innocent death, that the Father in heaven has dealt
with the sins of the world. With a love
that considered only our need for salvation, He sent Jesus to be the Holy One
of God. Then, the Father counted Jesus
as sin in our place. All our guilt piled
on Jesus left us clean and holy before God.
Thus, it is in this temple of sanctified souls that the Holy Spirit
continues His work of calling, gathering, enlightening, and enlivening the
formerly lost and condemned sinners still roaming the earth.
Again,
explaining the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, Luther wrote, “In this
Christian Church He daily and richly forgives me and all believers all our
sins; and at the last day He will raise up me and all the dead, and will grant
me and all believers in Christ eternal life.
This is most certainly true.” This is our hope and our salvation, that
through faith in Christ, God has justified all who believe in Him. He counts each Christian believer as
righteous and holy and welcome in His presence for eternity. None of this came because of actions we might
take. Rather, it is in the Church He has
built, through the work of the Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament, that the Lord
continues to gather souls for His Father’s glory.
From
everlasting to everlasting, God is God.
From everlasting, He has been working all things so that His Church, the
assembly of all true Christian believers, might be brought into His eternal
glory through faith. Only faith
saves. Faith in Christ Jesus, alone, who
is “the way and the truth and the life,” (John 14:6) is what transforms
the unrighteous into the righteous, holy ones of God, perfectly aligned and
mortared together into a holy temple for the eternal glory of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. As holy, precious, and
beautiful to God as the gems and precious stones of Solomon’s temple, from
everlasting to everlasting, may we celebrate how we are Enlivened, saved,
created, and built up in mercy. Amen.
Now to him who is able to strengthen you—according
to the gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, . . . to God, who alone is
wise, be glory forever through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
