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Seventh Sunday Of Pentecost
Text Romans 7: 15-21
Theme: "The Beast Within"
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but
what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that
the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it
is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in
my sinful nature. b For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot
carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil
I do not want to do- this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not
want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that
does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right
there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I
see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the
law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my
members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of
death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
To the members of Risen Christ, To our visitors among us this day; Grace,
Mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ
A Christian Grandmother speaking to her grandson after he had done
something wrong..."You will, by God, act like a Christian or I'll slap you
cross eyed." How does a Christian act? How does a Christian live?
If you asked an evangelical Christian to describe the Christian life ...
If you asked a RC to Describe the Christian life...
If you asked a Pentecostal,
If you asked a Lutheran, a Methodist, an Episcopalian? What would they say?
How is it that you think a Christian ought to live?
Obedience? Doing the best we can? Trying as hard as you can to obey the
ten commandments?
Or once you are a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, are you not
supposed to act differently? To make improvement. Don't you hear the
testimonies all the time of the people who became Christian who were once
addicted to alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex, cheating on their spouses,
abusing their ChildREN, Don't you hear all the time how it is that now that
they are Christians they don't do these things anymore? Isn't that the
way it is supposed to be? Isn't our behavior supposed to get better? I
know that if you are raising teenagers you certainly hope that their
behavior gets better!!!!
I suppose the way you answer that question really depends upon whether you
understand the Biblical teaching of Justification by Grace Alone, through
Faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone!
SO much of what passes for Christianity today (especially here in America,
and especially in most of what is called Lutheranism) is really not
Christian at all!
I have often stated that if you don't understand the teaching of Original
sin and the consequences of it, you will never understand the Cross of
Jesus Christ. Most Christians in our day (and most pastors and most
Lutheran Pastors) think of the Christian's life as a movement or progress
from sin to righteousness. Under this scheme, this way of thinking, the
sinner in us becomes smaller and smaller while the Christian in us becomes
larger and larger. And therefore the longer we are Christians the better
our behavior becomes.
This thinking boils down to the pious platitude that there is some good in
the worst of us and some bad in the best of us. What it really becomes is
some sort of cheap comfort for lazy sinners.
But wait a minute...Listen to Paul describe his life - that's Paul the
Apostle! 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not
do, but what I hate, I do...18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that
is, in my sinful nature.
At my previous congregation there was a man I knew whose name was Al and he
and I sometimes went out for breakfast. At one of those times he told me a
story of how he went for a walk one morning and came across a little girl
sitting on the curb outside of her house and she was crying her little eyes
out. Al asked her what was wrong and the little girl looked up at him and
sobbed, "I never do anything right!" Evidently she had gotten into trouble
with her parents yet again and she was frustrated to the point of tears.
This little girl was saying the same thing that Paul was saying, "I never
do anything right." Nothing good dwells in me! One of my pastor friends
attributes this outbreak of sin in us, this "never doing anything right,"
to the beast that lives within. Our catechisms call it the old Adam.
And here is the truth of the description of the Christian life. 22 For
in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work
in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making
me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a
wretched man I am! We are simultaneously saint and sinner. We always
will be, there will never be any change in us - right up to the moment of
our deaths or when Christ returns in glory - whichever comes first. And
then what is sown in weakness will be raised in Power. What is sown in
dishoner will be raised in Glory!!
Somehow, someway in this year of our Lord 2005, Lutheranism - the
Lutheranism that you and I grew up with has come full circle and returned
to a works righteousness that would make Martin Luther roll over in his
grave. We no longer see the Law of God as something that kills us - rather
it presents us with possibilities - possibilities toward achieving a
righteousness of our own before God.
How else can you explain all of the sermons you have ever heard from
Lutheran Pastors about how you should live you life, how you should
experience victory over your sins, how it is that God wants you to be happy
- all that you can be. That God is on your side - ready, willing, and able
to give you all the help you need to become a better person. Listen to
this excerpt of a modern day preacher from an actual sermon:
We've heard a lot about the judgment of God and what we can't do and what
is going to keep us out of heaven. But it's time people start hearing
about the goodness of God, about a God that loves them. A God that
believes in them. A God that wants to help them. God wants us to have
healthy, positive self-images, to see ourselves as priceless treasures. He
wants us to fell good about ourselves. God knows we're not perfect, that
we have faults and weaknesses; that we all make mistakes. But the good
news is that God loves us anyway. His love for you is based upon what you
are, not on what you do. He created you as a unique individual. There has
never been, nor will there ever be another person exactly like
you...Moreover God sees you as a Champion. He believes in you even more
that you believe in yourself.
Poor Paul the Apostle, I guess he, hasn't gotten the message of today's
preachers. He hasn't heard this new truth that God loves him just the way
he is. That God sees him as a champion. That silly Paul, he can only come
to the conclusion that in this life he is just a wretched (Leper) man.
But Paul is right and our modern day preachers are wrong... God doesn't
love us just the way we are ' that's why he sent His Son Jesus
Christ. That is why He has gifted His Church with His Word ' His faithful
Pastors ' His Holy Baptism and His Holy Supper, His Holy Words of Absolution.
It is true beyond doubt that God cares for you. He care for you through
Jesus Christ. It is Christ's righteous you possess not your own. It is
Christ who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.
Luther once remarked in one of his commentaries that it is not so much the
so-called godless sinner who is so terrible before God but rather the
self-righteous Christian who thinks of his righteousness before God in
terms of his own victory over the sins in his own life, some sort of an
intrinsic moral progress. In reality, my dear Christians... the one who
considers himself the super - godly Christian is more abominable to God
then the ungodly people of Sodom and Gomorrah. At least the people of
Sodom and Gomorrah were real sinners in need of a real Savior.
This is why I absolutely hate the current trend in Christian funerals to
have eulogies concerning the people who have died. To have their friends
and neighbors and family members stand up and with all of their emotions
flowing out of their eyes and running down their noses, tell everyone what
a wonderful, wonderful person Aunt Mary was. How much she loved and cared
for everyone. How devoted she was to her husband and her children and her
friends. These eulogies are what the pagans do at their funerals precisely
because they have no hope! No one ever stands up and says that Aunt Mary
was an closet Alcoholic who frequently lost her temper and even one time
hauled off and smacked her husband Bill in a drunken rage. I'd love to
hear that some time but I doubt I ever will.
Please don't misunderstand me - I am not perhaps the insensitive clod that
you might think I am.
I have my own eulogy written about the all the good and nice things I want
people to say about me when I'm gone. It's 54 pages long and I'll give you
an copy of it if you want. I'm not saying that there isn't a time and
place for speaking fondly and even humorously with anecdotes and loving
statements by members of the family concerning the recently deceased. But
they are not appropriate during a funeral service where the message about
Aunt Mary ought to be how God called her out of darkness into His marvelous
light when she was Baptized into the name of Jesus Christ. How God cared
for her through the preaching of law and gospel all her life keeping her in
the proper understanding that she was a sinner, a wretched women who had
been declared justified before her God by grace alone, through faith alone,
in Jesus Christ alone. How she on her death bed confessed her sins one last
time to her Pastor and that she was fed with Christ's own Body and Blood to
assure her that all her sins were forgiven her, that she would know that
she was forgiven. And that now she is alive forevermore in Glory with Jesus
Christ her Lord. Her old body of sin and alcoholism, and anger and hitting
her husband and children is now forever done away with and will never
plague her again.
Paul speaks a great truth in our Epistle lesson for today and he answers
the question of how a Christian acts and how a Christian lives. He comes
to the God given, Holy Spirit wrought understanding that He is a poor,
miserable sinner, deserving nothing but God's temporal and eternal
punishment. He comes to the very Lutheran understanding that the more you
embrace God's act of Justifying the sinner, (the greater your faith and
trust in Christ) the more you will become aware of enormity your own sin.
And the more aware of your own sin you become, they more you will long for
and embrace, and hold fast to, the grace of God in Jesus Christ that
receives sinners. And around and around it goes and where it stops ' God
knows.
One of my old seminary professors once preached on this very text in the
seminary chapel and he concluded that Christian are in reality, in
actuality, wretched, happy people. After Paul laments his miserable
condition 'Who will rescue me from this body of death? he cries out with
joy, Praise be to God through Jesus Christ . His rescue has been
completed through Jesus Christ as has yours and now you know how the
Christian lives, how you live. That all of those sins that you do not
understand why you do ' the good you don't do and the evil you do do, are
forgiven in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Praise be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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