Sermon manuscript:
The relationship that we human beings have with God is of
the greatest possible concern. Even though how we stand with God is so
important, it seems that our fallen, sinful nature makes us very sleepy about
this standing. There is nothing more common and natural than for people not to
think about God or to think about how God is regarding them. All manner of
different things capture and hold our attention instead. It’s not hard for
hours, days, maybe even weeks to go by without giving a thought to God, his
commandments, or his promises. Instead our minds and souls might be focused on
all sorts of things—maybe they are high, prestigious, and important things.
Maybe they are dumb things. The net result is the same: these things keep us
occupied and distracted.
To wake us up from our almost dream-like state God speaks to
us. We are not meant to be like cattle or any other dumb animal. We were not
meant to just go to the trough, eat, sleep, breed, rinse and repeat until we
are slaughtered. We human beings are different from the animals. We are made in
the image of God. We have the ability to know God, to fear him, love him, and
trust in him. We are able to hear his Word. We can pray, praise, and give him
thanks. We are responsible to God, who has created us.
Because we are capable of believing and worshipping not just
the true God, but other things that are not God, the first of the Ten
Commandments says, “You shall have no other gods.” That means we should
only worship the Lord as God. We shouldn’t be using our food or drink or
recreation as our gods. Nor should we have our own personal ambitions as our
god—as the thing we are constantly thinking about and wanting to further. Nor,
even, should we have what appears to be much less selfish things as the ultimate
ambitions of our life—world peace, or ending hunger, or what have you. The
commandment, “You shall have no other gods,” is the same as what is said
elsewhere: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.” This is
because, as God also says when he gives that first commandment: “I the Lord
your God am a jealous God.”
It’s understandable for a person to react to just this first
commandment from God by saying, “I don’t want a God like that. I don’t want a
jealous God. I don’t want to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and
mind. I just want God to leave me alone so that I can pursue my own things.”
This is, in fact, perfectly reasonable. We’re all born that
way, born of flesh, descendants of Adam and Eve. We are born selfish and covetous.
Maybe if God can just be my sidekick, my good luck charm, then I’ll let him
come along so long as he behaves himself, but we want to do what we want to do.
To have anyone thwart our will is very unpleasant. We don’t
want to be told “no.” And so when God tells us “no” we resent that terribly.
It’s like when your parents or other authorities told you you couldn’t do
something you wanted to do. Wrath and rage well up within us. This is what Paul
talks about in our epistle reading when he says that before faith came, we were
held in custody under the Law. The Law was our chaperone, our eagle-eyed
inspector, until Christ. The Law makes us rage and fume.
That raging and fuming might sound something like this: how
can God command us to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all
our strength, and with all our mind? Doesn’t that idiot God know that that’s impossible?
He must be a pretty bad law-giver if he gives out laws that we can never keep.
If I were God, I would come up with a lot better laws than his laws.
But most people never even get to the point where they take
any God’s commandments seriously enough to have such thoughts. Most people,
including most of those who self-identify as Christians, sleepwalk through
life. They are perfectly happy to remain ignorant of God’s commands. In their
ignorance they figure that God is probably on their side—after all, God is
love, right? And God probably thinks pretty much along the same lines as they
think. They haven’t done stuff that’s too outside the norm of what everybody
else is doing, so they’re probably alright.
This is their made up religion. It is made up in purposeful
ignorance of what God actually says. Since this religion is just the foolish
thoughts and hopes of sinful humans, this religion is very shallow. But it does
have one saving grace: it is extremely convenient. You never have to be
troubled a day in your life if you are your own lawgiver and judge. Everything
that you do is understandable and justifiable. You’re not bad. If anything
you’re the victim.
God’s Law—with him as the lawgiver instead of you—God’s Law,
in contrast, is always and relentlessly saying you’re not okay. If, of course,
you actually kept God’s Law that would be a different matter. It would testify
about you that you are good. But you haven’t kept God’s Law. You haven’t kept
the first commandment, to say nothing about all the rest. So you’re not good
and fine. And this is like being imprisoned. It’s like being handcuffed and put
into confinement against your will. We don’t want that. We don’t want to be
guilty. One way to get what we want, then, is to ignore the Law.
So it is with the murderer, the thief, the cheat,
what-have-you. Before they are caught they go along on their happy way, as
though they were in a dream, as though they were just fine. When the Law comes,
throws them against the wall, frisks them, puts handcuffs on them, and throws
them in prison, they don’t like this one bit—even though they are 100% guilty!
Oh, how they rage and fume! They hate the policeman. They hate the judge. They
hate the prosecuting attorney. If they had their way they’d like to be free and
throw all those against them in prison.
That is how we all are too when it comes to God’s Law. We
want to sleepwalk our way through life with our fake sense of our own
respectability, our fake relationship with God, which is always on our terms.
When God’s real Law shows up we hate it. We hate God for making the
commandment. We even more so hate the one speaking God’s commandment to us, so
that we now are feeling guilty. We want everybody else to ignore God’s Law,
just like we’ve been ignoring God’s Law. We’ve been doing fine, you see, and
everybody should just leave us alone to live how we want.
But, of course, this is all just perverse fantasy. It’s like
the criminal who wants to get revenge on the proper authorities who are only
doing their job. God is not going to cease being God just because you want to
ignore him. The inmates are not going to run the asylum. Maybe the inmates can
believe that they are running the asylum in this life. Maybe they believe they
can get away with all their wickedness. But heaven and hell are real. The
reason why people go to hell is because that is where they are supposed to go. The
Law says so. Just the first commandment is more than enough to merit hell.
And if you don’t like that, that’s too bad. I’m not making
this up. Read it for yourself, or are you too lazy? You’re not too lazy to cash
those checks and take those vacations, but maybe your relationship with your
Creator isn’t that important.
Contrary to what you might think, becoming a Christian,
being converted, remaining a Christian by having to be converted again and
again, is not the most peaceful thing ever. What’s peaceful is to continue on
with the sleepwalking, ignoring God’s Law, hoping that you will be blessed
nevertheless with your made-up religion.
We see this already with Adam and Eve. After they disobeyed
God and started to obey the devil they weren’t exactly happy or at peace. Their
countenance was fallen. Their trust in God was shattered. But they weren’t dead
either, which is what the devil had promised them. What they feared was God possibly
carrying out his sentence of death. While they were in that state, before God
came to them in the cool of the day, they much preferred to go on with their
sleepwalking through life rather than face the living God.
So it is also with us their descendants. We don’t want to
get caught. We don’t want to go before the judge. Let’s all just pretend that
everything is fine. To keep up this charade we have to keep God and his Law
away. If the Law shows up we hate it like a criminal hates going to jail.
Becoming a Christian, being converted, being continually converted as a
Christian, is not peaceful and serene. It’s like getting arrested! It is not
until we get arrested, so to speak, that we begin to fear God.
And let me mention one more thing. God’s Law is wonderfully
stimulating. God has other ways of waking us up too. He can prove to us that he
is still God with some rough handling. Instead of God being your good luck
charm, your handy-dandy sidekick who is always affirming you, God can be a real
monster, so to speak. He can dish out pain and horror. You thought, and you
planned, and you slaved so that you could have your life one way. God can make it
so that it is totally another.
Again, if you’ll allow yourself to be honest about this,
this makes you feel some horribly strong things about God. You can, of course,
avoid such feelings if you explain stuff away with unluckiness or a whole bunch
of coping mechanisms and philosophies that have been invented to dull the pain.
And those can be some powerful narcotics. But it is better to rage and fume at
God than to plod along like tranquilized cattle. But to be awake means that you
are in the wrong, and God’s Law is bearing down on you like a 300 pound cop who
cackles at how you’ve gotten caught and are going to hell. That’s how God’s Law
works as Paul describes it in our epistle reading.
But as horribly as we hate God’s good and holy Law, let us
also note that Paul places a limit on the Law. He says, “before this faith
came,” the Law was like a horrible, hateful, overbearing cop. And he says,
“Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under that big, fat cop.”
Now when Paul says this, it is not just some wishful thinking—some more
self-made religion. It is because of Jesus Christ.
Paul says in another place, “But now a righteousness
apart from the Law has been revealed… This righteousness is given
through faith in Jesus Christ.” Thank God there is a righteousness
available to us apart from the Law. You’ve blown it according to the Law. I
think I see that cop lumbering down the street to your house. But there is a
righteousness that is apart from the Law, that isn’t dependent upon the Law. It
isn’t based on your actions, but instead on God’s actions. It is the
righteousness of Jesus Christ. This righteousness is given through faith in
Jesus Christ.
This is the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. Yes,
you are guilty. You have broken the Law. But you do not have to ignore God on
that account. Maybe if there were no alternative it would be better to ignore
God. I’m sure the murderer, the thief, and the criminal are happier by ignoring
their crimes and whatever possible punishment might be coming to them. But that
is not the only option. There is a righteousness apart from the Law that has
been revealed, the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is given freely to any
and to all who believe in him.
Paul speaks this way in our epistle reading: “In fact,
you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Indeed, as many of you
as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is not Jew or
Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
There is quite a bit that we could unpack from that
statement, but let me just zero in on the main thing. You are flatly declared
to be sons of God through the one and only Son of God, Jesus Christ. How? By
keeping the Law? No, it is by faith in Christ Jesus. That is your standing
before God: You are children of God!
Furthermore, are you naked and ashamed of your nakedness?
Have you done things that are awful and disgusting—things that are deserving of
death? Is that 300 pound cop on you like stink, having almost concluded his
investigation? Paul says, “Be assured of this, as many of you as were
baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.” I know that that’s
kind of a strange way of speaking, but here’s the point: If you are clothed
with Christ, then you are not naked. If Christ covers you all over, then that
cop is the one who is actually in the wrong. He has no business investigating
you. You’re not guilty. You’re forgiven. You’re righteous.
So do not sleepwalk through life like the great herd of
humanity. They are all hoping that God doesn’t exist, or that they won’t get
caught, or that there won’t be punishment. These dreamy delusions are not the
only hope available. You have a much surer and certain hope in Christ who was
crucified for you.
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