Our Heritage and Inheritance
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
We do not simply sin by mistake or weakness; we also sin on purpose.
We’ve all known what we were doing and have done it anyway. We’ve sinned with
full knowledge, repeatedly. We’ve heard the voice of the new man in our minds,
telling us to stop gossiping, but we’ve also noted how our friends were hanging
on our words, looking at us with admiration, and we wanted to keep it going. So
we’ve suppressed the good. We’ve embraced the evil. We’ve harmed not only our
neighbors but also ourselves. We’ve enslaved ourselves to sin and let it rule
over us.
How dare we say that we have fellowship with Christ while we walk in
darkness? We lie and do not practice the truth. If we are ruled by sin, we do
not have fellowship with Christ. We are not His brothers. We are the sons of
devil who do the work of the devil. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. When
Jesus tells us to abide in the Word, it is not simply an admonition to know
right doctrine. It is an admonition to live by His Word, to obey His
commandments, to love what He loves and to hate what He hates.
We Lutherans are proud of our heritage. It is a good thing to be
faithful to the Word of God. But do not say, “But we have Luther for our father
and we love the Gospel and have never been slaves to anyone.” You have been
slaves to your flesh and your heritage. You have twisted the Gospel into an
excuse to sin and dared God to notice. He notices. He is not amused. He does
not think it is cute or somehow your rightful liberty. He hates gossip. He
hates drunkenness. He hates lustful eyes and evil thoughts. God threatens to
punish all who break His commandments. So repent. Let every mouth be stopped.
May the law bring knowledge of sin to us sinners.
You have enslaved yourself to sin, but you do not belong there. Repent.
Turn from your sins. If the Son sets you free by being sin and guilt in your
place, by suffering your punishment in your stead, being declared guilty so
that you are declared innocent, by dying and rising again for you, then you
will be free indeed. You might sin, but you will not be cast aside. You are not
a slave, but a son. He restores you to fellowship with the Father and even
restores the marriage bed because He still loves you, no matter what you’ve
done. You are a son, and you remain a son forever.
So confess your sins. He is faithful and just. He forgives your sins. He
cleanses you from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make
him a liar, and His Word is not in us. So if you say you have not sinned, you
go back to eating with the pigs like the prodigal son until you wake up and find
the Father waiting for you. Otherwise, if you insist, you die and go to Hell.
But if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just. He forgives sins. He
restores fellowship. His accusations are taken from you and placed on the Son,
the One who became your Brother and has declared you to be God’s child forever:
forever innocent, forever holy, forever His. You walk in the light just as He
is in the light, for He is the Light. You have fellowship with Him and with one
another in the blood of Jesus which cleanses you from all sin. Thus you abide
in His Word, in His Gospel. You are truly His disciples, His children, His
Bride, and even His friends.
This is the Word of the Lord that endures forever. “We are justified by His grace as a gift received by faith.” This
is the truth upon which the Reformation is founded. If Martin Luther has left
us a legacy, let it be this and nothing else. In the name of the Father
and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The peace of God which passes all
understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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