Sermon for 7/23/23: Seventh Sunday After Trinity

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A Free Gift

Romans 6:19-23

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

All things considered, the Bible is fairly easy to understand. All you have to do is read it as if it’s all talking about Jesus, and you’re doing fine. So if this is the case, why are there so many different interpretations of it? The thing is, the Bible is clear, but we are not. What God says in the Bible is clear, but we don’t think the way God thinks. In the book of Isaiah we hear, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Clearly God reveals His thoughts to us when He writes them down in Scripture, so of course we can know them. The problem is, we disagree with them. This is why there are so many different interpretations of God’s clear biblical teaching. People disagree with God because He doesn’t think like they do. For example, people disagree with God regarding the consequences of sin. He says, “The wages of sin is death.” People hear what God says, and they understand it, but they then reject it. They think they may do as they please without paying the consequences for their sins. They think that, since they can make excuses, change the subject, point the finger at others, and avoid confronting their own sin, the wages of sin don’t have to be paid. They are wrong. What God says, goes. They all die. They all face judgment. 

People also disagree with God on how to get to heaven. They think that the road to heaven is paved by their own good deeds. They ascribe this opinion to God. But God says, “The gift of God is eternal life.” They hear what He says, but they assume He cannot mean it. “Surely there must be something we can do or think or say to earn our place in the Kingdom of God,” they think. So they try to figure out some way to change the plain meaning of God’s Word so it will teach what they have already decided God must think.

The reason people reject what God says in the Bible is because they elevate their own reason or feelings or experiences above what God clearly says. They think they are Bible-believing, but they reject what the Bible says. This is why people deny that babies sin and so need to be born again in Holy Baptism; this is why they deny that Jesus clearly says that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper really are His body and blood; this why they deny that Jesus can set a man apart so that he can speak words that give Christ’s forgiveness of sins. The Bible clearly teaches these things, but sinners cannot understand how they can be true. So they deny what they cannot understand.

Some people reject the Christian faith after suffering the loss of a loved one, especially in tragic circumstances. How could a kind and loving God permit such a thing? But when St. Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death,” he is not ascribing cruelty to God. God is kind, loving, and full of mercy. But “the wages of sin is death.” People die because they are sinners, because sin dwells within them from conception until the day they die. Sin isn’t God’s fault; He didn’t create us to be sinful. He created us in His image: to know Him and to love Him and to be like He is. Sin comes from ignoring the Word of God and trusting lies instead.

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul wrote this to the Romans in response to the false idea that the free gift of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life is an encouragement to disobey the law. Nobody who understands sin would make such an argument. Sin isn’t freedom to do as you please. It is slavery to the darkest passions of the sinful heart. Sin kills you. Sinners die.

This is why the death of Jesus is such a wonderful event. It couldn’t have been for His own sin that he died. After all, Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Law; He committed no sin. He died for us; He died to pay the price for our sin. He paid the wages of our sin with His innocent life. Life is not cheap. The purchase price for our lives was the blood of God’s only begotten Son. “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You cannot buy it. You cannot earn it. You do not deserve it.

Take what He gives you. Believe Him when He tells you that He has removed your sins from you as far as the east is from the west as He washes you in the waters of Holy Baptism. Believe Him when He tells you your sins are forgiven, even we He speaks it through the mouth of a sinful pastor. Believe Him when He tells you that the body and blood that you eat and drink in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar take away your sins and give you eternal life.

Jesus earned the gift of eternal life for you by His holy obedience and sacrificial death. God gives the gift of eternal life to you in His Word and the Holy Sacraments. You receive the gift of eternal life by faith, which is another gift from God. You need do nothing to earn it; indeed, there is nothing you can do to earn or deserve it. It is a gift. It is for you: a free gift to give you life in His name. 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.