Sermons

Paul grieves that his own people are not saved, and declares that he would be willing to be accursed himself if only they might be saved. They were a nation God himself had chosen and called; to them belonged the covenants, the law and the promises, and from their line came Christ.

He says that while Jacob and Esau were still in Rebekah’s womb, before either was born, one was loved and the other hated, apart from anything they had done. This is not a matter of individual salvation; it speaks of God’s sovereign choice concerning Israel and the Gentiles. Just as a division appeared even within a womb that had received grace, so among the chosen people, and among the Gentiles as well, the remnant is set apart from those who are not.

As a potter shapes vessels from clay, God loves each person according to the purpose for which he made them, and there is no unrighteousness in his choosing. Just as it was not all Israel but only the remnant that was saved, so today, within a single family and a single church, who will stand as the remnant rests with each one. Those who persevere and remain within God’s fold will be justified and glorified on the last day.

David stands before Goliath. The soldiers of Israel are already afraid at the sight of his size, but David goes out in the name of Yahweh of Armies.

Nothing in the world can cut off the love between God and his people. Yet the one thing that can cut off that relationship is our own self. David did not kill Saul, but when he chose Bathsheba, he drew away from God of his own accord.

Suffering reveals what is within us, the way a flail separates the grain from the chaff. Even with a sword at our throats, we cannot promise that we will be more than conquerors. But God holds all the more firmly those who give thanks for the love that gave its life without condition.

Paul confesses that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is yet to be revealed. Those who would become children of God and inherit that glory must also share in the sufferings of Christ.

Believing in God offers no way around suffering. Job held the same faith in his years of wealth as in the day he lost everything, and his friends’ condemnation did not shake him. He did not complain against God, because he knew that God’s grace had been given without condition.

The Spirit groans and prays on behalf of God’s people in their weakness, and takes them by the hand so that they do not fall. As they persevere with all their strength where they now stand, glory will be made complete on the day Christ returns.

After his resurrection Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, and at Pentecost what seem like tongues of fire come to rest on the disciples. These are the same men who had deserted Jesus in terror, yet once they receive the Spirit they begin to proclaim the gospel boldly in the languages of every nation.

Paul says that those who follow the flesh and those who follow the Spirit set their minds on different things. A person may believe a decision was wisely made, but what truly settles the choice is the spirit that rules them. Paul draws the line plainly: anyone in whom the Spirit does not dwell does not belong to Christ.

Those led by the Holy Spirit are the ones who belong to God. He has made them his children rather than slaves, so they call him Father, and as heirs together with Christ they share in both his glory and his sufferings. To live by the flesh is to die, while to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit is to live; which road to take at that crossroads is for each person to decide.

The law brings sin to light, yet people keep the sin within them hidden and go on living as if a good outcome will win them forgiveness. Even the apostle Paul lamented as he watched himself fail to do the good he wanted and instead do the evil he hated.

This is the condition of a humanity that ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The standard of good and evil that people took on after eating its fruit always comes back to the self, and so even what we count as good is evil. That is why, when a pastor who had given his whole life to his calling died in a car accident, people still tried to measure his death by their own yardstick and treat it as a judgment.

Facing death, that pastor left a final note: even when every way has failed, God is with us, and what has happened is no accident. The one who rescues us from this wretched body of death is Jesus Christ alone. To live with Christ, not our own judgment, at the heart of life is what is truly good.

When a king governs his people, there is a constitution; and while a husband and wife are both living, their marriage binds them to each other. Just as the law has authority over a person only for as long as that person lives, so when a spouse dies, the marriage loses its legal force.

The law cannot save anyone. It was given so that people, seeing themselves in its light, would come to know that they are sinners and turn to Christ, who would atone for that sin. Yet the Jews did not grasp this purpose and sought to achieve salvation by their own works, and that very effort became a sin that stood in the way of grace.

Those who have died to sin with Jesus Christ are no longer ruled by the law. There is no need to live the life of faith under a sense of guilt, bound by rules of one’s own making, whether early morning prayer or offerings. To live freely by grace in Christ is the purpose for which God gave the law.

King Nebuchadnezzar sees a statue in a dream. When none of the wise men can interpret it, Daniel comes to know both the dream and its meaning through prayer, and he sets them out before the king.

The head of gold stands for Babylon, the silver for Media and Persia, the bronze for Greece, and the iron mixed with clay for Rome. Through dreams and visions, and through a man of faith, God gave Nebuchadnezzar chance after chance and waited for him to turn back. A stone cut without hands struck the statue and brought it down. This means that every kingdom people build will fall, but the Kingdom God has set up will never be destroyed.

Cyrus and Alexander each rose to the height of their power, and each of them fell. Human history is made and unmade, but God’s plan, which he leads from beginning to end, remains the same. God’s people must rely on this unchanging God. Rather than looking only at what lies in front of them, they need to step back and live by the wisdom he gives.

Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom seemed the mightiest on earth, yet in a dream he saw ahead of time a tree being cut down. Belshazzar was feasting with the vessels of the temple when the fingers of a hand appeared and wrote upon the wall, and that same night he was slain. Through all the years in which one king gave way to another, Daniel remained chief minister, and even after the king’s seal had been set on the decree, he still knelt and prayed three times a day.

Power appears to rest with human beings, but it is God who raises it up and God who brings it to an end. Nebuchadnezzar was granted a year, yet did not turn back, and was punished by living like a beast of the field; Belshazzar knew what had befallen his grandfather, yet was every bit as proud, and that night he lost his kingdom. Daniel, by contrast, did not forsake God, though he knew he would be thrown into the lions’ den.

God does not judge even a king at once, but gives him chance after chance to repent. Yet those who let such chances go unheeded and carry on as they always have will in the end fall just as they are. Daniel’s unshaken faith brought him alive out of the lions’ den and led a pagan king to praise the living God with his own lips, and the sermon declares that in the new year, too, God’s people must live by the same faith.

When Samuel fails to arrive on the appointed day, Saul offers the sacrifice in his place and goes out to battle with the people. David sees a woman from the rooftop and sends for her. He then has her husband put to death, and, still blind to his own sin, passes exactly the right judgment on the sin of another.

What Saul did was no mistake. God had ordained that only the priests might offer sacrifice, and Saul set that law aside on his own judgment. In doing so he trespassed on the place that belongs to God alone, and that is blasphemy. David’s sins of adultery and murder were greater still, yet the moment he heard Nathan’s words he admitted his wrong and turned back.

God forgave David, but Saul he did not forgive. Sins against people are pardoned, but the sin of defying the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come. And yet God brought Jesus Christ into the world from the line of David. The reason lies in God’s character: he keeps his covenant regardless of human sin.

On the night he shared his last meal with his disciples, Jesus broke the bread and said, “This is my body, which is for you,” and, taking up the cup, declared, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” He was telling them in advance of the very body that would soon be broken and the blood that would soon be shed.

The Jews had long believed that the blood of a lamb washed away sin, yet that blood could not make anyone clean. But he who is God shed his own blood, and so established once for all an everlasting covenant. Communion, then, is not a matter of bread becoming his body; it is a time to remember and commemorate his death, his resurrection and his return.

Christians who come to the Lord’s Table must first repent of the wickedness in their hearts and of their lack of gratitude. To take part with a heart that is not whole is, on the contrary, to sin against the body and blood of the Lord. But when they come before him in their standing as children of God, Communion becomes an occasion not of fear but of joy made twice as great.

Before the golden image the king had set up, three men remained standing and would not bow. Even when threatened with the fiery furnace, they answered that, should God not rescue them, they would still not kneel before it.

They stood as men who had already died with Jesus, and so the king’s threats held no terror for them. With no body left for sin to rule, they had no reason to yield. Their resolve not to hand over the parts of their bodies as instruments of unrighteousness, but to offer them to God as instruments of righteousness, showed itself in the boldness of that moment.

The three came out of the furnace without a single hair singed, and the king praised their God. Those who have been set free from sin and made servants of righteousness are no longer under law but under grace. The end of it is eternal life.

The sea splits in two, and the people of Israel cross over on dry ground. The Egyptian army in pursuit is swallowed up by the waters as they come back together, and they die.

Baptism is a confession of dying together with Jesus Christ. But baptism is a form. Not all who receive baptism as a form are born again; what causes a person to be born again is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that each individual receives.

We who have died to sin cannot go back to living in sin. Those who are united with Christ must look to the things that are above and live with perseverance. If they rely on the risen Jesus, they can overcome every trial they meet in this world.