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.

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.

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, we were there with him, though we had not yet been born. His sin, then, did not end as the sin of one man. It was imputed to all his descendants, and not one person has escaped death.

The law cannot save anyone. It is only a fence that shows how sinful we are, and to stay within that fence is like clinging to a rotten rope. If the first man, Adam, let sin and death reign, Jesus Christ, the last Adam, lifted people out of the pit of death and gave them justification and eternal life.

Through the obedience of one man, many were made righteous. Salvation is wholly the grace of God, and that grace covers every sin, great or small. All that remains is to step through that open door in faith, without doubting.

Fleeing persecution for their faith, the Puritans set sail and crossed to an unfamiliar land. Raids by Native Americans and epidemics took more than half of their company, yet when they gathered their first harvest, they invited the very people who had attacked them and held a service of thanksgiving together.

Refining is like the cutting of a diamond. A stone that could not shine on its own gives off its light only once it has been cut and polished; in the same way, it is by passing through tribulation and perseverance that a person comes to bear the likeness of God’s character. Those who have found peace with God through Jesus Christ know that his grace is greater than the tribulations of this world, and so they are able to rejoice even in the midst of suffering.

The hardships the Puritans endured were not a curse but God’s plan to lead them to the land of America. When tribulation is seen from a place of thanksgiving, perseverance is no longer a matter of forcing oneself to endure; it becomes a patience that holds on to a higher hope. Because that love is greater than the pain, believers who meet with refining can still live in hope, loving the law of the Lord.

On a road with no 100 km/h limit, driving however fast is no offense. In the same way, the law was given to make people aware of their sin, not so that by keeping it they might become righteous. The covenant God made with Abraham came four hundred and thirty years before the law, and a law that arrived later cannot annul it.

Abraham believed the word that he would be given a son, but when the promise was slow to be fulfilled, impatience led him to father Ishmael and even to think of making Eliezer his heir. Through these missteps he learned that God alone can give life, and when he was commanded to offer Isaac, the son born to him at a hundred, as a burnt offering, he passed through the struggle between human anguish and obedience and came to his resolve. God counted him righteous not because of his works but because of his faith in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

If keeping the law were the way of salvation, Abraham’s faith would have no place, and neither would the salvation of the Gentiles. To believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only way by which we, too, are counted righteous today. When we hold fast to the Lord’s nail-scarred hands and fix our attention on God alone, the way we ought to live in this world becomes clear.

An angel comes to Abraham and promises that his descendants will be as countless as the stars. To a man with no children, it may well have seemed a puzzling word, yet Abraham believed the promise, and God counted that faith to him as righteousness.

Abraham believed more than that his descendants would multiply. He believed that Christ would come from his line, and we are told that this is why he rejoiced. So it was neither circumcision nor the offering of Isaac but that faith alone that was the ground on which God declared him righteous. Wages earned by work are counted not as grace but as what is owed. In the same way, salvation is the gift of God, who freely justifies the ungodly, and not a reward for anyone’s own devotion.

God’s people did nothing toward their salvation and were not godly, yet through faith in Christ alone they have received eternal life. The desire to make one’s own efforts a ground for boasting is pride. True faith shows itself naturally, without striving, in gratitude and obedience. Even when life is hard, believers must not despair but must lean in faith, to the very end, on the God who is faithful to keep his promises.