Sermons

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.

Picture people who have fallen into the sea. Wherever they look, there is no boat to pull them out. Power, wealth and good deeds alike can do nothing in the face of the crashing waves but stop their mouths.

Yet, unknown to them, a rescue ship was already speeding toward the scene. The law was given so that men and women would come to see they are unable to keep it by themselves, and only after that recognition does the faith that waits for the Messiah take root. Jesus Christ is that righteousness of God, prepared before the ages began, and he saves without distinction all who have lived by faith, from the Old Testament until now.

Salvation comes not by works but by faith alone. Before the God who rescued them from death, even holding up prayer, offerings and devotion as something to boast of counts for nothing. To remember the grace of being declared righteous, giving thanks in all things and praying without ceasing: this is the life that befits God’s people.

The apostle Paul speaks of the sins of those who had tasted grace yet could not give up the pleasures of the world. Those who did not fear God, and those who would use him to meet their own needs, cannot receive his holy grace.

There is no one righteous, not even one. When the word sin appears in the plural, it refers to the many wrongs people commit; in the singular, it points to an unseen being, Satan. Ever since Adam became a sinner, every person has been born with Satan as their father, and each goes on sinning without recognizing it as sin.

At first sin brings a sense of shame, but with each repetition it leaves a person more numb. No human strength can overcome Satan, so Christians must put on the full armor of God. The apostle Paul met the God who had given him life and then longed for others to be restored. In the same way, leading souls who wander in darkness is how God’s people answer his grace.

Paul sharply rebukes the Jews, who teach the Gentiles from a faith that has dwindled to outward form. They answer that their disobedience actually displays God’s righteousness. Why, then, should they be reproached for it?

Being the chosen people who had received the law only made them proud. It never grew into true faith. No matter how a son sins, his father’s goodness is not erased. In the same way, human falsehood and unfaithfulness cannot shake the truthfulness of God in the least. Human sin cannot bring God’s plan to a halt.

Though Israel rejected the gospel, God did not cast them off altogether. He raised up Paul, himself a Jew, to bring it to the Gentiles. Jew and Gentile alike, all are under sin, and repentance comes not through excuses but only by looking to the cross.

As he was about to go to Pharaoh, Moses asked God how he should answer when asked for God’s name. Forty years as a prince and forty as a shepherd had trained him, yet for all that he had no confidence in himself.

God gave the law to the Jews, but they made it a source of pride and mocked the Gentiles as blind. They preached against stealing and stole, forbade adultery and committed it, and went so far as to rob temples. They held circumcision to be the sign of salvation, but where the Word is not lived out, that circumcision is no different from uncircumcision.

Those who teach must first ask themselves whether they are living by that Word. A merely outward faith only dishonors God, and true circumcision is the one received in the heart by the Spirit. The greater the grace received, the more closely words and deeds need to agree, and that is how God is glorified.

When the Samaritan woman raised the question of where to worship, Jesus told her not to quarrel over it. True worship, he said, belongs neither to Jerusalem nor to Mount Gerizim; it is worship offered in spirit and in truth by those who know God as Father.

This does not make the place of worship unimportant. What matters is knowing fully the One to whom worship is offered. Because God shows no partiality, treating people differently for what they own or the position they hold is nothing but human sin. In his love, God sets one starting line for those whose faith is weak and another for those whose faith is strong, so that everyone may cross the finish line and win the race.

Even in seasons when the faithful cannot come to church, each can still worship wholeheartedly wherever they are. No one should compare themselves with others and count themselves unhappy. Standing in the place God has appointed, they must keep only thanksgiving and hope in their hearts and lay everything else down. Those who run in this way will cross the finish line without fail and be embraced in the arms of God.

Paul turns to those who judge others. Anyone who passes judgment on others while doing the very same things merely believes themselves to be perfect, when in truth they too are capable of that same sin. Such are those who do not see God’s kindness and patience as an opportunity to repent, but instead turn them to their own advantage.

Going to church, reading the Bible and praying give no one the right to condemn those who do not. To boast of them is to boast of doing what ought to be done in any case, and God looks not at the goodness that shows on the outside but at the heart. Like the guest who was invited to the wedding feast yet did not wear the wedding garment, such a person receives grace and forgets how weighty that grace is.

God repays each person justly, according to what they have done. To those who patiently do good he gives eternal life; on those who do not obey the truth but follow unrighteousness he brings wrath. Since the only opportunity to repent is now, while we are still in the body, we must put on the garment of salvation that Jesus Christ has given and live holy lives today.

Upon those who knew God and still rejected him, God revealed his wrath. He neither punished them outright nor brought them to repentance; instead he gave them over to their shameful desires. Sodom and Gomorrah, the decadence of Rome and the sexual immorality of our own day all bear witness to this.

Even rebuke and anger show that love lies beneath them. To be left alone, with no response at all, is the more fearful punishment. Without the Holy Spirit at work to bring a person to repentance, no one can walk away from sin by their own strength.

Because God’s people know the Kingdom of Heaven, they must be more watchful than the world around them. Satan labors without ceasing to make them stumble, yet those who rely on the Holy Spirit are well able to resist his temptations. Fixing one’s eyes on the world and on other people leads to a fall, but looking to Jesus Christ reveals how little that world is worth.

When the heavens and the earth were created, light drove back the formlessness, the emptiness and the darkness. God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yet Adam and Eve gave way to Satan’s temptation and broke that command. Ashamed of their nakedness, they then hid from God.

A heart that refuses the light remains captive to confusion, emptiness and darkness. What may be known about God is already within people, but once gratitude is lost, the pleasures of the flesh and idols move in to take its place. Just as Adam laid the blame for his own wrongdoing on Eve, people find fault with the work, the spouse and the health God has given them, and so evade their own responsibility.

Even those who deny God are without excuse, for what may be known about him is plainly displayed in all that he has made. We must therefore not forsake his love or suppress the truth, but love the light all the more and live lives of thanksgiving.