Sermon, Sunday May 10 2009
Fifth Sunday in Easter
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The great Lutheran theologian Francis Pieper once wrote that there are only two religions in the world; religion of the Gospel and religion of the law. And between these two groups there really is no common understanding of the word ‘religion.’
We speak of religion today as if there really isn’t that big a difference between various religions, and that ultimately it doesn’t really matter what religion we ascribe to. But when you break religions down to religion of the Gospel and religion of the law and you take a good, honest, objective look at scripture, then you would see that, when it comes to our very salvation, to being reconciled to God, when it comes to the forgiveness of our sin-God’s Word tells us otherwise. God’s Word tells us that it does matter.
For you see, what religion means to those who ascribe to religion of law is completely different from what it means to those who ascribe to religion of the Gospel. Those who ascribe to religion of law do not really know the Gospel, but do have some knowledge of the law, for the law is written on all of our hearts. So for them, religion is simply the means for humanity to appease God through their own best-efforts-be it good works, worship, social-justice causes, moralism or whatever.
But religion of the Gospel is completely different from religion of the law. For those who ascribe to religion of the Gospel-religion is simply this-faith in the Gospel. It is not a vague, nebulous non-descript faith that says, “…it doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you believe something.” No, religion of the Gospel is simply what it says it is-faith in the Gospel-faith in the glorious promise that through the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus you have been reconciled to God-faith in the promise that Paul writes in Galatians-that we are not justified by works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ and that in that faith we obtain the forgiveness of sins.
And our Lord Jesus comes to us today in the Gospel lesson telling us, quite simply, what it means to be of the religion of the Gospel. For you see the religion of the Gospel has as it’s very origin-the Almighty God, Creator of the universe, and so we know the religion of the Gospel is true and bursting with new-life and God’s promises. Whereas the religion of the law originates with humans, and as such is doomed to failure and ultimately leads only to death and condemnation.
Christ Jesus comes to you in the Gospel lesson this morning telling you that He is the Vine and you are the branches-that you are cleansed by the Word spoken over you in the waters of baptism. He is the Vine who abides in you so that when you abide in Him you will bear fruit, but apart from Him you can do nothing. And so to be of the religion of the Gospel is nothing other than to abide in Christ Jesus as He abides in you so that you will bear fruit.
But the temptation of sin and the devil are still around and still try to lure you back to religion of the law. Religion of the law is what our sinful nature just naturally gravitates us toward. We actually like the religion of the law because it is inherently human-centered. We like it because it gives us the illusion that we are the ones in control. We like religion of the law because we fool ourselves into thinking that it gives us a way to live by sight rather than by faith.
But in spite of our best efforts to make the religion of the law palatable and workable for us, we inevitably end up running into the complete and utter futility of the religion of the law. For to live by this is to abide in oneself and to abide in things of this world, this broken and sinful world. And to put your hope in or abide in anything of this world only leads to despair; be it despair from financial struggles related to job lay-offs or from continued health problems related to Cancer or some other disease that you can’t seem to get a grip of, or maybe problems in your marriage or some of your other relationships or any other struggles that this world throws at you.
When you embrace religion which can be boiled down to nothing more than your efforts to appease God through your good works and receive what you perceive as your due rewards, you are going to be vastly disappointed, and you will fall into despair. And so when things don’t go quite the way you were hoping in your quest to control the law; sin, death and the devil will come in and seek to convince you that all of the struggles that this world throws at you are your fault, or that they are evidence that God has abandoned you, or that your faith must not be strong enough-otherwise you surely wouldn’t be going through these struggles. Or maybe you’ll be left thinking that perhaps God doesn’t exist.
And our Lord Jesus tells us this morning that this can have deadly results for He says that those who do not abide in Him are thrown away like a branch and withers, and that these branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.
But that is not what you Father in Heaven wants, and so He sends His Son so that you would know He does exist and does love you and does care for you and He has not abandoned you, and He does not want you to be thrown away into the fire and so the Spirit comes to you and tells you again to abide in God’s only Son Christ Jesus. And Christ Jesus Himself has a role in this. He does not leave this up to you, for He promises in this passage that you have been cleansed already by His Word. It’s done.
Not even your faith is your work. For Christ Jesus calls you to abide in Him and He does the very thing that brings forth faith in people-laying down His life for you, and in doing this God shows His love for you, for John writes in the second lesson that it was in that way, through God sending His Son into the world to be the atoning sacrifice for your sins, that God’s love was revealed among us. And this was done so that we might live through Him. And the new life we receive in Him which gives us hope and promise beyond this broken and sinful world, we receive through faith. Ultimately faith is the fruit that He produces in us-and frees us to please God by loving and serving our neighbor.
Christ Jesus wants nothing less for you than for you to abide in Him that He may continue to abide in you, so that your place with Him in His eternal Kingdom will be preserved. And on your own this could not happen. On your own you would continue to wallow in the despair of religion of the law. On your own you are merely lost and condemned under the accusations of sin, death and the devil.
And for this reason, it was absolutely necessary that Christ Jesus come into the world and place Himself into the very hands of His enemies and betrayers so that in laying down His life for you, God’s love would be revealed as your sins were atoned for, and so that in His resurrection a new world, beyond this broken and sinful world that offers only despair, hopelessness and condemnation-that a new world would be opened up for you, a new world bursting forth with promises and hope beyond the despair of this world.
And so as you find yourself perhaps searching and clinging for hope, searching for answers, the One who abides in you so that you might abide in Him comes to you in a Word proclaimed to you through the Words of my mouth, calling you to abide in Him.
This is the case of the Ethiopian eunuch from the lesson from Acts who found himself reading the words of the prophet Isaiah not really knowing what to make of them. And so a preacher is sent to Him so that He would come to the knowledge of the truth of the Gospel-for it says that Phillip started with the scripture from Isaiah; and so we can assume that Phillip revealed to him that all of scripture testifies of Christ Jesus. And Phillip proclaimed to him the good news, and so this Ethiopian eunuch was freed from the shackles of religion of the law that leads only to death and despair, and called into the glorious freedom and eternal life that comes from religion of the Gospel.
And so it is for you today, as Christ Jesus comes to you declaring again that He is the Vine and that you are the branches, and that He is abiding in you that you will abide in Him-that He is the Vine Who sustains you and nourishes you, with His glorious promises and His good gifts of faith-comforting you, strengthening you, forgiving you when you are troubled and in despair, because it is His will that you would not be cast aside, but that you would live with Him in His eternal Kingdom.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The great Lutheran theologian Francis Pieper once wrote that there are only two religions in the world; religion of the Gospel and religion of the law. And between these two groups there really is no common understanding of the word ‘religion.’
We speak of religion today as if there really isn’t that big a difference between various religions, and that ultimately it doesn’t really matter what religion we ascribe to. But when you break religions down to religion of the Gospel and religion of the law and you take a good, honest, objective look at scripture, then you would see that, when it comes to our very salvation, to being reconciled to God, when it comes to the forgiveness of our sin-God’s Word tells us otherwise. God’s Word tells us that it does matter.
For you see, what religion means to those who ascribe to religion of law is completely different from what it means to those who ascribe to religion of the Gospel. Those who ascribe to religion of law do not really know the Gospel, but do have some knowledge of the law, for the law is written on all of our hearts. So for them, religion is simply the means for humanity to appease God through their own best-efforts-be it good works, worship, social-justice causes, moralism or whatever.
But religion of the Gospel is completely different from religion of the law. For those who ascribe to religion of the Gospel-religion is simply this-faith in the Gospel. It is not a vague, nebulous non-descript faith that says, “…it doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you believe something.” No, religion of the Gospel is simply what it says it is-faith in the Gospel-faith in the glorious promise that through the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus you have been reconciled to God-faith in the promise that Paul writes in Galatians-that we are not justified by works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ and that in that faith we obtain the forgiveness of sins.
And our Lord Jesus comes to us today in the Gospel lesson telling us, quite simply, what it means to be of the religion of the Gospel. For you see the religion of the Gospel has as it’s very origin-the Almighty God, Creator of the universe, and so we know the religion of the Gospel is true and bursting with new-life and God’s promises. Whereas the religion of the law originates with humans, and as such is doomed to failure and ultimately leads only to death and condemnation.
Christ Jesus comes to you in the Gospel lesson this morning telling you that He is the Vine and you are the branches-that you are cleansed by the Word spoken over you in the waters of baptism. He is the Vine who abides in you so that when you abide in Him you will bear fruit, but apart from Him you can do nothing. And so to be of the religion of the Gospel is nothing other than to abide in Christ Jesus as He abides in you so that you will bear fruit.
But the temptation of sin and the devil are still around and still try to lure you back to religion of the law. Religion of the law is what our sinful nature just naturally gravitates us toward. We actually like the religion of the law because it is inherently human-centered. We like it because it gives us the illusion that we are the ones in control. We like religion of the law because we fool ourselves into thinking that it gives us a way to live by sight rather than by faith.
But in spite of our best efforts to make the religion of the law palatable and workable for us, we inevitably end up running into the complete and utter futility of the religion of the law. For to live by this is to abide in oneself and to abide in things of this world, this broken and sinful world. And to put your hope in or abide in anything of this world only leads to despair; be it despair from financial struggles related to job lay-offs or from continued health problems related to Cancer or some other disease that you can’t seem to get a grip of, or maybe problems in your marriage or some of your other relationships or any other struggles that this world throws at you.
When you embrace religion which can be boiled down to nothing more than your efforts to appease God through your good works and receive what you perceive as your due rewards, you are going to be vastly disappointed, and you will fall into despair. And so when things don’t go quite the way you were hoping in your quest to control the law; sin, death and the devil will come in and seek to convince you that all of the struggles that this world throws at you are your fault, or that they are evidence that God has abandoned you, or that your faith must not be strong enough-otherwise you surely wouldn’t be going through these struggles. Or maybe you’ll be left thinking that perhaps God doesn’t exist.
And our Lord Jesus tells us this morning that this can have deadly results for He says that those who do not abide in Him are thrown away like a branch and withers, and that these branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.
But that is not what you Father in Heaven wants, and so He sends His Son so that you would know He does exist and does love you and does care for you and He has not abandoned you, and He does not want you to be thrown away into the fire and so the Spirit comes to you and tells you again to abide in God’s only Son Christ Jesus. And Christ Jesus Himself has a role in this. He does not leave this up to you, for He promises in this passage that you have been cleansed already by His Word. It’s done.
Not even your faith is your work. For Christ Jesus calls you to abide in Him and He does the very thing that brings forth faith in people-laying down His life for you, and in doing this God shows His love for you, for John writes in the second lesson that it was in that way, through God sending His Son into the world to be the atoning sacrifice for your sins, that God’s love was revealed among us. And this was done so that we might live through Him. And the new life we receive in Him which gives us hope and promise beyond this broken and sinful world, we receive through faith. Ultimately faith is the fruit that He produces in us-and frees us to please God by loving and serving our neighbor.
Christ Jesus wants nothing less for you than for you to abide in Him that He may continue to abide in you, so that your place with Him in His eternal Kingdom will be preserved. And on your own this could not happen. On your own you would continue to wallow in the despair of religion of the law. On your own you are merely lost and condemned under the accusations of sin, death and the devil.
And for this reason, it was absolutely necessary that Christ Jesus come into the world and place Himself into the very hands of His enemies and betrayers so that in laying down His life for you, God’s love would be revealed as your sins were atoned for, and so that in His resurrection a new world, beyond this broken and sinful world that offers only despair, hopelessness and condemnation-that a new world would be opened up for you, a new world bursting forth with promises and hope beyond the despair of this world.
And so as you find yourself perhaps searching and clinging for hope, searching for answers, the One who abides in you so that you might abide in Him comes to you in a Word proclaimed to you through the Words of my mouth, calling you to abide in Him.
This is the case of the Ethiopian eunuch from the lesson from Acts who found himself reading the words of the prophet Isaiah not really knowing what to make of them. And so a preacher is sent to Him so that He would come to the knowledge of the truth of the Gospel-for it says that Phillip started with the scripture from Isaiah; and so we can assume that Phillip revealed to him that all of scripture testifies of Christ Jesus. And Phillip proclaimed to him the good news, and so this Ethiopian eunuch was freed from the shackles of religion of the law that leads only to death and despair, and called into the glorious freedom and eternal life that comes from religion of the Gospel.
And so it is for you today, as Christ Jesus comes to you declaring again that He is the Vine and that you are the branches, and that He is abiding in you that you will abide in Him-that He is the Vine Who sustains you and nourishes you, with His glorious promises and His good gifts of faith-comforting you, strengthening you, forgiving you when you are troubled and in despair, because it is His will that you would not be cast aside, but that you would live with Him in His eternal Kingdom.
Amen
posted by Steve at 11:11 AM
1 Comments:
Nice sermon, although I wished you would have continued the connection btw the 2 religions you described at the beginning.
Post a Comment
<< Home