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Text: Romans 3:9-20 Reformation Pastor Nathan Dudley Meditation on the Law What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all!
We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one
who understands, no one who
seeks God. All have turned away, they have
together become worthless; there is no one
who does good, not even
one.” “Their throats are
open graves; their tongues
practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are
full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift
to shed blood; ruin and
misery mark their ways, and the way
of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of
God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who
are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held
accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by
observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. In the name of him who is coming to judge the world, dear
brothers and sisters in Christ: I’d like
to begin this morning with a little demonstration that (hopefully) will help
shed some light on the human condition under the Law of God. And for this demonstration, I’m going to need
a few assistants. [From the 7th/8th
grade class at CLS, choose three students known to be proficient in the field
of mathematics. Caution
congregation: if you figure out where
I’m going with this, for the sake of those who haven’t, please keep it to
yourself.] All right: now I’m
going to ask you each a math problem.
We’re going to see if you’re learning anything here at school. And I’ll warn you,
these problems get more difficult as we go along. Ready?
First question: if this classmate
[indicating the other assistants] has ten apples, and the other one has twenty
apples, what is the average number of apples possessed by each of the
two of them? [Student responds 15. Get other students to verify – and ask for
congregation show of hands for agreement.] Well, I guess that wasn’t too hard then. Next student: okay, let’s say this classmate
has fifty dollars. How many dollars does
the other student have to have in order for the average amount held by the two
of them to be seventy-five dollars?
[Student responds $100. Again,
get verification from students and congregation.] Hmm … I guess these aren’t as hard as I thought they were;
but we’ll put a new twist on this last one.
I understand you have been doing rate-time-distance problems
lately. So here goes: a racetrack is two miles around. For the first mile, a car travels thirty
miles an hour. So now it’s halfway
around the track. How fast will it have
to go in the second mile to average sixty miles an hour for the entire two-mile
lap? (Assume instantaneous acceleration
– no time lost in speeding up) [Student
responds 90 mph. Get other students and
congregation to verify.] That’s great. I guess
you guys really are learning something here.
[Thank and dismiss students and ask congregation to show their
appreciation.] Oh … wait just a minute.
There seems to be a mistake here.
[Ask third student to return.]
Tell me your answer again. … Are
you sure? Show of hands
again: who agrees with him? Are all of you sure? What if I told you that you were all
wrong? What if I said it’s absolutely
certain that 90 mph is not even close to the right answer to that
problem – and it’s not just because of some sneaky trick or play on words. Now, who is still pretty sure that 90 mph is
the right answer anyway? I agree that it seems that it should be the
right answer. It only makes sense that
if you go slowly to begin with, to make up it up, you have to go faster in the
second mile; but 90 mph won’t do it. As
a matter of fact, 190 mph won’t do it; neither will 900 mph. It makes no difference how fast you go; you
will still come up short of a 60 mph average.
And let me tell you why: it
happens that since there are 60 minutes in an hour, a car traveling 60 mph is
going exactly one mile per minute. So a
car averaging 60 mph would complete the two-mile course in exactly two
minutes. Now, a car traveling half that
speed, 30 mph, is going one half mile a minute.
So, when the car gets to the halfway point, one mile, it’s taken two
minutes to get there. What that means is
that at the halfway point, you’re out of time because to average sixty mph, at
two minutes you have to be crossing the finish line – and you’re still a whole
mile away from it. The fact is there is no
speed at which you can travel and still average 60 mph for this problem – you’d
have to be two places at the same time.
And like Engineer Scot used to say, “Captain, ya kenna defy the laws of
physics.” It just can’t be done. [Thank student again for being a good sport –
and assure him he was in good company with his mistake.] Now, that seemed like a simple problem with a simple answer,
didn’t it? And indeed it was – but the
answer was not what most of you thought at first. But you cannot defy the laws of physics. And But that, in and of itself, does not usually bother people
too much because the natural assumption is that there must be some way to make
it up. “Sure, I’ve fallen short. I’ve made mistakes and got behind. I’m have not lived
as I ought. But I can catch up. I’ll try harder, I’ll do more, I’ll go beyond
expectations in other places … then God will see what a good person I really
am.” This is the basic assumption that
lies behind all the world’s religions save Christianity: the notion that even though I am a sinner,
there is still something I can do to satisfy the requirements of the Divine
Judge (by whatever name he is called) and make it to that state of
paradise. And so they have their
sacrifices, and prayers, and pilgrimages, and self-denials, and cleansing
ceremonies, and who knows what else, all designed to make up for the past. To that must be added then all kinds of
positive acts of kindness, generosity, and hospitality that earn positive
credits worthy of consideration in the final judgment. And it only makes sense. It seems to be the right answer. If God is fair, he must reward us for doing
good things. Even we who are Christians are ingrained with this natural
but mistaken idea. God has given us the
Law, and it’s our duty to try to obey it.
The harder we try, the more pleasing it will be to him. And when we fall short, then there’s surely a
way to make it up to him. Over the centuries,
people within the Christian Church have come up with lots of ways to do
it. In Luther’s day it was to fast and
pray, and to visit certain sacred sites, and to donate money to the church; and
there were many other ways. Today we’ve
changed the scale a bit, we have different ideas about what earns credit; but
the same basic notion motivates us. We
want God to see how hard we are trying to please him thinking that that will
atone for the sins of the past and win for us a place among his saints. We want so much to be worthy of his love. And “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one
who understands, no one who
seeks God. All have turned away, they have
together become worthless; there is no one
who does good, not even
one.” God did not give us his holy Law so that we would know how
to amend our sinful behavior. He did not
give it to us in the hopes that we would try harder to obey. He gave it to reveal our sinful
behavior. He gave it to show us how sick
and incapacitated we really are. He gave
it to show us that we cannot save ourselves.
Trying to please God by obeying the Law is like jumping out of an
airplane with an extension ladder instead of a parachute, thinking that you’re
making upward progress if, as you fall, you climb the ladder. No matter how fast you climb, you’re still
falling at the same rate. And you’re
going to hit the ground just as hard.
You can’t defy the laws of physics.
And neither can you defy the laws of God – but each and every one of us
has. “Therefore no one will be
declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law
we become conscious of sin.” Meditation on the Gospel Text: Romans 3:21-28 Pastor Ken
Lampe But now a righteousness from God,
apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who
believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that
came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through
faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his
forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to
demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who
justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On
what principle? On that of observing the law?
No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith
apart from observing the law. Having
heard what God expects, and feeling the desperation that comes from our
inability to do the right and to avoid evil – now what? Do we determine that the thing to do is just muddle
our way through hours, days, and years to do the best we can anyway? Perhaps God will give us an “A” for effort
and overlook our moments of stubborn unwillingness to obey. Maybe he’ll just close his eyes to all our
grudges and our refusal to forgive others. Or do we,
on the other hand, beat ourselves down with our guilt; realizing that we are
“unworthy sinners” who fully deserve God’s anger and punishment. Perhaps we get so convinced of our
worthlessness that we begin to do whatever we want because there’s no way to
win the prize anyway. Or maybe we
imagine that if we end our life that will make everything better somehow … or
at least it will stop the pain. Or do we
work like fiends, sacrificing and giving, or tying up our lives in tight packages
of “do’s” and “don’ts” for every possible
situation? Perhaps if every action and
word is compared to a reachable standard we can be good enough. Maybe we can do enough, contribute enough,
and close our eyes to all the rotten stuff that keeps surfacing in our lives
and hearts. God has the
better, the best, really the only plan to remedy our life and situation. But what a strange plan it seems to be: “But now a righteousness from God …”. “This
righteousness from God …”. It’s his righteousness, not ours. We can’t; but he can and did. He is the Creator. We are the created. He gives.
We receive. It’s his answer; not
ours. Only he is 100% right and perfect;
we are not. Only he is almighty. How
strange. His Son is born a man and lives
in perfect obedience. Jesus takes our
guilt and punishment, and in exchange we receive his righteousness with
God. He goes to the cross to die so that
we receive a crown of life. He
pays the price; we receive the product of peace with God. But that’s
not enough. He even creates in us love
for Christ and trust in him. The Holy
Spirit invites, calls, and summons us.
He softens our minds and hearts so that we can receive Christ as Savior
and Lord. He opens our eyes to see God
at work in our lives. He gives us his
Word in the Scriptures. Christ gives us
his body and blood in Holy Communion.
The Holy Spirit daily reassures us of forgiveness and God’s presence in
our lives. All this
and much more God does for us and gives us.
It comes not because we are good enough, not because of our skill,
power, wisdom, intelligence, or ability.
No, it comes because God wants us as his children who will receive all
that he, our Father, wants to give. God brings
healing and peace with Him to someone like proud,
weak-kneed Peter. He gives them to the
murderer and persecutor Paul, to an adulterous woman who lived with one man
after another, to a robber and a thief.
He brings this gift of being made right with him through Christ’s
payment as a gift to you and to me. What a God
our God is! What a marvelous thing he
has accomplished! The wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Meditation on the Christian Life Text: Romans 6:1-14 Pastor
Gary Jaeckle What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that
grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any
longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism
into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we
will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For
we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might
be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who
has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live
with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die
again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin
once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to
God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not
let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not
offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer
the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall
not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. In his
message, Pastor Jaeckle made the point that some things are done “so that”
other things can be done. They are not
ends in themselves. For instance, people
put on warms clothing so that they don’t get cold when they go
outside. They go shopping for groceries so
that they can eat. They buy beds so
that they have a place to sleep. He
said that he sat down to study the Scriptures early in the week so that
he’d have something to preach about on Sunday and sound like he knew what he
was talking about. God’s Law
and Gospel are like that as well. The
Law is not an end in itself. It’s given
to us so that we see our sin and seek another solution. Even the Gospel is not an end in itself. Jesus gave himself over to death on the cross
to redeem us so that something could happen. This section of Romans explains what the “so
that” is. He did it so that we
could have a new and holy life to the glory of God. We were
baptized into the death of Jesus so that we could die with him. We were baptized into his death and burial so
that we could be raised with him. We
rise again with him so that we can walk in newness of life in time and
eternity. We were crucified with him so
that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we should no
longer be slaves to sin. And turning to Luther’s
explanation of the second article of the Apostles Creed, Pastor Jaeckle
concluded that Christ suffered and died for our sin, so that we may be
his own, and so that we may live under him in his kingdom, and so
that we may live before him in holiness and purity forever. Soli Deo
Gloria! |
