So far this Lenten Season we have been following along through the epistle readings listening to Paul’s words to the Christians in Rome and in Ephesus, and we have been reminded that his words to the Romans and the Ephesians are also God’s Word to us today here at St. Matthew Lutheran Church. For those of us who have been Lutheran for more than a little while, Paul’s words are no longer surprising, but are very comforting and even this morning we continue to be given comfort and hope through his unsurprising words, words which remind us of our sin but even more, words which remind us of our Gracious and Loving God who has taken care of, continues to take care of and will always take care of everything, including our eternal well being, for us.
In our text for today, Paul begins by laying out the demands of the law. We begin at verse one (v. 1-8), “1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Perhaps it would do us well to understand the demands of the law. If we do not understand the demands of the law then we might think that we can keep the law, after all, we understand many of the laws of our country, city and state and we do pretty well at keeping them. Maybe we can keep the demands of the law of God, if we knew what was demanded. Simply stated, the law of God demands perfection, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” To be perfect means to be born in perfection, to live in perfection and to enter heaven in perfection. Oh, well, so much for that idea, remember, we are conceived and born in sin, so we are at a lose from the very start. Simply stated, the law of God demands perfection and simply stated, we cannot be perfect, no matter how hard we might try and believe me, many people try and even many churches teach that you can reach perfection by being obedient to God’s Word.
Paul explains our imperfection by stating that our minds are set on things of the flesh. How are our minds set on the things of the flesh? To get an answer to that question, simply look at how you spend your time, where you spend your treasure, what you do with your talents and abilities. God gives 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. How much of that time do you spend with Him? One hour on Sunday, maybe two if you attend Bible Class. If you say the Lord’s prayer every morning, along with Luther’s morning prayer, say before and after meal prayers, and Luther’s evening prayer before bed, that amounts to a total of about 8 minutes of time spent with God a day. If you add that 8 minutes a day plus the one or two hours of church and Bible class that amounts to about two to three hours a week out of the 168 hours he gives you a week. That is simply speaking about our time. But what about our treasure, where do we spend our treasure? Remembering that everything we have is a gift from God, in one way or another, does our distribution of our treasure suggest where our heart is? Matthew says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And what about our talents and abilities, do we use those in service to the Lord, or for our own well being? Are our minds set on things above or on things of the earth?
Again, our minds are set on the things of the flesh when we spend our time and energy on the things of this world with little or no regard for the world to come. Jesus warned of how people were in the days of Noah, right before the flood and of the people of Sodom and Gomorah right before their destruction and how the people had no thought for anything except living their lives in this world, to their fullest, meaning as decadent as they might live. People were marrying and being given into marriage, eating, drinking and being merry with no thought of their eternal well being. How often do we find ourselves channeling all our energies into the lives of our children and grand children, running here and there for sports games, music practices, and other lessons, focusing our own attention on our own clubs and events, allowing for our work and play to interfere with our spiritual lives. Yes, we are guilty because we do walk, continually, in the flesh.
Paul urges us to walk in the Spirit. We pick up at verse nine (v. 9-11), “9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Thanks be to God that Jesus took care of the demands of the law through His perfect life. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit making Him true God and truly perfect.
Not only was Jesus born perfect, He took care of the demands of the Law, through living perfectly according to all the Laws of God. Jesus fulfilled all the Law, perfectly. Jesus also fulfilled all the promises, that is the prophecies of God, perfectly. He actively, perfectly fulfilled all that God had demanded. And He passively allowed Himself to be crucified. Through His perfect obedience, suffering, death and resurrection He completed the demands of the law, that is He paid the price for our sins of not being able to keep the law, He paid the eternal death penalty of hell.
Not only was Jesus born perfect, not only did He take care of the demands of the law, perfectly, Jesus also, now gives us His perfection. By faith in Jesus, when God looks at us, He no longer sees the imperfect sinners we are, instead He sees Christ’s perfection covering us.
Martin Luther used a fitting phrase to describe us. He said we are at the same time sinner and saint. We are and continue to be sinners. We cannot help but sin, remember, that is our nature. We cannot help but continue to get our priorities confused, spending more time on our lives in this world instead of our lives in the world to come. And I do not say that to give us an excuse, rather I say that as an encouragement to struggle, with God’s help to work to get our priorities right.
We are and we continue to be sinners. We cannot save ourselves. There is nothing we can do to pay off the sins we have committed. There is nothing we can do to reduce the punishment for our sins. There is nothing we can do to appease our just God who demands perfection. And remember what I said earlier about some churches teaching how you can be obedient with the goal of becoming more and more like Jesus and they would continue and say that this obedience is done so that you might be a mentor to help others be obedient. Of course, if this belief were true, then why would we need Jesus. As we understand our sinner/saint nature, we understand that the more we grow in our faith, the more we realize just how sinful we truly are and the more we need to cling to Jesus for forgiveness.
Thanks be to God that there is nothing we need to do, because Jesus has done all that is necessary to save us. Jesus has been perfect for us, in our stead. Jesus has faithfully and fully satisfied the demands of His own law, the law of God. And what He has done He freely has done for us and gives to us.
Because of all that Jesus has done, we are and will continue, by faith, to be saints. A saint is one who has eternal life in heaven. By faith in Jesus we have eternal life in heaven. This eternal life is not something we will have, but is something we have right now. Certainly we will not move in until we pass away from this world, or until the Lord returns, but it is ours now.
Not only has Jesus taken care of and given everything to us, He also continues to send His Holy Spirit who continues to work in us to do the good works which God has for us to do. Notice again, as is the case week in and week out, where is our focus. Our focus is always away from us. We do not focus on ourselves because we sin and mess everything up. Thus, our focus in always and only on Jesus who gets everything right, who does everything for us, who has taken care of all that needs to be done and who gives everything to us.
What does this mean? As we live in this world and we will live in this world for anywhere from one day (from the moment of conception) to a hundred years or a few more, as we live in this world we will constantly face temptation and sin. We will constantly fail and fall into sin. We will constantly sin. We will get our priorities mixed up. We will fail to be in worship and Bible Class as often as we are able. We will fail to give to our Lord as He has given to us, that is we will fail to give until it feels good. We will fail to use our talents and abilities for service to our Lord in His kingdom. That is our nature and our Lord knows it and yet, that is no excuse. At the same time, we will continually, constantly, as often as we are in Divine Service and as often as we remember in our own prayer life, we will confess our sins and hear our Lord’s most beautiful words of absolution, “Your sins are forgiven.” And so there will be this temptation, sin and confession and absolution battle going on in our lives until the end.
As we live in this world we will try to do what is right but we will fail, we will sin. It is amazing how we struggle and try to do what is right, but we sin anyway. We constantly fall back to what we know, living according to the flesh.
Thanks be to God that Christ has done what is right and continues to give us forgiveness. Thanks be to God that Christ is in us. He is in us as He comes to us through His means of grace. He is in us as He has come into us through His Word. He is in us as He has come in us through Holy Baptism. He is in us as He comes to us through Confession and Absolution and through His Holy Supper. Again, reminding us of the importance of making regular and diligent use of these means of grace.
What a wonderful example of what Paul is speaking about that we have in the Old Testament reading and in the Gospel reading for this morning. In both these readings we hear of the dead being raised to life. That is exactly what Paul is talking about in regards to each one of us. By nature we are spiritually blind, spiritually dead and enemies of God. Yet our Lord comes to us to raise us up, to give us new life, to open our eyes and to bring us back into right standing with Him. And He continues to send His Holy Spirit to help us to be, even if only imperfectly, the people He would have us to be. Thanks be to God that He has taken care of everything, gives everything to us and continues to do so. To Him be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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