A, Post-Pentecost 16 Proper 19 - Matthew 18:21-22 Romans 14:7-12 "Living and Dying to Forgive"

Matthew 18:21–22 (ESV)  Then Peter came up and said to Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  As many as seven times?”  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Peter questions Jesus, “How often should I forgive?”  This question doesn’t occur out of the blue, in a vacuum! 

Over the past four weeks we’ve heard Jesus teach the disciples about his purpose on earth!  He was leading and teaching them about life and death, forgiveness, binding sin and loosing sinners.  His life was the perfection of God’s vertical and horizontal will; to be your forgiveness so you can forgive!

We heard some weeks back, Peter confessing Jesus as, “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)  Jesus goes on to tell Peter his confession, although coming from his lips, came from God.  God was working through Peter, in his confession!  Similarly, Jesus, the Son of God, was going to build his church on Peter, which means rock, and give him the keys to bind and loose.

Yet it doesn’t go well for Peter, as Jesus begins telling the disciples about his death and resurrection.  Peter takes Jesus aside to give him a talking to, since he is now the newly confessed rock on which Jesus’ church will be built.  But it is Peter who is given a verbal dressing down, as Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a hindrance to me.  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”  (Matthew 16:23 ESV)

It's here Jesus completely puzzled the disciples.  With what seems like a riddle, he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  (Matthew 16:24 ESV) 

How can one choose or prefer to reject oneself, take up one’s death and follow Jesus?

In Matthew’s Gospel account, the transfiguration happens next.  Coming down the mountain Jesus speaks again about this strange phenomenon of “being woken from death”, commanding them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” (Matthew 17:9 ESV)

After this, there’s an incident where a son who suffers from seizures could not be healed by the disciples.   Jesus coins a name for them, calling them, “you little-faiths” and tells them nothing will be impossible for them, even with faith like a grain of mustard seed!  (Matthew 17:20)

They gather together in Galilee.  Again, Jesus says to them, “‘The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men,  and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.’ And they were greatly distressed.”  (Matthew 17:22–23 ESV)  They were listening to Jesus as God commanded them on the mountain.   But they had no idea and little faith on how or why Jesus needed to die!

The tension builds for Jesus and the disciples!  As they move towards this deathly event, they did not understand this new kingdom of the church, was to be built on Jesus’ death and resurrection.   They had little faith in forgiveness!  Little faith in how humanity would be set free!  Little faith in how Jesus could be the sacrifice for sin! That it would come down to sin being bound to Jesus when he was nailed to the cross to die.  And they had completely no idea that the life of the church would require their daily death, which would propel most of them onto martyrdom!

Furthermore, they had no concept of the resurrection from the dead!  And why should they have?  Death was the great leveller, no one could get past it, and no one could be raised again to life.  Atonement for sin came through the sacrifice of animals under Levitical Law, and life after death was not an earthly resurrection.  

Peter again takes centre stage as Jesus asked, “‘What do you think, Simon?  From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax?  From their sons or from others?’  And when he said, ‘From others,’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the sons are free’”.  (Matthew 17:25–26 ESV)

Here Jesus speaks about freedom of a king’s sons, they pay no tax, they are not bound, but are loosed from paying tax.   But the disciples with “little faith” ask Jesus, “The Greatest” in the kingdom of heaven,  “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  (Matthew 18:1 ESV)  To which Jesus puts a little one in the midst of the “little faith” disciples and tells a number of stories about receiving little ones, temptations, and not despising the little ones, but rather seeking them out like lost sheep.

Last week we heard more about binding and loosing for forgiveness.  Jesus put a little child in front of the disciples with little faith, to make his point about binding and loosing through receiving and  not hindering the little ones from perishing. 

However, what Jesus was showing the disciples, and what he seeks to teach in his word, is forgiveness is what he and his church is about!  Without forgiveness won through the cross, and new life through the resurrection, Jesus’ church does not exist, Peter cannot be the rock of Jesus’ church.  And there is no calling humanity to repentance and forgiveness at Pentecost, today, or until Jesus returns.

So, what does all this mean for us today, as we look forward to the return of Jesus, when he physically and visually returns again, or as we meet him in our death and resurrection from the grave, just as many who have gone before us lie in the grave in hope?

Peter asks Jesus how many times to forgive?

Jesus gives a parable about the King who forgives a servant a large debt who in his wickedness does not do the same for his fellow servant’s small debt.  This is a reminder of the vertical and horizontal will of God, to forgive as you have been forgiven.

What does this require of us?  We find the answer in Romans chapter fourteen…

“For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.  For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.  So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.  Why do you pass judgment on your brother?  Or you, why do you despise your brother?  For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;  for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”  So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.”  (Romans 14:7–12 ESV) 

If one is a child of God, it requires a death within.  It required the death of the Greatest in the Kingdom of heaven on the cross.  Now Jesus requires that, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  (Matthew 16:24 ESV) 

How can one choose or prefer to reject oneself, take up one’s death and follow Jesus?

How does one not live for themselves?  How does one not die to themselves? How do we live to the Lord?  And how do we die to the Lord?  What is this death?

These are important questions since all will stand before the judgment seat of God.  As Paul tells the Romans, he tells us, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”  (Romans 14:4 ESV) 

When one sits down and reads these pages from Matthew’s Gospel as a whole, one will begin to see Jesus preparing the disciples, little by little, for his death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins.

When you daily allow the drowning of the old sinful nature in your baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection and allow the Holy Spirit to open your heart to his word, you too are being prepared!

This is the centre of God’s will for humanity, for you!  Beginning at the cross, forgiveness was carried from it, by Peter and the apostles, to Jesus’ church of Jews and gentiles!  You and me!

Jesus makes it clear what happens to those who don’t forgive like the forgiven wicked servant, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”  (Matthew 18:35 ESV)

Paul also warns those who pass judgment, putting stumbling blocks in the way of others, rather than making judgments in love that seeks forgiveness, peace and the mutual upbuilding that serves Jesus Christ.  Just as he has served us.

The Romans judged and bound others over what one ate or drank.  But Paul corrects them, saying, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  (Romans 14:17 ESV)

For us to forgive as we have been forgiven, the Holy Spirit is given to work remembrance.  He returns us to the foot of the cross with our sin to receive the great forgiveness of Jesus the Greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.  He became the least and allow the Holy Spirit to lead him to the cross, of death and forgiveness.  In the same way the Holy Spirit is leading us all to a daily death of self, and a resurrection to take up one’s cross to follow Jesus to eternal life!

We are the little one’s of God.  Like Peter and the disciples, we struggle with little faith, and need the Holy Spirit to continually deliver us from ourselves, into the death of Jesus Christ, for the righteousness and peace, that forgiveness brings and gives. 

In God the Holy Spirit doing this, we can live as one church under the headship of Christ, with joy in the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A, Post-Pentecost 15 Proper 18 - Matthew 18:15–20 "Remember & Forgive"

Matthew 18:15–20 (ESV)  “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.  But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.  Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

At the beginning of most Lutheran Services on a Sunday morning, we begin the new week confessing our sins for the past week and have them forgiven. 

We are forgiven, then we are fed with the word of God and Jesus’ body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.  Here again in the sacrament, we receive forgiveness of sins together with life and salvation.  You and I receive forgiveness for our sins while we endure here on earth, until we are taken to be with God.

God’s forgiveness of sin focuses us on the forgiving of our sin through our confession, together with his absolution, through words of forgiveness spoken by the pastor as his earthly representative.  One can view this forgiveness as God’s will being done in heaven, just as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer.  This is the vertical will of God!

However, this is only one half of God’s will!  We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven!  What is God’s will for us on earth? 

As we also pray in the Lord’s Prayer, it is to forgive as we have been forgiven!  This is the horizontal will of God!

In the next couple of weeks as we hear the Gospel reading, we have opportunity to let God open us up so we can examine ourselves through the lens of this horizontal human to human forgiveness. 

In being forgiven we are invited to reflect on our forgiveness of others, and consider how we react within when we see others receive forgiveness.

Someone reminded me of the saying,  “We are to forgive and forget!”  At face value it sounds like a reasonable statement.  But in reality, who, ever really forgives and forgets?  Even when the most gracious person is wronged, they will not forget!  They’ll be just a little more cautious around the perpetrator next time.

However, the centrality of forgiveness is God’s will!  Forgiveness is the daily bread of our lives in Christ, as we are raised to new life, through the daily drowning of our old sinful nature.

At the cross the centrality of God’s vertical forgiveness meets the painful reality and suffering of the horizontal forgiveness we are called to share with each other.

Luke’s Gospel account of the crucifixion most clearly demonstrates the forgiveness theme of God’s will in Jesus Christ’s death!  We hear, “And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.  And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:33–34 ESV)

Outside of Luke’s Gospel account, both criminals writhed in agony on their crosses and railed at Jesus to save himself and them.  In Luke however, one of the criminals has a lucid moment of faith in his agony, realising Jesus as his Saviour, and the King of a kingdom greater than any earthly kingdom’s pleasure or pain.

We hear again, “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ?  Save yourself and us!”  But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”  And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”  (Luke 23:39–43 ESV)

Put yourself in the place of pain on the cross?  Would you ask Jesus to forgive you or free you from the cross?  If you were in Jesus’ place, suffering because of society’s sin, would you be able to forgive them, knowing that their sin is the reason for your looming death?

Forgiveness of another’s sin is the hardest thing we as Christians are called to do.  But after confessing our sin and telling others about our forgiveness because we believe, forgiving others is the next most important good work we do for their benefit to the glory of God.

In fact, this is all part of the believer’s new obedience in accord with the vertical and horizontal will of God to forgive each other as God has forgiven us.

The Lutheran Confessions tell us, “we cannot love God unless we have received the forgiveness of sin”[1].  Furthermore, we show God’s love by forgiving those who sin against us!  Just as God gives, just as Jesus gives, we need the Holy Spirit to work in us the ability to forgive.

Saint Paul tells us, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  …put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”  (Romans 13:8, 14 ESV)

Our old nature’s desire within, is not to put on Jesus Christ.  Rather, our flesh delights in having power over others, by not forgetting and withholding forgiveness, because of the wrong they’ve done.  In remembering their sin, the victim adds their sin to the perpetrator’s sin.

Jesus approaches our difficulty to forgive by calling us to name sin.  That’s a hard thing to do.  We can only do so by calling on God in prayer for the Holy Spirit’s help to do so.  In our fear to name sin and bring it to account, we actually leave the sin unlocked and loose.  And when we try to forgive and forget, we invariably do the opposite by remembering and adding our own sin to their sin!

However, Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  (Matthew 18:18 ESV)

This is the second time Jesus has spoken about binding and loosing!  God’s church is built on binding and loosing!  It is the key to the church because it’s the key to God’s will.  Here in Matthew eighteen Jesus speaks to the disciples in the plural, when one sins against another.  This is horizontal love shown through our forgiveness of each other!

Previously Jesus spoke individually to Peter as the rock on which the church would be built, saying, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19 ESV)

This is the vertical love God shows to the church by forgiving us our sins through confession and absolution!

However, like Peter, by our own will, we bind and loose the wrong thing.  He sought to bind his sinful self to Jesus by not allowing Jesus to be bound to the cross.  In doing so he was freeing his sinful self and seeking to separate Jesus our Saviour from the will of God.

Australians for whatever reason, don’t deal well with righting wrongs!  When someone says, “Sorry!”  We usually reply, “No!  It doesn’t matter!”   But it does matter, lest the person would not have said sorry in the first place.

When we do not deal with each other’s sin appropriately, by not naming it or overlooking it, we set the sin free and bind the person!

However, when we do good works that please God, sin gets nailed to the cross.  In forgiving sin and allowing it to be confessed between each other, Christ binds our sin to the cross, and Satan and his angels are bound and sentenced for hell.  That’s why he works to lead us away from forgiving each other!

The other reason the devil works tirelessly to make us forget about forgiveness is because the forgiven person is set free from sin and death, when sin is bound to Christ on the cross for our forgiveness.

Rather than binding the person and setting sin free, when one graciously forgives and humbly receives forgiveness, sin is bound and locked up.  Therefore, we are loosed to love and loosed to be loved, we are free to forgive and free to be forgiven, knowing we are yoked to the resurrected Jesus Christ.

Forgiving sin is a hard thing to do!  It requires the sacrifice of the old nature within.  That is why the Holy Spirit works unceasingly for us, and within us, to lead us to forgive as we are forgiven!  He works tirelessly so we do not forget to forgive!  We might think we have to forgive and forget, but within us the Holy Spirit wills us to remember and forgive.

He works when we remember those who’ve sinned against us, reminding us of God’s great love for us, in the descent, death, and resurrection of his Son, so we are led and learn to love each other with forgiveness.

Rather than “forgive and forget”, let us “remember and forgive”!  Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, you have forgiven our sins from heaven.  As we wait for Jesus’ return here on earth, send you Holy Spirit into our hearts so we can forgive those who sin against us, and so we can receive forgiveness from those whom we have sinned against.  Amen.

[1] Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Justification, Article IV:311 (Tappert edition)

C, Post-Pentecost 23 Proper 28 - Luke 21:5-19 "Endurance and Opportunity"

Luke 21:5–19 (ESV)  And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said,  “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”  And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”  And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them.  And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.”  Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.  But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.  This will be your opportunity to bear witness.  Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer,  for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death.  You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your lives.

People spoke with great pleasure about the appearance of the temple,  in the presence of Jesus.  Yet Jesus taught that all would be thrown down.  Jesus said the temple would not endure, and in seventy AD it was destroyed by the Romans. 

In the first century, after Jesus’ ascension, many believed he would return.  Still today we wait for his triumphant return.  And as those who gushed over the temple, still today we are tempted to glorify the goodness of the church’s buildings, denominations, and organisations.

In recent years denominations have become hated for the abuse that’s been revealed in its ranks.  Sexual misconduct and its coverup to protect the “good name” of the denomination has led to a royal commission and safe place policy being enforced in a bit to stop sexual misconduct within the denominations of Christendom.

Pleasure seeking in denominations has been a temptation and led denominations away from the centrality of enduring in Christ. 

It’s no different in the LCANZ either.  Our misguided pleasure is also having an impact on us too. 

However, unlike some denominations that have hidden their clergy to protect the good name of the denomination and its institution, we have gone to the other extreme to protect the “good name” of the LCANZ when allegations of sexual misconduct occur.

The temptation to which we’ve succumb is to throw clergy and parishioners out of Christ’s presence as soon as an allegation is made.  Pastors and parishioners are being delivered up guilty, hated, and considered as dead. 

In doing so we, the LCANZ, stand in contradiction to Jesus Christ, unable to give the forgiveness of sins to those who have sinned in this way, or be forgiven by those restored for wrongly being accused and thrown out into the darkness.

Where Jesus’ love should be coming to light in the forgiveness of sin as we walk with sinners in their accountability under the Law of the land, the love that comes to life is self-interested and cold; governed by the pleasure to preserve insurance policy law, the protection of the polity of the LCANZ, and uphold the popularity of the institution in the world.

The pleasure of the LCANZ in presenting itself to the world as one with the world, continues to reveal a terrifying truth amongst us that our church is no better than any other, and like the temple in Jerusalem, must die with all other denominations, must crumble with all of creation, for Jesus Christ to endure with us to eternity.

In recent years we have seen the world become increasingly polarised — morally, politically, and socially.  Fear has increased and so too has suffering.  The more we humans run after our pleasures the more we suffer from the pain of doing so!

Those of us who remain in Jesus Christ and endure in his love, don’t go searching for pain or pleasure.  Both find us as they did for our Lord Jesus Christ when he walked in the reality of his death and destruction, pain and suffering, and the reality of resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father.

Jesus did not need to go looking for suffering.  In his incarnation, he was born into a suffering world.  Nor did he need to seek pleasure.  He came to please his Father, to do his will, to forgive and bear the sin of the world.

In the midst of death and destruction, pain and suffering, righteousness and resurrection, Jesus had opportunity to bring peace between us and God the Father.  This peace surpasses our understanding, and it sustains us throughout the ages as worldly chaos continues to grow.  This peace, and the opportunity Jesus took to secure our peace, pleases God the Father who freely sustains all who endure in Jesus Christ.

In the LCANZ, things are becoming progressively worse, regardless of the best light one attempts to shine on the situation.  It is no surprise as we seek to progress with the world.  Practically progression with the world means living more by sight than faith. 

When we look for beauty in the superficial structures of the church rather than our One True Eternal Structure of the church, our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we will find an increase in our suffering, as God withdraws and hands us over to our desires.

Theologically this progression is not progressive but deteriorating regression.   Faith in the institution of our denomination, its numbers, its finances, its pastors, its buildings, or its history, are all idolatries and a regression of faith.  Nevertheless, God tells us it will be this way as creation continues to crumble into chaos.

How do you respond to this increased chaos? 

There is temptation to panic, worry, and doubt God.  However, Jesus tells us of the reality to prepare us, so we are not surprised as it occurs.  He gives us future truths, not so we plan protection for ourselves, but so we remain in him for our eternal protection and endurance.

We will not need to seek pain and suffering as Christians, but we can expect it!  It’s promised by Jesus here in his word. 

Nor do we need to seek to make the church a place of pleasure.  This will only bring suffering on us as a result of being sinfully disobedient.

However, God has already made the church a place of pleasure through the forgiveness of sins.  The many deaths and resurrections the Holy Spirit leads us through, to the final resurrection to eternal life, is also God’s pleasure in which we joyfully live in faith, hope, and love.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV)

Even as we enter deeper and deeper into the last days of deception and disarray, may the Holy Spirit polarise you in Christ’s love.  Just as Jesus shone his light in the midst of darkness and his death,  may you let the Holy Spirit reflect the brightness of Christ’s forgiveness, more and more, despite the darkness of our days. 

In the future, greater things will occur, despite worse and worse things happening.  Jesus promises greater opportunity to let God’s light shine bright as the darkness of corruption and chaos gets worse inside and outside the church.  For you who endure in Jesus Christ, he will endure within you, despite confusion and deception.

The prophet Malachi says of those under God, “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”  (Malachi 4: 2a ESV) 

Just as Jesus endured and died to bring us peace in the face of death and destruction, we too are called to see and allow God to work in us as agents of peace and proclamation, even as things seem to become progressively more impossible in the LCANZ.  Don’t be surprised the greatest tribulations any Christian will face in the future, will be from within denominations seeking fulfilment in their own pleasure.

Jesus promises, “…they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.”  (Luke 21:12 ESV)

But in the centre of the confusion and trouble we will face as Christians, just as Jesus endured trial and tribulation, he will be with us, and just as he bore witness to the truth, “This will be your opportunity to bear witness.”  (Luke 21:12–13 ESV)

Our endurance and opportunity won’t come from our meditation on our own sufferings or pleasures, but from Jesus himself who promises, “for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”  (Luke 21:15 ESV)

Your great pleasure is Jesus’ faithfulness and love toward you!  Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father joyfully send the Holy Spirit to bring you to him and the Father, to endure, despite the greater descent of creation into depravity and coming destruction.

However, your destination is sealed by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  When you are tempted to join in with the hatred of those who oppose Jesus Christ, inside and outside the church, in the name of what pleases, cast yourself on Christ’s pleasure to forgive.

When you endure in Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives you the words of Christ to testify to your sin, confess his forgiveness of your sin, and give your accusers and haters opportunity to confess their sin and Jesus to work his pleasure of forgiving their sin too.  Amen.

B, Lent 4 - John3:16 "No Cliché"

John 3:16 is possibly the most well known and quoted verse of scripture in the bible and therefore has become a cliché.  And because it’s so overused it has become commonplace and boring to most who use it.  They say familiarity breeds contempt, and human nature does the same with God’s Word.

But let’s change the stakes and turn the tables on our comfortable realities a little so we might get a proper understanding on what is actually going on, first with ourselves, and, then with God.

We can do this with asking ourselves the question scripture itself asks in Psalm 116:12, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” What can I give back to the Lord for all his goodness to me?  What do I owe God?  What payment can I give?

Now let’s turn up the intensity.  Picture yourself on judgement day.  You are standing before God and God says to you, “What have you done? Give me an account of yourself!”  Before God you will answer truthfully.  There will be no fast talking to convince him you have done what is necessary.  There will be no Garden of Eden talk, Adam blaming Eve or Eve blaming the serpent.  God will open you up like a book and judge your life, for eternity with him or eternity without him.

There is really only one answer to give.  And it’s the answer we struggle to give every day of our lives.  As individuals we try to avoid giving it.  Even the church throughout history is mislead in its resistance to answer the question and it still does today as it seeks to be popular in a world of political correctness that is far from God’s truth about us.

The only answer we can give to God for all his benefits to us is no different than the Israelites in the wilderness dying from their sin as a result of being bitten by fiery serpents.  They said to Moses, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” (Number 21:7 ESV)

We have sinned.  We are sinners.  We needed to be saved from our sins. Not only do we need to confess this. We actually need to believe it.  Like the Israelites we need realisation of this truth in the inward being.  And as God teaches us in Psalm 51 it is what delights God when we confess this truth from the inward being.

But we need ask ourselves, “Why is it so difficult to confess our sin? Why is it easier for us from childhood to tell a lie?  Why is it easier for the denominations of the Christian Church to forge the line of popularity over against the confession of sin? Why is it easier for our own denomination and its leaders to ignore twenty odd years of God speaking through the synodical process, or worse, sitting in judgement over the Word of God rather than sitting in submission to it?  We do better to acknowledge our assault on his sovereignty as the broken creatures that we are. Broken, because the creature has sought to usurp its Creator!

The Israelites shame us in this text.  They turn and seek salvation. They confess and seek an answer from the Lord.  Our shame is not only written in the Old Testament.  The New Testament shows each of us our guilt. 

From James 5:16 we hear, “...confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Take to heart what the Lord also tells us earlier in chapter 5,

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.  Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.  Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.  You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1–3, 5 ESV)

And before you excuse yourselves as not being rich, remember you are standing before God as an open book, with all the things, feelings and people you hold in value over God.

Its right about at this time we begin to realise we are condemned and we only further destine ourselves for destruction by appealing to any work or presumptuous attitude we might hold to justify ourselves.  And it is here we need to take a second look at the gospel pericope today to see exactly what Jesus is saying to you and me.

First, let’s take the cliché verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.”  Perhaps the truth of what God is saying here might connect more clearly if this verse is paraphrased this way, “God saw that you and I were so habitually self-interested, turned in on the self, proud, pretentious, presumptuous and willing to lie about our helplessness that he had to let his Son die for you and me. 

In short, even when we make ourselves God our love shows us not to be God and we fall far short of the steadfast love which we need for life.  When we live life back-to-front it not only spells evil, it is evil. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Second, just as Jesus gives power to Nicodemus, he empowers all people by giving us life through death.   As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, the Son of Man is lifted up.  The sin we find so easy to hide and lie about is made the centrepiece in a move only God could do or would think of doing.   The snake that bites becomes the snake that saves.  Similarly Jesus becomes the sinner lifted us that saves the sinner who believes he or she is a sinner. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Third, God loved this broken world and lifted up his Son as a sinner that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  The truth of God is that we need to believe the reality of our brokenness is so bad, personally and collectively, it needed a loving sacrifice, so steadfast, so selfless, so generous that he let Jesus die on the cross. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Fourth, the reality of our sin that kills God’s Son is such that if left to our own devices we could not believe this was for our good.  So Jesus himself confesses that it is not for the world’s condemnation but for its salvation.  How often do we see the sin of others on our televisions and in our neighbourhoods and join in the condemnation and the accusation of the world.  Here we need reminding that Satan is the accuser and when we accuse we are not working in the kingdom of God but rather following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Fifth, “whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”  The little word “in” from the Greek is “en” and it means in, by and with.  So this work is completed in God, by God, and with God.  God works his work of salvation in us, for us, and because of us.  Now the Holy Spirit battles with your human spirit (the old Adam) to forgive others as God has forgiven us. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

And God, in his love, continues to put a reality checkers in place for us here too.  He calls us not to reject his grace and therefore sin against the Holy Spirit by refusing to repent and believe.  When we do we stop the work of the Holy Spirit by not exposing our sin in the light of God lifted up on the cross. 

Judge for yourselves!  Is it better to expose your sin now and live in the light or to hide it and have it exposed on the day of judgement?  If you don’t want God as the centrepiece of your life now why would you want it on judgement day?  Further more why would God want you as a part of his kingdom then?  There is only on response to God here. Lord Jesus, we are sinners, forgive us our sin!

Saint Paul writes to the church in Ephesus to encourage them not to be deceived. He says, faith is not a feeling, faith is not a commitment derived within one’s self, nor is faith a good work.  He says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)

Another cliché appears here, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.”  But what does this mean for us?  In short this is the work of God.  For by grace (that is Jesus’ death and resurrection) you have been saved (that is judged guilty but given the sentence of eternal life) by faith (that is the work of the Holy Spirit enabling you to believe despite your sinful nature).

Then Paul says these wonderful words, “For we are his workmanship” What is this workmanship?  It is that we are restored creatures of the Creator, re-created in Christ Jesus for good works.  And what are the good works of God?  Surely they are the works that glorify God and show his justification for sending his Son to the cross!  Jesus tells us that we will do even greater works when he goes to the Father.  He says in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”

And again, …they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28–29 ESV)

So do what is true in the eyes of God.  We “come out” into to the light.  Don’t “come out” as the children of disobedience do who parade their sin as some sort of justification but “come out” in confession.  Confess your sins to each other and to God, remembering that we are called to forgive one another as God has forgiven us. When we lift up our sin in confession, it allows us to die. The old self dies, the human spirit suffers, but the new creature in Christ is raised in eternal life.

Judgement day is no cliché. It is coming, it will come, but it has already come to those who glorify God and his work in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Confess you are a sinner but believe you are a saint, baptised into Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we are sinners, but we have been forgiven, we are being forgiven, and we will be forgiven forever, truly truly, Amen and Amen.