[Machine transcription]
For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more
now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life.
You may be seated.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Della and the baptized, St. Paul is interested in this chapter 5 of Ephesians to let us know,
So, to remind us, maybe even to impress upon us, how it was with us when Jesus was dying
on the cross.
Now, at first, it seems very strange because if you ask what you were doing when Jesus
was dying, you would say, well, I didn’t exist yet.
That was, you know, almost 2,000 years ago.
I wasn’t even, my great-great-great-great-grandparents weren’t even around back then.
How was it with me when Jesus was dying on the cross?
it doesn’t make sense.
But Paul wants to press this into our hearts and our minds and our consciences.
Three times in the text he says, while we were, Christ died.
While we were, Christ died.
Verse 6, for while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
See it?
Or look at verse 8, God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us.
Or a third time in verse 10, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His
life.
So Paul wants us to know that while we were weak, while we were sinners, and
while we were God’s enemies, Christ was dying for us. What is he doing?
Saint Paul, by the Holy Spirit, wants all of us to know that there is
nothing in us, nothing about us, nothing from us, nothing accomplished by us that
motivated the Son of God to take on human flesh and to take on our sins and
die in our place. Jesus did not come to die for the strong. He did not come to
die for the righteous? He did not even come to die for his friends, but for weak, sinful
enemies. This is a big question that always comes up in theology, is what are we? How
do we think of ourselves? Are we free to choose God to follow after Him, to do good works,
to serve and bless God by our own efforts, or do we need the grace of God to help us
than that, but with the grace of God we can begin to do good works and serve and do all
these sorts of things, or are we, and this is what we confess, dead in our trespasses
and sins so that we can’t do in and of ourselves anything good to please God?
That’s true, but Paul says it’s even worse than that.
It’s not just that we’re dead, it’s that we are in fact actively in opposition to God.
Actively rebelling against him, actively running towards him.
If you can imagine it, you know, if God stands here at the baptismal font and we say, well,
are we able to walk towards him?
And we say, no, no, we’re not.
We actually can’t move towards him at all.
We just stay put.
But Paul says, no, in fact, it’s even worse than that.
You’re worse than dead.
You’re worse than stuck.
You’re worse than bound to your own sins.
You in fact are a rebel against God.
It’s the most, I think, perhaps the most extreme language that the Bible uses to describe our
sinful nature in this text, in verse 10.
But it’s necessary for us to know this, that you and I are born, according to our sinful
nature, as the enemies of God, as haters of God, as rebels against God and His kingdom.
And we need to know this, well, I suppose for a lot of reasons.
I mean, number one, because it’s true, and number two,
because there’s always a danger.
I always wonder what people think
that we’re doing in here, the neighbors when they hear us
ringing the bell, and they say, well, they must
be doing something in there.
And I’m just gathering around, and what are they doing?
This is my best guess, is what our neighbors think
that we’re doing in here, that we gather to sit here and talk about and think about
how good we are and how bad they are, that’s my best guess, to talk about how we’ve got
it all together, about how we’ve achieved righteousness on our own, about how God must
really love us because we’re something special, and oh boy, all those people out there who
are forsaken and godless and all this sort of thing, but see, Paul wants to fight directly
against that idea, that there’s something special about me that caused God to come and
die for me, that there’s something special about what I’ve done or what I’ve accomplished
or what I’ve prayed or anything about it.
No, the death of Jesus is motivated by His love and His love alone.
You didn’t do anything to cause it or to invite it or to woo God down to do this accomplishment.
Last week we were looking in Heidelberg at some theses that Luther wrote, the Heidelberg
Theses, and here’s one of them, and I think this is what Luther’s getting after, the
same thing that Paul is.
He says this, the love of God does not find, but creates that which is pleasing to it.
Our human love is very different.
Our human love is always looking for the thing that pleases it.
Our human love is motivated by the thing that is lovely, so I find something lovable and
then I give my love to that.
And we think, well if that’s how we are, that must be how God is.
That if He’s going to love us, He must look down and find us to be something lovable.
Ha!
He looks at us and says, oh boy, you guys are the greatest, you know what I’m going to
do for you because you’re so great?
I’m going to send my son to die for you and then we can be together forever.
Remember, Paul says, no, no.
God’s love does not find that which is pleasing to it, God’s love creates that which is pleasing
to it.
In other words, there’s nothing in you and nothing in me and nothing in all of the world
that would draw Jesus toward us to rescue and save us, in fact, quite the opposite.
them, everything about us is repellent to the holiness of God, but still, still, for
us, weak, sinful, rebellious enemies of God, for us, for you, Christ dies.
Now this is almost unbelievable, if it wasn’t written down you couldn’t believe it, but
it’s also incredible, because I think one of the fears that grips most Christians is
something like this, well, I’m baptized now, my sins are forgiven, I have the Holy
Spirit, so I better do something to make sure God stays happy with me. I better
keep earning his love, I better keep wooing Jesus to be my Savior and my
friend, and we become afraid when we sin, when we break his commandments, when we
at our prayers, when we rebel against those in authority, when we’re angry and
lustful and greedy and deceptive, we become afraid that now we must have
earned God’s wrath. But listen, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. While we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Jesus is for you
pure love and pure grace and pure kindness. And he, not because of anything
that we’ve done, he simply because of his great love for you came and bled and
died. Now this is our confidence and I want us to hold on to this because the
reason Paul wants us to exclude anything in us is because the more we recognize
the depth of our own sin, the more we recognize the height of his love. It is,
if you want to think of it like this, it’s the glory, comfort, seesaw.
You remember the seesaw?
It used to exist before it was outlawed as a dangerous weapon.
Remember the seesaw you’d get on one end and your three kids would get on the other and
they would stay away at the top and you’d say, this should be outlawed?
The seesaw goes like this, and this is the glory, comfort, seesaw.
It’s the way it works, is that if God gets all the glory, then we get all the comfort.
it. But if we try to pull down on the glory side and get a little glory for
ourself, take a little good works, take a little effort, take a little something
ourself, then we lose the comfort. The comfort starts to disappear. And so this
is what Paul is doing. He says, look, there’s nothing in you that has anything
to do with salvation. All the glory belongs to Christ. You are God’s enemies,
weak, sinful human beings. All the glory belongs to Christ and when all the glory
is His, then all the comfort is ours. Christ is ours. His life and His suffering
and His death are ours. His peace and righteousness and holiness is ours, all
because while we were weak, while we were sinners, and while we were His
enemies. Christ died for us. May this truth be our wisdom and our peace in
life and death in the name of Jesus. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
