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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the epistle reading. You may be seated.
Though you witness change and decay, do not lose heart. Though your outer nature is wasting away, do not lose heart. Each day is… Each time you open God’s holy word for your morning or evening devotions, God’s holy spirit works through that word in you to sever the ties and to cut the bonds that wish to hold you to this world and this life as if this is all that there is. And God’s Holy Spirit, working through that same word, points you to that which is unseen and eternal and builds new ties and bonds so that you cleave to it.
But the process through which he severs those ties and breaks those bonds is a painful process because our loving Lord chooses to cut these ropes. As you and I are allowed to endure affliction, through affliction, you and I are shown very clearly what lies within us. We see our own sin. It’s not very pretty. We also see other people’s sins: sins of our family members who are supposed to love us at all costs, sins of our parish family members who are believers in Jesus like we are. And yet, like we, they also have very sinful hearts.
Difficulties put us through such things so that God can show us how closely we are intimate with this world, that he wishes to sever those bonds so that we do not see glory or hope in this world and in ourself, but only glory and hope in him. Do not lose heart. Paul said he witnessed great affliction in his life. In fact, the climax of 2 Corinthians talks about that where he says, when I am weak, that was really when I am strong. I’ve learned to be proud and bold in my weakness, not in my own human strength and ability.
He was bruised and battered, scourged and beat up, chased, threatened, tossed about on the sea, bitten by serpents, and so forth. Paul knew affliction. He had to go about, and we don’t know for sure, but odds are that he had to have run into kin or family members of those whom he imprisoned and/or those whom he stoned for the sake of his Judaism. And he still had to rely on God’s grace and forgiveness of himself.
Paul, having bore witness to this in his text, says this about your and my hope: since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed and so I spoke. We also believe and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. That’s an eternal hope that stays strong and firm in spite of any revelation of your and my shortcomings. Any revelation of others’ shortcomings and sins that disappoint us or we are disappointed in ourselves.
And Paul’s words bring us perspective like affliction does. Perspective is needed. Without perspective, we’re like a counterbalance and we tip to one side or the other. We realize very quickly and rapidly during affliction how frail we really are. How we have nothing in this world but Christ alone. We don’t have our own job and career. That’s God’s, to give and to take away as he sees fit. When afflictions come upon us, we see that we’re not all that, and in fact, we’re pretty frail. Afflictions cause us to see the frailties in other people. We see their shortcomings. We see their problems that we’re to forgive and love. Amen. Just like they see ours.
Because we watch people, and we’re watched by people, out of how we handle affliction. Children and other people may not be asking this question, well, I wonder how he’s going to handle that, or I wonder how she’s going to bear up under that. But they watch, just like you and I watch. And they don’t have to see anything within us that’s going to amaze them, because let’s be honest, we’re not amazing. There is only one who is, and it’s not you and me.
When Adam and Eve were in the garden and the affliction came upon them of their grief and shame, they ran and hid themselves, never having ever, ever, ever done that from their loving Father. Now the very God with whom they had intimate relationship, they feared. Feared in a very bad way, thinking he would punish them. They felt something welling up within them that they had never felt or experienced before—guilt and shame. You and I are pretty familiar with those feelings.
And God did not berate them, did he? He did not browbeat them. He just asked, where are you? Coaxing out of them to confess their sins. And finally, when they did what we do to one another, blame the other and say very hurtful words to the other, and hear hurtful words said, Jesus was promised to them as forgiveness. That has been the affliction that your and my life contains. Hearing loved people that we love say hurtful things to us. It occurs in our marriages and it occurs with our children and they with us. It occurs with friends, and it occurs even among fellow believers in the church.
But it is given to us to see this affliction as God’s way of giving us perspective on ourselves and of Him first and foremost. Do not lose heart. Though we may be very disappointed in ourselves, and boy, don’t we love to beat ourselves up. And though we may be very disappointed in those we love, and boy, are our expectations pretty high. There is only one godly response to seeing and enduring such affliction: repent and believe his forgiveness. That’s all.
Adam and Eve were given that: repent and believe his forgiveness. Because there would be one sent who would crush the head of Satan. And though they attempted to clothe themselves with that fig leaf, God had to give them something more profound—repent. Though his clothing did not do anything functionally different than a fig leaf, they now wore death upon their skin so that they would see the very result of their sin. They now wore a sacrifice for their sin as they looked forward to the sacrifice of the one whose heel would be bruised by Satan on the accursed tree.
And now we’re fed the fruit of this tree in the Holy Supper. A Lutheran Christian sermon. Because your Lord Jesus was crushed by your sin so that you have it to be received. Paul continues, your inner nature is being renewed day by day. In the same way that your outer nature is being severed and it’s painful through affliction, each time God’s word works upon you, you are being renewed every single day.
For this slight momentary affliction—and you know Paul didn’t write this during the midst of it probably. He had the opportunity to reflect. Just like you and I, after we have gone through and we have seen God rescue us, and we’re ashamed of how we have thought and taught and spoke and acted, we realize it was slight and momentary. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. That’s a perspective that we need in the midst of this world that doesn’t give you such a perspective.
He continues, “And you could add that you have heard.” For the things that are seen are transient. New cars get scratches and dents. New couches get rips and tears. New bodies get scars and break down. That is the transient world. But the things that are unseen, the things that God is planting in your ear right now, the things that he will lay upon your lips and feed you, those things are eternal. And they will be what you are raised up with, as he said at the beginning of this text.
Notice our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel reading. His own mother, brothers, and sisters call him out of his mind. That had to have hurt, but our Lord bore it for you. For all the times that words have been said to you, and more importantly, all the times that you and I have said those words. He bore them in love and still gave them forgiveness. So do not lose heart.
The psalmist wrote, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. If we could see an account of Adam and Eve’s life after this discussion, all the intricacies of how they had to deal with it and wrestle with the afflictions, boy, what an interesting information it would be. But instead, God gave us the information from Paul, how he was from this persecutor of the Christian faith to an embracer of the Christian faith and had to live through his own persecution and difficulties, had to wrestle with the perspective that God brought to him through his word, and had to yield to the Lord of his body and soul.
But ultimately, there it is on the cross, and we have all the intimate details of him enduring it for us so that you have forgiveness and you have hope, and more importantly, you have perspective in this world. Paul goes on, “‘For you know that if the tent, which is your earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands.'” Eternal in the heavens waiting for you. Many of your loved ones are already resting and rejoicing there. And we will greet them or be greeted by them upon our entrance.
And every affliction endured by our Lord Jesus is so that he can say to you, There is my brother. There is my mother. There is my sister. Because you do the will of God. What is the will of God? The will of God is to repent. Repent. And believe his forgiveness, that perspective can be given, endurance in your affliction, and so that we don’t lose heart.
He said earlier, we have this treasure that God has given us in jars of clay. And the reason we have this treasure in jars of clay is to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us, another tie severed with this world. Another chain broken so Satan cannot bind us again.
Jesus said this, or this was proclaimed about Jesus in the 71st Psalm, but it applies to you: You who have made me see so many troubles and calamities will revive me again from the depths of the earth. You will bring me up again. You will increase in me greatness and comfort me again. Jesus was brought up from the earth. He was raised for you, just as you will be brought up from the earth, and you shall be raised. And this world and all that tries to bind us will finally be cut.
Do not lose hope. Do not lose hope. In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life eternal. Amen.