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For our sake, He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Amen. You may be seated.
Repent. That is the preaching of John the Baptist when he appears at the Jordan River calling sinners back to the Lord. Repent, that’s the preaching of Jesus when He came declaring the nearness of God’s kingdom. Repent was the preaching of Joel and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Moses and all of the prophets of God in the Old Testament. Repent, that’s also for us.
Now to repent we have to know two things and those two things are the two most important things for people to know. We have to know first that we are sinners, and then we have to know second that Jesus is the Savior of sinners, but first to know our own sin.
Now there is a problem that we sinners have, and that is that the sins of other people are easy to see while our own are difficult to detect. For example, you all look pretty funny sitting there with ashes on your forehead. I can see it, but I can’t see the ashes on my own. Jesus gets after this idea with the log and the speck, remember? He says, “Who are you to go and try to pull the speck out of your neighbor’s eye when you have a log sticking out of your own?”
The conscience is not hardened in an equal way. Our conscience is hardened more towards our own sin and less towards the sins of others against us. How often do we speak badly about our neighbor and not even notice it, and yet when we hear that someone has spoken badly about us, oh, we’re on fire.
Remember how Isaiah repented? He said, “Lord, I’m a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips.” It’s easy to know that we live amongst a people of unclean lips, but we have to also know that we have unclean lips, that we also are sinners. It’s easy to point the finger at others, but we have to let the Lord point His finger at us.
And this He does in the Ten Commandments. This He does with the mirror of the law. He gives us a glimpse into our own unholiness. There’s a long tradition in the church, especially perhaps in the Lutheran church, of reflecting on our own hearts in accord with God’s law. They called this, they would have documents and questions. They called them “blight spiegels,” which I don’t know exactly what it means, but I think it means confessional mirror, where you would consider the Ten Commandments and your own life.
We printed one, my favorite that I’ve seen so far. We printed it and handed it out with the bulletin that you have. It goes through the Ten Commandments and simply asks questions for you to reflect on, to be able to identify the sin in your own heart, and we’re going to do that now. Consider yourself according to the Ten Commandments. We’re not going to go through the whole thing, so don’t try to follow along; you’ll confuse me.
The first commandment, perhaps the most important, says that you shall have no other gods, and we know that this means that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. But how many things are we afraid of? How many things do we put our trust in? How many things do we love and desire more than God? How often does our heart and our mind stray from the pure worship of God?
We replace God with all the things of this life. One old theologian said, “The human heart is an idol factory.” That’s true. One idol topples, and we put another in its place—anything, something to fear, or love, or trust instead of the true God.
The second commandment says, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God,” and in that command our dear Lord gives us His name to call upon. He gives us access to Himself; this is an absolutely tremendous treasure of being able to stand before Him and ask all that we need. How often do we neglect our prayers? Let me just reflect for myself on this: How often do I neglect my prayers? How often do I forget to pray? How often do I think that there are more important things than prayer? How often do I pray for myself and not for others?
How often are my prayers filled with complaints rather than thanksgiving? How often do I neglect to stand before the Lord, to access His presence in this gracious gift that He’s given to me, as if there is anything else more important in the world than this, our calling upon the Lord’s name?
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. The Lord has given us His Word, His name, opened to us His kindness, and yet how often are we tempted to become bored with the Lord’s Word, to become bored with worship, to become bored with the Lord’s house, to neglect His gifts?
Honor your father and your mother. Treasure the authority that God has put over us, and we find ourselves so often to be simply rebellious, to be angry that we even have someone in authority over us, or to despise the people in authority over us, or to be secretly plotting against them, or to be jealous or whatever, that we forget our mother and our father.
You shall not murder. Jesus says that if a man has anger in his heart, he’s murdered his brother. I used to, when I had these questions to diagnose the state of a person’s heart, I had a question according to the fifth commandment, and the question was, “Are you angry?” But I’ve changed it. The question is now, “Who are you angry with?” Because all of us are angry. It’s what happens when we’re sinned against. We get angry, but we hold on to that anger and we justify our lovelessness. Jesus says, “If you call your brother a fool, you might as well have murdered him.”
We walk around without compassion or with compassion for the people that we love. Jesus says even the Gentiles do that. You shall not commit adultery. Jesus’ intention for our sexuality is chastity, abstinence outside of marriage, and faithfulness inside of marriage, not only with what we do, but also with what we say and with what we think.
Again, Jesus says, “You’ve heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, if a man looks with lust in his eyes, he’s already committed adultery in his heart.” All other sins a man commits outside the body, says St. Paul, but sexual immorality is committed inside the body. How would you, he says, take Jesus and join Him to a prostitute? And that’s exactly what we do when we are sexually immoral. We take the body that Jesus redeemed with a price, this body that He has given us, and use it for immoral things.
You shall not steal. This commandment condemns greed and laziness; it commends to us generosity and hard work. And yet how often have we cut corners? How often have we laid claim to something that doesn’t belong to us? How often have we been lazy at work and acted like we deserve it because we’ve worked hard for it? And how often have we put our trust in our stuff, thought that if we have enough, we’re safe? If we don’t have enough, we’re not safe? Jesus calls this God of money, mammon, and he says, “No one can serve two masters; either you will serve the one and hate the other, or be faithful to the one and despise the other. No man can serve God and money.” No man.
And we try to split the difference. We see the coronavirus spreading throughout the world and we worry more about our stock portfolio than we do about the people dying.
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. We’re supposed to be more concerned about our neighbor’s reputation and our neighbor’s stuff and our neighbor’s happiness than we are about our own. And yet how often are we stuck with these roots of bitterness that cling to the conscience? We think that we can lift ourselves up by tearing other people down.
You shall not covet. Oh, how we want the stuff that we do not have—the things, the life, the ease, the health, the house, the future, the whatever it is that belongs to our neighbor. We desire these things. We are guilty. Let me just say, I am guilty.
These commandments show us our sin. And you know what you call someone who is a sinner in such a way? You know what you call somebody who lies? That’s a liar. What do you call someone who uses the Lord’s name in vain? That’s a blasphemer. What do you call someone who breaks the sixth commandment? That’s an adulterer. What do you call someone who takes what’s not theirs? That’s a thief.
So here we are—idolatrous, blasphemous, rebellious, murdering, idolatrous thieves. And we’ll stand before God. No one is righteous, no not one; that’s what St. Paul says, and it’s okay that we confess that. But we need to know, dear saints, you and I need to know that I am not righteous, that you are not righteous, that this condemnation of the law applies to us, and that we deserve, without question, without exception, without excuse, we deserve God’s anger and wrath.
We are guilty and we are rightly sentenced to eternal condemnation. Now this is true, but Jesus has a different idea. Jesus looks at you and He looks at me and He looks at all that we’ve done; He looks at all the sins that we’ve committed, He looks at all the good that we’ve failed to do, He looks at all of it and He takes it Himself. Jesus has a plan for your life and for mine, and it does not involve condemnation but mercy.
Do you remember that the night before Jesus was crucified? It was maybe only 12 hours or 10 hours before the crucifixion. Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, and He went off a distance to pray, and He was praying in such earnestness that great drops of blood were dropping from Him like sweat, and He prayed to the Lord three times, “If it’s possible, let this cup pass from me.”
Do you remember that? I want you to consider what’s in that cup. What was in that cup that Jesus was so afraid to drink it? What’s in that cup that Jesus so desired another way that wouldn’t involve His taking it? What is in the cup that Jesus drinks? It is, dear saints of God, nothing other than your sin and your shame and your guilt mixed together with the wrath of God that you and I deserve. That is what’s in the cup. Your condemnation is in the cup; your judgment is in the cup; the hell that you deserve is in the cup, and Jesus drinks it to the bottom, to the dregs, so that there is nothing left—not a drop, not an ounce, not a bit of anger—nothing that you deserve because of your sin is left. Jesus has suffered it all.
Paul says it like this: “He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him,” so that He takes your sin and suffers for it and gives you His righteousness. He takes your death and He gives you life. He takes your hell and He gives you His kingdom. He takes God’s wrath and He gives you God’s love, complete and free.
There’s an old Luther quote. I think it’s a bad quote. You’ve probably heard it. People say that Luther gave advice one time to someone, and he said, “Sin boldly.” When you go back and look at what he said, it says something more like this: Luther says, “Let your sins be strong, but let your faith in Christ be stronger.”
It is true that you’re a sinner. It is true that I am a sinner. It is true that we deserve God’s wrath. It is true that there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s favor, but it is true that Jesus Christ is the Savior of sinners. It is true that Jesus Christ was crucified for you and for me so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It is true that Jesus was on the cross as God’s Lamb bearing away your sin so that you could be declared righteous and holy, that He has taken the cup that we were supposed to drink, and He has drunk it all so that He might give us His cup.
“Take and drink,” He says. “This is the cup of the New Testament, poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” May God grant that we drink this cup to the last drop and rejoice in His prevailing death. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all that our minds can do, keep you steadfast in the true faith to life everlasting. Amen.
