“Where Has the Gospel Gotten to?”
Romans 3:19-28
10/28/07
For those of you who have raised children and/or
grandchildren you know that there comes a time in a child’s life
when he has to graduate from eating mashed and pureed foods to eating
solid, chewable foods once his teeth start coming in. You
certainly wouldn’t feed a 10-year-old child baby food, would
you? They’re way beyond that by that age. Time to
start feeding them meat and potatoes, so that they can grow strong and
healthy.
Like children, we Christians were given a new birth
at Baptism, we were adopted into God’s family, and now we must be
fed the spiritual food of the Word of God in order to survive.
The Apostle Peter talks like this in his first epistle where he writes,
“Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the Word, that by
it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the
kindness of the Lord.” And yet, sad to say, the milk of the
Gospel has been abandoned by many Christians today, who believe that
they have progressed and matured beyond the need for this “baby
food,” and instead they long for what is (in their mind) the more
solid food of the teaching of the Law. For them the good news
about our salvation in Jesus Christ, who was crucified for our sins, is
meant to be proclaimed to unbelievers, in order that they might give
their hearts to Jesus, invite Him to come and take up residence in
them, and make Him the Lord of their lives. Once that has
happened, they see little need for hearing the Gospel anymore, little
need for hearing that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s
sake. “We already know that,” they might say.
“We need to be taught how to live as Christians.” And
so, many of the sermons in their churches focus on obedience and
submission to Christ. They are often “how to” sermons
- how to be a better father or mother, how to be a successful
evangelist, how to discover your gifts, how to be a more fervent
Christian, how to live a more holy life, and the like. In such
sermons Jesus is used as an example of holy living, rather than as our
Savior who fulfilled all holiness for us, and He is turned into another
Moses, another Law-giver. The question “What would Jesus
do?” is an example of this. It says nothing of what Jesus
did do for you; it’s purpose is only to teach you what you should
do in any given circumstance.
The unfortunate consequence of the absence of the
proclamation of the Gospel in many churches today is that many
Christians now believe that to some extent they are justified, declared
righteous, become holy, and are saved at least in part by their
obedience to God’s Law. At the very least, they believe
that God will like them better, bless them more, and might keep bad
things from happening to them the better they follow His
commandments. And you know what? That’s the case with
you and me, too, right here in the Lutheran Church. We have these
same opinions within us too. They’re the result of the
musings of our sinful hearts. And as long as we are not corrected
by the Word of God, we go there too, believing that we become righteous
by our own efforts, whether it’s by our good works of obedience,
by our sincere repentance, or by our strong faith.
And so, Christians need to hear the proclamation of
the Gospel, too. Christians are simultaneously both saints and
sinners. We have been declared righteous by God through faith in
Jesus Christ, we are holy people, clothed with the righteousness of
Christ, and yet we remain sinners even after our Baptism. As
saints who are still sinners, then, we continue to need to hear the
proclamation of the Gospel, the good news that God forgives us our sins
for Christ’s sake, who lived in perfect obedience to the Father
for us and whose bloody death on the cross has atoned for all our sins
once for all, apart from any merit, worthiness, obedience, or
commitment to Christ on our part. We have not outgrown this
message; in fact, it is what we live by. Not only has God given
us life through this Gospel, but He also sustains our life through the
same Gospel. The Gospel has not only gotten us into the kingdom
of God, but it also keeps us there. It not only announces to
unbelievers that they have a Savior, but it also announces the same
thing to believers. It’s not meant to be heard just once,
but always, daily, especially in church where Christians are gathered
together for worship.
But where has the Gospel gotten to? If
it’s so important, why has it been abandoned? Why do we
rarely hear it anymore? You’d think people would want to
hear it. After all, if what the Apostle Paul says here about the
Law is true - that no one is justified through it, and that it brings
us to the knowledge of our sin - who wants to hear that? Yes, the
Law also instructs Christians as to how to live as righteous people,
but without continuing to hear how we get righteous before God through
faith in Christ, we’ll begin to rely on our holy living as that
which determines whether we are righteous or not. But if
you’re not hearing that God already accepts you and considers you
holy for Christ’s sake, on what basis could you ever think that
your holy living was pleasing to God? The only reason why your
holy living is acceptable to God is because the sin that’s
attached to it has been forgiven. Your holy living will never be
perfect in this life; your good works will always be tainted with
sin. But for Christ’s sake God forgives your sins, the
weakness, and the failures associated with your holy living, while the
Holy Spirit continues to conform you daily into the image of
Christ. Moreover, unless you believe that your sins have been
answered for by Jesus, unless this is continually drummed into your
ears, you’ll be trying to live a holy life for the wrong
reasons. Your obedience won’t be motivated by thanks to God
for all He’s done for you in Jesus; instead, it will either be
motivated by fear of punishment or by hope for reward.
It’s the Gospel alone that is the proper
motivation for living holy and godly lives. It’s only when
you know that God is no longer angry with you and that heaven is yours
as a free gift that holy and godly living will follow as a sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving. And yet, it’s the Law to the
exclusion of the Gospel that we hear in many churches today. Not
only is Christ crucified no longer being preached, but you can scarcely
even find a cross in churches any more. That’s because a
religion based on the Law fits our reason, and the devil has deceived
us into thinking that God either accepts or rejects us based on our
performance. Listen to how some Christians talk sometime:
If you’ve sinned a little too much, you’re
“backslidden.” If you’re leading a good, moral
life, you’re “walking with the Lord.” By
nature, we are performance driven people. That’s only
accentuated by a culture that promotes a success-by-hard-work
mentality. It goes against both our thinking and our society to
believe that anything comes for free without some kind of catch.
And yet, that’s just what our righteousness before God is -
it’s a gift given to us by His grace through the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus. It’s free to us, but it cost Christ
everything, who paid the price in full on the cross. This is the
Gospel, and it must be proclaimed and preserved in the Church today,
otherwise Christ will be lost, and we will all fall back into a
religion of works.
The Reformation of the 16th century was about
recovering the preaching of the Gospel in the Church. In
Luther’s day the Roman Catholic Church had abandoned this
proclamation and through their teaching and practice had led people to
believe that they were saved by God’s grace plus their good
works. In much the same way, by failing to preach the Gospel
anymore to Christians, the Church today has led people to believe that
they are saved by their obedience. We are in need of a
Reformation today, starting within our own congregations, where
God’s Law needs to be proclaimed in all of its severity in order
to lead us to confess and repent of our sins and where the Gospel needs
to be proclaimed in all of its sweetness in order to point us to our
Savior, Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins, for whose sake God
declares us righteous people and forgives our sins through faith in
Him. Only as we continue to hear our sins forgiven and ourselves
declared righteous by God through faith in Christ will we then be able
to talk about holy and godly living worked in us by the Holy Spirit,
not in order to try to please God, not in order to try to become more
righteous, not in order to try to get something like rewards from God,
but in order to learn how to serve one another in love as we are
motivated by God’s love for us in Jesus.
We have not graduated from hearing the Gospel, and
we never will. We will be sinners until the day we die, and as
such we will continually need to hear our sins forgiven until that day
comes. So, where do we go to find the Gospel? To
God’s Word and Sacraments. Thanks be to God, by His grace
and mercy He has preserved the proclamation of His Son here among us,
and by His grace, He will continue to preserve it. It’s my
job to proclaim it to you. It would be irresponsible of me not
to, and woe to me if I don’t. It’s the same message
you should be hearing every Sunday. So, here it is again:
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross has atoned for all your sins.
With His blood He worked it, and with His resurrection from the dead He
confirmed it. At your Baptism His work was delivered to
you. There you were clothed with Christ, who through that bath
sprinkled His blood upon you and cleansed you from all
unrighteousness. Now, God declares you righteous, because He sees
you in Jesus; He sees you as if you were Jesus. He does not see
your sin; that He remembers no more. And He continues to absolve
you of your sins through the mouth of your pastor and He feeds you
regularly on the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper
for the forgiveness of your sins. Don’t look to the Law for
help, then, and don’t trust in your own efforts or works to make
you holy or righteous, but look to Jesus Christ alone. He is your
righteousness. See Him on the cross for you. See Him in
your Baptism for you. See Him in His Word for you. See Him
in His Holy Supper for you. And on the Last Day you will see Him
face to face when He comes for you to take you to be with Himself in
His heavenly kingdom forever. Amen.