7th Sunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 12) LSB #656

Text – Romans 8:37

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

IN ALL THESE THINGS

As a young boy carried his baseball & bat into the backyard for a private practice session, he said to himself over & over, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world.” When he got into position, he tossed the ball into the air, swung & missed. “Strike one!” he cried.

Again he said, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world.” He swung a second time. “Strike two!” He looked at the ball & then at the bat & reminded himself once more, “I am the greatest hitter in the world!” He tossed the ball into the air, swung with all his might & missed it completely. “Strike three!”

Then, without the slightest change of tone in his voice, he confidently stated, “I am the greatest pitcher in the world.”

What is it that makes you feel like the greatest in the world? What events in life cause you to feel like a conqueror? It’s only natural that our accomplishments are the things we focus on, or look to, when we’re evaluating our place in the world. In this life, parades are thrown for the greatest team or athlete, never for the losers.

If you’re following the news, the good guys don’t seem to be winning anywhere right now. In Michigan news, a man who had survived colon cancer was out jogging & got mauled to death by a couple of renegade dogs. A teenage girl in Armada disappeared while walking her dog. A couple of joggers found her lifeless body only a few hours later.

At the Texas border, close to 100,000 children have been sent by their parents to cross illegally into our nation. Our government is totally unprepared to handle the massive surge & the children are suffering for it. Meanwhile, the human traffickers are making loads of money smuggling the children into our country.

Across the world, the Russians are shooting down civilian airplanes & firing artillery into the neighboring nation of Ukraine. The Islamic State of Iraq & Syria is threatening to kill Christians unless they leave their home town or convert. The Palestinians have started another war against Israel by murdering three young seminary students in cold blood.

While each of us is intimately familiar with the narrow & specific context of our own life struggles, those paragraphs provide a very broad & general context for our world. Yet, as negative as that broad context is, it’s into that setting that the words of St. Paul are addressed to you & to me this morning:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors…”

It would be quite a stretch if someone were to say, “That sounds like victory to me.” And yet, the point Paul is making is that it is precisely in our struggles & suffering that we are more than conquerors.

Of course, it’s also easy to understand how people might think those are just the words of another crazy religious zealot. And you know that’s exactly what most of the religious people & church leaders of Jesus’ day thought of Him. It’s wise, to be careful about who we write off as a religious ‘loony tune.’

If our heavenly Father is real, & if He has something very counter-cultural to teach us, it would also be wise to actually pay attention to what the Word of God is explaining to us. Do the words of Paul have staying power, or is he just another ‘flash in the pan’? For that, we’re going to dig deeper into Paul’s words & connect the dots for you, as Paul & his original audience would have been able to do.

One of Paul’s major concerns is to demonstrate the continuity between the Israel of old & the people of God all the way to the end of time. Adam & Eve, Abraham, Isaac & Jacob all believed in the same Christian faith that you & I do. Jesus Christ has been Savior from before the creation of the world.

In verse 33, Paul wrote: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” That word ‘elect’ refers to all people who will be saved & it makes no distinctions. Paul made that point clear in his letter to the church at Galatia: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male & female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 ESV)

When it comes to a soul being saved from sin, none of the physical or social distinctions of this life make the least bit of difference. Salvation is the work of God’s Spirit, & all human beings are descendants of the first pair that Yahweh created. Our heavenly Father’s determination to save extends from eternity past, to His present activity, to the glorious future.

What this means is that all God’s promises, including His as yet unrealized promise of eternal glory, are equally sure & certain. As our saintly nature exists in Christ all of our Lord’s promises have already been fulfilled, but since we’re currently trapped in time & space, the realization of those promises remains in our future.

Death will release us from this limited & broken dimension. Until then, we already aremore than conquerors even as we are still suffering, still being killed all day long, & regarded as nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered. In that context, Jesus’ call to follow Him in discipleship is a radical & totally counter-cultural move. However, given the only alternative to following Jesus is ending up in the fiery furnace, our Savior’s call should be radical. His invitation to eternal life cannot be allowed to appear as just another path among many that all lead to the same place. That is a lie & is totally devoid of reality. Jesus Himself stated, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Other religions teach that you can & should be saved if you are successful & righteous & good. If you achieve goals such as those, then the gods will look upon you favorably. The question always left unanswered in false religions is this, “How much is enough?” Christianity flips that question on its head by answering, “Even nothing is enough. Simply trust in Jesus.”

St. Paul wrote in one of his letters to the church at Corinth, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions & calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10 ESV) To that we can add, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

When those are the teachings of our Savior, there is never a reason to ask, “How much is enough?” In spite of our own personal struggles & suffering, no matter how much chaos warfare may exist in our nation, or around the world, Jesus’ victory is sure as proven by His resurrection from the dead. And we are conquerors through Jesus’ death & resurrection.

It’s in Jesus then that we find life even when surrounded by troubles & trials. Satan, our conscience, & certainly the unbelieving world, will be pointing to our afflictions as proof that God has given up on loving us, or that His love is a figment of our imagination.

Yet the Apostle Paul assures us, that even when sin is collapsing our entire world around us, we are still more than conquerors. Christ’s death on the cross made it appear that Jesus was the world’s biggest loser. However, for those who have the life of God’s Spirit within, it’s clear that as Jesus gave His life in order to save us from hell, it was the greatest moment of glory ever to occur in this fallen world. The next such moment will occur when Christ returns to raise our bodies from death & usher us into heaven. In the meantime, the enemies of our salvation will press us hard, with all might & power, to throw away faith & trust in the Son of God as Savior.

To begin connecting the final dots for this sermon we’ll look at verses 38-39 of Romans 8: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The verses we’ve been considering, from Romans 8, wrap up the first half of Paul’s letter. One of the ways he demonstrates continuity with the Israel of old is in his connection to the book of the prophet Habakkuk. Paul started there already in chapter 1:

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God into salvation for everyone who believes… For the righteousness of God is being revealed in it from faithfulness into faith, just as it was written, ‘But the righteous person will live from faith.’”

That last phrase is a quotation from Habakkuk 2:4 written to God’s people about 600 BC. Habakkuk was actually challenging God for allowing His own people to become so wicked that His Word among them seemed to be paralyzed & unable to accomplish His will, at least as Habakkuk saw it.

Yahweh’s answer was that He was going to deal with their faithlessness by allowing the Babylonian invasion & conquest of Judah, the southern kingdom. Habakkuk then complained that God would allow so wicked a nation to swallow up those more righteous than themselves.

Chapter 2:4 then, is Yahweh’s answer. He draws a contrast between Babylon & Judah.

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4 ESV) Living by faith is eternal life with God by Yahweh’s promise. So because our Lord was recognizing that some of the people in Judah were still faithful, yet because they were outnumbered by the faithless, they too would have to suffer the exile. However, whether in good times or in bad, in this world, the child of God always lives by faith. And it is certainly true that our heavenly Father disciplines those He loves.

Sometimes, what we see as tribulation or distress is our Father’s discipline handed to us out of love, because we had strayed from the path.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors…”

Yahweh’s discipline is always meant for good, as Paul wrote: “…we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

You & I were called by God’s Holy Spirit into the marvelous light of His kingdom. Our salvation rests upon His eternal mercy & grace, as well as His unfailing faithfulness. We have been adopted into Yahweh’s family in order that Jesus might be the firstborn among brothers.

What a blessing it is to be more than conquerors, not just when we’re the greatest, but also & even when our suffering is the worst. That means we have nothing to fear. Amen.

6th Sunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 11) LSB #849

Text – Matthew 13:38b

The weeds are the sons of the evil one…

SONS OF THE EVIL ONE

During all the years I was growing up, from the age of 5 on, I spent hundreds of hours hoeing weeds out of the fields around Frankenmuth, MI. The farmers in that area grew a lot of sugar beets & navy beans. Those crops are planted in rows that are far apart compared to the fields of wheat. For that reason it was possible to remove the weeds without damaging the crop.

A field of wheat is another matter altogether. The rows & plants are sown so closely together that you can’t even get into the field without damaging the crop. If you tried hoeing out the weeds, you would certainly destroy the wheat right along with it.

In farming, that creates a dilemma. The weeds do cause damage to the wheat, but if you try & remove them, you destroy even more of the crop. After you’ve tried it once or twice, thattruth becomes obvious. The farmer learns that sometimes you have to leave well-enough alone,trusting our heavenly Father to protect the wheat, & to provide for the harvest.

In the parables of Matthew 13, Jesus makes the same point when it comes to our lives in this world. We see many distressing situations, from far away international events like the shoot down of a civilian plane by Russian terrorists, to very local or even personal events like drug addictions, broken marriages & neglected children.

When we see the tragic effects of evil at work in our world we’d like to tear it out by the root. However, evil lives within the very core of your heart & mine. That reality demonstrates how intertwined evil is with the good things of this earth. To uproot the malicious & criminal is certain to cut down the good as well.

And that is the point of this parable for those who do not yet trust in Jesus as Savior. Christ is already reigning over heaven & earth, even though on earth the church is not looking very dynamic or powerful. The weeds sown by the devil are real & dangerous. His lies are effective at deceiving people, including each of us in this room. Since the church is unable to prevent evil, we are tempted to give up, & to give in, to Satan’s temptations.

Still, this parable of Jesus, about the weeds & the wheat, is telling us what the reign of God on earth is going to look like for now. “So when the plants came up & bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.” This fallen & broken world is not the home for God’s glory, so don’t look to someone else; keep listening & inquiring after Jesus even in His apparent weakness.

As with last week’s parable & sermon, the ministry of Jesus was not growing in numbers, & yet against Him the resistance definitely was growing. Today also, Jesus is answering, for His disciples, the question of why, in spite of His ongoing words & miracles, so many people in Israel were not responding in faith & discipleship.

The vast majority of Christian churches across our nation are struggling as well. People seem indifferent, & callous even, to the work of inviting & calling their friends, neighbors & family to the rest that Jesus offers to those who are weary & heavy laden. The weeds, or the unbelievers, certainly appear to be much more effective in their call to a life apart from Christ.

“The field is the world, & the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, & the enemy who sowed them is the devil.”

Back in the day, when I was hoeing weeds out of sugar beets & navy beans, we used to jokingly ask the farmer, “Donny, are you sure you planted beats in this field, & not weeds?”

Now, we knew he planted good seed, but on some days we really wanted to question why the weeds were so thick. The same holds true in our lives as workers in God’s kingdom.

For those of us who do trust in Jesus as Savior, the way Jesus explains this parable is not so much about the weeds, or about today, tomorrow or the next day. For our Savior, His focus is on the Last Day, & the dramatic changes that will come along with it:

“The harvest is the close of the age, & the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered & burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send His angels, & they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin & all law-breakers, & throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping & gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”

From what the four Gospels reveal, Jesus wasn’t much of a hellfire & brimstone preacher, yet the above explanation of His parable certainly paints a dramatic picture.

When Jesus told the parable of the sower, He ended it with the exact same words, “He who has ears, let him hear.” The sons of the evil one do not listen to the Word of God. And while we’re asking God, “Are You sure You planted wheat in this field, & not weeds?” Jesus certainly is also asking us a question, “Can you hear me now?”

Which side are you on? In this teaching by the Son of God, there are only two types of plants in this world – weeds & wheat. When the Last Day arrives, “…the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” & the causes of sin & all law-breakers will be thrown into the fiery furnace.

As unnerving as those words may be, they aren’t really scare tactics. They truly are just a statement of the facts. Because our heavenly Father’s plan is to draw us to Himself, through the love of His only-begotten Son, He could not come to us in power & might & glory. Such a display of majesty, in this life, always draws sinful human beings for the wrong reasons.

Like groupies who follow a rock star, our sinful nature loves fame & glory, but when that star’s moment in sun fades, so do the followers. That won’t do for rescuing people from the corrupted brokenness of this world, or from the hellfire of the next. The only thing able to draw us away from our self-centered core is an authentic demonstration of other-centered love.

That’s what our Savior gave to us on the cross of Mt. Calvary. To be authentic He could not submit to the devil’s temptation for earthly glory. To demonstrate an authentic love, Jesus had to live in, & endure, the same broken world that you & I live in. No shortcuts allowed. No skipping to the head of the line. No bypassing of the trials & tribulations regular people endure.

When you are in the trenches of life, doing battle against the injustice of this sinful world, who would you rather follow? Would it be a rock star who couldn’t care less what your name is? Or would it be a king who took off His crown, & put aside his bodyguards, in order to get down in the trenches with you?

Our saintly nature gladly follows Jesus. The trouble is our sinful nature is still dragging us down. Our saintly nature hears the call of Jesus, “He who has ears, let him hear.” Our sinful nature can’t help but notice the wealth, power & privilege that the roaring lion holds before us as he tempts us down the path to being devoured.

Which side are we on? The tragedy of sin is that each of us is born on the devil’s side. As King David wrote, “…in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5 ESV) The miracle of God’s love & forgiveness is that He called us out of the darkness & into His marvelous light.

Yes, God’s children are on His side too, & the tension between saint & sinner is heart-rending. Wheat & weeds, believers & unbelievers, live side by side in this world. We interact with each other, we grow, work & live in relationship with each other. Into the mix, Jesus issues a radical call to follow Him, even to the cross. It is that call which stirs up so much opposition, in spite of the power of Jesus Words & miracles.

Even though the seed may fall on good soil, that doesn’t mean that life is all good. The evil sons planted by Satan can be so intertwined with believers that to root out the evil would also destroy the child of God. Thus we endure hardship, & we persevere, for the sake of Christ all the while anticipating the harvest, & the eternal glory, that is to come. Difficult as it may be to see, God’s reign in this world is pushing you & me forward to that harvest.

The ongoing presence of sin & evil that shocks & at times shatters our Christians communities is just that: the presence of sin & evil. People who publically confess the Gospel also fight & quarrel with one another, too often with no just cause. Pastors & leaders are seduced by power & reputation which shows them to be great hypocrites.

We easily become disheartened & discouraged. Because of the tension between saint & sinner Lucifer tempts us to protect ourselves by the desire to withdraw from our Lord’s community. Yet the hope remains. The Day is coming. It will be the Son of Man’s Day & His angels will infallibly do the sorting. On that Day the wheat will not be harmed.

The doctrine of Hell is not for “driving” us or scaring us into heaven, but it is a reality all of us will consider one day. We might consider it with thankfulness in that we’re not going there. Or, we might consider it for another reason.

Because of the tension between saints & sinners on the outside, & then the sinful & saintly nature on the inside, it’s important for us to hear the words of St. Paul, “…I consider thatthe sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”

God’s children also wait with eager longing for that day when all the stress & tension will be permanently removed from our lives, along with sin & suffering & sorrow. Until then, St. Paul also writes, God’s:

“…Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” As Jesus said, “He who has ears, let him hear.” It is important for us to hear Christ’s words of warning, yet it is just as important for us to hear His Words of healing, mercy & forgiveness, “…because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

The sons of the evil one have been planted in our lives by the devil, but the Word of God has been planted in our hearts by God’s Holy Spirit. May we recognize that eternal truth & cling to the promises of our Savior no matter what the struggle is that we face. The Last Day is on its way. Our heavenly Father may seem to be slow, but He never fails. Amen.