Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Romans 6,19-23. 8. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Romans 6,19-23 4214

8. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 053

Laurence, Archdeacon, Martyr at Rome 258

10. August 2014

1. O Christ, the Lord of Life, You have overcome death with Your resurrection, and continuously stretch out Your hand to bless us with eternal life and fellowship (VELKD, Prayer for 8. Sunday after Trinity § 1). Amen.

2. »I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to justification leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to justification. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, which is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

3. In our Gospel Lection, Jesus tells us: »You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.« Yet given our sinful nature we often are not salt and light to the world. Instead of seasoning the world to make it better or guiding the world with the light of Holy Scripture, we are tempted to sour the world or cast the world into darkness. In this way we are just like Satan who caused mankind to fall away from God into sinful rebellion.

4. Thus the Apostle Paul writes: »Once you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.« Yahweh gave His people the 10 Commandments to show them good, lawful living. These commandments are nothing human beings cannot and have not figured out on their own, for when He created us Yahweh imprinted the very 10 Commandments upon our conscience (Romans 2,12-15). And we see across history and cultures laws that encourage the worship of God and forbid murder, stealing and giving false testimony.

5. Therefore, no one can claim ignorance of the law. We have our conscience, our society and the very Scriptures which enlighten us to what is good behavior and what is bad behavior. And the law, in all its manifestations, teaches that »the wages of sin is death.« We see this judgment in Genesis 3: »You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die« (Genesis 3,16-17). We see this death at work in our own bodies: we grow weaker with age, we get sick and one day we will die. The curse of death is the ultimate human entropy. We cannot break even. We cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases. This is the 2. Law of Thermodynamics. Physical death is entropy.

6. But there is Someone above the Laws of Thermodynamics, and that Someone is God. He created the universe, mankind and established the Thermodynamic Laws. John the Apostle and Evangelist describes God this way: »In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome Him« (John 1,1-5). And again, Jesus told the crowd: »I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life« (John 8,12).

7. Jesus clearly says He is the Light of the world. We can also infer that Jesus is the Salt of the earth. Jesus’ light shined before others in His teaching, in His miracles and in how He treated loved and respected sinners. All Judea and Palestine saw Jesus’ light and they were blessed. Jesus was set upon the hill of Calvary and His good work on the cross was seen and His vicarious sacrifice gave glory to God the Father. The work of Jesus on the cross was the justification of the sinner. Jesus purchased the redemption for all your sins.

8. Justification leads to sanctification. God the Father declares you as righteous on account of Jesus’ merit and this righteousness yields good fruit and good works. Jesus calls these fruits salt and light, and they result from faith in Him. We are the salt and light of the world. „They place us as Christians, as a church, in relationship to our environment and the whole world“ (Martens § 7). Salt and light benefit the world, and Jesus says we, His Christians, benefit the world. Even a small amount of salt can achieve a great effect, for a pinch of salt is sufficient to add the right flavor to food (Martens § 9). Likewise, the little things you do to help your neighbor have great effect in their lives. You may not realize it, and you might think your help insignificant to their need, but even a small good work brings rich blessings to our neighbors. We act as salt of the earth simply by the fact that we are here worshipping God and interceding for the world (Martens § 10). Worship and prayer seem so insignificant when compared to the great turmoil that afflicts the world in places like West Africa and their ebola outbreak, Ukraine’s struggle against an aggressive Russia and the Islamic State’s persecution and martyrdom of Christians and others in northern Iraq. But we pray for these and other tribulations effecting the earth, and God the Father hears our prayers and responds to the adversities suffered around the world. We shine forth as the light of Christ, and we reveal the horrors done in the darkness. We remember the Christians who suffer in Palestine and Iraq, and though our light may be feeble and dim, nevertheless we acknowledge that our brothers and sisters in the Christian faith do not suffer unseen. We shine the light on their afflictions, stand with them in solidarity and pray for their deliverance by God’s mighty outstretched hand.

9. The gospel makes us salt and light unto the world, and this is holy living is in the footsteps of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. „Your great works cannot be hidden, nor the intent with which you proclaim them, any more than a hill-fort on a mountain, a high steep-sided hill, can be hidden with its gigantic works. So also your words and deeds cannot be concealed from human beings in this Middle-earth. Do as I teach you: let your powerful light shine for people, for the sons of men, so that they understand your feelings, your works and your will and therefore they will praise the Ruling God, the Heavenly Father, with a clear mind in this light, because He gave you such teaching (Heliand 49). Our light and our good deeds cannot be hidden, soured or snuffed out because our light is a reflection of the Source, the True Light, Christ Jesus, who is not covered or concealed but shines forth in glory greater than the brilliance of the sun. Amen.

10. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, whose loving-kindness and faithfulness are the salt and light of the earth, send the Holy Spirit upon us to likewise make us salt and light so that the world, and our neighbors, may be blessed. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Soli Deo Gloria

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Martens, Gottfried. A sermon preached on 2. August 2009 (8. Trinitatis) in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany on Matthew 5,13-16. Copyright © 2011 St. Mary Church in Berlin-Zehlendorf (SELK). All rights reserved. The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind, Tr. © 2011.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, August 11, 2014

Romans 6,19-23. 8. Sunday after Trinity

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