Sermon 6-15-08

Our first reading goes hand-in-hand with the Gospel Lesson. Isaiah 35:3-6 tells us that one of the ways we would recognize the Messiah when he came is that there would be miraculous healings. And as we will read in the Gospel Lesson, miraculous healings happened when Jesus came. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament point to Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Old Testament – Isaiah 35:3-6 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

Our second reading is a reading that is hard to take. I’m putting a helmet on because God is hitting us with some very, very strong stuff. The point that God is making in this reading will, hopefully, become clearer during the sermon.

Epistle –Romans 5:6-11 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possible dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation..

Gospel – Matthew 9:35-38 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Sermon –

I put a helmet on before reading Romans Chapter 5 because God hits us with some pretty hard stuff in this Epistle lesson. When reading the Bible, the trick is not to look at God’s Word through our own world-view, but to stand in God’s shoes and hear what He says; actually get the full impact of what He is saying. And in Roman’s Chapter 5 God says some things that really hit hard. Did you get the impact of what God said? Standing in God’s shoes, what is God’s assessment of people? Remember, God created a perfect world and created perfect people but sin came into the world to ruin everything. God says that all people, not just Adam and Eve, have sinned and fallen short of what God expects. And what does God expect? He expects perfection. Matthew 5:45 says, “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”.

We have not been perfect; we have sinned and fallen short. What is God’s estimation of us as we read Romans Chapter 5? Verse 6 says we are “ungodly”; verse 8 says we are “sinners”; verse 9 says we are “the object of God’s wrath” and verse 10 says we are “His enemies”. Now you understand why I put my helmet on? That hits hard! We have to protect ourselves some way from all this. Where’s the hope? If we are ungodly, sinners, enemies, and the object of God’s wrath this is way, way too hard to handle. We need some padding and we attempt to pad ourselves.

Since this helmet has a “G” on it, you may think that it is a Green Bay Packers helmet, but the “G” really stands for Good Work.s That’s the padding we use in our life, we try to pad ourselves with our good works. When God says we are ungodly, we think “Wait a second, God, You must be talking about somebody else. That’s not me. I’m in church this morning. I’m not ungodly!” That’s the padding we put on. When God says, “You are sinners”, we know that God hates sin but we cover things up by saying, “I know God hates those few things I do wrong, those mistakes and failures, but He loves us. I’m not really all that bad.” We use those thoughts as padding. Or when we read that “We are objects of God’s wrath”, we think, “That’s not me, that’s those really bad people who are the ungodly, the sinners, the people who rebelled against God. That’s who He is talking about, not me!” That’s the padding we put on to lessen the impact. And verse 10 says, “We were God’s enemies”. That hits way too hard! We need padding so we say, “No, God, I’m not your enemy. I’m in church this morning; I pray to you, I follow you. I’m not your enemy.” We use our padding to lessen the blow.

If these verses hit us with full force, if we can stand in God’s shoes feel the entire impact of these verses, that when God looks at us He sees that we are ungodly, we are sinners, we are His enemies, and the objects of His wrath, what really hit us then? God’s love! When we get the full impact of God saying to us, “In your natural state because of sin you are ungodly, you are sinners, you are my enemies, and object of my wrath”, then God’s love really hits hard, then we see the depth of God’s love. Verse 8 says, “While we were still sinners, still enemies, still ungodly, still objects of God’s wrath, Christ died for us”! WOW! That’s incredible. The impact of that should press you right against the back of your seat and just about knock your socks off! God’s great love is just incredible. But in order to see God’s great love, we have to see the magnitude of just who we are apart from Christ from God’s point of view – ungodly, sinners, enemies and objects of God’s wrath. As God stands in His shoes and looks at us that’s what He sees. Then the fact that God came to us in Jesus Christ, that God the Father gave up His only Son for us, even though we were ungodly, sinners, enemies and objects of God’s wrath, that Christ would go to the Cross, die and make payment for sins He never even committed is just incredible! God’s great love is incredible!

We is think there must be something in us that generated God’s love toward us, that’s how love works in the eyes of the world. Everyone loves flowers. We love them because they’re beautiful, they look nice, they smell good, and they enhance the altar. These flowers have something good about them, that’s why we love them. But then we transfer that thought to Romans Chapter 5. When we read “ungodly, sinners, enemies, and objects of God’s wrath”, we think that God must be talking about somebody else. We think that there is something good in us that makes Him love us. But God says that there is nothing good in us, we have disobeyed Him, and we are sinners. Nevertheless, His love is so great that He died for you and me. We need to let that take root. Why do we love people? We love them because they’re good; they have generated our love for them. Think about your neighbors that you dearly love; you love them because they came over and helped you shovel the driveway when your snow blower was broken last winter. And when the dog ran away, they came over and helped you look for him. And when the car broke down, they took you to work. They did something to generate your love. And we transfer that thought process to God. We think, “Well, I must have done something that generated God’s love for me.” But Romans Chapter 5 tells us that we did nothing to generate God’s love. But then we say, “Wait a second, I worship God, I praise Him”. We do that because God chose us, there is nothing in us that made God love us.

Notice the wording in Romans 5:8. It says “God demonstrated His love for us…” The Greek word used here means “toward”, or “came in the direction of”. God’s love came from Him towards you, in the direction from God to you, and it touched your life. Because we are ungodly, sinners, enemies, and object of His wrath in His eyes, it is absolutely amazing that He would come, die on the cross, pay for our sins and reconcile us to Himself; that He would reach out to us through His Word and the Sacraments with the power of the Holy Spirit to give us faith so that we would understand what He did for us in Jesus Christ, that He would draw us to Himself and no longer declare us to be ungodly, sinners, enemies, and objects of His wrath. He declares us to be perfect in His sight through the blood of Jesus Christ. We are holy and acceptable to Him by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. We are God’s dear children through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ; we have a totally different change of status. For those of you who believe in what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross, your status has changed, your status has changed to God’s Dear Children.

Now the Bible makes sense, it all fits together. As you talk to people about the Bible, the biggest complaint, particularly about the Old Testament, is that there was so much destruction. People say, “God destroyed everyone and everything in a world-wide flood! How could a God of love do that?” It all makes sense when you see that, because of sin, we are ungodly, sinners, enemies, and objects of God’s wrath. God destroying the whole world in a flood makes sense when we see our sins. And when we see that Jesus Christ came and is going to return, and acknowledging him, having faith in Him is the only thing that’s going to get us to heaven and if you don’t, the Bible is very clear, you know where we will end up, the Bible makes sense. It all fits together.

What also makes sense is the depth of God’s love. Please don’t miss this. Because if you walk out of here today thinking that the Pastor just told me that I was an ungodly sinner, you weren’t listening! You missed it! The thing is, even though that’s who we were, Christ died for us. And if you can understand that, you’re not confused any more. You’re not confused about God’s love, you’re not confused about whether or not God is going to help you. Because whatever that problem is that you’re struggling with right now in life and you’re wondering if God will help - of course He will! Because when we were ungodly, sinners, enemies, and objects of His wrath, He stepped in and helped by giving the life of His Son to pay for our sins. So is He going to help with that problem that you’re dealing with now? Of course! If He helped you when you were a sinner, just think how He is going to help now that you have been forgiven in the blood of Jesus Christ. Are you grasping the depth of God’s love? This ends all the confusion!

And when illness comes into your life and you say “I need healing or I at least need the strength to get through this. Will God help me?” Of course He’ll give you the strength! Of course He’ll get you through! Because while you were still a sinner, while I was still a sinner, He came and helped us. He died for us, He paid for our sins. So is He going to help us deal with the difficulties in life? Of course! And I needed it this week when the dog ran away. I remembered that when I was ungodly, a sinner, an enemy, and object of God’s wrath, Christ came and died for me. Now that He has forgiven me, now that I’m His child, now that He looks on me through the blood of Jesus Christ - the same way He looks at you - holy, perfect and acceptable, is He going to help find the dog? Of course! We are no longer confused about God’s willingness to help us.

When the people in the Midwest who are dealing with floods, or the people in China who are dealing with the earthquake; all those disasters that are happening in people’s lives and they question, “Does God love us? Where is God’s love right now?”, you can see and understand Gods love if you understand Romans Chapter 5. And you folks have seen God love through tragedy and difficulty and immense problems have come into your lives. You knew that when you were still ungodly, sinners, enemies, objects of God’s wrath that Christ died for you. And that is what gets you through the difficult times.

And we are just happier, healthier, and more joyful because understanding Romans 5 stops complaining. When we really grasp this, complaining just stops! No matter what our situation is in life, we know we have received better than we deserve. Had Christ not come and died for us, had God’s love not been such that He sent His only Son to die on the Cross for our sins, what would be our status? We would be ungodly, sinners, enemies and objects of God’s wrath – destined for destruction in hell! So even if the food supply gets wiped out and life as we know it ends at noon today and over the next thirty days we slowly starve to death we still have better than we deserve because we’re going to heaven. God still loves us and died for us and gave us a new status: perfect, holy, acceptable, His dear children. And with that, the complaining stops because no matter what situation is, we have better than we deserve.

The Gospel Lesson tells us that we are to pray for the lost and that the Lord of the harvest would send workers out into the field. We are to pray that He would move us to bring people to Jesus Christ. So let’s stop here for a moment and pray. Let’s stand in God’s shoes so that we have an idea of what God’s great love is like. Think about someone in your life who is ungodly, think about someone in your life you would designate as a sinner, think about someone in your life you would designate as an enemy – and we all have them – even God has them – think about someone in your life who is the object of your wrath. Maybe it’s the terrorists, maybe it’s Osama Bin Laden, maybe it’s one of the political candidates, maybe it’s a person who hurt your family, hurt you, or hurt your kids. Let’s take a minute out and pray for them. Pray that you or somebody else if you don’t live around them, would reach them with the good news of Jesus as Savior. Pray for them because, and here’s the cincher…you want to spend eternity with them in heaven! That’s what you want for the ungodly, the sinners, the enemies and the objects of your wrath. So let’s pray for those people now…

How was that? Was it hard to pray for your enemies? Now you have a little flavor of what it is like to stand in God’s shoes. And He didn’t just pray for His enemies, He died for his enemies, He paid for the sins of His enemies. That’s His great love. And if you say, “Pastor, I just couldn’t pray for my enemy. I would be such a hypocrite if I prayed for them”; you’re not being a hypocrite, you’re doing what God did. He was the one who sought out, He directed His love toward to His enemies, His love came to the ungodly, His love came to the sinners, His love came to the object of His wrath - His love came to us.

Prayer –

Great God Heavenly Father, so often we try to pad the words of the Bible with our good works. Help us to put our good works aside when we read our Bible and just stand in your shoes. Help us to let Your words speak that so that we get the full impact of what You have to say to us. Help us to always see your great love towards us in Jesus Christ. Lord, thank You for revealing this to us today. We pray this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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