Today, as well as being the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, is also the 5th anniversary of my installation as your pastor. On July 27, 2003, we gathered, Trinity, Zion, and various members of the community in the sanctuary (and overflow seating, if memory serves!) at Trinity. It seems like just yesterday, in so many ways. Five years have come and gone; combined, 22 funerals, 4 weddings, 20 baptisms, 21 confirmations— and through it all, we see God calling people by His Gospel, God working good in the hearts of all those who hear the Word with joy and gladness.
I pledged then before God and you to teach God’s Word and administer His Sacraments in accordance with the Scriptures and the rule of faith we accept as Lutherans—the three Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, the Smalcard Articles and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, the Small and Large Catechisms of Dr. Luther, the Formula of Concord—in short, the Book of Concord, which is nothing more than an exposition of what the Scriptures teach. I pledged to instruct young and old, to forgive the repentant and never to divulge sins confessed to me, to minister faithfully to the sick and dying, and to be constant and ready in my ministry. You pledged to love, honour, and obey the Lord’s Word as relayed through me, to support me in all my needs and to pray for me. It all goes back to the Word. All my duties come from the Word, and all your responsibilities toward me come from the Word. Five years, and I’m still here. You’re still here. We’re here because we need God’s Word, we need His grace working in our lives.
And it is God’s working in people through His Word which forms the heart of today’s epistle. God calls, chooses, claims those who are His own. When you are a believer in Christ, you have the certainty that it is so by God’s calling, by God’s choosing and by God’s promise. It does not rely on you. It relies wholly on God’s working in and through you by the power of His Holy Spirit acting through the Word.
This teaching—that God is the one who chooses people to be saved, is a very hopeful and helpful one, especially when you are in a time of suffering. Consider the context in which Paul speaks of your calling here. He has just told us of the friction at the heart of the Christian life, the suffering and troubles which you will face for the sake of Christ, and now he knows that we need some hope, some encouragement.
So he begins by pointing out that in God’s economy, all things work together for good for those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose. All things. Even the things which seem really ugly or incomprehensible right now. I got a phone call on Tuesday evening after coming home from VBS that my grandfather, a dear man and a devout Christian, had had a major stroke on Tuesday. How does that work to his good or to my own? Yet, in Christ, we, his family, trust it does. Maybe you have done something which has caused no end of struggle or trouble in your own life. Take a minute and consider yourself. Yet even in your flaws and failures, God finds a way to work His good. He can do this because, of course, He is God. It’s a simple truth, but one you and I need to be reminded of regularly. God is God. You and I are not. We try to control things, we try to take charge of our lives and our situations, but God calls us to let go of our desires to be in control and simply let Him do what He does best—work all things for our ultimate good.
And, like it or not, the sufferings themselves can be exactly how God is working good in and through you. “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.” We have been predestined, chosen by God through His Word, in order to be conformed to the image of Jesus. We’re little pictures of Jesus. Icons. And that means that if Jesus suffered, we too can expect to suffer, especially at the hands of a world which is distrustful of God and could care less about a man who walked on the earth 2000 years ago and claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No, this world is much more interested in the latest Angelina Jolie rumours than in the Truth of Christ.
But that you and I are to be pictures of Christ, that is a high calling indeed. Whatever you do, wherever you go, you are the picture of Jesus that other people see. How does your picture look? Consider that as you live your daily life. What sort of picture of Jesus do you give to other people?
This is why the next sentence of our epistle is so critical, too. Because the truth of the matter is that the picture of Christ that you give, that I give, is far too often not the picture of Christ that we should be sharing. We often show a misleading and false picture of Jesus—a Jesus who delights in sin rather than one who says, “Go and sin no more,” a Jesus who is weak rather than strong in the Word of God. Yes, we need to hear Paul’s next sentence. “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Thanks be to God that we are called and justified—made right with God. Thanks be to God that we are justified and glorified—made full of God’s glory, made holy and righteous to stand before His sight. Living under His grace, empowered by the forgiveness of sins, is the only way to show the image of God’s grace and glory. Otherwise we can only present the image of weakness and failure.
And it is because of whom God has made us to be that we can give our firm “Amen” to what Paul tells us next: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”
Yes, you are weak. I am weak. But Christ is strong. God is for you! Believe this and never doubt it. He called you through the Gospel, enlightens you with His gifts—Baptism, the Word, Forgiveness, the Body and Blood of Christ as we share this morning, sanctifies you and keeps you in the one true faith. That’s what God does for you. In that case, who or what can be against you? Even your sins, those failures and faults which the old accuser and father of lies, the devil, would throw against you, they are powerless before the power of the forgiving and merciful God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has declared that through Jesus your sins are forgiven. It’s a done deal. If God willingly gave up Jesus for you, why wouldn’t He give you everything else you need, too? Your sins are taken away from you as far as the east is from the west. Who will stand and condemn you? Only God has that ultimate right, and He’s the one who has already taken your sins away.
So it is with thanksgiving in our hearts that we are bold to come before God our Father, rejoicing in His grace, trusting in His mercy, this morning and every Sunday morning. We come to His house not because we are such good Christians but because He is such a great and gracious God. Our VBS this week was on the theme, “Jesus is our forever friend.” And He is. Forever. He’s right there for you now and always. He died on the cross for you. He suffered the torments of hell for you. He overcame the devil for you. And in His Word, by His Spirit, He gives His all to you. Applies it to you in Baptism, feeds you with it in the Lord’s Supper.
Finally, we come to the last part of our Epistle for today: “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 through him who loved us. 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.”
Regardless what evil and messed up things may beset you or befall you, regardless how badly you fall short of God’s desires for you, His love is true, and strong. His grace is for you. His strength is precisely for your weakness. His grace is to forgive your sins, to pick you up when you fall, dust you off, and set you back on His road of holiness. Jesus doesn’t want you to stay messed up and broken, you see. He loves you far too much for that. That’s why He continually calls you, His children, to repent and receive His grace, to turn from your sin and turn to Him. He wants to love you with His perfect and holy love today and forever. For nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus your Lord. Nothing.
So be bold in that grace, dear friends, and cling to Christ’s promises. You belong to Him, now and forever. Be where His Word is, in season and out of season. Be where His blessings flow. And His love will work in and through you great and many blessings indeed. God grant it! Amen.
Last updated July 2008 by the webmaster.