Pentecost 6
“The Baptismal
Life”
Text: Romans
6:12-23 (Jeremiah 20:7-13; Matthew 10:5a, 21-33)
Grace, mercy,
and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Amen.
Today
But the question for us today is not what we want, but what is. What is it
like in your life? Do you control your sin, or does your sin control you?
So let’s take a look, at your life and mine. When we
are hurt, what is our first instinct – to forgive, or to hurt back? What are
you more likely to do: hold a grudge, or let it go? Do you lose your temper and
lash out at others? And what about despair? Do the people, events, and
tragedies around us reveal a lack of faith and trust in our good and gracious
God by making us fretful or despondent? In all these ways we see the sin that
lives in us. But the question remains: is
it controlling us?
What about how we view sin; or, how we react to it.
That might reveal something. For do we consider sin dangerous? Certainly if someone were to come up to you and point a
gun at you, you would recognize the danger of the situation! Or consider the
flooding happening in the
So what do you think: do you control your sin, or does your sin control you?
Well, the answer I’m going to give you may surprise
you. It is neither. For while it is
true that you do not always control your sin, because you do sin; it is
also true that your sin does not
control you. It does not have
dominion over you as your king, as your Lord. And the evidence of that is the fact that you are here today. You
are here today under a different King, a different Lord. You are here to repent
of your sin and live under Him. You are here that He have dominion over your life by
His Word, Spirit, and forgiveness.
And so you are doing exactly what Paul
said to do, when he said: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal
bodies . . . but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from
death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since
you are not under law but under grace. You are here presenting yourselves to God in
repentance, that through His forgiveness He raise you to a new life, and use your members for righteousness. And when
you are here in repentance, sin does not
have dominion over you. For if sin were your Lord and
King you would not be here. But you are here to live under [Christ] in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting
righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. (Small Catechism, Explanation to the Second Article
of the Creed)
For the opposite of sinning (for the
Christian) is not to not sin.
That’s usually what we think of first, right? But as I said at the beginning of
this sermon, that is impossible for us . . . and
it is to live under the Law, relying on what I can do. Relying on my
strength, like The Little Engine that
Could, telling ourselves I think I
can, I think I can, I think I can get over the mountain of sin in my life.
The problem is that the mountain of sin in our lives is a mountain that has no
end! And while we may think we can, we can’t. And all our effort to overcome
sin will simply wear us out, and sooner or later, crush us.
And so the opposite of sinning for the
Christian is not to not sin.
It is not to look to ourselves for
the solution. The solution is to look to Christ. And so for the Christian, the opposite of sinning is to repent. For
that is to live under grace. That is to come before our King exactly as we are, and exactly as He wants us – as needy and undeserving – to
receive His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. And that is the highest worship of God: not to offer Him our goodness, but to receive His. (
And so to come here in repentance and
faith is to look to Christ for the answer to your sin and to live as the
baptized Christian that you are. For the Christian life begins here, and then
goes out there. What you receive here is lived out there. And no here, then no there. And
you very likely will have a different
king, a different lord, ruling over you.
But it is your baptism that sets you
apart. That has raised you from a dead life of sin to a new life in Christ. That
has made you a child of God, a member of His family. That’s what Paul talked
about in the first eleven verses of Romans chapter 6 – right before these – and
that he indicates is the basis of all these verses, of the Christian life, by
using that little, often overlooked word: therefore.
Or in other words, because of that reality (your baptism), therefore this reality (a new life, under a new King and Lord). A new
life lived under grace. A new life which bears not bad fruit,
but good fruit. Because you cannot bear good fruit until you have been
grafted as vines onto the good tree. And there’s only one of those. The tree that grew from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11). The tree of life named Jesus Christ.
And so we deal with our sin not by
trying to control it, but by having
Christ kill it by having it kill Him. For His resurrection was the end of our sin and the death of our death. And so to
die and rise with Christ is the only way to deal with sin. To die and rise with
Christ, living in our baptism each and every day. To die and rise with Christ,
living in His resurrecting forgiveness each and every day. To die and rise with
Christ, eating and drinking His crucified and risen body and blood, and so not
only living in Him, but He in us. Christ living in us, and working in us and
through us. Christ reigning over us from the throne of the cross, His death and
resurrection the pattern of our lives.
And then
– from the life of Christ – will flow our life in the world, and the fruit of
good works. The fancy word Paul uses for that is sanctification – or in other words, the holy life that we live because the holy One
lives in us.
That confidence is what enabled Jeremiah
to live and prophesy in the midst of such a sinful, rebellious, murderous
world. For he knew the Lord was with him. And that confidence is what enabled the
disciples to go out into the midst of such a sinful, rebellious, murderous
world. For the Lord was with them. And that confidence is what enables us
to go out into this sinful, rebellious, murderous world. That
the
Lord is with us. For we have what is most sure in this world:
Jesus’ Name, His Promise, and His Spirit. Your Father knows every hair on your
head. He knows every sparrow that falls to the ground, and you are worth much
more than them . . . for you were worth the death of His
only-begotten Son! That you might live and not die.
That the wages of sin be paid, and so you have the free gift of God, eternal
life, in Christ Jesus your Lord, your
King. To live under His rule, no longer a slave to sin, but as a child of God.
In the name of
the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all
understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our
Lord. Amen.