WALKING WITH JESUS
ROMANS 14:7-9
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. [8] If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. [9] For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Officer Tori Matthews of the Southern California Humane Society got an emergency call: a boy's pet iguana had been scared up a tree by a neighbor's dog. It then fell from the tree into a swimming pool, where it sank like a brick. Officer Matthews came with her net. She dived into the pool, emerging seconds later with the pet's limp body. "Well, you do CPR on a person and a dog," she thought to herself, "why not an iguana?" So she put her lips to the iguana's.
"Now that I look back on it," she says now, "it was a pretty ugly animal to be kissing, but the last thing I wanted to do was tell this little boy that his iguana had died." The lizard responded to her efforts and is expected to make a full recovery. (Arizona Republic, Feb. 14, 1996).
What love for something as ugly as an iguana! And in our text for today, we can also marvel at the love God has for us sinners! For the Bible says that all have sinned and have fallen short of God’s standard of perfection. God says that we are to be perfect, just as He is perfect, but as we examine our lives in light of God’s standard of the Ten Commandments, each and every one of us have not met God’s mark of perfection. We have each missed the mark of perfection, in our thoughts, words, and deeds. There is indeed no one perfect, not one of us. Each of us certainly deserves God’s wrath and punishment. We are not animals; we are the handiwork of His almighty hands. He is the Creator, we His creatures. He calls us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, and mind, showing that love in tangible ways by loving one another, just as He has loved us.
But we don’t do it, do we? We can’t love the way God loves us. None of us deserve any good thing from God. We are pretty ugly people for God to love, pretty ugly people who need saving, and thanks be to God, He has saved us, by a free gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Paul picks up that thought in our text for today, that we have been created in Jesus Christ to walk in the way of Christ. You have been marked in Baptism by the grace of God. He saved you in Baptism. God has given you new life, Jesus Christ Himself in your Baptism, you have put on Christ in your Baptism, you are a new creation in Christ, not to live for yourself, but to live for God. It is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in and through you. You owe your very life to God, so now please God with the life He gives you to live.
God has saved you by His grace; you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, to live for Jesus in this time and place, to do good works to the glory of God by showing love to others. This is what God has prepared for you beforehand. Today He calls you to walk in the love of Christ.
Sadly, the world we live in doesn’t know of God’s grace, nor does it acknowledge it. Today the buzzword in society and the Church is all about choice, our choice, and our rights, what we do. Today it is all about living for yourself; living to have your needs met, have your back scratched, to look out for old number one. Life in these terms is all about loving self, not about loving God, and certainly not about loving your neighbor. The worldly life lives for pleasure, denies sacrifice, and seeks glory, honor, fame, and fortune. It is all about being number one and looking out for number one. It seeks retribution instead of forgiveness, lives in anger rather than love, seeks the pleasures of the world instead of the riches of heaven, it is a life that substitutes God for man made idols, it is a way which seems right to man but in actuality it leads to death.
Methodist minister, William Willimon writes: "The human being is not supposed to be good at forgiveness. Forgiveness is not some innate, natural human emotion. Vengeance, retribution, violence, these are natural human qualities. It is natural for the human to defend itself, to snarl and crouch into a defensive position when attacked, to howl when wronged, to bite back when bitten. Forgiveness is not natural. It is not a universal human virtue."
Willimon rightly portrays the sinful life we are all caught up in as sinners. Our natural, human virtues all miss the mark. It is not who we were created to be, as it is a way which walks away from God, neither with Him nor after Him.
But God has given to you this new way of life. Christ lived it! He came to live His life for God; He came to do the Father’s will, even to the point of suffering and dying, shedding His blood on the cross of Calvary. He has given you newness of life in Baptism, now live that life to the glory of God.
Let me try to explain it another way. Monday is trash day for our house. Early in the morning, I gather trash, place it in containers, and set the containers on the side of the road. One day, after the trash had been hauled away, I put the containers away, all but one lid that I couldn’t find. I found it a couple of days later, by the side of the house (the wind must have taken it). When I lifted it up, underneath the lid was pale, yellow grass, decaying without the light of day. That, my friend, is what sin does to us. If the lid continued to say on that spot, the grass wouldn’t have any power to lift the lid all by itself. It is impossible for the grass to lift the lid. We are like the grass, in that we can not help nor save ourselves.
However, once the lid is taken away, the grass begins to receive sunshine and moisture. Its health is revived, restored. It is literally forgiven, let loose from bondage and decay. Forgiveness is just like that. What we can't pay, God pays. We can’t save ourselves, God has in Jesus Christ. For in Jesus Christ God has forgiven your sins and frees you to walk in the newness of life.
God’s grace is upon you this day. In fact, God’s grace in Jesus Christ has always been offered here, through the preached Word, the offering of Christ in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, through our teaching, education, and early childhood ministries. God’s good gifts in Jesus have always been offered here. The light of God’s grace and love has been given to you in the waters of your Baptism, the light and love of Christ now shines forth in your life. Jesus has never left you, He has never forsaken you. He is with you. Christ has kept His promise. Look back in your life, no matter how old you are, and see how God has blessed you! Look back in the history, the fifty year history of this congregation, and note how God has blessed this Church and its ministries!
God’s grace has been with you. God’s grace is still with you. Christ has come, He has forgiven you, He empowers you to revel in His love for you and each other, and He continues to grow you in His grace, to live under Christ’s Lordship, to lift high the cross of Christ so that God will gather all people to Himself. You have freely received the gift of new life in Christ; now continue to walk in His love!
When the books of a Scottish doctor were examined after his death, it was found that a number of accounts were crossed through with a note: "Forgiven--too poor to pay." But the physician's wife later decided that these accounts must be paid in full and she proceeded to sue for money. When the case came to court the judge asked but one question. Is this your husband's handwriting? When she replied that it was he responded: "There is no court in the land that can obtain a debt once the word forgiven has been written."
And that is the good news that the Gospel offers us this morning. God's attitude is not "I'll forgive but I won't forget," but rather, "Forgiven, Forgotten Forever." Across our debt has been written the words, "Forgiven--too poor to pay." Once a debt has been cancelled there is no one who can collect on it. God wipes it out of his mind. And this is what we are called to do. To forgive ourselves, to forgive others, to share the forgiveness and love of God, just as Jesus has forgiven us and shares His forgiveness with us today. That is what it means to walk with Jesus, for as freely as you have received His love, you are now called to live in that love and share it with others, that they might have the life that Christ gives, to His honor and glory!
Amen
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