An author by the name of Bel Kaufman wrote a book in 1964 titled, "Up The Down Staircase." It's a teacher's story of what its like to teach in a large, metropolitan high school. The principal character in the story is named Sylvia Barrett who repeatedly makes the mistake of going up the staircase intended only for down traffic.

Trying to go up a staircase that is only intended for downward traffic is a mistake that is made by many, maybe not in high schools, but most definitely in our quest for righteousness before God.

A perfect example of someone trying to go up the down staircase is the rich, young man who came to Jesus and asked Him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He thinks he's got to go up the stairway to heaven by doing what it takes.

Who is this man? Who is this man who thinks that there is a set of steps that must be climbed, rules that must be followed, laws that must be kept, good deeds that must be done, in order to get right with God and have eternal life?

You are. You are the man. And you are the woman. We are the ones who believe that God has given us a stairway to heaven. A 10 step "up stairway" of Commandments, that, if followed, bring us up to God and eternal life.

From way, way back in my Sunday School days, I can still remember singing, "Climb, climb up sunshine mountain, heavenly breezes blow. Climb, climb up sunshine mountain, faces are all aglow…"

The rich young man had been climbing the stairway of the law since his childhood and yet he knew that he still hadn't climbed high enough. So he came to Jesus for advice. "What must I do?"

A. The Question – How To Get Right With God. Who is this man? Martin Luther is this man. Luther was a man possessed by the singular question, "what must I do to be right with God and have eternal life?" No matter how hard Luther tried, he could never be satisfied that he had climbed high enough. And the thought that he might fall short terrified him. "I was more than once driven to the very abyss of despair so that I wished I had never been created," he said. He kept coming back to his confessor, Father John Staupitz, asking over and over and over again, "what must I do?"

It was Jesus who answered Luther. Not a voice in his head or a feeling in his heart, but an inspired Word from an Apostle named Paul. It's the same way that God answers you. "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscience of sin."

The law of God is not given to us so that we may climb up it into heaven. The law is the gavel of God that shows us our sin and sounds our guilty verdict. "No one will be declared righteous by the law. Through the law we become conscience of sin." Well this turns everything upside down. And suddenly, we realize that what we thought was the up staircase is not the up staircase at all.
We thought we had to climb up the ladder of the law to get to sunshine mountain. "But now a righteousness God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify."

Moses and the Prophets of the Old Testament were saying the same thing as Paul is telling us right here. And if we would had only listened to Moses and Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and all the others, instead of thinking that it must depend on us and our worthiness and merits, or at least our cooperation, then we would have realized that this is not the way it works at all. We would have known that rather than giving us stairway to climb up to Him, He gives us the gospel and sends His Son down to us.

"But now…" The best news you will ever hear is summed up in those two words. "But now…" things aren't the way they seem. "God's thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways." Here we are, trying so hard to get right with God by keeping His law, and as it turns out, God doesn't judge us by the law at all. Your keeping or breaking the 10 Commandments is not what saves you or condemns you.

We are saved or condemned "apart from the law." Your salvation is all wrapped up in the gospel. The gospel is not the word of God that tells you what you must do and must not do. The gospel is the word of God that tells you what God has done and is doing for you right now. The gospel is never, "this do and you will be saved." The gospel is always, "believe this, you have been saved."

"This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." The great but now" that echoes throughout all creation for all who have ears to hear, is that God has sent His own Son down from heaven to be judged according to the Law. And according to the Law of God, He is perfectly obedient. He has kept the law perfectly. For in Him there is no sin.

But just look at how He was judged by God. The prophet Isaiah said it as clearly as it can be said. "He was smitten by God and afflicted." Who is this man? He is you and He is me. For He is being judged according to the Law for us and in our place. "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities… the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Is.53:5-6).

"But now…" Jesus Christ is God's "but now…" To everyone who looks into the Law of God and boasts of his own beauty and righteousness, God says, "but now" all righteousness is to be found only in my beautiful Son. And to the one who looks into the Law of God and curses himself and pleads for mercy – God says, "but now…" all righteousness is to be found only in my crucified Son.

B. Vs. 25 "For God presented Him to be a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood."

When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden they were ashamed. God sacrificed animals and covered Adam and Eve's shame and guilt with their skins. That was Christ's skin and His blood that covered their sin and shame.

When Abraham took his son Isaac to the mountaintop to sacrifice him to God, God provided a substitute for Isaac. A ram got its head caught in the thickets and Abraham sacrificed the ram in Isaac's place and that ram was Christ whose head was crowned with those thickets.

When Israel was in Egypt, the angel of death passed over every house marked with the blood of a lamb so that those under the roof so marked did not die but lived and that lamb was Christ and even now, all who stand under His blood marked cross will not die but live.

The only way you ever look good and are righteous in God's sight is when you're covered with the body and blood of Christ. "For God has presented Him to be a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood."

A perfect example of what it means to live by faith in His blood is told by Charles Colson of Watergate fame. After serving his time in jail for his part in the Watergate conspiracy, Charles Colson founded an organization called "Prison Fellowship" which reaches into prisons to prisoners with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He tells of the time he visited a prison in Brazil that had been so bad and beyond reforming that the government closed it down. It was reopened by an independent group of Christian laymen shortly thereafter. Colson reports on his visit to the prison a year after the transition. He writes how he "found the inmates smiling and pleasant – especially the murderer who held the keys and opened the gates to let him in." "Where ever I walked," he said, "I saw men at peace." "How could this be and what was the reason for extraordinary change?" He reports that he got his answer when his guide escorted him to the notorious punishment cell once used for torture. "Today," the guide told Colson, "that cell holds just one inmate." As they reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key into the lock, he paused and asked, "Are you sure you want to go in?" "Of course," Colson replied. "I've been in isolation cells all over the world." Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that cell: A crucifix, beautifully carved by the inmates – the prisoner Jesus, hanging on the cross." The guide said softly, "He's doing time for all the rest of us."

Or as Paul says it, "For God has presented Him to be a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood." Or as Isaiah says it, "By His stripes you are healed… Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace."

You want to know how to get right with God? The answer is, there is nothing you can do. Stop trying to go up the down staircase. Don't be waiving your good works and your wonderful intentions or your moral lifestyle before God. You might as well waive filthy rags in His face because every claim of self-righteousness or your own worthiness is a rejection of the One who came down from heaven to be your sin and your righteousness and your worthiness.

You better just remain in your Baptism where Christ's sacrifice of atonement was for you. You better just eat His Supper where Christ's body and blood is given and shed for you.

C. Vs. 27-28 "Then what becomes of our boasting?" Do we boast about what good people we are or how well we live by the Law of God? Certainly not. You want to boast about yourself? Then boast about this. God sent His Son down from heaven for you. And Jesus Christ died for you. And the Son of God took your place on the cross that was reserved for you. Boast about this, "You are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that comes by Christ Jesus."

We come to church to lay our sins at the foot of the cross in exchange for the forgiveness for all of our sins. We come here with regrets and disappointments, frustrations and anxieties to hang them on the cross of Jesus Christ and take His burden upon us, which is light and easy. This is what Luther calls the "divine exchange." We come here, to this divine swap-meet, where the Holy Spirit swaps our sins for Christ's righteousness, our hopelessness for the hope of glory, our dysfunctional lives for the only real change that sets everything right again. And all of this, no matter what you politics happen to be.

I. Religion and Government So we're not going to mix politics with religion today or any other day for that matter. But we are going to talk about religion and government because that is just what our assigned reading from Romans directs us to do. Last week in chapter 12, we heard Paul say that, now that you have been justified by grace alone for Christ's sake alone, "offer you body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, for this is your spiritual worship." This embodied/spiritual worship happens wherever your body is. In your home, in the office, the shop, the factory, the classroom, the card club, the book club, the golf course. But we already covered that last Sunday. Today, we come to Romans chapter 13 and Paul gives us God's Word for how to carry out our embodied/spiritual worship to God as a citizen living under government authorities.

What is the Christian's relationship to the civil government to be and how does our citizenship in a particular nation connect to our life of faith in God? How are those who call Jesus Christ their King, to understand their relationship to the ruler of the nation in which they live?

This must have been a big question in the early church of Paul's day. That the early Christians may have been confused about this shouldn't be too hard for us to understand. Many of them were Jewish converts. To the Jews, it had always seemed unacceptable that they should live under the rule of the Roman government. The Sadducees knew how to play politics and cooperated with the Roman government. The Pharisees simply tolerated Roman rule because they had to. The Zealots were constantly plotting and planning to overthrow the government and ready for a revolution. Now the Christians are wondering how they are supposed to relate to the Roman government that was responsible for their Lord, Jesus Christ, something that was still very much a current event on their minds.

To them St. Paul writes, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

Peter makes them same point saying, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him." (1 Peter 2:13)

The line dividing the sacred and the secular is not nearly so clear-cut as we thought. What could be more secular than civil government? And yet, even this, has been instituted by God. That means that civil government is a divine institution. Since all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ, the authority that the civil government has comes from Christ. The governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate told Jesus that he had the authority to save or take His life. Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above." (John 19:11).

So, the line that Paul traces out for us is quite clear. Human governments are instituted by God. And the governing authorities get their authority to govern from God. So, when we disobey the governing authorities we sin against God. And when we are subject to the governing authorities, not simply to avoid punishment, but so that we may have a clean conscience before God, this is our "spiritual worship."

So then, the Christian, of all people, should treat the governing authorities with a good measure of respect and honor because we understand what many do not, that they are servants of God. They themselves may not realize or recognize this, but we do. I'm not sure why, but for some reason, we feel that it's okay to talk about the governing authorities in some of the most disrespectful and shameful ways. This should not be so among us brothers and sisters in Christ. Because they are servants of God doing God's special work of governing, Paul says, we "pay taxes to whom takes are due, give respect to whom respect is due and show honor to whom honor is due."

God has instituted civil government for a good purpose. Paul writes, "For he is God's servant for your good… an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer… for he does not bear the sword in vain." Peter says that the governing authorities are "to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. (1Peter 2:14).

If we could say the same thing a little differently, being the sinful and fallen creatures that we are, we cannot maintain a peaceful, orderly and safe society without a governing authority to maintain law and order. Just ask any 5th grade teacher what happens when she leaves her classroom unattended for more than five minutes. God has instituted civil government for the purpose of maintaining law and order.

It is God's will that men and women should live together in peaceful, orderly and safe societies. Paul tells pastor Timothy, "first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers and intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions so that we may lead peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way." (1 Tim. 2:1-2). And following St. Paul's directive, we pray for government officials and authorities in our prayers on most every Sunday morning, and we should lift them to the Lord in our prayers at home as well.

II. How Far Are We To Be Subject? The early Christians had a question about how their life of faith connected with their life as citizens under Roman rule. I think we struggle with the same questions today. But I think that we also struggle with another question, which may actually be close to the opposite question.

The question that we may struggle to answer is this one. When Paul says, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities," how far do we go? Are we to be subject to the governing authorities absolutely like we are to submit to God absolutely? What are we to do when the governing authorities are wrong, or even evil.

I read somewhere once where someone had written that this was the most misunderstood passage in the scriptures. There have been governing authorities who have used this passage to coerce Christian leaders to support their unjust practices. Which may have been just the approach that David took with Bathsheba. On the other hand, there are shameful examples of Christian leaders who have justified their cooperation with unjust and evil civil governments by this passage.

If I may extend this just a bit, I'm afraid that the same misunderstanding can happen in a very similar way between husbands and wives. Using the exact same word that Paul uses here in referring to governing authorities, he writes to the Ephesians saying, "wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord." (Eph.5:22). Sadly, I suspect that a lot of husbands have demanded that their wives cooperate with their unjust and sometimes abusive demands based on this verse. And I suspect many wives submit to abuse from their husbands or cooperate with their unjust demands on the basis of this verse.

Here is the danger of taking one verse out of the bible all by itself without any of the surrounding verses or context. This is just what Satan tried with Jesus in the desert at His temptation. He quoted bible verses to Jesus to get Him to turn stones into bread and jump from the temple steeple. These verses, all by themselves, seemed say that Jesus should do just that. But Jesus interpreted the verses in their proper context and in harmony with all of the scriptures so that God's Word in one place would never contradict God's Word in another place.

Whenever the governing authorities demand that we do anything that is contrary to the Word of God, then we must not be subject to them because to do so would be to set God's Word against itself.
* When Pharaoh ordered the Egyptian midwives to kill the Israelite baby boys, they disobeyed because it is contrary to God's will to kill babies.
* When the of Babylon ordered the three friends of Daniel to worship his golden image, they refused because it was contrary to God's Word – 'you shall have no other gods before me.'
* The same with Daniel when the King banned all prayers in his kingdom except those directed to him. Daniel disobeyed the governing authorities because it contradicted God's Word that we should call upon Him.
* When the rulers of Israel commanded the apostles not to teach any more in the name of Jesus Christ, the apostles knew that to do so was a direct contradiction of the command which Jesus had given to them to, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20). So they replied to the governing authorities saying, "We must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29).

God's word is that husbands are to be like Christ to their wives. They are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Wives are to be subject to their husbands as the Church is to be subject to Christ. This is the order of marriage that God has instituted. But when husbands act contrary to God's Word for marriage, wives cannot be expected to be subject to them, nor should they, for to do so would be to act contrary to God's Word.

Conclusion God has instituted civil government for the purpose of maintaining law and order so that we may live in peace and safety. To carry out His purpose for government, God has given it the authority to use the sword. The power of the sword is the authority to carry out justice by punishing lawbreakers with a punishment that is appropriate to the crime.

When we are looking for justice therefore, we turn to the proper authorities. In chapter 12, Paul directs the life of faith saying, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'" (Rom.12:19). The governing authorities are God's instruments of vengeance.

But when we are looking for love, God's love in particular, we do not go to the government but to the Church. God has instituted the Church, and given it the authority to offer a peace which this world's governments cannot give and a security which all of the governing authorities on the earth cannot provide, not the power of the sword but the power of the Keys. The power of the Keys is the authority that Christ has given His Church to retain the sins of all who will not repent. And to forgive the sins of all who will repent and receive His forgiveness and love. No matter what your politics might be.

Laying a solid foundation is crucial to building a solid building. Get the foundation wrong and the rest of the building is going to be wrong. If the foundation is not deep enough, the building will not stand. If the footers aren't spaced exactly right the building will not fit together right. As Jesus puts it, "everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand." (Matt.7:24,26). In either case, the Word of God is the foundation for the doing of the one who hears that Word. First comes the hearing of the Word, then comes the doing. Apart from the hearing of the Word of Christ, our doing is built on a poor foundation.

Of course, the two always go together. As James puts it, "faith without works is useless." (James 2:20). Hearing and no action is no good, just as action without hearing the Word is no good. One makes for a well-informed couch potato and the other is a heresy or disaster waiting to happen.

So, it's always God's Word AND faith in action. It's always God's Word that directs and motivates our faith in action. And I do think that the stronger and deeper the foundation, the more solid the building. The better you learn and know God's Word the more solid will be your faith in action.

So, here comes the commercial for Sunday School and Bible Study. Don't tune me out or go to the fridge. You need to hear this. You need to be in Bible Study and you need to have your children in Sunday School. If you want to live the life of faith, you need to grow your knowledge of the faith. If you want your children to become spiritually mature as they become physically mature, they need to be in Sunday School where they'll receive a solid doctrinal foundation. If you want this congregation to become more and more active in missions and evangelism and outreach, we've all got to be growing in our knowledge and understanding of God's Word. Sunday School and Adult Bible Study begin next Sunday at 8:45 a.m. sharp. End of commercial.

Today we come to chapter 12 in our tour through Paul's letter to the Romans. Everything that Paul has written to the Romans through the first 11 chapters of this letter has been foundational. He has carefully laid the doctrinal foundation of the Christian faith for the Romans and there really hasn't been anything for us to do. And that's been the whole point. There's nothing we can do for our salvation because God in Jesus Christ has done it all. There's none of our work involved in our redemption, and if we try to do something, we mess the whole thing up.

What that means is that any doing that's to be done is solely in response to God's love for us in Jesus Christ. And the grace and love of God in Christ moves us to want to ask, what can we do to say thank you? How shall we worship You, O Lord? In chapters 12 through 15, Paul puts out the call to action. 11 chapters of doctrine followed by 4 chapters of Christian mission. The foundation is firmly laid for faithful Christian action.

I think you'll find it helpful to see this as we hear it. Would you take out your bible and turn to Romans 12, page 947 in your pew bible. We're going to begin with verses 1 and 2 before getting to our assigned text for this morning.

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:1-2).

"Present your bodies'" The word Paul uses here is a very physical word. "sarks." Physical body, flesh and bones, skin and blood. In Paul's day, the Greek culture that the Roman Christians lived right in the heart of taught that the spirit is good but the body is bad. What you did with your body really didn't matter much, it's what was in your heart that counted. There was a clear line that separated spiritual things from secular things. The spiritual things were important to the gods but the secular, physical things, not only weren't important to the gods, they didn't even see what you were doing with your body when your body was outside of the temple. Any of this sound familiar?

But Paul says that true spiritual worship is always embodied worship. "Present your bodies" "which is your spiritual worship." The Christian faith is an incarnational religion through and through. God, who is spirit, took on a human BODY and by His BODILY crucifixion and His BODILY resurrection from the dead He redeemed both your soul and your body. The Holy Spirit has not made His temple in some bodiless, spirit-being, but He has made your physical body His temple.

What this means of course is that what you do with your physical body is not only seen by God but it is your spiritual worship of God. And wherever your body is, there you are at worship. At death, the body and the spirit are separated from each other, but as long as you're alive, your body is always present.

Understand then, that worship of God doesn't just happen in this building. It happens here and when you take your body out of this building and into your home. The way that you use your body there is your spiritual worship to God. And when you take your body to the office or shop or factory or classroom, to the stores or restaurants, to the book club or bridge club, you are at worship. "I appeal you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

In the Old Testament, the priests offered the bodies of animals as dead sacrifices to God. But now, in the New Testament, the priesthood consists of all believers and we offer our body to God as a living sacrifice, in grateful response to the offering of the body His Son for us and for our salvation.

So just how are we to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God? Paul gives us a list of specifics to guide us. Beginning at verse 9, we read. (Read Romans 12:9-21).

I suspect that each one of these is a separate sermon in itself, which would not be a bad idea at all, but not today.

But this much I would like for us to see in this list. Nowhere do we see anything that tells us that we are to have no other gods or that we must not take the Lord's name in vain. And nowhere here does Paul say that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice by keeping the Sabbath day holy. Everything that Paul lists here is directing us to our neighbor.

The 1st Table of the 10 Commandments directs our attention to God, and the 2nd Table directs our attention to our neighbor. The 1st Table comes before the 2nd Table but the 2nd Table follows the 1st Table. Love of God is always followed by love of neighbor. And when you think about it, love of neighbor always involves the body. Honor your father and your mother, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not covet. All of these things can only be done in the flesh, with the body. You need hands and feet, eyes, ears and a mouth for all of these. None of this will do your neighbor any good at all if it's only done in spirit. "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" (James 2:15-16)

Let me make three points to take along with us.

First, notice how "good and acceptable and perfect" God's will is. Through His servant Paul, He directs us to sincere worship, not by demanding that we make sacrifices to Him, but that we direct all of our good works and sacrifice our body for our neighbor. This is what so infuriated God with the Israelites of old. They never failed to make their grain offerings and animal sacrifices to God, but they abused their neighbors. God said, I hate your sacrifices and burnt offerings. Show me you love me by being just and fair and loving to your neighbor.

Second, surely we can see just how contrary to the ways of the world this list is, especially those things that direct our attention to our enemies and those who persecute us. This is not easy and yes, it requires great sacrifice. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

Paul is warning us about forces that are at work upon us. The syntax and the grammar here is in the passive. This is not so much about what you need to do but what is being done to you.

The world tries to conform you to it so that you'll fit in. Conformity happens from the outside in. Social pressure, peer pressure, clever slogans, legislation, and easy financing. And it begins to conform you. And before you realize it, you own it, you're singing it, you're doing it and before you know it, what was a luxury is now a necessity and you honestly believe you could never live without it. What was wrong now, doesn't seem nearly so wrong as it used to, and besides, it's legal, so it must be okay. Present your body as a living sacrifice to God? The world says, why sacrifice anything when you can have it all. And you know you deserve it. "Do not be conformed to this world."

"But be transformed." Transformation happens from the inside out. You were transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit when you were baptized with water, when His powerful and effective Word penetrated your ears and created faith in your heart. You are a new person in Christ. You do not belong to this world. This world is not worthy of you. You are but a stranger here. Heaven is your home. You no more fit into this world than the butterfly still fits into its cocoon. The only difference between the butterfly and us, is that the butterfly no longer acts like a caterpillar but entirely like the butterfly that it has become and you and I still struggle to act like Christian whom we've become.

And that leads us right to the third point. Any one of these things in this list would be enough to occupy us for a lifetime. And over the course of our lifetime, not one of us will ever live up to even one of these. And so we will always need to be returning from our life of service and action to our neighbor to have our minds renewed. Renewed by the hearing of the Word and eating of His body and the drinking of His blood. The Word that assures us that in His lifetime, Jesus Christ has done every one of these, perfectly and completely. The Christian life that Paul describes here is the perfect description of the life of Christ. The Sacrament of the Altar assures us that Christ has done all of this for you and you are forgiven all of your sins and strengthened by His body, we're ready to go into the world with our body, and present it as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

As a father or a mother, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how rich or successful or athletic or intelligent your children are if, when you get to heaven, you don't see them there? As a son or a daughter, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how much my parents have given me or done for me or left to me, if when I get to heaven, I don't see them there? As a brother or sister, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how well you all got along or how much you argued with your siblings, if when you get to heaven, you don't see them there? As a husband or wife, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how happy or wonderful my marriage has been if, when you get to heaven, you don't your spouse there?

That's the best I can do to frame the concern of Paul for his fellow Israelites that he expresses in chapters 9, 10 and 11 of Romans. When Paul considers the possibility that when he gets to heaven, he may not see many his "kinsmen according to the flesh" there, in chapter 9 he says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I was cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh." (Rom.9:2-3).

"Paul desires to be damned so the damned might be saved." (Luther) Jesus said, "no greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend."

Certainly, Paul knows that it would do no one else any good if he were accursed and cut off from Christ. He knows that there is only one man who can save his brothers and sisters by being accursed and cut off from God, "the man, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself as a ransom for all." (1 Tim. 2:6). The Son of God took on our flesh and was cut off from the Father for the sake of His kinsmen according to the flesh. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Here's the answer to Jesus' terrible question. He was cut off from God for you'His kinsmen according to the flesh, so that you would not be forsaken, so you would not be cut off from God, so that you would become His kinsmen according to the flesh and the Spirit, so that you would be saved.

Now, Paul begins the 10th chapter of Romans by saying, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." So, the Christian life is a mixed bag of joy and sorrow. It's the greatest joy to know that Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God who has come down from heaven to be bear our sin and be our savior, who has risen from the dead, ascended into heaven to prepare a place in paradise for you.

But it is also the greatest sorrow to know that some reject Christ and will not be saved. And how intense and real is that sorrow when it is your kinsmen according to the flesh.

The question that stands before us this morning and that St. Paul intends to answer for the Christians in Rome and Waterville is this, "how is a person saved?" In particular, how are the Israelites to be saved? But in general, how is anyone saved, whether he be Israelite, or you or your loved ones? For as we will hear in a minute, "there is no distinction between Jew and Greek."

Now before you raise your hand and asked to be called on, let me warn you that the answer is not what you think. The prophet Isaiah has warned us that we dare not assume that God thinks and acts like we do. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Is.55:8-9). And nowhere is it more obvious that God's ways are unsearchable and beyond our searching out, than in this most important question of our life, "how is a person saved?"

The reason that there are so many different religions in the world, is because so many try to answer this question according to their own thoughts and ways. Each thinks it knows how a person is saved. Each one reaches up to heaven and down to hell, collects the data and makes their observations, applies their logic and produces a plan for salvation. As if to say, "If I were God, this is how I'd do it."

Israel's problem was certainly not that it was not religious. Paul writes, "I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." On the whole, they were very religious people. But being religious is not the same as being righteous. You may know some people who are also very religious. But their religion is not according to knowledge, that is, the knowledge of God.

"For being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish a righteousness of their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." Paul spells it out as plainly as it can be spelled. There's God's way to be saved and man's way to be saved. Israel did not submit to God's way. They rejected God's way. They insisted on going about it their own way.

For all of the different religions in the world, there is always one, common thread that runs through every one of them. As different as each religion is from the other, this one, common thread makes all of them more similar to each other than different. The one common thread is this; men and woman are saved by keeping God's law. The un-gospel in a nutshell is this, "God so loved the world that He gave His law, that whosoever obeys it will have eternal life."

Now, for all serious practitioners of the religion of the law, the first question that arises is this one, "how much of the law must I keep to be saved?" Surely not all of it. Not even Israel, as zealous for God as they were, believed that a person had to keep all of God's law to be saved. Even they knew that no one was perfect and no one could keep the law perfectly. Certainly there were some basic, minimum standards that must be met, like circumcision, no eating meat with the blood still in it, and no flirting with the Hittite girls.

But after that, it all boiled down to a rather complex set of rules to follow to insure that one did enough good works to outweigh the bad. After all, God is gracious and merciful. He couldn't possibly expect perfection. He is sure to be satisfied with us as long as we are sincere, try hard and are basically good people.

Religions of the law tend to be very popular religions. Their great appeal is that they offer their followers the opportunity to stand before God with some dignity and self-respect. There's a measure of personal pride in being able to stand before God and present Him with your merits and virtues, even if it's simply by comparison to some other poor slob whom you have obviously out-performed.

Paul drops the big bomb on all of this when he writes in verse 4, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." An entirely different plan of salvation is unveiled in Jesus Christ. It's based, not on your keeping the law, but on Christ's keeping it for you, in your place, on your behalf. And not just that part of the law that you couldn't manage to keep. He kept all of it because you couldn't keep any of it.

In chapter 3, Paul spoke the honest to God truth when he said, "For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since, through the law comes the knowledge of sin." (3:20). As if to say, if you're serious about impressing God by keeping His law, go ahead and give it your best shot. But be aware, God says, "there is no difference, all fall short."

And don't kid yourself by thinking that God will appreciate your sincere effort. He has given you a Savior in His Son, Jesus Christ who is the end of the law for righteousness. Your sincere efforts in keeping His law to be saved is a total rejection of God's righteousness through faith in Christ.

Christ is your righteousness before God. Through Holy Baptism, you were hidden in Christ. When God looks at you, He does not see you. You are hidden in Christ. The worst thing you could ever do is to stand before God on the basis of your performance and sincere efforts. It is Christ who stands before the Father. And He is holy, and righteous and perfect. And you are hidden in Christ.

So as you can see, this plan of salvation is diametrically opposite to all the others. It is based not on your good works and worthiness but on your wickedness and unworthiness and your complete and total dependence upon Jesus Christ. Or as Jesus put it, "whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it." (Luke 17:33)

Paul writes, "For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them." Or, as experience has taught us, die by them, because we cannot keep them. "But the righteousness based on faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven, or who will descend into the abyss?'" Look to Christ, fix your eyes on Him, set your hope upon Him. Stop trying to do the impossible. Christ has already done it. He has already been raised from the abyss and ascended into heaven. Take the easy way out. Do nothing. Remain right where He has hidden you.

Put all your trust in His Word which is in your mouth to "take and eat, take and drink." You are not giving yourself to God, He is giving Himself to you. He has given you His Word and planted it in your heart, creating and strengthening your faith, that you may confess your sin and cling to His righteousness.

So, for all of the distinctions between religions that we are accustomed to make, there are really only two religions in all the world. One preaches and teaches that a person is saved by the keeping of the law. The righteousness based on the law says, "this I must do," and "look what I've done." The other preaches and teaches that a person is saved apart from the keeping of the law and solely by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness based on faith confesses with the mouth, "I can do nothing," because believes in the heart, "it is finished."

Paul says, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him."

As I say in the Inquirers Class, I imagine that when we arrive in heaven, we will be quick to inform our Lord that were Lutheran, and Missouri Synod Lutheran at that. Someone else will say, "I was Roman Catholic." Another will say, "I was Presbyterian, an Orthodox Presbyterian no less." And somewhere in the course of all of this boasting, Jesus will silence us all with a shout and say, "honestly, I've never heard of any of these things, and I have no idea what you're referring to. I only know believer and unbeliever."

For the Scripture says, "everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved."

As we continue our summer tour through Romans, we come now to the 9th chapter where Paul, once again, raises the example of Old Testament Israel to make his point. Paul summarizes the historical data of how God has treated the Israelites throughout their history. "They are the Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."

By putting the historical example of Israel before us, Paul raises the question that he knows is lurking in the dark recesses of our mind. If God has so blessed Israel with this incredible r??sum?? of benefits and privileges, why isn't all of Israel saved? Or, to put the question in a more familiar way, why are some saved and not others?

This is not to say that there are no Israelites in heaven and this is not what Paul is saying here. The Old Testament is chock full of Israelites whom we will one day meet in heaven. Even the New Testament has a fine collection of Israelites, offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are already all settled into their eternal home in paradise, Paul himself being one.

But clearly, God blessed all of Israel with the blessings that Paul has documented. Why isn't all Israel saved? This is a question regarding the doctrine of Election and God's eternal Predestination. He opened the door for this in chapter 8 where he said, "those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." (Rom.8:29-30).

Now, in chapters 9, 10 and 11, he guides us in how we are to think about this most comforting and assuring Christian doctrine.

Before we get right to the direct answer which Paul gives to the question, "why not all Israel," there is something here that Paul wants us to see about ourselves that we dare not miss, and, that is critical to a right understanding of his answer.

There is something important that Paul wants us to understand about how we process a question like, "why isn't all Israel saved?" When we ask a question like, "why are some saved but not others" what are our first thoughts and where do they come from?

Paul knows the human mind very well. And he is not afraid to tell it like it is. Here in the 9th chapter, Paul outlines the way that we process these kinds of questions when we do so apart from the Word of God.

First, we question the reliability of God's Word. "Why not all?" "Why some and not others?" Our first thought is, "it must be because there is a problem with the Word of God." It must not be able to deliver what it promises to give. To this, Paul responds in verse 6 saying, "It is not as though the word of God has failed."

Second, we question God's justice. How could a loving God let people perish eternally? In verse 14, Paul asks the rhetorical question, "Is there injustice on God's part?" And answers, "by no means."

And third, we question God's judgment. "If God has mercy on whomever He wills and hardens whomever He wills," how can He find fault with anyone? In verse 19, Paul asks, "Why does He still find fault?" And if I may summarize his response, Paul says, "it'd be best to just shut up right now."

So, before we're ready to handle Paul's answer to our questions, we need to look into the mirror that Paul has so skillfully put before us.

What are we doing when we process these questions like this and come to conclusions like these? Aren't we blaming God? Isn't this our first move and natural response to point the finger at God and accuse Him of having a faulty Word or being unfair or too harsh?

In 1948, C.S. Lewis wrote a little essay entitled, "God In The Dock." The "Dock" is the stand in a courtroom where the accused sits for questioning by the prosecution. Lewis writes, "Ancient man approached God as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge and God is in the dock. Truly, man is a kind judge and if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God is in the Dock."

Isn't that just what we are doing when we process these questions as Paul accurately says that we do?

So, anytime we begin to consider the doctrine of Election, we must always begin with an attitude of repentance. Repent of blaming man's fall on God's faulty Word. Repent of trying to justify man's injustice to God by shifting the blame onto God. Repent of covering up our abuse of God's good and gracious gifts by accusing God of being overly harsh in His judgment against our sin.

The only way to ask these questions in the right spirit, is to ask them in sincere repentance and abject humility before God, with an upfront confession of faith on our lips that, "we believe that God's Word is infallible. We believe that God is just in all that He does. We believe that God is merciful and gracious, and abounding in steadfast love."

So, with that said, we're properly prepared to hear Paul answer to why not all Israel, and why some and not others. The short and sweet answer in verse 11 where he says, "in order that God's purpose of election might continue." Why aren't all Israelites true Israelites? Why aren't all the blood relatives of Abraham children of Abraham? Why aren't even twins from the same father and mother both called by God? "In order that God's purpose of election might continue."

Not because of proper lineage, proper blood-line, or good works. It is "in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of His call." It's all God and it all depends on God.

Are you okay with that? And if not, why not? Is it because you don't trust God to have not just the final say, but the only say in the most important matter of your life and the life of every other person on the face of the earth? I do think that if we have a problem with the doctrine of Election, it's because we have a problem trusting God. The sin of Adam has infected us all. Like fallen Adam, we're no longer so sure that God is good. We suspect that He might be unfair or too harsh. Election means that He has decided the matter before the world began, before we had any say in the matter, before we ever did good or bad. To the Ephesians, Paul writes, "He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world." (Ephesians 1:4). So, if this makes us nervous it's because we really don't trust that the blood of Jesus Christ alone is enough to satisfy the Father. We are afraid that He will want His pound of flesh from us too.

So, it's very important for us to know just what God's purpose of election is. And to this question, the Holy Scriptures are full of direct answers. And as long as we confine ourselves to God's Word, the Holy Bible, the only Word of God, we're on solid ground.

The short answer from the Old Testament comes through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, who says, "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live." "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live." (Ezekiel 18:23,32). In the New Testament, it's Peter who gives the short answer saying that God does not "wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (2 Peter 3:9).

God's purpose of election is not that some should be damned and others should be saved. Nowhere in all the scriptures do we find an ounce of evidence that all the descendants of Ishmael or of Esau were elected to damnation, just as it would be completely outside the Scriptures to say that all of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are saved.

Why else would Paul feel such great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart for his kinsmen according to the flesh because of their rejection of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of every gift and promise which God has bestowed upon them? If God elected some to damnation, why would Jesus express such great sorrow and unceasing anguish for Israel, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing."

No, what God makes clear from His Word is that "He so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life." God's Word makes it very clear that He desires that all would be saved. How could He act against His own will?

What God does not make clear in His Word, is how His purpose of election actually works. How is it that God's purpose of election is accomplished even though not all Israel is saved and even though some are saved and others are not? That is a question that God has not answered for us and therefore is beyond our knowing. In chapter 11, Paul will say "Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways!" (11:33).

But this much He does tell us. One day, we will see it all clearly. We will see Him as He is and all His works and all His ways will be made known to us. And when that day comes, every knee will bow and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and all His works and all His ways were good and right and salutary. But in the meantime, we live by faith. Trusting in the goodness, mercy and love of God.

Listen, I know that the ground we have covered this morning is some rough hiking. If it makes you feel any better, in His lectures on Romans, when Luther gets to the 9th chapter, he says, "For I myself would not read these things if the order of the lectionary and necessity did not compel me to do so. For this is very strong wine and the most complete meal." And then, even Luther says, "but I am a baby who needs milk, not solid food."

If this kind of strong wine and solid food upsets your stomach, take Luther's own advice. He says, "first, let him who is bothered by this, purge the eyes of his heart in his meditations on the wounds of Jesus Christ." "The wounds of Jesus Christ, the cleft of the rock, are sufficiently safe for us."

Moses wanted to see the face of God. To rephrase that just a bit, Moses wanted to know how God's purpose of election worked. But God said, No, you can't see that. So what did God do? He put Moses into the cleft in the rock and from there, Moses saw all the goodness of God pass by Him.

Luther calls the wounds of Christ, the cleft in the rock. There, from the wounds of Christ, you may know without a doubt that God is good and you are forgiven all of your sins. By those wounds, suffered for you, you may know that He has called you and baptized you into those wounds so that just as Christ died for you, you may rise with Him. Meditate on the wounds of Christ as He presses His body and blood into your hands and onto your lips, so that you may be perfectly satisfied to put your complete trust in Him who is the Christ, God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

'So then" Nothing like coming into the middle of a conversation. 'So then" That's an awkward place to begin a reading. 'So then"means that what is about to be said is based on what has just been said. So then, before we talk about the 'so then" we need to go back and pick up on what Paul has just said, so then we can understand the point that he wants to make.

Let's open our bible and turn to Romans, 8 beginning at verse 1. Page 944 in your pew bible. While you're going there, let me very briefly summarize where we left off last Sunday as we came to the end of chapter 7, because, as you'll see, Paul begins chapter 8 with a 'therefore" which is like a 'so then" It means that what he is about to say is based on what has already been said.

Paul ended chapter seven by describing the reality of the life of faith. He describes the life of faith as one of inner conflict, frustration and disappointment with ourselves because we have the desire to please God and keep His Word, but not the ability to carry it out. In famous words, Paul says, 'I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.' And the conclusion he comes to is not that God is bad or His Law is wrong or that its all God's fault, but, 'What a wretched man I am.'

What is to become of me, wretched man that I am? What is to become of 'this body of death,' as St. Paul calls himself? I know the answer that is on the tip of your tongue even though you haven't got the courage to spit it out. And neither does St. Paul. And so before you can spell 'condemnation,' Paul blurts out the conclusion that you would never have come to or dared to even suggest. 'There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.'

Read that together with me please. 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' And once again. 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' There's a verse worth writing onto your memory banks to recall every time the sum total of the data of your life adds up to nothing but, 'what a wretched man that I am.'

Let's read on. Vss.2-4. 'For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Two laws are at work here. The law of the Spirit of life and the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death says, 'you will be judged according to your performance of the 10 Commandments. 'The law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.' If you keep the Law, then you will be holy and righteous and good. But if you fall short, you stand condemned. 'And all fall short!' Which is why it is called the 'law of sin and death.'

But the law of the Spirit of life says that you will be judged by the performance of another who is holy and righteous and good. Whereas you are weak because of your sin, He is almighty, for He is without sin. Whereas you cannot keep the law, He has kept the law, perfectly, and for you, in your place. Whereas you deserve nothing but condemnation, He deserves nothing but honor and glory and praise. But He has taken your condemnation upon Himself, in His flesh and put it to death, upon the cross that was meant for you. He has fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law for you. He has become sin for you, and by His bloody death, your sin that has been condemned, and you are set free from the law of sin and death.

There are two laws that are at work, one of which will determine your eternal destiny. So the question is, which law will you live under? The law of sin and death or the law of the Spirit of life? To live under the law of sin and death is to stand on your own two feet before God and demand He give you what you deserve. But to live under the law of the Spirit of life is to repent and deny yourself and 'wholly lean on Jesus name.'

Actually, this is not something that God is willing to leave up to you to choose. He knows what poor choices we make because of our sin. So, He has called you by the gospel and baptized you. And through Holy Baptism, you died to the law of sin and death, and your life is now hidden with God in Christ. You are in Christ and Christ is in you. And 'There is therefore now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.'

In verses 5-11, Paul develops this point some more, but you can't preach on the whole bible in one sermon. We've got enough under our belt now to move ahead with our assigned text and get to the 'so then" assigned to us this morning.

Vss. 12-13 ' 'So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.'

'We are debtors,' he says. As Americans, we ought to understand just what that means. We have a national debt in the trillions that affects every one of our lives. We have a mortgage debt and student loan debt and credit card debt. We are debtors alright. But Paul is not interested in our financial debt. Rather, he's interested in a much greater debt than all of our financial debt put together. 'We are debtors' to God.

'Not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.' It's a darn shame that we even have to bring this up, but since Paul does, so do we. Remember, Paul is writing to Christians, not unbelievers. Some Christians, who have baptized into Christ, who have been hidden in Christ, are acting like they're in debt to the flesh. They're hesitant to leave old ways behind because they think they owe them something. Paul feels the need to state what seems too obvious to have to. 'We are not in debt to the flesh.' The grace of God in Jesus Christ has does not set us free to keep on sinning. It sets us free from sin and death. Luther says that the grace of God is the remission of sin and not the permission to sin.

'We are debtors' to God. What took place in the past when Christ was crucified for us and raised for us, is a present reality. 'There IS therefore now no condemnation"

But if it is a present reality, then it must also be a present obligation to live accordingly. We owe it to our Creator and Redeemer to strive to live the life that He has given us, not the life that He has suffered the cross to deliver us from.

'We are debtors.' Debtors are obligated to their creditors. God the Father has credited to you the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. All of the goodness of Christ with whom the Father is 'well pleased' is credited to you. It has been credited to you because you couldn't get it in any other way. When it comes to having the righteousness of God, you're flat broke. You're living on credit. 'We are debtors' to God.

Now, the question is, 'what kind of creditor is God'? Is He like your VISA card, which racks up the interest every time you can't pay the amount due? Is He like the gangster who threatens to hurt you if you don't pay up? Or is He like your senile uncle who can't keep track of what he's loaned you and will never ask you to repay a thing? The answer of course is, 'none of the above.' What kind of creditor is God? He is like a dear Father to His dear children. Paul says, 'For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

'For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba,' 'Father.' And the Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs ' heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ"

Slaves are debtors to their master who makes hard demands upon them and rule over them by fear. And we were all once slaves. Slaves to sin and ruled by fear that God would punish us if we fail to meet His righteous demands. But what do we find when we come to Him? Not an angry slave master who demands that His subjects pay up or be thrown in the fiery prison, but a loving Father who cancels our debt for the sake of our Brother, Jesus Christ, who has paid our debt for us, not with gold or silver but with His precious and priceless blood shed on the cross.

What beautiful and blessed gospel St. Paul preaches to the Romans, and to you and me, who do not do the good that we desire to do and who do the evil that we hate. This is the gospel in its Trinitarian fullness. The Father sends the Holy Spirit who is the adoption agent. The Spirit of adoption calls us by the gospel and unites us to our dear Father as His dear children. And the same Spirit of adoption bears witness to our spirit every time we doubt or go astray, pointing us to our baptism, declaring the truth into our ears, telling us that we are fellow heirs with Jesus Christ.

We are children of God who come to our heavenly Father with our debt of sin, not to repay Him, but to have Him clear our debt by His forgiveness. We do not stand before God in the debt of our sin but we stand before God in the debt of gratitude and devotion. And we pay our debt of gratitude and devotion to God by calling Him 'our Father,' not in fear, 'but with all boldness and confidence as dear children ask their dear father,' 'forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.'

'So then" From 'wretched man that I am,' to 'no condemnation,' to 'adoption as sons.' How shall we respond to this grace upon grace where all of our debts have been washed away in the sea of Christ's blood and we have been united to our Father through the Spirit of adoption and our names have been written into the Father's 'last will and testament'?

'So then brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.' But debtors to God, to live according to the Spirit of life by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'

After they finished their Passover meal in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, Jesus led 11 of His 12 disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. Knowing all that was to take place and knowing that the time had fully come for His passion and suffering for the sins of the world to begin, He them to keep watch while He prayed. They fell asleep. Certainly, it was not that they ignored His request or that they didn't want to keep watch. They just couldn't keep their eyes open. (Maybe some of you have had the experience. Just let it not be during the sermon.) Jesus came from where He had been praying to where He had stationed His apostles and found them sleeping. And He said to them, "The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41).

St. Paul was not among those 11 disciples. Yet he would later learn the same lesson. "The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak." Or as Paul puts it, "I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out."

I've read that people who have been paralyzed by an injury or a stroke have the thoughts and desire to move an arm or a leg, but it just won't respond. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. They have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out. And this can be terribly frustrating.

However, what St. Paul is writing about here is an even deeper frustration. It's something that only the Christian can identify with and that every Christian can identify with. Through Holy Baptism, the Spirit of God has made our body His temple and dwells in us. He has transformed our unholy spirit and conformed our heart and mind so that we now desire that God's will would be done in our lives. We want to do the things that are good, right and salutary before God, not out of fear, but because our hearts have been set to a new tune and we sing a new song and we march to the beat of a different drummer.

The Psalmist speaks of our conversion like this. "I delight in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches… Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it…" If only we would actually do the things we delight in doing. Then, we could skip all that business of confession and absolution at the beginning of worship and the service would shorter than it is.

Unbelievers can't relate to any of this. They have no thoughts or desires for doing God's will and therefore they feel no frustration that they don't. The Psalmist says, "their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law" (Psalm 119:14, 35, 70). Paul harmonizes perfectly with the Psalmist saying, "I delight in the Law of God in my inner being…" The problem is, "evil lies close at hand."

Keep in mind, this is St. Paul, of all people, talking about himself. Sometimes we get this crazy notion in our head that if only we were more spiritual or more devout, we wouldn't suffer this kind of spiritual ineptitude. Certainly there must be a point when we reach super-sanctified status and our desires and our deeds sing together in perfect harmony. But if that really is the way it works, you'll have to surpass St. Paul in your pursuit of perfection who says, "For I do not do the good that I want…"

Actually, it seems to work just the opposite as you'd think. The more you grow in your knowledge of God's Word and will for your life and the more the Spirit conforms your thinking and your desires to His thoughts and desires, the more obvious your weakness becomes and the more disappointed in yourself are.

And just to anticipate that thought that I suspect you've already formulated in your mind, being the quick thinkers that you are, let me respond by misquoting St. Paul, "What then shall we say? Shall we remain ignorant and pay no attention to God's Word so that we desire to do nothing more than we actually do? By no means!

Not to put too fine a point on this, but this is only half of our problem. Not only are we paralyzed when it comes to doing the good that we will to do, but when it comes to the evil that we do not want to do, then, it seems like we're fully capable of springing into action. It's like our internal wiring has been crossed up so when you turn the switch to "on", the power shuts off and when you turn the switch to "off," the power goes on. "I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members." Not only is our flesh weak, but the power of sin is strong.

Remember that Paul is writing to Christians. He's not writing to non-Christians. You're unbelieving, un-churched friends and co-workers wouldn't understand what you're talking about if you told them about the struggles and frustrations of the Christian's life of faith. Certainly unbelievers have their struggles too, but they're categorically different. The unbeliever struggles with God. God is their adversary and they resist His Word and will for their life. The believer on the other hand struggles, not with God but with his own sinful desires and impulses. He sees himself as his greatest enemy and blames only himself for failing to achieve his desires, which is God's holy will for His life.

Why are we like this? Why, after conversion from unbeliever to believer, from sinner to saint, do we still experience this kind of struggle? Wouldn't you like to know? Because if you could only understand why we Christians act like we do, maybe then we would understand how to fix ourselves. And if we could fix ourselves, then we could not only skip the confession and absolution, but we could also skip the all that cross talk and sermons would simply deal with self-improvement pointers instead of so much concentration on the forgiveness and mercy of God for helpless and pathetic sinners like us.

Even St. Paul doesn't understand it. He says, "I do not understand my own actions." Read his stuff all you want and you won't find any tips for self-improvement or sure-fire ways to overcome your inner struggles. Nor does he concoct a rational explanation to justify his pathetic performance. Nor does he blame his condition on God or God's Law. In fact, he says, "So we know that the Law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good…" He simply draws the one and only honest conclusion that any honest understanding of the facts of life demands. "What a wretched man that I am."

As American Christians, we have the Holy Spirit in us as well as a good measure of the frontier spirit. We have a hard time just leaving it at "what a wretched man that I am." We want to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make something of my life. The human spirit is strong. Where there's a will there's a way." And in matters of science and engineering and economics, this may be true and what we can accomplish if we set our mind to it is awesome.

But when it comes to the most important issue there is, the conforming of our life to the Word and will of God, we are as good as dead. And we are left with only one thing to say. "Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

When St. Paul looks at himself in the mirror of God's Law, he sees a man who is "sold under sin." He doesn't see the human potential for goodness, ready to blossom and grow if only given a second chance and the right opportunities. He says, "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh."

The picture that St. Paul paints of himself here reminds me of the picture of the lepers and the blind beggars whom we see in the gospels. Each and every one of them could well have used Paul's words as their own. "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" They were left with nothing more to say than, "Kyrie, elesion." "Lord, have mercy." Is it not Jesus' reply to these wretched, helpless human beings that prompts St. Paul to cry out as though he were one of them, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Let me make three points in summary of what we've heard from Paul in the last verses of Romans, chapter 7.

First, what we see from Paul's description of his own life is a description of the life of faith in general. Conversion is not an escape from the misery and frustration that sin causes to Paradise Island. That will come, but not in this life. To live by faith in Jesus Christ actually results in disappointments and frustrations and struggles that you would never have experienced apart from faith.

Sin is still present as long as we still live in the flesh. Unbelievers may cling to sin, and believers may cling to Christ, but sin clings to all who still wear their original birthday suit. The Christian is always simultaneously saint and sinner, and as long as we live on this side of heaven, the sinner in us will always dominate. "With my flesh I serve the law of sin." So, we will always need confession and absolution and God's unfailing love and forgiveness pumped into our ears and pressed onto our lips.

I say this because, as sure as there is a devil in hell, inevitably, some religious nut will tell you that if only you really believed and if you really have the Spirit in you, then you wouldn't struggle so much. Then your deeds would be as pure as your desires. Be very careful of that kind of advice and be satisfied to be no further along in your struggle than St. Paul, who ultimately relies entirely upon His Lord and not at all on himself or his deeds.

The second point is closely related to the first. I have greater concern for the believer who suffers no despair and who encounters little struggle in his life of faith than I do for the believer who does. The problem that many Christians have is not their frustration and despair with themselves, but rather, the lack of it. "Smooth-sailing-saints" feel little urgency and see no real reason to cry out to their Lord like the blind, leprous, beggars that we are.

And the third point is this. That Paul doesn't cover up or hide his frustration and despair with himself means that we shouldn't cover up or hide ours either. In fact, what we see from Paul should be the example for us all. The temptation that we pious Christians sometimes face is to hide our struggle because we want to appear to be more sanctified than our brothers and sisters in Christ or because we think that real Christians shouldn't have these weaknesses. Someone once said, 'show me a Christian who no longer struggles against the flesh and I'll show you a fresh grave.' Some of these frustrations and failures may be shared freely and openly. Some call for private confession and absolution with the pastor to which I invite you all to take advantage.

As we've said, the more 'mature' our faith, the more we will hate our failure to do what God desires. The despair with himself that Paul expresses so poignantly here, is the physical experience of the death of the old sinful nature. Ultimately, we must all die and put all of our hope and trust for life in Jesus Christ.

And with that said, Paul has us all set up for chapter 8. He has brought us to that point where all the roads for self-improvement before God have been closed off and have no where else to turn but to Jesus. Where it not for the cross of Christ and His resurrection from the dead, Paul's letter to the Romans would end right here, and we would, of all people be the most pitiable. But by His cross and His resurrection, we who still struggle with sin and despair over the weakness of our flesh may yet say, "thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

This is week #6 in our 15-week summer tour through Paul's letter to the Romans. When you take a tour as long as this one, sometimes it's necessary to be reminded of why we're on this tour in the first place and what this tour is supposed to show us.

Very quickly, Paul is writing to a congregation of Christians in Rome. He's never actually met them, but he has heard a great deal about them, probably from two of their former members, Aquilla and Priscilla, whom Paul met when he was in Corinth. Paul wants to go to Rome someday, and with the help and support of the Christians in Rome, he wants to go to Spain and set up a base of operation there to do the kind of church planting work in Western Europe that he has done out of Antioch in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

So, Paul doesn't intend to spend a lot of time in Rome before moving on. A lot of the teaching and instruction in the gospel that he would normally do when he comes into a city, he is trying to do in advance, by this letter. That's why Romans is the most comprehensive presentation of Christian doctrine of any of Paul's epistles.

(Sorry for all this historical background, but I've been away all last week to a seminary extension course on church history, which was all about the historical context. What I learned was that historians can't just get to the point. They've got to go through 100 years of history before they get to the point. I think some of that has rubbed off.)

The main point that Paul wants to make to the Romans, is that the Christian faith is founded upon the premise that men and women are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, for Christ's sake alone. Paul sums all of this up in chapter one, by quoting the prophet Habakkuk saying, "The righteous shall live by faith." (Rom.1:17). The rest of Romans is an unpacking of what that means.

Last week as we toured chapter 6, we saw that Paul used the analogy of slave and slave-master to make his point. Today, as we tour chapter 7, the analogy that Paul uses is marriage. "Thus a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress."

The marriage that Paul describes for us here is not what you would call a "good marriage." This is a troubled marriage. The predominate thought that occupies this marriage is, "how long must I endure it?" "How do I get out of it?" "When and how will I be free to marry another?"

When Paul later writes to the Ephesians (which he writes from Rome, where he's in prison), he'll use the analogy of marriage once again, but this time in a very positive way. In Ephesians, Paul describes the perfect marriage and then says, "ah, but I'm not talking about the marriage of a man to a woman but of Christ to His Church." There's a marriage that you don't want to get out of, but one you want to get into and remain in.

So, what's the meaning of this unhappy marriage that Paul describes here? Who is this unhappy couple really? What Paul is describing here is not the marriage of Christ and His Church, but the marriage of the Law and the Christian. "Or do you not know brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law' that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?"

Here are the demands that your husband the Law makes on you: 1. "You shall have no other gods before me." 2. "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." 3. "You shall remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." 4. "You shall honor your father and your mother." 5. "You shall not murder." 6. "You shall not commit adultery." 7. "You shall not steal." 8. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." 9. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house." 10. "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

So, if you're married to the Law, you're devoted to pleasing your spouse. You want to please your spouse and you want to hear your spouse say, "I'm pleased with you." And here's where some of you, thankfully, may not be able to relate at all to this analogy. And for some of you, this analogy may be very real and quite painful. How do you please a spouse like the Law of God?

No matter what you do, it will never be enough. No matter how hard your try, you will never satisfy the demands of the law. You can be good, you can be very good, you can be wonderful. You can be the best wife the Law has ever had, and still, the Law will always say, "you could have done more," "you could have tried harder," "you could have done better."

Maybe this is sounding too familiar to your ears, or, to over-mix a metaphor, but maybe this is sounding too familiar to your lips, and you're getting stuck in the analogy. Keep in mind, Paul is not really talking about the marriage of a man and a woman but he is talking about our life in Christ where "the righteous shall live by faith."

Which is not to say that there are no practical applications here to the reasons for a troubled marriage. Paul made some very practical applications to the marriage of a man and woman from the marriage of Christ to His Church in his letter to the Ephesians. So, I think it might be safe to do the same here.

Paul's point however is, the Law is a hard spouse to live with. It's never pleased, never satisfied, always demanding and always expecting more. And to be married to the Law is to be always falling short, never able to please.

And here's the really painful part about all of this. The Law is right! It's not wrong! You really could have done more, and tried harder and you should have done better. 'What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means!'

Now, here's where the analogy begins to break down a bit. Paul doesn't mean that the Law is our spouse or that we are married to the Law. But what he is saying is that sometimes you Christians act as if your relationship to God was like a marriage to the Law. You're always trying to please God by keeping the Law. And it kind of makes sense, because after all, it's God's Law, right? It should please God if I try to meet the demands of His Law, right? And the harder I try and more sincere that I am and the better I get at it, the more acceptable to God I should be, right?

Wrong! The Law will not let you do that. You really could have done more, and tried harder and been more sincere. The Law is a tyrant.

Who wouldn't want to get out of a relationship like this? Which is quickly followed by, how do I get out of a relationship like this? And Paul says, "there's only one way out." Death. Once your spouse dies, you're free to marry another. "Till death do us part," and "as long as you both shall live," are serious words that mean what they say.

So the dilemma of any man or woman who finds themselves in a relationship to God which is like being married to the Law is this, God doesn't ever die. And God's Law never dies either. So, how do you get out of this kind of bad relationship like this one? There is only one answer, there is only one-way out: you must die.

And that's just what Paul says has happened to you. "Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law." You have died. And how have you died? Paul says, "you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead."

In the previous chapter, Paul had said, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Rom.6:4). By Christ's death on the cross, you have died, and by your death through baptism, you have been set free from the Law. By Christ's resurrection from the dead, you have been united to another husband, Jesus Christ.

And what a marriage this is. Married to Christ, you are pleasing to God. God is pleased with you, not because you have performed well or fulfilled the law but because your husband has performed well and He has fulfilled the whole law perfectly, for you.

How often the Old Testament portrays Christ as a lover in pursuit of His beloved. He has seen you and how miserable you were married to the Law. He has seen how your marriage to the Law drained the joy and pleasure out of your life before God. He has seen how frustrating you were and how angry and bitter your demanding spouse made you. He saw how the Law worked sin in you. "If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin."

And in pity and with compassion, He came to you and He met the demands of the Law for you. The Law, your ex-spouse, has nothing to demand from you anymore, because your new husband, Jesus Christ has satisfied the Law perfectly for you.

But Christ was not satisfied leaving you in this loveless marriage. He died. He died for you to set you free from your miserable marriage to the Law. In your baptism, you died with Christ. You are free from the Law. You are no longer married to the Law. In your baptism, you have been united to Christ. United in a holy marriage where Christ is Your husband. And what a husband He is.

Christ, your husband has brought home His bloody paycheck and has signed it all over to you, that you may never worry or want for anything before God. From Him you receive unconditional love, undistracted acceptance, unceasing care, uninterrupted forgiveness, untiring patience, unbridled joy.

This is what Jesus is talking about when He woos His beloved saying, "Come to me you who labor and are laden, and I will give you rest." Give up your chasing after my Father's acceptance by the keeping of the Law. "Take my yoke upon you'for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Mat.11:29-30). His yoke is not an easier law, but the end of the law and the beginning of a new life under the gospel.

If you have ears to hear, listen to the celebration of your wedding to Christ your husband.
"Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
"Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure" (Rev. 19:6-8)

So, as the bride of Christ, you must be asking yourself the question that every good wife wants to know. "What must I do to please my husband?" And the reply that comes from your Husband is simply this, "there is nothing you can do to please Me. Just believe that I am pleased with you solely because I love you. Let my cross be my pledge to you and the wedding band that you wear on your heart. With this cross, I thee wed. And with this empty tomb, death will never part us."

No, there is nothing that you can do for God that will make Him any more pleased with you than He is. Only let Him do for you all that He desires to do for His beloved bride.

For, "the righteous shall live by faith."

"You who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."

In 1833, the British Parliament passed the 'Abolition Of Slavery' Act, which made the practice of slavery in Great Britain illegal, and granted all slaves in the British Empire their freedom. But you are still a slave.

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring the freedom of slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America. But you are still a slave.

On December 18, 1865, the United States Congress ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution saying that, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." But you are still a slave.

Don't think that just because the Constitution says that you're free, that you're free to do anything you please. You are still a slave. You are under authority. You must obey the laws of the land. You may be free to help or not to help your neighbor in his need but you are not free to murder him. You are free to share or not to share what you have with others, but you are not free to steal from others. You are free to come and go as you please but you are not free to exceed the speed limit or drive through red lights. You are still a slave.

There is no freedom from slavery. There is no escape from slavery. There is no alternative but slavery. Not even in the spiritual realm of things. You are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. It is one or the other but there is no neutral ground from which we may stand and look upon the two slave camps and say, "those people are slaves, but not me. I am my own master. I am the Lord of my own life. I'm the captain of my own ship." The person who says and thinks that is delusional, and is really a slave to sin.

So, the question is not whether or not you are free or a slave. You are a slave. The only question is, what am I a slave to, and will I resist that which enslaves me or surrender to it. Will I resist sin and defy it and refuse to obey, or will I serve it and be obedient to sin's demands? Will sin be your lord and master?

Beware, for sin leads to death and if you let it master you, it may go well for you now, but it will not turn out well for you in the end.

Will you resist the Word of God and defy it and refuse to obey it, or will you eagerly and joyfully serve it and be obedient to God's demands? Will what is holy be your Lord and master and will you let His Word rule over your heart and your mind? Will you let His holy Word rule over your lips and your eyes, and your hands?

God's Word gives life, real life, eternal life. And if you let the Lord your God rule over you let His Word be your master, it may not go well for you now, but it will turn out well for you in the end.

I am aware that this kind of talk is only meaningful to the baptized in Christ. Apart from baptism, you're a slave to sin, end of discussion. You were born in slavery to sin and without baptism you'll die in slavery to sin. Apart from baptism into Christ, you are not free to not sin. You are only free to sin, which is really no freedom at all.

But through Baptism, you have been set free from sin's dominion over you. When Jesus says, "If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed," (John 8:32) this is what He means. He has set you free from slavery to sin. But He has not purchased and won you from sin's dominion by His precious and holy blood to make you absolutely free to do anything you please. He has broken sin's power to rule over you so that He may rule over you and be your Lord and master.

Now that you have been baptized, you have a real choice to make. You may choose which lord and master you will serve and obey. Will you live under the dominion of your sinful passions that lead to death, or under the dominion of Christ's holy passion for you which not only leads to life but which is life itself?

Once again, there is no middle ground between the two. And no way to serve two masters either. "No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." (Matthew 6:24).

I want you to think of your baptism as a river. God has brought you through the water to the other side of the river. Through the water, He has brought you from slavery to sin to slavery to righteousness, from death to life.

Our problem is that we keep looking back over to the other side from where we came with a romantic feeling of nostalgia. 'Wouldn't it be nice if we could just go back to visit the old stomping grounds once in awhile?'

Remember Israel in the desert. God brought them through the water of the Red Sea where they were baptized and set free from slavery under Pharaoh to be slaves of the Lord God. And what do they do? They long to go back to Egypt. "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full'" (Exodus 16:3).

Listen to the words of Joshua to Israel. "Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve . . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:14-15)

Now listen once again to the words of St. Paul to the Romans. "But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."

Only the Christian is free to be "obedient from the heart" to God. A heartfelt desire to be obedient to God's Word and will for your life means that God had already been at work in you. Our obedience to the Lord our God has got God's fingerprints all over it. Whether we were instructed in this "standard of teaching" after we were baptized or were led to baptism after we were instructed, it was God's work according to His power, setting us free to be "slaves of God."

Ken and Ben, you have spent the better part of two years being instructed in "this standard of teaching." It's the teaching that Jesus Christ has set you free from the dominion of sin and death and the devil by His death on the cross. It's the teaching that by the power of His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ has raised you up to a new life to live under the dominion of His love and grace.

I hope and pray that you will be "obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed." To be "obedient from the heart" means that you embrace what you have received and willingly, joyfully, wholeheartedly, strive to let it rule over you. Let your Lord and master, Jesus Christ, who brought you through the water from sin to righteousness, from death to life, rule over you and let His Word have its way with you.

To that end, let me remind you that if you let yourself drift away from "the standard of teaching to which you were committed," you will fall. And unless you're very different than the rest of us in this room, you will drift and you will fall. "I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations." There are passions and desires and temptations of the old sinful nature that are at work in you, trying to steal you back from your Lord, Jesus Christ. Beware! "The end of those things is death."

You won't hear this very often in church, but I'm telling you to be disobedient. Be disobedient to the old sinful nature in you! Be disobedient from the heart to every temptation to sin, because that which you give in to will become your master. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience [to Jesus], which leads to righteousness."

In the vows that you are about to take in the presence of God and of this congregation, you will pledge to remain "obedient from the heart" to the Word and will of Jesus Christ for your life. If you understand your confirmation vows correctly, you will understand that you cannot possibly do what you are pledging to do on your own. To remain "obedient from the heart" to Jesus Christ you must remain in His Word and Sacrament which is the "standard of teaching to which you were committed."

Here, by the gospel and in the eating of Christ's body and blood, you will receive full forgiveness for every time you "presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness which leads to more lawlessness."

Here, by His Word preached and sacraments administered, your disobedient heart will be restored and set right so that you may start over again with a clean heart and renewed spirit and "present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification."

Here, by these means of grace, you will receive the power to resist sin and obey God by the assurance of His real presence with you.

And here, in this "standard of teaching to which you have been committed," you will receive "the free gift of God, which is, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"Since therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."

A woman named Barbara Farnham who lived in Alexandria, Virginia died in March of this past year. She had made arrangements to be buried in Norridgewock, Maine next to her father. She was an active member of a Lutheran church in Virginia. Being the nearest Lutheran pastor in Maine, I was asked if I would be willing to conduct a committal service, to which I gladly agreed. The service took place this past Tuesday afternoon.

After the service as I was making my way back to my car, Nathan, Barbara's 14 year-old grandson caught up with me and said he had a few questions about God. Could he ask them. Little did he understand that I live for such questions.

He had a question about something that he had heard about how the God of the Old Testament was a God of wrath and vengeance but that Jesus in the New Testament was a loving God who saved you if you were good. What did I think about that?

How would you respond a question like that? In two minutes or less? On Tuesday, Nathan got the two minute answer. This morning, you get the 20 minute answer. Not only is this a very common question and perception that I believe many have of the Christian faith, it is also exactly the question that St. Paul is out to answer in this 5th chapter of his letter to the Romans.

It's a two-part question really. First, is the God of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New Testament, two different Gods? And the two second answer is 'no.' There is only one God, and He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons in One God. And there is no disagreement or dissention in God. Sometimes we get the idea that the Father is the Old Testament God and He's the angry one who we have to be careful of. And Jesus is the New Testament God who is nice and friendly and who keeps the Father off our back by telling Him to cool it and relax. But that's not the way it is at all. Jesus puts it like this, "I and the Father are one."

The second part of the question is, 'does God save you if you are good?' I'm sorry to have to say that sadly, there are some people and some churches and some so-called churches who answer that question with a 'yes.' 'God saves you IF you're good.'

Now, if they're right, which they're not, then there must be another question that immediately follows, which is, 'how good do I have to be?' And 'how do I get that good?' And for that, they are prepared with lots of things you must do and things you must not do to be good enough for God to save you. I suspect that many drop out of church or avoid it altogether just because of that kind of rat race. Yet the question still remains, 'how good must I be?' And too often I suspect that the answer is, 'about as good as I am.'

The only reliable way to answer this question is to put it to the Scriptures, which is God's answer to the question about who he saves and why. I'd like to put the question just a little bit differently in order to get to the heart of it. Let's put the question like this, 'Does God save us because we're good, or, are we good because God saves us?' (Repeat).

Now, let's listen to what Paul says in his letter to the Romans as we've heard in our Epistle reading already. "While we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly." "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." "While we were enemies we were reconciled to God . . . ."

That vengeful, wrathful God of the Old Testament, "so loved the world that He sent His only Son," to die for us, not after we got our act together, not after we came to faith, not just for those who were good enough to be worth saving. "While we were still weak." "While we were still sinners." "While we were enemies." "Christ died for us." "Christ died for us." "Christ died for us."

In answer to our question, Paul points us to the cross of Christ. "Christ died for us." There's the answer to your question.

You will never know the heart and mind of God rightly except by the cross, where Christ died for us. The cross of Christ is where the very heart and mind of God is made known to us. Apart from the cross, we only see the requirements of God's law and the hopeless demand that we must be holy as the Lord our God is holy.

Apart from the cross, we can only imagine that God must be like us, and like us, He might be willing to sacrifice for a worthy cause, or a worthy goal, or a worthy person. Yet even at that, it barely ever happens. "For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one might dare even to die."

Our mind is too small and too warped by sin to think like God thinks. God is beyond our imagination. He did the unimaginable, the ridiculous, the foolish, the objectionable, the revolting. "God showed His love for us in this, Christ died for us." By the cross of Christ, the wrathful, vengeful God who hates sin and condemns the sinner, forgives you all of your sins and pardons your punishment, by condemning and punishing His Son in your place.

So, if we may put the question yet a bit differently to clarify it even more, let's ask it this way. "Is God a God of wrath or is God a God of mercy?" When we hold that question up to the scriptures, God's word replies with a resounding, 'yes.'

In chapter one of this letter, Paul declares that the "wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Rom.1:18). The Old Testament is loaded with examples of the wrath of God against man's sin. And so are the Gospels. Jesus overturns tables, curses Pharisees and tells His disciples that they should not be nearly as afraid of the one who can kill the body as they should be of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

Really, how could it be any other way than this? Do we honestly think that it makes no difference to God, whether we are good or bad, whether we lie or stand up for the truth, whether we cheat or deal honestly with others, whether we kill or help and befriend our neighbor, whether we worship Him or not? What kind of world would that be if we didn't care about these things? And worse, what kind of God would that be who didn't care enough about these things?

Once again, the cross shows us the wrath of God who is angry and gets His revenge on our sin. What else is this that we see in Christ who is cursed and the spit upon and hit and the flogged, whose flesh is ripped and torn and pierced with nails and spear and who cries out for the Father, only to be totally rejected' What else is this but the wrath of God against sin. Yet, it is not His sin, but yours and mine that He is bearing in His own body on the cross. Jesus has borne the wrath of God, for you, in your place, for your sake. And all because God does not count sin lightly. God hates sin.

But God is merciful. He saves the weak, the sinful, the ungodly, even the enemy, while we were still all of the above. 'Is God a God of wrath or is God a God of mercy?' At the cross of Christ God gives His answer. It is, 'Yes' to both. By the cross of Christ crucified, God is just and the punishment that for our sin is carried out in full. And by the cross of Christ crucified, God is merciful and loving, and weak, sinful and ungodly enemies, are pardoned and forgiven and fully accepted.

"Since therefore, we have been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."

There is one more thing that must yet be added to Paul's answer to the question before us before we have heard all that he has to say to us. Paul writes, "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life."

What catches our attention here is this 'reconciliation' that Paul speaks of. "While we were enemies we were reconciled to God . . . " What Paul is pointing us to here is more than God's justice and mercy.

'Reconciliation' is not about legal justice or about a judge's pardon from the punishment that is due. 'Reconciliation' is about broken relationships that have been restored. It's about enemies who become friends.

From personal experience, we know all too well that justice can be done with no effect on the relationship. Lawsuits may be tried and settled and justice be done, and yet that doesn't mean that the two sides are now friends. Divorces may be settled and the settlement may be fair to both spouses, but that doesn't mean that the two are now friends.

But what doesn't happen in our own experience, has happened with God. We have also been reconciled to God. There are not two Gods but one God. Paul says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself."

I think that this reconciliation is nowhere portrayed more clearly in all the scriptures than in the parable of the prodigal son. The picture that Jesus paints is of a broken relationship between a father because of the son's selfishness and animosity towards his father. In the closing scene of this brilliant parable, Jesus paints a stunning picture of this father who has never stopped looking for his son to return, and, while he is still a long way off, while he is still weak, while he is still a sinner, while he is still an enemy, the father, runs to his son, hugs him, kisses him, puts the best robe on him, places his ring on his son's finger and orders a great celebration to begin. This is the reconciliation that Jesus Christ has accomplished for you with your heavenly Father.

So, 'does God save us because we're good, or, are we good because God saves us?' Paul pounds the answer home, "If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life." If Jesus made us friends of God while we were still enemies, much more, now that we are God's friends, should we be certain that we are saved.

And all of this by the death of Jesus Christ. And all of this for you. What can we say more than that? Only this. "More than that, we rejoice in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."