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This Week's Sermon FOURTH MIDWEEK LENTEN SERVICE 05 March 2008 "Walk as Children of Light"
Soli Deo Gloria!
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This Week's Sermon FOURTH MIDWEEK LENTEN SERVICE 05 March 2008 "Walk as Children of Light"
Soli Deo Gloria!
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There is no shortage of people who will tell you what to do. Our world is full of advice-givers, from politicians to spouses to parents to employers to employees. Sometimes Christians can get confused about all of this, but Scripture is never wrong when it gives advice as to how to conduct our lives as Christians. We find plenty of direction from our Lord Jesus and the Apostles. Paul spoke to many Christian congregations about how to conduct themselves as Christians in this world and in getting along with each other. There would have been no need for this if Christians were perfect in this world and if they always behaved as they should.
YOU ARE LIGHT IN THE LORD
We want to start this discussion from a baptismal perspective. Jesus has healed your spiritual blindness just as he did for the man born blind in last Sunday's Holy Gospel. That man had lived his whole life in darkness until Jesus spat and made mud which he used to anoint the man's eyes. Of course, his physical blindness was a metaphor for his spiritual blindness. Jesus enlightened his heart about the things of God, enabling this former blind man to confess Jesus as the Savior.
You, too, were once blind, spiritually speaking. You were born "blind, dead, and an enemy of God" as Paul writes. Here Paul speaks in the past tense about our condition:
"for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8, ESV) But you have been washed in the waters of Holy Baptism and given spiritual sight to see and understand the things of God. You confess Christ as your Savior.
The darkness of sin keeps one out of God's kingdom. Paul's words just prior to our reading are shocking to many people.
"For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." (Ephesians 5:5-6, ESV)There are those who deceive us with words to the contrary. In fact, there are very few voices in our society which will label living together before marriage a sin. Without question God's Word says it, but this sin has become so prevalent among the Western world that it is considered common practice. A Lutheran pastor's son is engaged to be married. He and his fiancée are living in a city where neither set of parents lives. They are not living together and will not live together before marriage because Scripture has convinced them both that it is wrong. When this woman's parents found out that they were NOT living together, they were upset and have refused to pay for anything regarding their wedding! It's a reaction that causes us to say, "Huh?" We might expect just the opposite. We would expect the parents to congratulate the young couple and tell them how pleased they were, but not this woman's parents. It came out that they themselves had lived together before marriage and expected their daughter to do the same. She and her fiancé are determined to walk in the light and not the darkness of sin.
Are we as pure as Paul says that those who want to enter the Kingdom of God must be? What about this young couple? Perhaps our outward deeds look pretty good. There may not be overt sins against this commandment. We may not give any evidence of being covetous, which Paul labels as idolatry because it puts something in the place of God. But what about those words we repeat in the General Confession in the Preparation of the Divine Service?
Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. . . We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.Maybe our words don't get us into trouble, although that seems very doubtful, but our thoughts certainly do! Who can honestly say that he or she has never had a lustful thought? Who can honestly say that he has never coveted anything nor ever put a person or thing in God's place?
You know those words of the general confession so well that you can probably speak them by heart, but I want to ask you to do something. Substitute the first person singular for the first person plural in that confession.
"I confess that I am by nature sinful and unclean. I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done and by what I have left undone. . . I justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment."If you are like me, that should make you more uneasy because you can't hide in the company of other sinners. Here majority opinion counts for nothing. It never has when it comes to the things of God. There is just you and your sin . . . and God's verdict that you deserve punishment now and forever.
What's so wrong about those sins against the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Commandments? Not only do they throw God's Word back into his face, they show utter disregard for the neighbor. These sins show our selfishness, that we are willing to use other people for our own pleasure and purposes. Even if two people agree to the arrangement, it simply means that they are willing to use each other. Instead of one selfish person there are two. They end up hurting their neighbor.
WHAT'S TO BE DONE?
"Walk as children of light," Paul says. Does that mean that you and I simply have to try harder? Does it mean that we have to have more laws to keep our sinful flesh in check? The holiness bodies evidently believe that the answer to bad behavior is more law and better efforts at improving what is wrong. They even say that one can improve if God helps him, with the emphasis on the person doing most of the heavy lifting. We won't dispute that God will help us, but they actually believe that it is possible for a person to become more and more sanctified, that is, to sin less and less. But the Bible teaches no such thing. Sin is not gradually eradicated in believers. Sin continues to live in our flesh until the day that it dies. Then, and only then, is the Old Adam in us finally and completely dead.
So, if you can't make yourself holy, even with God's help, what is Paul telling you here? He's telling you that you need to return to your Baptism on a daily basis. This is walking in the light. It is as though the light were a spotlight in a world of darkness and you keep wandering out of the light, first into the shadows, then into the utter darkness. Paul says that you must stay in the light.
How do you do that? First of all, it means confessing your sins. It means that you must admit that you do indeed take part in sin, that sin is part of your makeup, this Old Adam, this natural concupiscence. It needs to be confession in the first person singular because that strips away any comfort you might feel in being part of the company of sinners. To confess is to die to sin, to admit to God what he already knows about you.
Second, it means fleeing again to the light that is Christ Jesus. It is to return to the light of the Holy Gospel which tells you that Christ has born all your sin in himself. Paul wrote to the Corinthians these marvelous words:
"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV) That's where your sins must go, back on Christ and not on you. Jesus is your sin and he has already paid the penalty of your sin and guilt, even those sins you have not yet committed. Being in Christ in Holy Baptism is living in the light.You can't make yourself sinlessness no matter how hard you try because you and I aren't sinless, even though we have been baptized. We are sinner and saint at the same time. Rather, it is the sinlessness of Christ that you must have.
You've already entered the Kingdom of God by Holy Baptism. In Holy Baptism he washed you clean and gave you eyes to see the light. In Confession you stay in the light by admitting your sins of thought, word, and deed to him and receiving again his Absolution. In the Lord's Supper you receive Christ's true body and blood for your forgiveness and strength to stay and return to the light.
To "Walk as Children of Light" means using the gifts God has furnished, that is, his Word and Sacraments. That's how you "Walk as Children of Light."