We Have Peace with the Triune God

Sermon preached at Our Savior on May 30, 2010 for the 1st Sunday after Pentecost – the Holy Trinity. Sermon text: Romans 5:1-5

Peace: everyone wants it. Look at the political scene in our country and our world. The governments of this world want peace, right? The police want peace on the streets and in our homes. We want peace in our families and jobs and schools. There's only one problem: this peace seems hard to come by.

Look at the nations of the world. There's conflict! There's hatred! Wars and rumors of war are all around, many done in the name of peace. The government and police and other agencies locally are plenty busy keeping up with crime and problems -- and overall lack of peace -- around here. And how is the peace in your lives? Are you happy with everyone and is everyone happy with you? It's possible, just not likely.

Then there's the peace that you want inside yourselves. Are you at peace with your life in every way? Again, it's possible, I suppose. But what about your relationship with God himself, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Are you at peace with him?

The quick answer is "yes, of course!" And if you've taken a look at the sermon theme you might feel at ease and think, "Yes, at least I'm at peace with God." The only problem with that is that you're not acting in a peaceful way towards God. Did you know that? None of you are. I guarantee it. That's because none of us are free from sin.

What are our sins but acts of war and rebellion against our holy God? Jesus said, "Be perfect...as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5:48) But we're not perfect. And you think, "Sure, I'm not perfect, but I'm not that bad, either! I've never murdered anyone or robbed a bank. There are a lot worse people than me!" But that doesn't really matter. The Bible reminds us that if you even break one of the commandments, you're really guilty of breaking all of them. (Jas. 2:10)

But we still probably want to object. "God is love! (1 Jn. 4:8) He loves me no matter what! You can't say that I'm doing something wrong." But your sins are wrong, and they're a problem. They have real consequences. The Bible tells us, "Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear." (Is. 59:2) Your sins put a barrier between you and God. One sin is enough for God to never listen to your prayers again.

But if only that was the worst of it! The worst of it, of course, is that the wages of sin is death. (Rom. 6:23) God told it to Adam, and it is just as true for us today: you sin; you die. Death comes with sin, and God does not hold back eternal death as the punishment for every sin. And with eternal death, not only do we not have peace now, but we have no peace, no hope for all eternity.

Thinking about that is enough to create a lack of peace in our mind. That's our conscience that can take away our peace. It reminds us that we haven't lived up to God's standards. It accuses us of our sins -- and it's right. And all we want is peace.

And if that's what we want, Trinity Sunday is a great day to celebrate. Celebrating Trinity Sunday is not meant to be an academic exercise. It's not meant to talk about God as an interesting concept. It's meant to talk about the God without whom we would be lost, without whom we would be condemned, without whom we would have no peace whatsoever. But because we do have our Triune God, we have hope, we have a rescue for the seemingly inescapable problem that our sins have given us. Because of the Triune God, we have peace.

We have peace, because God the Father justified us. He justified us. That's one of those big church words that we hear a lot, but it might be hard for us to remember what it means. God justified us means that God declared us not guilty. He banged the gavel down, and instead of saying, "guilty of all sins, condemned to hell," God said, "You are not guilty. You are perfect. Your reward is eternal life in heaven." The fact that we are justified means that God treats each one of us "just as if I'd" never sinned at all.

How can God do this? Because he sent his one and only Son. As our text tells us. "Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." (Rom. 5:1-2) Our Heavenly Father could declare us not guilty because he sent Jesus to save us.

That's exactly what Jesus did. Jesus, God the Son, redeemed us. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:23) Jesus redeemed us by becoming one of us, being a human being like us in every way -- except he was without sin. (Heb. 4:15) Then this sinless, son of God went to the cross, and he took the full brunt of God's anger and punishment for sin -- for our sins -- onto himself. He bought us back from the punishment our sins deserved. He redeemed us. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of God's grace. (Eph. 1:7)

He has won us peace with God; he has given us hope of eternal life. We live in a world that's not peaceful. We have lives that aren't always peaceful. Our consciences aren't peaceful as they condemn us for our sins. But God shows us his Son. And what his Son has done gives peace to all those things. We don't have to worry about the lack of peace in this world, because God has given us peace in heaven. Our consciences are put at peace with remembering Jesus' love and forgiveness, since his blood covers all our sins.

Does this mean that everyone's going to heaven? Unfortunately no. Many reject God's free gift in Christ. But God has another free gift to make sure we hold on to what Jesus has won for us forever. He gives us faith by the Holy Spirit.

Our text tells us, "Hope" that is, our hope of eternal life, "does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." (Rom. 5:5) The Holy Spirit gives us faith, as God gives him to us. He does that through our baptism, through his Word, through the Lord's Supper. Through it all, the Spirit is there to work that faith in us and strengthen it.

It's all a part of the peace we have. We can never completely understand the Trinity, but we can give thanks that each Person in the Triune God contributes to our salvation, our rescue from sin, death, and hell. The young people who will confess their faith in a couple minutes (in the confirmation oral examination) will not just do so in order to have an academic exercise or show that they can remember a few lines. They will do it to show their faith in the Triune God, their saving faith.

On this Trinity Sunday, that's the faith and salvation that we all give thanks for. So rejoice today and always that God the Father has justified you, that God the Son has redeemed you, and that God the Holy Spirit has given you faith. You don't have to be afraid again. Peace is yours! We have peace with the Triune God!

The Spirit Speaks / We Speak

Sermon preached at Our Savior for the festival of Pentecost on May 23, 2010. Sermon text: John 15:26-27

Some businesses have a "silent partner." This is the person who has a stake in the business, but never speaks or makes decisions for the company. He simply provides his part of the money for it, shares in the profits, and no more. He's a silent partner.

That's how we might think of the Holy Spirit: God's silent partner. We can think of all sorts of things that God the Father and God the Son say and do. Our text for today consists of the words of Jesus. We've heard the words that God the Father spoke as he created the world: "Let there be light!" (Gen. 1:3) But the Holy Spirit? It's probably a little harder to think of what he does, let alone to think of anything he says.

Think about Jesus' baptism. Jesus was the one baptized, and he speaks to John the Baptist beforehand. (Matt. 3:15) God the Father speaks afterward, from the sky, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (Matt. 3:17) The Holy Spirit was there, too, but he was silent. We just hear that he descended on Jesus "like a dove." (Matt. 3:16) All in all, it's pretty easy to think of the Holy Spirit as the "silent partner" of God. It might even be easy for to think the Holy Spirit doesn't really do that much at all.

But he does! The Holy Spirit is vitally important for our life, for our faith, and for our eternity. And don't think for a second that

Where Is Jesus?

Sermon preached at Our Savior on May 16th, 2010 for Ascension (observed). Sermon text: Luke 24:44-53

There are few things more frustrating than being stuck waiting for someone. It's happened to you before. You're with a group of people, but one person is still missing. And it's not just any person, it's the one person you really need to be there.  So there you are, with a group of people, waiting, checking your watch, wondering how long this will take.

I remember being at a restaurant with a large group of family. The restaurant was packed that night; the waiting area was so full there was barely room to stand. Thankfully, we'd made reservations. No waiting for us; we'd get right to our table, right? Wrong. This restaurant had a policy: no party could be seated until every person in that party had arrived. Of course, someone was late. So we waited.

This kind of problem can come to our minds when we think of the day we celebrate today: Ascension. Jesus ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, it sounds so powerful and important -- and it is! But still, it might just leave us wondering: where is Jesus? Isn't he the guy we need around the most? Wouldn't the message of Jesus be more effective, wouldn't we have more hope and joy in our lives, if Jesus was actually here with his church? Sure, Jesus will return one day; we know that. But what are we supposed to do until then? Do we just sit here waiting?

Witness the Power of the Word

Sermon preached on 5/9/10 at Our Savior. Sermon text: Acts 14:8-18

Sometimes someone's words have the power to change everything. One such person is mom. Let's face it, what your mother says means a lot. If you're hurt, or down, or discouraged, sometimes some words of comfort from your mom might be one of the few things that will make you feel better. Of course, no criticism will get your attention more than words of disappointment from mom.

Yes, moms' words really have power for us. You can probably all think of words from your mom that have meant a lot to you throughout your life. And I hope you take the time today to give thanks for the gifts from God that moms really are.

Our text for this morning doesn't focus on moms, but it does focus on powerful words. The most powerful Word comes from God himself. God's Word, the Bible, is God's power, working for our good. We talk about that a lot here, how important the Bible is, how we always want to be reading and studying it, how powerful it is. If you've been coming to this church for any length of time, you're probably used to hearing how powerful God's Word is. 

I Have Made You a Light

Sermon preached at Our Savior on 5/2/10 for the 5th Sunday of Easter. Sermon text: Acts 13:44-52

It was a very dark time in the history of our world. The most important, most precious message ever heard wasn't treated as something precious, but as something to suppress, something to silence. The message of Jesus Christ as the only Savior of the world, the one who died and rose for the sins of world -- that message should have been greeted with shouts of joy, but it wasn't. Many hated the message, and they wanted it to disappear forever.

This dark time that I'm talking about is from the time of our text from the book of Acts, but really it could have been referring to our time today. Make no mistake: there are enemies of the Gospel. People are out there who want to extinguish the light of the world forever. It might not seem like that here this morning. We're here worshiping safely in a beautiful building. But the opposition is there. Maybe it's in the little remarks that someone makes to you like, "why do you bother going to church?" Maybe it's the fact that it's easier to find anti-Christian ideas on tv or on the internet or on the radio than it is to find the truth. Maybe it's the opposition that comes from our own hearts: the part of us that doesn't think Jesus and his Word are really that big of deal at the end of the day. The part of us that reacts with apathy and a shrug to that precious message.

But look again. Look at the treasure we have! Despite how it's treated, by people around the world, or even by ourselves at times, the message of Jesus our Savior shines as a light in this dark world. The message is that Jesus didn't just die for the world, but he died for you. The message is that Jesus rose and someday all believers will rise, but you will rise to eternal life through faith in him. When we see how precious the message of Jesus is to us, we'll want to share it. Not because we have to. Not because it's what everybody else is doing. No, sharing the good news of sins forgiven in Jesus' name is a joy! And it's what God has made us for. He has empowered us and given us a mission in this world. He lets us reflect the brightness of Jesus in a sin-darkened world. He tells us, "I have made you a light."