Trinity 7
Dear friends in Christ. Last week we head of the great blessings that are ours in holy Baptism. We heard that our baptism unites us with Jesus’ death—so that as Jesus suffered and died on the cross for sin, it is as if we are there too. Since baptism unites us with Jesus’ death, that means that in baptism we truly died; and if we truly died, then sin and death no longer have a claim on us: we are no longer slaves to sin, having to do its bidding; we no longer are subject to death, since in baptism we died with Christ.
Not only are we baptized into Christ’s death, but also His resurrection; in baptism we are connected with Christ’s resurrection. Baptism, far from being an optional mere symbol, actually gives us life—new spiritual heavenly life. In baptism the new self is created in us by God—just as He raised Christ from the dead, so too does He create in us new life, the new self, the Christian in us.
It is precisely here that the daily effect/ result of baptism is carried out in our everyday lives. First, being freed from our slavery to sin and having that new self in us, we fight against temptation and sin; by the power of the Holy Spirit we try to root it out of our hearts and lives. Second, when we fail and sin, we drown our old sinful nature by daily repentance—sorrow over sin and in faith receiving anew the forgiveness of sin. In that joy over forgiveness and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we then are more careful and fight against that sin.
As Christians, we, then, have and live a new life of righteousness. Baptism is its start and as we now daily live our lives as Christians our goal is to live a new life of righteousness. Here is the day in day out life of a Christian.
1. The vital thing to remember here is that as Christians we are righteous now in the sight of God. In our text the Lord tells the prophet Isaiah: Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them. Notice, there are those that the Lord considers and deems righteous. That’s His faithful believer, His Christian. Yes, our lives will be and are riddled through with much weakness and great sin. As we honestly look at our lives in the mirror of God’s holy Law, as we “look into our hearts” we will find sin, unbelief, weakness; grievous sins that maybe only we and the Lord know about.
Does the Lord’s word of comfort, then, apply to us: Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them? Absolutely! Because remember what happens in baptism: we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection; and, as St. Paul writes in another place [Gal 3.27]: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. The point? United with Christ in baptism, God does not see all of our sins and wretchedness; He sees only the perfect holiness of His dear Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. That holy, perfect, sinless life that Jesus lived for us, God credits/ applies to us. So yes, in Christ, through faith in Christ we are the righteous. God declares us righteous and faith receives it.
Through faith, in Christ, we are absolutely righteous! We are righteous but the perfect righteousness we have is not our own—it’s Christ’s! That’s why it is certain and sure. Jesus lived it; brought it about; and God declares us righteous.
But there’s also a righteousness that is our own, that comes from us and that’s our life of good works. However, that righteousness is far from perfect. It is pock-marked with all sorts of stains of sin. That’s the sin that we must daily repent of. However, it is a righteousness because as Christians, led and empowered against by the Holy Spirit, we fight against sin and strive to live that life of holiness and righteousness, strive to live a life more and more free of sin, a life of good works. That means that our lives as Christians will be more righteous, more holy, more in accord with the holy will of God than the lives of the non-Christians around us. As Christians we have been called to a new life of righteousness. Yes, our own righteousness will be far from perfect. But it is each Christian’s daily prayer to follow the Holy Spirit more, to be strengthened by Him to fight against sin all the more and to do the Lord’s holy will.
Again, the Christian has a two-fold righteousness: first, his/her own life of good works doing the will of the Lord, which will be far from perfect, but which in Christ is forgiven; and second, the righteousness of Christ which is given/ credited to us, which is holy, complete and perfect.
As we Christians, following the leading of the Holy Spirit and empowered by Him, strive to live a new life of righteousness, we do so not only fighting against our old sinful nature within us and the temptations the devil throws our way, but also living in the midst of the unbelieving sinful world. In our text, as the Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah, Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, it was spoken at a time when there was great wickedness among the Israelites. The Lord was calling them to repent. The point for us is simply this: we should expect no favors from the world around us; His dear believers have always lived in a world that was opposed to the Lord and His will; like the faithful in Isaiah’s day, we should expect no favors from the world as we strive to live as baptized Christians that new life of righteousness, that life of faith and good works.
In the verse before our text the Lord says about the Israelites, the look on their face witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom. The point is this: they know they are guilty but they do not turn away from sin. Sound familiar? Now committers of various sin demand that everybody accept their sin as not sin; that it is to be celebrated and given civil rights. Sin remains sin; those who demand that their sin be accepted know their sin and guilt and instead of repenting of it—which is the right and God-pleasing thing—try to still their conscience with “if society and government says it’s ok, it can’t be wrong.” As we Christians live out our lives of holiness, our lives in accord with the word of God are an open and public rebuke to all who sin, know their sin, but do not want to repent.
That’s why the sinful world around us will try to weaken us and get us off the path of holiness. We should expect nothing different! With all the sins around us, with “everybody doing it,” it’s easy to get desensitized to sin and begin to think that sin is really “no big deal.” We have the world trying to brand the Christian holding to the will and law of God as a kook—or the greatest crime of our time “intolerant” or equate Christianity with bigotry. Sin can be made to seem to be very “reasonable.” Add to that our old sinful nature within us that willingly goes along with all this—and, yes, it easy to see how difficult it is to be a Christian, how difficult the struggle is—and will continue to become—and how difficult it will be to remain unspotted from the world. For centuries the Church has prayed this morning’s collect and how fitting and vital it is for us to pray all the more fervently today: that God put away from us all hurtful things and…give us those things which are profitable for us.
Of course, the world and its ally in us—our old sinful nature—tries to raise the question in us: since you want to be a Christian and strive after that new life of righteousness, aren’t you really missing out on a lot of “joys and pleasures”—and here read: “sin”—that the world can give and offer you? Perhaps we will at times second guess ourselves: am I losing anything/ missing out on anything by being a Christian? Of course, the answer is: absolutely not! Now, we are enjoying every heavenly and spiritual blessing in Christ. We have the forgiveness of sin, peace with God, a stilled conscience, the certainty that our gracious Triune God is working all things in my life for my spiritual and eternal good, the Holy Spirit, etc.
What clearer example do we have than our Gospel account that we lose nothing by being a Christian? The crowd of the 4000 was with Jesus for 3 days. They were hearing and receiving great spiritual treasures as Jesus was teaching them. And what did they lose—did they lack food? Certainly not! Were they able to make it back to their homes? Yes! Jesus fed them. They weren’t out anything—they only gained, hearing the words of eternal life. Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them.
The same thing applies to us. We only gain as we are Christians striving to live a life in accord with God’s word; as we are part of Christ’s Church, gathered around His holy word and Sacraments. Not only are we given the forgiveness of sin and every heavenly and spiritual blessing Christ gained for us, but also about us Jesus says as He did to that crowd of the 4000: I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with Me... That’s the same thing that the Lord says in our text: Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them. Our good and gracious Lord has not and does not forget the righteous—His dear Christians. He has compassion on us. He knows the world in which we live—He suffered the worst it could dish out—and He knows the best way to help us out.
Not only with the miraculous feeding of the 4000 does Jesus teach us that He can and does and will keep us steadfast in the faith and bless us in living our new life of righteousness, but even in the simple phrase of our text, Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, there’s the promise that in the midst of a world full of sin, wickedness and unrighteousness, the Lord will preserve the righteous. He did it in the wilderness with 7 loaves of bread and a few fish; He preserves us today, the righteous, spiritually by His holy word and sacrament.
2. Do we lose anything being a Christian and striving after a life of righteousness? Hardly! Even in the midst of our struggles and trials, we hear our Lord’s promise of our text: Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them. What a glorious promise and comfort when we are frightened, when we think the struggle against isn’t worth it, when we think of giving in to sin and “going the way of all flesh.” In Christ, we are the righteous [and] it shall be well with [us]. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Not only in this life will we enjoy the fruits of righteousness; not only will God richly reward, in grace, our godliness, but also in the next life!
Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. This is the promise that we hold to by faith—faith which receives the forgiveness of sin and the perfect righteousness of Christ and all the blessings we enjoy; and from this faith flows good works. The good works we do, the life of righteousness we live as the Holy Spirit leads and empowers us, are the fruit/ result of faith.
Our good works—what we do according to God’s holy law, in faith, out of love for Him—are such precious things in the sight of the Lord. In fact our good works are worth more than the universe—after all it will pass away—but our good works will abide. They will not be consumed on the Last Day, but will follow us into eternity and be crowned with the eternal reward of grace. St. John records in Revelation 14.13: Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
Our striving after a life of righteousness doesn’t cause us to lose anything. Instead, it only leads to our advantage as God, in grace, rewards us. In heaven, we will finally be able to rest because first there will we be rid of our old sinful nature, the devil and the world. Looking toward our rest from this struggle we are comforted as we now keep on striving to live that new life of righteousness.
Do we lose anything for being a Christian? Absolutely not—neither in this life nor in the life to come. Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. INJ Amen