Jesu Juva
“A “Choose Life” Life”
Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Matthew 5:21-37; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. . . . Choose life, that you and your offspring may live.
You make choices all the time. Should I do this or that? Should I go there or stay home? Should I do what I’m supposed to do, what I need to do, or what I want to do? Now most of the time, those are probably not life and death decisions, though they may have a negative impact on your life if you do not choose wisely. But sometimes there may be life and death involved. Getting behind the wheel after drinking too much. The news is filled with reports of people dying from fentanyl, not knowing that was in the drug they thought was only going to make them feel good. Those are bad decisions. Decisions those people probably knew were bad, but they did them anyway. Risking, gambling that everything would be okay. And maybe it was the first time, or the second time. They evaded the police. The drug wore off. Until it didn’t. Until they got caught.
The people of Israel thought they were making a good decision, thought they were choosing life when those chose not to go into the Promised Land the first time they got to the border. Yes, God had just brought them out of their slavery, overcoming the Egyptians with His awesome and powerful plagues. Yes, He had divided the Red Sea for them to walk through on dry ground, while drowning Pharaoh and his army. Yes, He had fed them with Manna and gave them water from a rock to drink. Yes, God was with them and leading them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. They had no reason to think that God could not or would not do as He had promised and give them this land. But the people in the land looked so big and powerful, and their fears got the better of them. They would not go in. And while they thought they were choosing life and good, in reality, they were choosing death and evil. For they were turning away from God and His Word.
You see, life isn’t something that just happens. Life isn’t an accident. Life is a gift from God. We confess that in the Creed every week - you confessed that you believe that. For you just confessed: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. So to turn away from Him, to turn away from God, to turn away from His Word, is to turn away from life. And while maybe nothing bad seemed to happen the first time you did that, or the second time, is that true? Or did something happen in your heart? A little hardening? A little emboldening for the next time? Making sin a little easier. Making what I want more important than what God wants. Thinking sin the way to get life or improve my life, rather than seeing and seeking my life in God.
This is who we are, the nature we inherited from our first parents. For these words of Moses that we heard today could have been spoken to Adam and Eve in the Garden. For God had set before them two trees: one of life and good, and one of death and evil. And they made a bad choice. They turned away from God, away from His Word, and they brought sin and death into the world. And to us. And we’ve been making similar bad choices ever since.
Bad choices like what we heard from Jesus today as we heard more of His teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. Anger, hatred, belittling, lusting, sexual sins of all sorts, divorce, lying, cheating . . . things we do, why? Why? Because we think we need to for life. To have the life I want. To get ahead in life. To protect my life. To have pleasure in my life. But what Jesus is saying here is that with these things you are not choosing life and good, but death and evil. Oh, maybe you got away with it, or you think you did at least, the first time, or the second time . . . but did you? Or is your heart a little harder? And God’s Word and wisdom a little weaker, a little less, a little less of an influence in your life? Did you drink a little too much of the world’s foolishness and what it thinks good and right? Was there spiritual fentanyl in that sin you thought was just going to make you feel good?
You make choices all the time. But what are you choosing?
Those words of Jesus we heard today seem pretty descriptive of our world which is becoming more and more a stinking cesspool of sin. But it’s not the first time. When this happened before, God would not put up with it; He destroyed the world with a flood. All but eight people - Noah and his family. Eight people who weren’t perfect, but who believed what they confessed; who believed in the Lord and giver of life. And by grace through faith their life was spared. The God who gave them life, also protected and preserved their life, even though the rest of the world said they were dumb and foolish. The rest of the world which sought life in sin, but got only evil and death.
So where’s a good flood when you need one? I’m mean, where’s the flood to wipe out the stinking cesspool of sin which our world is today? Well, it’s right here. In the Font. This is the water of God to deal with the sin in the world - not all at once! - but one person at a time. Not to destroy our life but to give us life. To give us new hearts and new spirits to choose life and good, not death and evil. Not to continue in our sins, but to repent of our sin and receive forgiveness. To make us one of the eight, one of the saved. That’s why our Font has eight sides. That’s what this water, combined with God’s word and promise does. It saves us. It raises us from the death of sin to a new life in Christ because by the power of God’s Word it joins us to Jesus in His death and resurrection. So here is where the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, gives life. Because here is where the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, gives us Jesus and puts us in Jesus as an ark of flesh and blood who saves us from sin and death. And in Him, we are safe and live.
Until, that is, until we choose to take a swan dive - or maybe a cannonball! - off the ark and back into sin, with our anger, hatred, belittling, lusting, sexual sins of all sorts, divorce, lying, cheating . . . But there’s no life there, in those things. Only drowning in sin. Those things that don’t give life, but take life.
So Jesus calls us back. He sends pastors to call us back, friends to call us back. And He absolves us, forgives us, and pulls us back into the boat. He gives us our life back, and He feeds us with His life, with His own Body and Blood. We hear of the cross, that that is not just a man dying, but the Son of God dying, for me, for you, that we might live, to give us life. That He plunged into death with our sin and rose to life again, that we might, too. That sin and death not be the end of us. That His death be our death, and His life our life.
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. . . . Choose life, that you and your offspring may live.
Choose life. That is, don’t plunge back into sin.
Choose life. That is, don’t make decisions in your life based on the foolishness of the world and what it thinks is good and right, but on the true and sure Word of God.
Choose life. That is, repent, and receive the life-giving forgiveness of Jesus.
Choose life. That is, come eat and drink the body and blood given and shed for you, to give you life. And come often! Don’t eat and drink only once in a while.
Choose life. Not only when you’re inside these four walls, but when you’re not. When you’re out in this world that’s a stinking cesspool of sin. Take the life you are given here back out into the world. Don’t leave it here! You need it out there. More than ever. And the world need you out there. More than ever.For as you take your life given here back out into the world, as you live differently and not like everyone else, you are - as we’ve been thinking about these past two weeks - living a Beatitude life, and being salt and light in the world. Showing the world there’s another way. A way of life.
Now, you may not think you matter, that you’re not really making a difference. After all, the world is a stinking cesspool of sin and you’re just one person! And maybe not a very influential one at that! But here’s where what Paul said today can help us, when he talked about planting seeds and watering them. Seeds don’t grow right away. Sometimes seeds get blown in the wind very far from where they began. Sometimes someone else will water the seeds you planted. Sometimes it will be an Apollos or a Paul, or maybe it will be you. Paul says: it doesn’t matter. The seed is God’s and the growth is God’s for life is God’s. That’s up to Him. It is for us to be who we are. To live a Beatitude life, to be salt and light where God puts us.
And you just might be surprised. God often times does His best work in ways we cannot imagine or figure out. Examples I mentioned last week were of a Saviour that came from a manger, and the life of the world from a cross. Today, how about a great missionary from a persecutor of the church, and an evangelist from a tax collector. Luther was a desperately sinful and scared little monk. And you? Who are you? You are a blessing. You are salt and light. Because of Jesus.
So next time you are tempted to take the plunge into sin, drink a little too much of the world’s kool-aid, or seek some pleasure in the spiritually-laced fentanyl of sin, choose life. Remember who you are.
Or as we just sang:
Grant us grace to see Thee, Lord, Present in Thy holy Word -
Grace to imitate Thee now And be pure, as pure art Thou;
That we might become like Thee At Thy great epiphany
And may praise Thee, ever blest, God in man made manifest. (LSB #394)
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment