SERMON                                                            Romans 7: 14-25

Lord of Life Lutheran                                            Rev. Darrell J. Pedersen

Baxter, MN                                                          August 24, 2008

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE

Kids, what’s the biggest difference between these two rocks?  One is very smooth and one is very rough.  How did the smooth one get smooth?  It came from Lake Superior, over by Duluth, and for maybe hundreds or even thousands of years, it has been getting washed back and forth, over and over, by the waters of that big lake.  As this rock lay there in that huge lake, some days were sunny and calm and the water just quietly held the rock.  Other days there were storms and the water moved the rock back and forth.  The constant and faithful work of the waters of Lake Superior took what was probably a rough rock and turned it into a smooth rock like this one.

I actually have several Lake Superior rocks with me today.  Do you see how many different shapes, sizes and colors they have?  Do you see that some of them have chips or cracks in them?  Yet, every one of these rocks has been washed, rubbed smoother, by old Lake Superior.  Again, it probably took the lake hundreds or thousands of years to do that for these rocks.  God, on the other hand, only has a few years to work with us in our lives here on earth.

You see, God, just like Lake Superior, comes faithfully to us, day after day, sunny days, stormy days, sad days, happy days, and with God’s love works to change our sometimes “rough” lives.    Sometimes God needs to just hold us and other times God needs to help us to move to a new place, a new idea, a new friend or even a new way of living.  God is always trying to help us to be more trusting, more loving, more generous, kinder, more helpful…  God is always trying to draw us closer to God, to each other and to the world.

Does Lake Superior ever get done washing and changing the rocks that are in its waters?  Only when the rocks are taken away from the lake like I did with these.  Does God ever get done washing and changing us?  Can anyone ever take us away from God?  No!!!  All of our lives God keeps helping us to be the best people that we can be.  God never gives up on us.  God never finishes God’s work with us – until, the day we die and God brings us all home to live with God in heaven and then there will be no more need for us to be changed, but only to live in love, thanksgiving and joy forever close to God and all of God’s precious children!  God is here for us all!  Amen.

ADULT MESSAGE

“We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”  This is the first step from Alcoholics Anonymous’ “Twelve Steps.”  The first step toward recovery for the alcoholic is to admit, “I’m out of control…  I’m being held captive by my addiction…”  The Apostle Paul is the one who lists “self-control” as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit which is given to Christians.  In our text for today, Paul, the “greatest of the apostles,” says, “I don’t understand my own actions.  For I don’t do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.”  A little later he goes on, “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I don’t do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  Paul says that we get “self-control” from God and then here says he’s out of control.  What’s the deal?

I’m 55 years old and I’m still confessing the same sins, the same brokenness, and the same failings that I confessed when I was 25.  God must get tired of that…  We, here in this place, stand hand in hand and pray to God, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and then we go out these doors and for the rest of the week pretty much focus only on our own will being done – maybe that’s just me…  On the outside we Christians try to look so good and holy while on the inside we know our own darkest corners and deepest guilts…

Christian scholars have long battled over this real dilemma concerning Paul’s confession that he can’t do the good that he wishes and continually does the evil that he knows he should be avoiding.  Many people from the fundamentalist denominations argue that Paul is talking about the hold that sin had on him before Paul became a Christian.  Luther and Lutheran theologians argue that Paul is just honestly describing the battle that Christian people will always be a part of in this life.  Luther talked about us being “simultaneously saints and sinners.”  We are “saints” through faith in Jesus who has died, risen again, forgiven us and claimed us as children of God.  We are “sinners” because despite our salvation, we continue to live and act in ways that are contrary to God’s will, that tend to draw us away from God’s loving presence in our lives.

You and I can will to do what is good and right, but too often we can’t seem to manage to actually do it.   The good intentions may be there, but the performance surely isn’t.  It’s like we are living with one foot in each of two worlds.  One foot rests, by faith, in the kingdom of Jesus and the other rests by our actions in the world of what Paul calls “the flesh,” the world that stands opposed to God.  Paul argues that we do not live in a simple vacuum where if we make good decisions, everything will be fine.  Rather, we live in a world that is greatly impacted upon by evil/the devil.  Luther talked about Christians as being a “horse with two riders” where God and Satan battle all of our lives over who will hold the reins that lead us.  The promise we have through our baptisms into Christ, is that the victory ultimately is God’s!  We, ultimately, though broken sinners all, belong to our loving God who will not let us go…

When, in our text from Romans, Paul finished describing the ongoing battle ground within himself cried out, “Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  “I’m out of control…  I’m being held captive by my addiction!”  Those words are appropriate for any person addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, pornography, violence, prejudice…  They are also appropriate for every person who admits that they are sinners – by word, by deed, by lack of faith in Jesus!  “The wages of sin is death!”  All that any of us can earn in this life-long battle is our own death!  “Wretched person that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  Paul is out of control.  Paul is bound to sin.  So am I, so are you, so are the “evangelical preachers – if they are honest.  Paul is the greatest apostle of the Christian faith and he calls out for help in his battle to live faithfully as a child of God.  I need help too.  Do you?

Alcoholics Anonymous step #2 – “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”  Step #3 says, “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”  Everybody needs these steps too –

-         There is a loving God who can help me!

-         I’m going to invite God to give me a new life today!  (and every day)

I don’t know any of the people involved in the recent fight outside a Brainerd bar.  How can it happen that two men get into an argument, surely alcohol involved, and while some people are trying to prevent a fight, a third man jumps into the fray and kills one of them?  How does that happen?  How does someone decide to do such a thing?  Evil in the world?  Out of control?  Two lives lost and who knows how many badly wounded.

“Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  Paul doesn’t stop there!  He goes on, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  “Help, I need help!  Jesus, are you there?”

Dr. Gerhard Frost, my seminary professor, tells this story, “I Wasn’t Afraid.”  (“Blessed is the Ordinary,” 1980, Winston Press, Mpls., MN, p. 62)

“And I wasn’t scairt—I wasn’t afraid to die!”  He said it as one who’d returned from the outer spaces in the journey of the soul.  And he had.

He said it as one who’d tasted and tested, and settled something, as one who’d been found by the Father in a most unfatherly place.  And he had.

It happened while he worked alone in a city gravel pit.  A sudden collapse, a fall, a tangle of cables, and no one to hear his cries.  Two hours he hung, head down, suffered in that forsaken place until he was rescued, but our Father found him there.

Another hung suspended, alone upon his cross.  He cried to God, cried in that most unfatherly place:  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  And prayed, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

And because he cried, and prayed, and died, there is today no God-forsaken place, or moment, or man, or woman, or child—no God-forsaken person anywhere.  Not afraid to die?  I need not cry, but only pray, “Father, into your hands…”

I have not been able to do a very good job living the way that God wants me to live.  My poor thoughts, words and deeds earn me only condemnation when judged by the deepest meaning of God’s commandments.  I kid you not.  What hope is there for me then?  Dr. Richard Jensen, another Lutheran pastor/teacher said, “All the religions of the world call upon us to rise up and live for God.  Christianity calls us to sit down and die and hear that God has lived for us.  Salvation is not our own doing.  Not one bit of it!  It is a gift from God.”  (“Touched by the Spirit,” 1975, Augsburg, Mpls., MN, p. 62)

I want to do God’s good will and know that I often fail, badly, knowing so often that I am actually doing the wrong.  I’m out of control.  God has to help me if I am to do any real good at all…  I don’t “have to” do the good, God loves, forgives and cares for me anyway.  But, I “want to” do the good, because God loves, forgives and cares for me.  God help me please.  “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Marj Leegard, Detroit Lakes farm wife, tells the story this way:  (“Give Us This Day,” 1999, Augsburg, Mpls., MN, p. 50)

Our friend John’s little grandson wrote a declaration in olive-green marking pen.  When the green ran out, he finished in red.  I don’t know what the occasion was that moved him to share his faith, but share it he did.

     - “I love Jesus better than ice cream even tho I don’t obay him and do the things I should and he loves me so much.  And he’s my father for ever and ever again and I will be his kid.”

…We are told to become like little children, but when did you last think of yourself as God’s kid?

“Forever and ever again” is a long time for a little boy.  It is a long time for us, also.  We end our Lord’s prayer “forever and ever.”  He ends his bold statement with “forever and ever again.”  That must be a very long time!

          …We love Jesus even though we don’t obey him.  Oh, little kid, you are not alone in that.  We join you daily in our own prayers and weekly in the gathered confession that opens the worship of our congregations.  How can we love Jesus and disobey him?

What shall we do?  The world is big, and space is expanding.  And our capacity for sin grows ever more devious.  We lose sight of the simple and uncomplicated.   Wisdom can be lost in the stuff of age.

Thank you, little member of the Graf family, for reminding us that we will always, “forever and ever again,” be God’s kid.

“Wretched person that I am – who will rescue me from this body of death?”  “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”   The Apostle Paul also said, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.”  (Romans 12:12)  God won’t give up on us ever!  Trust God and live! Amen.