Third Sunday in Lent
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series III
In the ancient liturgy, this Sunday was known as Oculi - "Eyes" or "Vision" Sunday - from the fourteenth verse of Psalm 25, the Psalm that was also sung as the Introit on the Second Sunday in Lent: "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net." In the Gospel for the Day, John 2:13-22 (13-25 in the Roman missal), the cleansing of the temple supports the "vision" emphasis but with a twist: The eyes of the people are opened by the Lord, who reveals himself as the replacement for the temple and its religion. Perhaps it is this subtle shift from "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net" to a spiritual stance, wherein the people of God are observing what Jesus was doing when he cleansed the Temple that has caused several churches to abandon Psalm 25 (on both the Second and Third Sundays of Lent) and appoint different psalms for worship.
The Prayer of the Day
The LBW has prepared a collect that, more or less, "fits" the Gospel theme, as well as the Exodus 20 reading:
Eternal Lord, your kingdom has broken into our troubled world through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son. Help us to hear your word and obey it, so that we become instruments of your redeeming love; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Obliquely, perhaps, but rather pointedly, this prayer pulls together the elements of response requisite to the hearing of the readings - and the sermon - for this Third Sunday in Lent. Our ears have to be open to the word ofthe Lord, because we, in a sense, see through our ears.
The Psalm of the Day
Psalm 19:7-10 (R); 19:7-14 (E, L) - This is one of the rare instances when three liturgical churches have appointed the same psalm as a responsory to the first reading. The reason is rather obvious: Psalm 19, at least the part selected for today's liturgy, is almost a perfect choice as a response to Exodus 20 and the giving of the Ten Commandments: "The Law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the innocent. The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean and endures forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb." The last verse (14) articulates a proper response - not only of the preacher in the pulpit but also of the people in the pews - to the Law of God: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."
The Psalm Prayer (LBW)
Heavenly Father, you have filled the world with beauty. Open our eyes to see your gracious hand in all your works, that rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness, for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Note: Unfortunately, this prayer focuses on the theme of the first part of the psalm, God's gracious work of creation.)
The readings:
Several churches were unanimous in their choice of a first reading for this Sunday, even down to the exact verses of the text. It is the account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses, which the various churches "count" in different ways. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran methods combine two through four into the first commandment. Anglicans and others denote verse 4 as the second commandment. They also compress the ninth and tenth commandments into a single unity, unlike the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, which separate verse 17 into two "covet" commandments. But it is the part that the commandments play in the life of the Christian that matters, not the "counting." They have always been important - and valid, in one way or another - for Christians. They are not only to be used in catechetical instructions, but also in worship and preaching, and they need to be preached in the churches. William Carl III, in an excellent article, "The Decalogue in Liturgy, Preaching, and Life" (in Interpretation, Vol. 43, No. 3, July 1989) writes: "To live the complete Christian life through the cycle of conviction of sin, repentance, justification, sanctification, obedience, and hope is to experience the Decalogue in its fullness through Christ in the worship, preaching, and spiritual and moral witness in the community of believers in the world."
(Note: Those preachers who intend to preach on this first reading would do well to read the four essays on the Decalogue in Volume 43. The other three are by Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Reginald Fuller, and David C. Steinmetz.)
1 Corinthians 1:22-25 (R, L, C)
In this, his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul wastes no time getting to the heart of the Gospel. He is aware of the difference in spiritual perception of the Jews and the Gentiles/Greeks: the Jews "demand signs" and the Greeks "seek wisdom." Jews want to know that God is in charge and what it is that he is doing in the world, while the Greeks of Paul's time wanted to make sense of the world and the part human beings have in any divine plan. Paul believes that God "has made foolish the wisdom of the world," and he tells this to the Corinthian congregation. He has done this through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a mystery which no one can fully penetrate and which remains, therefore, a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. The people of the world today are not much different and they line up on either side of the cross. But those who stand before the cross in faith know that Jesus Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, who works through the Gospel for the salvation of all people.
Romans 7:13-25 (E)
This is the exercise of self-examination of one who stands before the law of the Lord and, specifically, the commandments. He knows that he loves the law, but he cannot keep it. He desires to keep it perfectly, but he cannot - something inside him ("nothing good dwells within me, that is, my flesh"). Paul confesses: "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." The law, in other words, convicts him of sin and of dwelling in "this body of death." He can do nothing else but cry out to God for deliverance and he finds his answer in Jesus Christ and his cross. Therefore he is able to say, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" - to which believers, who had the same experience with the law and sin that Paul had, may add "Amen."
John 2:13-22 (E, L, C); 2:13-25 (R)
As always, John tells the same story of and about Jesus. In this pericope, he describes the cleansing of the temple, but he does it in his own way. For one thing, he puts this incident, with its encounter with the religious authorities, at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry instead of during his last week of life in Jerusalem. He also predicted, along with Mark, that the temple would soon be destroyed. John added some details to the story: The whip Jesus used to drive out the people who were desecrating the temple, the quotation from Psalm 69 ("Zeal for your house has eaten me up"), and the statement about the length of time (forty-six years) it took to build the temple.
John arranged the story as he did, and added the details he considered to be significant, to show what the shape of Jesus' ministry really was to be. Right at the start of the story, he laid the groundwork for the violent reaction and religious indignation on the part of the Jewish leaders which would lead to his death. Jesus came into the world as "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" to engage in a God-given mission to deliver humanity from sin and death, and that mission would cost him his life. But, even more important, at the start of his ministry, is the news that he has come to destroy the religion of the temple. His crucified and resurrected body would replace it - "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And that is what happened, although it was a few decades later (about four) that the temple was totally destroyed by the Romans, his glorified body was raised up in three days, as he said it would be. If "destroy this body" were a challenge to the Jews, John makes it rather evident that they will soon take him up on it and, somehow or other, see to his destruction.
A Sermon on the Gospel, John 2:13-22 (E, L, C); 2:13-25 (R) - "Ultimate Madness."
It is one thing to contend that one is ready to die, but it is quite a different matter to dare people with power over life and death to take one's life away. "Sometimes I wish the good Lord would take me out of this life; I have so many problems to deal with that life is impossible." A middle-aged woman, divorced and on a disability pension, which terminates when she becomes sixty-five years of age, said that recently. She really meant it. Her Social Security payments will be far less than the money she now receives for her disability (a combination of Social Security and a private fund). She sees her life becoming unmanageable when she attains sixty-five years of age. Her financial picture could be even more dismal, if the condition that put her on disability, in the first place, worsens. "Sometimes I wish the Lord would take me...." But that's not all that there is to her life; there are other times when life still seems good and worthwhile.
But Jesus, healthy and in the prime of his life, dared the religious authorities to take his life, utterly to destroy his body, adding the ridiculous claim, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it." Only a madman would say something like that. And so, before the end of the story, they took him at his word and tried to do just that.
1. Tear down the temple with its out-moded religious system and its corrupt leadership. That was what Jesus was about to embark upon in his brief ministry. His teaching, and preaching, miracles and and ministry completely undermined the foundations of the Jewish religion with its sacrificial system. The "temple" just had to fall. Jesus, not the Romans, really destroyed it.
2. Jesus came preaching and teaching about a new way to worship the Lord God. He offered a new covenant - one written in blood and pain as he hung upon Calvary's cross. A single sacrifice would suffice, he preached during his ministry, and gain forgiveness and reconciliation for all who accepted it and believe him to be the Son of God, the savior of the world.
3. In what must have seemed like sheer madness to any who understood him, he challenged, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it. " The religious leaders were smart enough to figure out what he was talking about; only a fool would say something like that - and he certainly wasn't talking like a mad magician, who might think he could work the ultimate magic trick by restoring a building that had taken forty-six years to build. Some of them must have figured out that he was talking about his own body, his own death.
4. His challenge finally led to his crucifixion - and, through the power of God, he made good on his prediction. The temple, his body, was raised up, and we remember and celebrate the fact that, through baptism, we have been made members of that body in life and in death - forever.
A Sermon on the First Lesson, Exodus 20:1-17 - "The Dilemma of the Decalogue."
(Note: It is impossible to preach a sermon in which all of the Ten Commandments are presented in detail; it would simply be too long. One approach would be to preach on the first commandment - over against Jesus' "new commandment I give you...." Another possibility would be to develop a sermon series on the Ten Commandments for Lent, but the logistics of such a series might be a bit complicated. A third way to deal homiletically with this text would be to discuss how the Ten Commandments intertwine with the Christian life. How one does this will be determined by one's denominational affiliation and one's personal theological interpretation of the relationship of law and Gospel. This will be the approach taken in his suggestion.)
William Carl tells how Dennis Kinlaw, who once was an Old Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary and president of Asbury College, questioned a boy named Tommy, who was something of a spitting image of the rich young ruler in the Gospel. He thought he had kept all of the commandments - perfectly. "I (Kinlaw) said: 'Wait a minute, Tommy. Tell me anybody you've ever met that without the power of Christ in his or her life who has ever kept the Ten Commandments.' You know what that rascal did? He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'I'm not so bad.' So I rose to the challenge and said, 'Tommy, which one did you ever keep?' And he said, 'Which one did I ever break?' I said, 'Do you enjoy praying?' He said, 'Not particularly.' I said, 'Well, there goes the first one. Because, you see, when it says you're not supposed to have any gods before him that means in your affection and your communion.' "
Carl says that Kinlaw went through each commandment, saying to the boy. "There goes another one." When he got to number seven, this is what happened: I looked at him and said, 'Tommy, did you ever tell a dirty story with relish or listen to one with pleasure?' And the rascal looked back at me and said, 'Did you?' And I said, 'There goes another one.' I said, 'Tommy, did you ever take anything that didn't belong to you? Either a possession or maybe a test, cheating a bit?' He said, 'Of course.' I said, 'There goes another one.' I said, 'Did you ever get in a tight spot and when you told the story you shaded it just a little bit to make you look better?' He said, 'Why, of course.' I said, 'There goes another one.'
"Kinlaw got him on the last one, too, and then said, 'Tommy, which one of these did you ever keep?' The boy looked back at the Old Testament professor, his eyes flushed full, and he said, 'Sir, am I in that bad a shape?' " (Dennis Kinlaw told this in a sermon, which William Carl heard or read, at Salem Camp Meeting, Covington, Georgia, in August 1988.) One possibility is to expand this a bit into a narrative sermon, as suggested by Richard Jenson, in his Teaching the New Testament.
1. The dilemma of the Decalogue is simply that we can't, try as we may, keep the Ten Commandments - and save ourselves.
2. The Ten Commandments, therefore, convict us of our sin and make us realize that we need to seek God's mercy and forgiveness, which he gives us in Christ.
3. But Jesus demands that we be perfect, even giving us a new commandment to obey - "Love one another as I have loved you." Living the new life in Christ, through Baptism, grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to be obedient to the commands of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ.
4. That drives us to our knees with a "mea culpa" every single day ofour lives - and the wonder of it is that God lifts us up each time to that new life in Christ that is ours from time to eternity.
A Sermon on the Second Lesson, I Corinthians 1:22-25 (R, L, C) - "Wise Guy."
1. This is a person who thinks that the Christian religion has only to do with the quality of life here on earth.
2. This is a person who thinks that, if God is real, the Lord will give special signs to convince him/her of his reality, presence, and power.
3. This is the person who says, "There is no God." All of this happened by chance.
4. This is the person who looks at the cross and declares, "Jesus was a fool. He allowed himself to be martyred out of some misguided notion of divinity."
5. The wise person is one who hears the Gospel, considers the cross and resurrection, and says, "My Lord and my God."
Romans 7:13-25 (E) - "Helpless, but not Hopeless."
1. That's how Paul really sees himself. He does not do the good he would, because his sinful self takes over and causes him to break the commandments of God.
2. There's a war going on within Paul - and within every one of us. Our will and intentions are engaged in a death struggle with our sinful nature, which is poised to win the war.
3. Thanks to God the war has been won - Jesus has come to our aid in the battle and he has won it! But he had to die to do it. And for that - and our deliverance and forgiveness - we offer him our heartfelt thanks and devotion.
The Prayer of the Day
The LBW has prepared a collect that, more or less, "fits" the Gospel theme, as well as the Exodus 20 reading:
Eternal Lord, your kingdom has broken into our troubled world through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son. Help us to hear your word and obey it, so that we become instruments of your redeeming love; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Obliquely, perhaps, but rather pointedly, this prayer pulls together the elements of response requisite to the hearing of the readings - and the sermon - for this Third Sunday in Lent. Our ears have to be open to the word ofthe Lord, because we, in a sense, see through our ears.
The Psalm of the Day
Psalm 19:7-10 (R); 19:7-14 (E, L) - This is one of the rare instances when three liturgical churches have appointed the same psalm as a responsory to the first reading. The reason is rather obvious: Psalm 19, at least the part selected for today's liturgy, is almost a perfect choice as a response to Exodus 20 and the giving of the Ten Commandments: "The Law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the innocent. The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean and endures forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb." The last verse (14) articulates a proper response - not only of the preacher in the pulpit but also of the people in the pews - to the Law of God: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."
The Psalm Prayer (LBW)
Heavenly Father, you have filled the world with beauty. Open our eyes to see your gracious hand in all your works, that rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness, for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Note: Unfortunately, this prayer focuses on the theme of the first part of the psalm, God's gracious work of creation.)
The readings:
Several churches were unanimous in their choice of a first reading for this Sunday, even down to the exact verses of the text. It is the account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses, which the various churches "count" in different ways. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran methods combine two through four into the first commandment. Anglicans and others denote verse 4 as the second commandment. They also compress the ninth and tenth commandments into a single unity, unlike the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, which separate verse 17 into two "covet" commandments. But it is the part that the commandments play in the life of the Christian that matters, not the "counting." They have always been important - and valid, in one way or another - for Christians. They are not only to be used in catechetical instructions, but also in worship and preaching, and they need to be preached in the churches. William Carl III, in an excellent article, "The Decalogue in Liturgy, Preaching, and Life" (in Interpretation, Vol. 43, No. 3, July 1989) writes: "To live the complete Christian life through the cycle of conviction of sin, repentance, justification, sanctification, obedience, and hope is to experience the Decalogue in its fullness through Christ in the worship, preaching, and spiritual and moral witness in the community of believers in the world."
(Note: Those preachers who intend to preach on this first reading would do well to read the four essays on the Decalogue in Volume 43. The other three are by Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Reginald Fuller, and David C. Steinmetz.)
1 Corinthians 1:22-25 (R, L, C)
In this, his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul wastes no time getting to the heart of the Gospel. He is aware of the difference in spiritual perception of the Jews and the Gentiles/Greeks: the Jews "demand signs" and the Greeks "seek wisdom." Jews want to know that God is in charge and what it is that he is doing in the world, while the Greeks of Paul's time wanted to make sense of the world and the part human beings have in any divine plan. Paul believes that God "has made foolish the wisdom of the world," and he tells this to the Corinthian congregation. He has done this through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a mystery which no one can fully penetrate and which remains, therefore, a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. The people of the world today are not much different and they line up on either side of the cross. But those who stand before the cross in faith know that Jesus Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, who works through the Gospel for the salvation of all people.
Romans 7:13-25 (E)
This is the exercise of self-examination of one who stands before the law of the Lord and, specifically, the commandments. He knows that he loves the law, but he cannot keep it. He desires to keep it perfectly, but he cannot - something inside him ("nothing good dwells within me, that is, my flesh"). Paul confesses: "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." The law, in other words, convicts him of sin and of dwelling in "this body of death." He can do nothing else but cry out to God for deliverance and he finds his answer in Jesus Christ and his cross. Therefore he is able to say, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" - to which believers, who had the same experience with the law and sin that Paul had, may add "Amen."
John 2:13-22 (E, L, C); 2:13-25 (R)
As always, John tells the same story of and about Jesus. In this pericope, he describes the cleansing of the temple, but he does it in his own way. For one thing, he puts this incident, with its encounter with the religious authorities, at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry instead of during his last week of life in Jerusalem. He also predicted, along with Mark, that the temple would soon be destroyed. John added some details to the story: The whip Jesus used to drive out the people who were desecrating the temple, the quotation from Psalm 69 ("Zeal for your house has eaten me up"), and the statement about the length of time (forty-six years) it took to build the temple.
John arranged the story as he did, and added the details he considered to be significant, to show what the shape of Jesus' ministry really was to be. Right at the start of the story, he laid the groundwork for the violent reaction and religious indignation on the part of the Jewish leaders which would lead to his death. Jesus came into the world as "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" to engage in a God-given mission to deliver humanity from sin and death, and that mission would cost him his life. But, even more important, at the start of his ministry, is the news that he has come to destroy the religion of the temple. His crucified and resurrected body would replace it - "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And that is what happened, although it was a few decades later (about four) that the temple was totally destroyed by the Romans, his glorified body was raised up in three days, as he said it would be. If "destroy this body" were a challenge to the Jews, John makes it rather evident that they will soon take him up on it and, somehow or other, see to his destruction.
A Sermon on the Gospel, John 2:13-22 (E, L, C); 2:13-25 (R) - "Ultimate Madness."
It is one thing to contend that one is ready to die, but it is quite a different matter to dare people with power over life and death to take one's life away. "Sometimes I wish the good Lord would take me out of this life; I have so many problems to deal with that life is impossible." A middle-aged woman, divorced and on a disability pension, which terminates when she becomes sixty-five years of age, said that recently. She really meant it. Her Social Security payments will be far less than the money she now receives for her disability (a combination of Social Security and a private fund). She sees her life becoming unmanageable when she attains sixty-five years of age. Her financial picture could be even more dismal, if the condition that put her on disability, in the first place, worsens. "Sometimes I wish the Lord would take me...." But that's not all that there is to her life; there are other times when life still seems good and worthwhile.
But Jesus, healthy and in the prime of his life, dared the religious authorities to take his life, utterly to destroy his body, adding the ridiculous claim, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it." Only a madman would say something like that. And so, before the end of the story, they took him at his word and tried to do just that.
1. Tear down the temple with its out-moded religious system and its corrupt leadership. That was what Jesus was about to embark upon in his brief ministry. His teaching, and preaching, miracles and and ministry completely undermined the foundations of the Jewish religion with its sacrificial system. The "temple" just had to fall. Jesus, not the Romans, really destroyed it.
2. Jesus came preaching and teaching about a new way to worship the Lord God. He offered a new covenant - one written in blood and pain as he hung upon Calvary's cross. A single sacrifice would suffice, he preached during his ministry, and gain forgiveness and reconciliation for all who accepted it and believe him to be the Son of God, the savior of the world.
3. In what must have seemed like sheer madness to any who understood him, he challenged, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it. " The religious leaders were smart enough to figure out what he was talking about; only a fool would say something like that - and he certainly wasn't talking like a mad magician, who might think he could work the ultimate magic trick by restoring a building that had taken forty-six years to build. Some of them must have figured out that he was talking about his own body, his own death.
4. His challenge finally led to his crucifixion - and, through the power of God, he made good on his prediction. The temple, his body, was raised up, and we remember and celebrate the fact that, through baptism, we have been made members of that body in life and in death - forever.
A Sermon on the First Lesson, Exodus 20:1-17 - "The Dilemma of the Decalogue."
(Note: It is impossible to preach a sermon in which all of the Ten Commandments are presented in detail; it would simply be too long. One approach would be to preach on the first commandment - over against Jesus' "new commandment I give you...." Another possibility would be to develop a sermon series on the Ten Commandments for Lent, but the logistics of such a series might be a bit complicated. A third way to deal homiletically with this text would be to discuss how the Ten Commandments intertwine with the Christian life. How one does this will be determined by one's denominational affiliation and one's personal theological interpretation of the relationship of law and Gospel. This will be the approach taken in his suggestion.)
William Carl tells how Dennis Kinlaw, who once was an Old Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary and president of Asbury College, questioned a boy named Tommy, who was something of a spitting image of the rich young ruler in the Gospel. He thought he had kept all of the commandments - perfectly. "I (Kinlaw) said: 'Wait a minute, Tommy. Tell me anybody you've ever met that without the power of Christ in his or her life who has ever kept the Ten Commandments.' You know what that rascal did? He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'I'm not so bad.' So I rose to the challenge and said, 'Tommy, which one did you ever keep?' And he said, 'Which one did I ever break?' I said, 'Do you enjoy praying?' He said, 'Not particularly.' I said, 'Well, there goes the first one. Because, you see, when it says you're not supposed to have any gods before him that means in your affection and your communion.' "
Carl says that Kinlaw went through each commandment, saying to the boy. "There goes another one." When he got to number seven, this is what happened: I looked at him and said, 'Tommy, did you ever tell a dirty story with relish or listen to one with pleasure?' And the rascal looked back at me and said, 'Did you?' And I said, 'There goes another one.' I said, 'Tommy, did you ever take anything that didn't belong to you? Either a possession or maybe a test, cheating a bit?' He said, 'Of course.' I said, 'There goes another one.' I said, 'Did you ever get in a tight spot and when you told the story you shaded it just a little bit to make you look better?' He said, 'Why, of course.' I said, 'There goes another one.'
"Kinlaw got him on the last one, too, and then said, 'Tommy, which one of these did you ever keep?' The boy looked back at the Old Testament professor, his eyes flushed full, and he said, 'Sir, am I in that bad a shape?' " (Dennis Kinlaw told this in a sermon, which William Carl heard or read, at Salem Camp Meeting, Covington, Georgia, in August 1988.) One possibility is to expand this a bit into a narrative sermon, as suggested by Richard Jenson, in his Teaching the New Testament.
1. The dilemma of the Decalogue is simply that we can't, try as we may, keep the Ten Commandments - and save ourselves.
2. The Ten Commandments, therefore, convict us of our sin and make us realize that we need to seek God's mercy and forgiveness, which he gives us in Christ.
3. But Jesus demands that we be perfect, even giving us a new commandment to obey - "Love one another as I have loved you." Living the new life in Christ, through Baptism, grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to be obedient to the commands of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ.
4. That drives us to our knees with a "mea culpa" every single day ofour lives - and the wonder of it is that God lifts us up each time to that new life in Christ that is ours from time to eternity.
A Sermon on the Second Lesson, I Corinthians 1:22-25 (R, L, C) - "Wise Guy."
1. This is a person who thinks that the Christian religion has only to do with the quality of life here on earth.
2. This is a person who thinks that, if God is real, the Lord will give special signs to convince him/her of his reality, presence, and power.
3. This is the person who says, "There is no God." All of this happened by chance.
4. This is the person who looks at the cross and declares, "Jesus was a fool. He allowed himself to be martyred out of some misguided notion of divinity."
5. The wise person is one who hears the Gospel, considers the cross and resurrection, and says, "My Lord and my God."
Romans 7:13-25 (E) - "Helpless, but not Hopeless."
1. That's how Paul really sees himself. He does not do the good he would, because his sinful self takes over and causes him to break the commandments of God.
2. There's a war going on within Paul - and within every one of us. Our will and intentions are engaged in a death struggle with our sinful nature, which is poised to win the war.
3. Thanks to God the war has been won - Jesus has come to our aid in the battle and he has won it! But he had to die to do it. And for that - and our deliverance and forgiveness - we offer him our heartfelt thanks and devotion.
