A Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 8:26-27

You may have heard of the Templeton Foundation. It was started by John Templeton, who was famous in the world of finance for being a contrarian investor. He was also a faithful Presbyterian layman. He gave a lot of money to Princeton Seminary. The unfortunate thing is that he thought he knew enough about religion to write books and set up a Foundation, giving a prize every year for religion that was larger than a Nobel Prize. His Foundation once funded a multi-year study on prayer. Does it work? Is it effective? They had a control group that was not prayed for and a group that was. It was a totally mistaken project for several reasons. First, sometimes the answer to prayer is “No.” Second, how could you be sure that in the control group that was not prayed for someone didn’t sneak in prayers anyway from loved ones or friends? They couldn’t know for sure. Was the prayer the right prayer? Of course, a lot of people get well anyway. After two to three years the results of the study was that it was inconclusive.

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Romans 8:1-10

A Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

In Romans 8:1-10 we have the whole of the Christian faith. It’s at least two-thirds of the Christian faith, or the heart of the Christian faith. The first verse 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” To put it in our language: “There is therefore no death sentence for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Or: Death is dead. That’s the whole ball game.

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Romans 7:15-25a

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

In this season of Pentecost we have been looking at the Book of Romans with the counterfoil of the Gospel of Matthew. Paul writes in Romans 3-6 that we are free from sin and death. That comes out most directly in 6:5 in that remarkable verse: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” That is repeated in Romans 6:8 and 11. Having gone that far, we ask: “In that case, am I secure forever? Nothing can happen? I don’t sin anymore”? It says in 1 John 3:6, and 9 that the Christian never sins: “No one who abides in Him sins” (1 John 3:6). And “No one born of God sins” (1 John 3:9). We may think we have eternal security. After all, there it is in the Bible

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(Romans 5:12-15 is not in the current lectionary; we offer this in place of the assigned text, Romans 6:12-23.)

A sermon on Romans 5:12-15

In this season of Pentecost we’ve been asking: What is the problem? And then the two answers people give which are not answers; they are one: “Good works,” and two: “Everybody is saved anyway.”

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A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of the Season of Pentecost

Romans 6:1-11        

In this season of Pentecost we have been focusing on the Book of Romans. We have seen that Romans chapters 3-5 are all about the cross. We have seen the huge importance that it is all done. The solution is an objective kind of thing. It is symbolized by that verse in the Gospel of John – 19:30: “It is finished.” The work of the cross is done – for us. That is settled.

Now we come to the question: What are the effects of the cross? What about in us and to us now? This chapter Romans 6:1-ll says it is to us and for us and in us now in Baptism. Romans 6:5 states: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (As we know, the Greek idiom requires the word “certainly.”) We are confident in the hope that we have

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