{"id":6920,"date":"2021-07-06T04:54:42","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T11:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=6920"},"modified":"2021-07-06T04:54:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T11:54:43","slug":"his-ways-are-not-our-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=6920","title":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-size:40px\" style=\"color:rgb(0,0,0);\">His Ways Are Not Our Ways<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Pentecost-7.pdf\">Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"color:rgb(0,0,0);\">\n\n\n\n<p>Pentecost 7<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this series of what it means to be a Christian with our feet on ground, we\u2019ve seen that we don\u2019t worship correctly, we don\u2019t pray correctly, we don\u2019t use the Bible correctly, and we don\u2019t keep the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We know that Luther frequently cited 2 Cor 11:14: \u201cThe devil appears as an angel of light.\u201d But, of course, we say to ourselves: \u201cOnly to other people, not to me.\u201d Then the evil one\u2019s got us. You and me both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The basic point of the Gospel is: It doesn\u2019t matter. Salvation does not depend on whether we worship correctly, whether we pray correctly, whether we understand the Bible correctly, or whether we keep the Ten Commandments, which we don\u2019t, unless, of course, we lie to ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We ask ourselves: What does it mean to be in \u201cthe glorious freedom of the children of God\u201d (Rom 8:31), as it says in the Reformation gospel of John 8:36: \u201cIf the Son has made you free, then you will be free indeed.\u201d What does it look like with our feet on the ground?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scripture is very clear about this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Gal 2:20: \u201cI have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.\u201d<\/li><li>Col 3:3-4: \u201cFor you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.\u201d<\/li><li>1 Cor 6:19b-20: \u201cYou are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Now two images. One from Paul. Another from Luther.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First: Romans 6:16: \u201cDo you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second: Luther says we are like a horse who is ridden either by one rider or the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You and I are caught in slavery by a brutal master who beats us and every so often kills off a few slaves to see how it looks, and along comes somebody who buys us so we become his slaves. He not only buys us, but frees us, and then he also adopts us. He says: \u201cYou\u2019re my son. You\u2019re my daughter. I free you from sin, death, and the devil and you have life forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After that, what are you going to do? You would think that we, having been freed and made sons and daughters of God, heirs of his kingdom, that we would be overwhelmed with gratitude and our lives would change. As you and I know, what happens is people say: \u201cThat\u2019s nice. Now I can get on with my life the way I want to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at two historical characters. First, Hezekiah. He lived about 720 BC. The ruling power of the day was Assyria. But, lo and behold, a delegation came from a little place called Babylon. This is all in Isaiah 39. Hezekiah showed them the treasury, showed them the Temple covered with gold, showed them the palace that Solomon had built. And then the prophet Isaiah came to him and said: \u201cYou fool! What have you done!? You\u2019ve showed them everything!\u201d He said, \u201cThe time will come when Babylon will rule, and they will come and take everything.\u201d That finally happened in 597 B.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fun thing is the closing verse of Isaiah 39. Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah: \u201cThe word which the Lord has spoken is good because it won\u2019t happen in my time. There will be peace in my day.\u201d In other words: \u201cIt won\u2019t hurt me. I can do what I want. It won\u2019t be my life that pays the price. Who knows, things may get better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second historical figure to consider is a famous German writer in the nineteenth century, Heinrich Heine. He lived a very dissolute life. At his deathbed in 1856 people were standing around and he said: \u201cGod will forgive me; he has to; it\u2019s his nature.\u201d In other words: \u201cI know how to manipulate God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is precisely what we mentioned last week, the sin of spiritual pride, and it is basic to all of us. I know how God works. I know what\u2019s good and evil. Because God is great and gracious and has made me his own in baptism, I\u2019ve got a license to sin. It\u2019s the same-old problem of indulgences that Luther took on at the Reformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You think you can trifle with God? With the Lord? It\u2019s as if a young couple got married, went off on their honeymoon and came back and the next weekend the husband said: \u201cBy the way, I\u2019m going off camping with my secretary for three days, see you later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what his wife would say is: \u201cYou don\u2019t get it. You can\u2019t trifle with me. It\u2019s not the way it works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1517 Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg. About twenty-five years later, in 1542, when he was speaking to a group of people, he said: \u201cIt never worked. The people are the same as they were. They\u2019re just the same old sinners. They\u2019re making the same mistakes. The whole thing was a loss.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wouldn\u2019t we say the same today about ourselves? How much has really changed? We\u2019re largely the same as we used to be. Over against this reality, pastors at Easter sometimes state that that first group of believers grew in number, went out and changed the world in a couple of centuries. They even overcame the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But all of this is false. It\u2019s a legend. Christians did not go out and conquer the world in any simple way. They were fragmented. They betrayed each other. They betrayed the Lord; it was a mess. For example, consider Peter; he was the spokesman. Luke 24:34 says that the Lord appeared first and separately to Peter among the Twelve. Fifteen or eighteen years later, Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians 2:11-14, points out he had to correct Peter and not on some detail or unimportant thing. He said: \u201cPeter had betrayed the truth of the gospel, and I had to face him down.\u201d Which he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is not true that the Reformation was a mistake and a failure. \u201cThe truth of the Gospel\u201d (Gal 1:8-9; 2:5, 14) which Luther preached, and others of course with him, a rediscovery of Paul, has changed and reformed and renewed the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At times we think nothing has happened, nothing is working. What is the Lord doing? First of all, the way the Lord works is in his hiddenness. That\u2019s what it means to live by faith alone. It\u2019s hidden. Let\u2019s repeat Col 3:3-4: \u201cFor you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the same vein, when his apostleship is under attack, Paul writes: \u201cWith me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me\u201d (1 Cor 4:3-4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How God is working in others and even in ourselves is hidden because it\u2019s the Lord\u2019s doing. We keep being tempted into thinking: \u201cIt\u2019s us.\u201d We can measure ourselves. We have a litmus test that can tell how we\u2019re doing.\u201d Not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along with the hiddenness is the totality of salvation. When the Lord makes us his own, it\u2019s not as if he gives us a kickstart and then it\u2019s up to us to make it happen, to show that we are doing it, making it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No, when the Lord makes us his own, he makes us his own 100%. At the same time because we are still in this life, we are caught in sin and death. On the one hand, we are totally saved, outside of us, in spite of us. On the other hand, when we look away from Christ, we\u2019re sinners and lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The situation is described most directly in Galatians 5:17: \u201cThe flesh battles against the spirit and the spirit battles against the flesh.\u201d In this verse, \u201cthe flesh\u201d is not our flesh. What Paul means by \u201cthe flesh\u201d is the evil one. And the spirit is not our spirit, but the Holy Spirit. The battle is going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The situation is described most perfectly in terms of the World Soccer Cup. We are like that ball that\u2019s being kicked around. We\u2019re not determining. Rather, the battle is going on between the Lord and the evil one. We know that the victory is his because of what he did on the cross, and that he does all things well, and all at the end comes out being his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the meantime one cannot manipulate God, or trifle with God, but we can rejoice in the fact that he has made us his own, and therefore we are in him. Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sermon for the seventh Sunday after Pentecost. Select <a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=6920\"> here<\/a> to read more or <a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Pentecost-7.pdf\">here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6920"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6934,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920\/revisions\/6934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}