When Our Hard Work Doesn't Work

Texts: Romans 4:1-25; John 6:22-29

TOMORROW IS LABOR DAY, WHEN we celebrate the efforts and accomplishments of America's workers.  So it was appropriate that recently the actor Ashton Kucher should give an audience of young people a strong exhortation about the value and necessity of hard work.  He was speaking at the Teen Choice Awards, and among other things, he said, "I've noticed throughout my life that Opportunity looks a lot like hard work."  His point was that nobody should sit around passively and then complain when opportunity to get ahead seems to pass them by. Hard work is essential, and the kids need to get that through their heads while they're young, and save themselves a lifetime of disappointment and misery.

That's how it operates in this world, "under the sun," as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes.  You get what you work for, and if you don't work, you don't get. And if you can work but refuse to, and by dint of welfare and handouts you do get, you're settling for way less than second best, and when the handouts run out, you'll be sunk.  It's the way things are.

But there's a sphere where all these facts are stood on their heads.  Where to stop working is virtue, where to keep on working is to do evil, where being willing simply to reach out and receive good things we don't deserve is to be the happiest of all.

St. Paul speaks of this condition in our reading from the fourth chapter of his letter to the Romans.  Now, in the Bible, context is everything.  So we need to remember that prior to this, up to the first part of chapter 3, the Holy Spirit has convicted us all, Jews and Gentiles alike, of unrighteousness before God.  The Jews have the Law of Moses written on tablets of stone; they don't obey it.  The Gentiles (and all mankind, really) have the natural law of God inscribes on their hearts, and they suppress it and break it, too.  So we're all in the position where the law has declared us all guilty.  God has brought us to this position so that, as Paul writes in 3:19-20,

. . . [E]very mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

The law of God, whether it's the written law given through Moses or our inward sense of right and wrong, describes the work, the big job we have to do in order to please our Lord and Creator.  Ultimately, whether we acknowledge Him or not, God is our Boss, and if He wants to fire us, there's no place else to go.

And even if we feel we want to do what is just and right and do the work God requires, every day we're putting ourselves more in His disfavor.  We're like incompetent workers who not only don't do our jobs, but even when we're trying our best we break the machinery and alienate the customers and embezzle our employer's funds. When it comes to achieving favor with God, our hard work doesn't work.  This is how it is when we depend on ourselves to gain and maintain our own righteousness by obeying the law.

But the good news, as Paul tells us in the last part of Romans chapter 3, is that God Himself has done all the hard work for us through His Son Jesus Christ.  His blood shed on the cross makes everything right between us and our divine Employer: We are justified in His sight.  His death paid the price to buy us back out of slavery to sin: In Jesus Christ we are redeemed.  His sacrifice of Himself propitiated the wrath that God rightly had directed against us for our sin: He has settled the our sin debt for us and it will never be held against us again.

Jesus Christ did all this for us when He died on Calvary, and His resurrection proves that God accepted His work.  But how do we make the work of Jesus Christ our own?  Do we do it by laboring really hard to love God and our neighbor, so we'll deserve the favor of Christ?

Well, think of the words of Jesus Himself as recorded in the sixth chapter of John's gospel.  The day before He had fed the 5,000-plus on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  Then somehow He'd transported Himself to the Capernaum side of the lake, though everyone had seen the disciples go off in the only boat they had without Him.  Even though they didn't necessarily know Jesus had walked most of the way across on the water, they certainly were sure that this Rabbi was a special representative of God and they weren't going to lose hold of Him.  They were racing around, working hard not to lose hold of Him.

But as Jesus says, "You are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."   He seems to be agreeing with the idea we all have, that spiritual blessings, like earthly ones, have to be earned by our own efforts.  So of course the representatives of the crowd ask Jesus, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

Now, they knew the Law.  And they knew God expected them to keep it.  But maybe, just maybe Rabbi Jesus would give them some wonderful new tip so they could keep it.

And Jesus says simply, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

That's it.  If they or we want to gain eternal life, if we want to appropriate the work of Christ on the cross for ourselves, we must not work.  We must let God do all the work and simply receive the gift of salvation by faith in Christ alone.  Our work has no place in God's plan to make us right with Him.  In fact, to insist on working for it ourselves is to imply that Jesus and His death aren't good enough for us.

But if you've read your Bible and knew about the patriarch Abraham, you might be inclined to object.  Wasn't Abraham justified by his works when he obeyed God and left Ur and then Haran to go to the land of Canaan?  Didn't God reward him for his deed when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah?   Abraham pleased God by his works, didn't he? and aren't we to be sons of Abraham and follow in his footsteps?

Not so fast, Paul says in Chapter 4.  How was it actually that Abraham pleased God?  The Apostle quotes Genesis 15:6:  "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  It was by faith and faith alone that Father Abraham was accepted as righteous before God!

And is the righteousness that God credited Abraham by faith the heritage only for the circumcised, that is, the Jews?  No, because God created that faith in him and accepted that faith before the sign of circumcision was even given.  The important thing is not whether we are Jews or Gentiles, the important thing is that God does His work in us and credits righteousness to us by faith.  To walk in the footsteps of Abraham, Paul argues in verse 12, is to receive by faith the work that God has done for us and to live our lives trusting that God has done everything necessary for us to be accepted by Him.  Just as Abraham looked forward to Christ and trusted in the work He would do, we look back on the saving work Jesus completed and trust that it is enough and more than enough, apart from anything we could accomplish.

But--!  But--!  Don't we have to do something to be Abraham's true heirs?  The other day I heard that some television host was arguing that if you don't think the impending national healthcare law is a great thing you can't possibly be a real Christian.  The radio host who passed this story along thought this was ridiculous on political grounds.  As Christians, we first and foremost have to reject this statement on spiritual grounds.  We are Christians through being accepted by God in Jesus Christ, and that was due to no work of kindness of ours, public or private.  For as our reading says, "It was not through law--" [And the law is largely about how we should be kind to one another] "--Not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith."

But let's say it were possible for someone to receive the new heaven and new earth God promises by his or her hard work trying to love God and neighbor.  If that were the case, Paul says, "faith has no value and the promise is worthless."  But we've already seen that doing our best to please God-- that is, following the law-- doesn't get us anywhere.  It only puts us deeper into God's righteous wrath.

But being right with God through faith is an entirely different story.  For one thing, it's totally inclusive.  For it says in verse 16;

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring-- not only to those who are of the law [that is, ethnic Jews], but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.  He is the father of us all.

This is totally countercultural!  The culture says-- what is that song from The Sound of Music?  It goes something like

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could;
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must've done something good.1

Human culture says it's all about work and rewards.  But the promise of God comes to us who are dead in trespasses and sins, who are totally helpless and can't do a single solitary thing to work our way to eternal life.  And see! He makes us alive in Christ!  Our God is the God who does call something out of nothing by the power of His Word, and He does it every time the Holy Spirit plants faith in Jesus Christ into a lost sinner, like each of us were before He gave us new life in Christ.

Our God is the God who "calls things that are not as though they were."  And when He speaks, those things spring into being!  How do we know this is true in time and space and not just in theory?  Well, says Paul, look at the whole history of the birth of Isaac.  Both Abraham and Sarah were as good as dead where it came to having children.  They totally didn't have it in them.  But God had promised him a son from his own loins by his wife Sarah herself and no surrogate.  God in His mercy maintained and repeated this promise even after the fiasco with Hagar and her son Ishmael.  And without wavering Abraham believed that the Lord indeed would give him his own begotten son by Sarah.  He had faith that God had the power to do what He had promised, and this faith was "credited to him as righteousness."

So what does this mean for us as we go about our lives as children of God living in an ungodly world?  First, we must resist the Devil's lie that God requires more of us than faith in the finished work of His Son Jesus Christ, or that faith itself is some kind of a work we do, and not itself the gift of God.

We must stand firmly against the world's conception that being a Christian is about doing good deeds, and the more good deeds you do, the better Christian you are.  Yes, God does want us to walk in the footsteps of our Father Abraham, who acted on the divine promises he believed.  But our actions and our work do not make us his children or children of the living God.  That all comes by grace through faith in Christ alone.

And we must utterly reject the falsehood that creeps upon us when we're depressed or in a bad situation, the nasty little voice that suggests we're not good enough to be saved by the blood of Christ, or worse, that somehow the blood of Christ isn't strong enough to save a wretch like you or me.  If we were good, we wouldn't need saving!  And the promise of God in Jesus stands firm and strong.  His cross is more than sufficient to save us from all our sins.

For what does the Apostle say at the end of our reading from Romans?

The words "It was credited to him" were written not for him [Abraham] alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness-- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

In the sphere of this world, by all means, work as hard as you can at the vocation God has called you to.  But in the sphere of the world to come, stop struggling, stop your fruitless working, put down your tools and come with empty hands ready to receive.  The Son of Man gives you the food that endures to eternal life, and He gives you the faith you need to take it from His hand.  By His grace, may you cease your labors and rest forever in Him.  Amen.
____________________________________________
1  By Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, 1959

God at Work

Texts: Romans 3:1- 4:8; John 6:24-29

WHEN I WAS A KID, I COULD NEVER see the point of the Labor Day holiday. The day was about labor, right? So why did people get the day off?

Of course, I learned in time that Labor Day doesn't celebrate labor, it celebrates laborers. Especially workers who often were taken for granted for long centuries of human history. It was established in 1894 to highlight the achievements of men and women who worked in the mills, the factories, and the mines of America.

And America's workers have a lot to be proud of. Historically, we have the most productive labor force in the world. It stands to reason that labor should have a day to boast in what they've done for America and the world.

But it's not just America's workers who want to take pride in their accomplishments on the job. Everywhere in the world laborers want to feel that their efforts count for something. We have a basic human need to stand on our own feet and know we've got things under control for ourselves and our families. As it says in Ecclesiastes 2:24, "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God . . . "

That's how it is in this world. We can say that's how things should be in this world; "under the sun," as Solomon puts it.

But human labor and human capability has a limit. There's one job only one Worker can do, and that's the job of reconciling lost and sinful humanity to the almighty Creator of heaven and earth. That one Worker is God Himself, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We humans can do a lot in this world to keep body and soul together and find fulfilment doing it. God gives us the time and talents and strength to make our living, and we have to put our backs into it ourselves if we want to get along. But only God Himself by Himself can accomplish the work of salvation and sanctification that brings us into His kingdom of everlasting life. Only He can overcome the sin and wickedness that separates every human creature from Himself.

But as we know, human history has been one long process of mankind disagreeing with that principle. We think that when it comes to our salvation, God helps them who help themselves.

From the dawn of time, every tribe and nation in this world from has been aware that there is a High God to Whom they owe worship and right moral behaviour. Every person ever born has it written on his or her heart that certain things are right and certain things are wrong; that there's a good way and a bad way to treat God and our neighbor. It teaches that God has the right to expect good behavior from us. This is called natural law, or conscience. It's not the possession of any particular faith or religion; it's what God has put within us because we are human beings made in His image.

Then there's also a distinctive people, the Jews, and the Lord God revealed to them His spoken and written Law. They didn't have to guess at what they had to do to please God and live; they had it down in detail.

But Jew or pagan alike, humankind has always distorted the law of God and watered it down into something they could manage. They felt that they could do enough to please God, and God would reward them for their hard work with prosperity in this life and maybe even eternal blessedness in the world to come.

Was the Creator of heaven and earth impressed? Did He look down on humanity and say, "Oh, my, you're doing your best, you should be so proud of yourselves! You've worked so hard, I'm going to give you a Labor Day parade!"

No. Rather, in Romans 3:19, the Apostle Paul, speaking by the Holy Spirit, says "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God." The pagan peoples stand guilty because they've perverted and departed from the natural law written on the heart. The Jews are convicted because they have disobeyed the Law revealed through Moses. What's just as bad or worse, when they were supposedly trying to work to please God, everyone to whom Paul writes has been trying to earn their own righteousness by observing the law according to their own version of it. But the Scripture says that no one can stand righteous in the sight of God by doing that, no matter how hard they work.

But what about us, citizens of the United States and the western world? We live after the cross of Christ. Even if we don't actually belong to a church, our ethics and morals are pretty much based on the law of love that Jesus preached, right? If we just follow Jesus as our good example, and do the things He would do, won't that will be okay with God?

All the time we hear people say, "I work hard to do what's right. God will let me into heaven because of that." People say, "God knows I'm doing my best. He knows my heart, that'll be enough."

But even for us today, that is not enough. "Doing our best" and "making a good effort" is still us trying to justify ourselves by works of the law. We've lowered the standard for what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves and to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but even so, we're still laboring to earn God's favor, so we can boast that we deserved it.

The Scripture, however, is clear. We are all defendants in God's courtroom, and every mouth is silenced before Him. The whole world is accountable before God, including ourselves. No one will be declared righteous by works of the law; rather, the law-- the revealed law and the natural law-- the law full and forceful from the hand of Almighty God-- shows us what great sinners we are. Jesus Himself proclaimed that the fountain of wickedness is us is the very heart that we think will earn us our ticket into heaven. And once the law makes us truly conscious of sin, we won't be boasting that God will accept us because He knows our hearts. We'll want to run and hide from His righteous anger.

What can we do? Our condition is nothing to have a parade about! Not unless it's a parade to the gallows.

The answer is, we can do nothing. God, the great Worker of salvation, does it all. As Romans 3:21 says, "But now--" Now, that we have been declared guilty and worthy of condemnation-- "Now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known." The law and the prophets all testified that this righteousness was coming. It came to us through Jesus Christ our Lord; He brought us perfect redemption through His sinless life, His atoning death, and His glorious resurrection. God Himself has worked to give us access to His own righteousness through faith in Jesus, and not even that faith was a work of ours. As it says in Ephesians 2, "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast."

Our salvation is God's great labor from start to finish. Only He could have done it. The righteousness and justice of God demanded that sin be paid for. We couldn't pay it. No matter what we did, we could never be good enough to ward off the wrath of God that we deserved for our sins. But it was also the loving will of God that He would justify His elect. What was God to do?

What only God could do. God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, came into the world as a perfect Human Being and died as a sacrifice of atonement to God. His blood covers all our sins. That way, God's holy justice is satisfied and He is able to say to those whom He calls to faith in Christ, "You are perfect and righteous in My sight."

This is what God did for you when He brought you to faith in Christ by the voice of His Holy Spirit. This is what He may be doing for you even now as the power of His word works in your life, convicting you of your sin and convincing you to trust in Christ alone for your salvation. This is God at work! This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, may His name be praised forever!

But you may have noticed something about yourself; I'm sure I've noticed it about me. It's that even after God has called us to faith in Jesus Christ, there's still that old sin nature hanging around in us. And it whispers, "You really did part of the work in your own salvation. God must've saved you because of something good you did or were!"

And isn't that what unbelievers think we Christians believe about ourselves? That we think we deserved to be saved because we're actually holier or better than other people? Heaven help us, sometimes we give them good excuse to think that. Let me ask you this, what is your attitude towards flagrant sinners? What do you think about homosexuals and drunkards and bitter-tongued gossips and adulterers? What's your attitude towards corporate CEOs or government officials who apparently are cheating the public? Does that immediately drive you to pray for their salvation? Or . . . ?

Let's admit it. The temptation is to say, "Thank God I'm not like that! Those people should try harder to do what's right! God should punish them and give them what they deserve!"

I hope you resist that temptation. I hope you flee it with every fiber of your being. It's true, people like that don't deserve God's mercy. Neither did you or I. Romans teaches that none of us has the right to boast of being holier-than-thou. We are not, not, not justified by our works of righteousness, or by anything we earned or deserved. No, we were saved by Christ's work of righteousness imputed to us by the one God of all.

We don't used this word "imputed" or "imputation" every day, but it describes what God does for us. Think of somebody who's horribly in debt. And a kind and rich person comes along and credits the entire amount of the debt to the debtor's account and totally pays it off. That money is reckoned as his and he gets the good of it. What he can't do is boast that it's his own money or that somehow he deserved it.

That's what God did for Abraham and what He does for us. Abraham simply believed that God had accepted him and he believed God's promises of blessing to him. Ultimately, Abraham's faith looked forward to the Messiah Jesus who was his many-times-great grandson. In the same way, it's not up to us to earn our righteousness, but simply to accept the righteous sacrifice of Christ in our behalf.

The Galileans who saw Jesus feed the 5,000 chased Him back to Capernaum because they wanted more of the physical bread He'd given. Jesus says, No, that's not the bread you should be working for, but the food that endures to eternal life that He, the Son of Man, would give them. These people were like us. They wanted everlasting happiness with God and they wanted to know what they had to do to get it. We'll work for it, Master, we really will! That's what we say, too. "What must we do to do the works God requires?" And Jesus answers, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

This isn't "your work" that you have to do. It's the work of God that He does within you! God is the one worker of our salvation, He is responsible for it all. He saved us and He can save the most flagrant of sinners, regardless of who or what they may be.

And it's His work, not ours, that keeps us in His grace. Maybe you've picked up the idea that you were saved by Christ's death on the cross, but now it's up to you to make sure you stay saved. Brothers and sisters! It's all a gift! It's all God's workmanship! We can't brag about our salvation and we can't brag about how He's making us holy! Right now He's working in you by His Holy Spirit, forgiving your sins, making you more like Christ, drawing you to love your fellow-Christians and also all the poor dying sinners who need the Savior just like we do! It's all God at work!

So now, take a holiday from your own works, because God has put in all the labor for you. As you do His will, know that it's His Spirit working in you. With all God's justified and grace-imputed people, sing with King David that

"Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

Blessed of the Father, rest in the work He does for you. And if anyone wants to boast, let him boast joyfully in the Lord.

To whom be all honor and glory, wisdom and strength, now and forever. Amen.

God's Ancient Promise, Ever New

Texts: Zechariah 8:12-23; Galatians 3:6-9, 15-22; Matthew 2:1-12

OUR GOSPEL READING FROM St. Matthew declares, "Magi [or wise men] from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'"

How many times have we heard them ask that question in this reading at this time of year? If we're long-time church-goers, probably every year of our lives. It's early January, it must be time for the Wise Men to show up looking for the infant King of the Jews! It doesn't surprise us, does it? I mean, we know who that King of the Jews was and is! He's Jesus the Christ, the Son of God! Of course any sensible person, any man-- or woman-- who claims to be wise would come to seek and worship Him!

But we've read the end of the story. We know Who the Babe of Bethlehem turned out to be. The Magi and Herod and the rest of them are still in the middle of Jesus' story; at its beginning, in fact. We can't assume they knew what we know about Him. They couldn't assume what we take for granted.

And maybe if we saw things from their point of view, we, too, would be filled with new wonder, eagerness, and fear, and come to worship our Lord Jesus with fresh hearts and open eyes.

So I ask you, why on earth would the Magi have come all that way, over a thousand miles, to seek and worship the newborn King of the Jews? Who were the Jews in the days of Caesar Augustus, anyway? They were a harried, scattered, barely-tolerated people. Their ancestral land was divided and occupied and ruled by Herod, a puppet king installed by Caesar in Rome. The last king of the royal line of David had died over 500 years before. The Hasmonean kings and queens, the ones descended from Judah the Maccabee and his brothers, that dynasty had lasted only a hundred years. And the last of them, Mariamne daughter of Alexandros, had married Herod himself and he'd had her executed twenty-five years before. Besides, the Maccabees were from the tribe of Levi, not the tribe of Judah like David. They really weren't qualified to sit on the throne of Israel according to God's promise to David. And Herod himself, he wasn't Jewish at all! His father was an Edomite and his mother was a Nabatean Arab. He professed the Jewish religion-- sort of-- but he was only "King of the Jews" because Caesar Augustus had declared him to be. He was king over the Jews, but he wasn't a king from or of the Jews! To talk of a true "king of the Jews" in those days was practically meaningless!

But there the Magi were in Jerusalem, asking after such a king. But they were supposed to be so wise! They were of the great tribe of the Magi! They were the hereditary priests and royal astrologers of the magnificent land of Persia! Actually, why would these Magi, these high officials, these esteemed advisors to kings and princes, bother with anything Jewish at all?

And why should they come now, for this birth? Some scholars believe that the Magi came according to the ordinary international custom of that time. They say that "to worship" only means "to do political homage." But that wouldn't make sense even from an earthly point of view! Kings and nobles paid worship only to rulers they acknowledged as their overlords. The Persians were a proud people who had repulsed the Roman army twice in the previous sixty years. Their nobles weren't about to bow down to the infant King of a miserable conquered people! And suppose they'd intended to do honor to an infant son of Herod, the "official" king of the Jews. Does that really make sense? Herod was always having children! History tells us he had many sons by many wives; yes, and he put many of them to death. If the Magi had wanted to come congratulate old Herod on his newborn offspring, they would've been travelling from Persia to Judea and back again over and over and over.

No, something else was happening here, something the Magi knew and that Herod refused to see. Clearly, back in Persia the wise men had come to know of a promised King of the Jews, who wouldn't be just another earthly king. This knowledge first came to their people when the Medes and the Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire in 538 BC. When they took over the Persians found this peculiar people the Jews living dispersed in the Babylonian lands. The Jews refused to assimilate and take up the gods and the practices of the peoples around them. They kept talking about how the Most High God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, had personally called their ancestor Abraham and promised to make him the progenitor of the greatest nation on earth. They claimed to be God's chosen people and that His eternal purposes would be worked out through them. The Jews clung to their holy writings, where it said that the Most High had promised that a King would come to sit on the throne of his father David, and his reign would have no end. These writings said that God would be especially active and present with this Davidic king, not the way kings and emperors always claimed to be sons of the gods, but truly and actually. And these scriptures said that this promised king would come as a blessing and light to the non-Jewish nations, to share the blessings of the Most High with them all, if they would come in humility and worship and willingness to serve Him according to His will.

The Wise Men weren't wise merely by training or by tribe. They were wise because they believed what had been revealed to them of God's promises to His people Israel. They were looking forward to the birth of this one, particular, special, promised King of the Jews. As it says in the book of the prophet Zechariah, they were ready day by day to come up to Jerusalem to take firm hold of that One Jew by the hem of His swaddling bands and go with Him to entreat and seek the Lord Almighty, for they knew that God would be with Him indeed. So when they saw the star of our Lord Jesus Christ at its rising, they rejoiced, packed up their gifts, saddled their camels, and quickly as they could, they came.

They didn't expect to find Christ the newborn king in Herod's palace in Jerusalem-- you'll notice in the gospel text, Matthew doesn't say they asked Herod first off; no, it was Herod who called the Magi to come to him. They came to Jerusalem for information and directions only. If the Magi failed in wisdom at any one point, it's that plainly they thought that Herod and his court and all Jerusalem would be as glad as they were to hear that God's King of kings had been born! For if they as Gentiles were overjoyed, how much more should God's people Israel have rejoiced!

But they arrived, and nobody in Jerusalem had heard of the birth of the promised King. They weren't even expecting Him. Herod had to convene a special council of the chief priests and teachers of the law to tell him where the prophets said the Christ was to be born. And in the end, Herod didn't care about God's ancient promises. He only cared about his own present kingdom and power.

We know how the story unfolds. The Magi find the Christ child at the house in Bethlehem where He is now living with Mary His mother and Joseph His foster-father. They bow down to Him and give Him gifts, and receive the blessing of God's promises fulfilled. They are not fooled by Jesus' humble circumstances, for just as Simeon had told Mary in the temple, the Magi recognise that this Child is indeed the promised One, the One born to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of God's people Israel."

And we know how Herod tried to trick the Magi into operating as his spies to reveal exactly where the newborn King could be found. John Calvin suggests that the Holy Spirit darkened Herod's mind, so he wouldn't think of sending one of his own men to Bethlehem with the Magi to come back with the information he wanted. Perhaps. Or maybe Herod was afraid that anyone he sent would betray him and pledge loyalty to this newborn King! However it was, God warned the Magi in a dream not to return to Herod and they went back to their eastern land another way.

Matthew doesn't tell us what they said or did when they arrived back home. But by the Holy Spirit the Evangelist tells us what we need to know, that God keeps His ancient promises. Thousands of years before, God called Abraham and promised that all nations would be blessed through him. And in the visit and worship and joy of the Magi, we see the firstfruits of God's fulfilment of His promise. Jesus Christ the King of the Jews was born for them, as much as He was born for His people Israel.

And Jesus Christ was born for us, for you and me. He was and is the glorious fulfilment of all God's promises to father Abraham. The Apostle Paul wants us particularly to be aware of how that fulfillment comes. Many early Jewish Christians, many early Gentile Christians, even, like the members of the church in Galatia, thought the Gentiles laid hold of the promised blessings by becoming Jews. They thought that in order for Christ to be our King, we all had to bind ourselves first by the Law of Moses and keep it perfectly!

We're rather the opposite. Our culture tells us that God will bless us if we're pretty nice and think the baby Jesus in the manger is really, really, adorable.

But no! No to both those false ideas! As Paul writes in the letter to the Galatians, God gave the promise of universal blessing to Abraham, and Abraham "Believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Righteousness is necessary to please God. And that righteousness comes not by obedience to the Law of Moses or to the law of niceness, but by faith. And this faith is not a mere feeling, it is a God-given trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews. This is how God always intended to justify everyone, Jew and Gentile alike: the Wise Men from the east and you and me besides.

God's promise to Abraham was, "All nations will be blessed through you." He gave it to "Abraham and his seed." St. Paul is urgent to make us understand the implications of that. In Galatians 3:16 he says, "The Scripture does not say, ‘and to seeds,' meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ."

So ultimately, the promise of being a blessing to all nations is made to Jesus Christ. And the benefits of this promise come to us through Jesus Christ! He and He alone is the bringer of the blessing of God to all nations, including you and me and everyone who believes. Jesus has blessed us by His perfect obedient life and His faithful death on the cross. He fulfilled the Law of Moses for us, so that no longer are we prisoners of sin, locked away from the eternal life and love and acceptance of Almighty God. If through faith we have bowed before Jesus Christ, He is our Lord and King and He shares with us all the glorious inheritance that is His as the Son of God.

This was God's intention from of old. It was His intention when He made His promises to Abraham, it was His intention when He inspired the prophecies of Zechariah, it was His intention when by the rising of a star He drew the Wise Men from the east, to seek and worship the infant King of the Jews.

It was the wisest thing the Magi ever did, travelling all that way to worship the infant King of the Jews. And if we are wise we won't let anything stop us from bowing down and worshipping Him, too. That Child grew up to be our crucified and risen Savior Jesus Christ. He is our King, sitting in power at the right hand of the Father. And He calls you and me and all people of all nations to know Him by faith and receive the peace and eternal life with God that He alone can give. This is God's ancient promise of blessing. It is good even to this present day, it will be good forever. Accept it and be joyful, for the promise is for you.

The Treaty of Calvary

Text: Romans 4:13-17; 5:1-11

WHEN I WAS A KID IN SCHOOL STUDYING American History, we learned about April 19, 1775. That was the date of the famous "shot heard round the world." That’s when our colonist forefathers stood up to the British troops at Lexington and Concord, and the Revolutionary War was begun.

Of course we also learned about July 4, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was ratified in Philadelphia. And October 17, 1781, when the British surrendered at Yorktown. And of course, we learned about September 17, 1787, the day our Constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Convention.

But somehow we never heard much about September 3, 1783. Anybody here remember what happened that day? No? That’s the day of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, when Great Britain and the brand-new United States of America agreed to terms of peace. That’s the day the Revolutionary War officially came to an end, and we had won.


It’s easy to overlook the Treaty of Paris. For one thing, it happened, well, in Paris, France. Here in southwestern Pennsylvania, it’s not too hard to visualize the battles and struggles of the Revolution itself. We don’t have to go that far to see where they took place. And every time we travel the Washington Trail, Route 68 in Butler County, we remember the exploits of the man who would later lead our forces to victory. But Paris, especially Paris in 1783 is so far away-- it’s hard to get our imaginations around anything that happened there.


And then treaties are basically about politics and diplomacy and legal affairs. Terribly dry and boring, not exciting like battles and sieges and deeds of heroism. No wonder September 3, 1783 doesn’t stick in our heads!


But the Treaty of Paris was essential for the birth of our nation. Without the Treaty of Paris, we’d still be at war with Great Britain. At the very best, we’d only have a cease-fire. And if the Crown of England ever felt it was worthwhile to resume hostilities, they could do that. It would just be the same war going on and on.


George III agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Paris because we, the American colonists, had won the war. He was the head of the greatest nations in the world at the time. But after six and a half years of struggle, he simply couldn’t keep pouring in men and money and materiel and munitions to put down those pesky colonials across the Atlantic. So he had his ambassadors sign the Treaty.


Like most treaties, each side got something out of it. We got the best of it, of course: We got our independence and the rights to the land claimed by the thirteen former colonies. But the British got some benefits, too, like the right to navigate on the Mississippi River, the right of pro-British combatants to be free from American prosecution, and the right of pro-British colonists to sue for the recovery of confiscated property.


But suppose a rabble of rebellious revolutionaries and terrorists declared war against a great superpower, a high and glorious Emperor or King. Suppose unlike our colonial ancestors, these rebels had no excuse or cause for war. Suppose under the King’s rulership, they’d been free and responsible citizens with everything they could ever want or need, but they rebelled anyway. Suppose even that the great King had delegated much of the rulership of His empire to these ungrateful wretches, but it wasn’t enough for them, they wanted to put down the King and be kings and queens themselves.


Suppose this war of rebellion had gone on for years, decades, centuries. Suppose the cruelty, brutality, treachery, and desecration of these terrorists was without boundary or limit. And suppose the great King had all the men, money, materiel, and munitions to put down the rebellion whenever He wanted.


Will such a King conclude a treaty of peace with such a gang of bloody rebels? Will He not stop waiting for them to surrender and destroy them altogether, just as they deserve?


You’d think so, wouldn’t you? You’d think He’d bring all His power to bear and be done with this war, once and for all. He could. He’d have the right to. He’d have the power to do it. Let Him wipe them out those terrorists, and let His loyal subjects stand up and cheer!


But what if that’s not what the great King did? What if, instead, He drew up a treaty of peace with those rebels, and it was all in their favor-- life and health and property and riches and high places in His kingdom forever more! What if He sealed it with the blood of His beloved and only Son?


And what if-- what if-- the only thing required from the rebels was that they lay down their arms and accept all the good things promised by this amazing treaty? What if they’d be breaking the treaty if they insisted on trying to do good things in order to deserve the King’s offer of peace?


You’d think that King was either out of His mind-- or that He was the most loving, gracious, caring, merciful, and glorious King the world has ever known. But surely, such a King, such a superpower, has never existed-- has He? And such a treaty, could it ever be offered? How could anything like that be imagined?


St. Paul answers these questions in his letter to the Romans. In the first three chapters, the Apostle convicts all humanity of being in vicious, unexcusable rebellion against our Lord and King. That includes every man, every woman, every child; rich and poor, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, knowing God’s law and not knowing God’s law. We are all guilty of waging war against our gracious Lord, and He has every right to destroy us in His wrath.


But beginning towards the end of Chapter 3, Paul reveals how the Lord God Himself intervened to end the hostilities between Him and us. In Chapter 4, he gives an example of one man who accepted the King’s terms and inherited His promises-- our father Abraham. And in our portion of Chapter 4, Paul outlines the glorious terms of the treaty of peace our Lord and King has made with us, for our benefit and His eternal glory.


We can call it the Treaty of Calvary, and by all calculations, it was ratified at 3:00 in the afternoon on Friday, April 3rd, in the Year of Our Lord 33. On that day and at that hour, Jesus Christ the Son of God died on the cross of Calvary to seal our peace with His own innocent blood. And simply by laying down our arms and accepting His grace through faith in Him, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.


The rebellious world looks on and says, "Impossible!" And it is amazing, overwhelming, almost too good to be true. As St. Paul says in Chapter 5, verses 6 and following,


For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.


"While we were still sinners Christ died for us"! While we were still rebellious, blaspheming, self-righteous, cold, cruel, careless sinners, our God and King made a unilateral treaty with us and signed it with His own blood!


Amazing, but not incredible!


Something you may have noticed, that's going around these days in popular American culture: The constant use of the word "incredible." "Incredible" means "not to be credited" or "not to be believed," and people use it for everything. I’ve even heard Christians use it, about things that you’d think they’d want you to believe. The other day, I heard an advert telling me to send for "This incredible set of Scripture cards!" Excuse me, if it’s unbelievable, why should I bother?


The marvellous love that God offers us in the Treaty of Calvary is not incredible. In fact, the only requirement laid upon us is that we do credit and believe it. The only thing we have to do is be like Abraham and reach out in faith and simply accept God’s promises offered to us in Jesus Christ.


And yes, God’s promise to Abraham that he would inherit the world finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The promises of the Treaty of Calvary are better than a pledge of earthly territory and property and fishing and commercial rights. They extend from this world to the world to come, and their blessings and benefits to us will never end.


Let’s look at the terms of this treaty, here in Romans Chapter 5.


First of all, now that we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God! That means your sins are forgiven! That means that your conscience can be calm and clear!


I know what it’s like to remember some past sin, and feel unsettled about it. Maybe I’ve asked forgiveness of the person I offended, but I just don’t feel forgiven. The Holy Spirit here tells me and tells you to believe God, not our feelings. The blood of Jesus has covered our sins. We have God’s peace-- let’s enjoy it!


And through Christ we have access to God’s grace and we can stand in it. We can stop acting like it’s up to us to please God in our own paltry power. We can stop trying to put God in our debt by observing the law. Our standing with our King is all by His grace. It comes simply and solely because we belong to His righteous Son, Jesus Christ. He fulfilled the law perfectly for us, and makes us worthy to come into His Father’s presence.


And through Christ, we may boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. This boast has nothing to do with what we are or have been in ourselves-- it totally has to do with what Jesus did for us.


Under the terms of the Treaty of Calvary, we can even boast in our sufferings. For now our sufferings have meaning. Now we are fighting on the side of our Lord, the most glorious and gracious God and King, and our wounds come in His service. In Christ, our suffering does not defeat us, it makes us more like Him, in endurance, character, and hope. For in all our sufferings, the Holy Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts, the love that Jesus knew when He bore the sins of the world for our sake.


Under the terms of the Treaty of Calvary, now that we have been justified by Christ’s blood, we have been saved through Him from the wrath of God. It’s not nice or popular or modern to talk about the wrath of God against sin. But deep inside, we all know our rebellion against Him deserves it. So we excuse ourselves. Or we try to heap up good works to balance out our bad ones. Or we try to run away into pleasure or depression or busyness, anything to escape facing the wrath of God. But in Christ, that threat is removed! For the sake of Jesus’ shed blood, God our King has ceased His war against us and we have nothing to fear from Him, ever again.
That reconciliation came to be while we were still God’s enemies! So now that we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, how much more will we be saved by His resurrection life!


For under the Treaty of Calvary, peace with God gives us so much more than His war against us being over. He doesn’t just march away and leave us on our own. No! Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ makes us heirs of all the gracious promises first offered to our father Abraham, for all those promises are Yes and Amen in God’s crucified and risen Son. Power and glory, wisdom and strength, honor, glory, and blessing: All these are ours through Jesus Christ, who defeated death and brings us with Him to His Father’s throne.


We can boast in God, because He is no longer our divine Enemy; rather through Jesus Christ, He is our Father and our eternal Friend. He has reconciled us to Himself, He has concluded His treaty of peace with us, and nothing will ever be the same.


Think what this can mean for your every day life and for mine! We have peace with the great King: how can any enemy now have any lasting power over us? And that includes the enemies that attack us within our own thoughts and minds! God has reconciled us to Himself: now we can courageously and lovingly offer reconciliation to others. He has converted us from rebels and terrorists into His loyal subjects and royal children: now we can serve Him humbly, gladly, and willingly. We can take His direction and offer the love and peace of Jesus Christ even to people we think could never deserve it.


For we did not deserve for God to make peace with us, yet He did. We didn’t force Him to give us these blessings by winning the fight against Him or by earning them by our own good works. Yet here we are, enjoying all the joys of life and hope and peace with Him.


Rejoice in that peace! Live in it! Boast in it! And more than that, offer and extend that peace to everyone you know. For when you do, though Jesus Christ your Lord you are ratifying and keeping the Treaty of Calvary.

The Rules-- or the Ruler?

Texts: Isaiah 25:6-9; Galatians 2:8-21

TODAY, IN THE TRADITIONAL CHURCH calendar, is the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. I hope you’ll indulge me when I say that means a lot to me, because eleven years ago today I was ordained to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). It was a good day to be ordained, because it’s the day the Church has traditionally celebrated the ministry of Christ’s apostles and pastors. Even more, it’s a good day to celebrate the message of the Gospel that all true ministers bring to God’s people and the world.

But given that, maybe you think it’s odd that I’ve chosen this passage in Galatians 2 to preach on. St. Peter sure doesn’t come out looking very good here! In fact, St. Paul practically accuses him and St. Barnabas of departing from the truth of the Gospel!

But today is also the Sunday before the 4th of July, Independence Day. Next Friday we’ll be celebrating all that makes America what it is, including the basic principles that our nation was founded upon.

One of those is Tolerance. Here in America, it’s a principle for us to tolerate the different views, opinions, and customs others may have, even if we don’t share them or agree with them. We live and let live, because we accept one another as fellow-Americans. Or with non-citizens, we accept one another as fellow human beings. Tolerance of our differences is part of what being an American is all about.

But in Galatians 2, St. Paul isn’t being tolerant at all! That bothers us. We’re not expecting him to act like a good American, of course not. But, well, isn’t Tolerance also a Christian virtue, not just an American one? Isn’t that what we’re taught?

But the Holy Spirit teaches us some things simply are not tolerable. And tolerating the wrong things will lead us right off the cliff away from the Good News that Christ’s apostles and ministers are called to preach and proclaim.

The church in Galatia was in a mess. Some false apostles had shown up, telling the Christians they had to be circumcised and keep all the Law of Moses in order to be accepted by God in Christ. No true apostle or minister of Jesus Christ can tolerate teaching like that! Not St. Paul, not any of us today. We have to speak out against falsehood like that--even if the one going wrong is as important as St. Peter himself.

Let’s look at our text. In verses 8-10, Paul affirms both his and Peter’s ministries. He tells the Galatians about the time he met in Jerusalem with St. James-- that is, the brother of our Lord and leader of the Jerusalem church-- Peter himself, and St. John. In that private conference he informed them of what he was preaching to the Gentiles, that is, salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. He had to, because already in Antioch some false brothers were trying to make the believers slaves again to the Law.

James, Peter, and John didn’t dispute Paul’s understanding of the gospel; no, they recognised that the Holy Spirit was indeed working in Paul when he preached salvation through the blood of Christ alone. They saw that God had entrusted this one and only gospel to Peter to minister to the Jews, and to Paul, to bring to the Gentiles. Their only requirement for him and Barnabas was that they should continue to remember the poor. This was a sign of the common ministry and fellowship of the Church, whether in Jerusalem or Antioch. But "remembering the poor" had nothing to do with how a person is accepted by God. That comes through the sacrificial death of Christ, period.

At that time, Christians in Judea tended to keep on celebrating the Jewish feasts and observing the kosher laws, even though they knew they weren’t saved by them. They didn’t have to think about how that’d affect their relations with Gentile believers-- there weren’t that many.

The church in Antioch had to deal with it. Believing Jews and Gentiles met all the time in each others’ homes. If a Jewish Christian in Antioch kept kosher, he’d have to shun his Gentile brother! So in Antioch, the Law of Moses was being relaxed in favor of the law of love in the Messiah. They were, as Paul writes in verse 4, enjoying freedom in Jesus Christ.

Now as we read in verse 11, sometime after his meeting with Paul and Barnabas, St. Peter came to Antioch, to see for himself what the Holy Spirit was doing in the church. He saw how wonderfully Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians met and mixed as one body. He recognised how God had accepted the Gentiles by His grace. Peter went to the homes of uncircumcised believers and ate with them. And if pork roast was on the menu, that was fine with him! After awhile, as Paul says in verse 14, Peter was living like a Gentile and not like a Jew. And in God’s plan and purpose for the Church, that was fine with our Lord!

But then certain men arrived from Jerusalem. They claimed to be coming from James himself. They told Peter he was doing wrong not to keep every last stipulation of the Law. They insisted that to be a good Christian, you had to be a thoroughly observant Jew. They applied so much pressure that Peter was afraid-- not of what Jesus would say, but of what these men in the circumcision faction would say. And he began to stop associating with his Gentile brothers and sisters. And other Jewish believers and even Barnabas did the same.

Imagine how Paul felt, observing this! It was sheer hypocrisy! It was intolerable! Paul had to confront Peter about it. Openly. To his face. In front of all the others who were being led astray by Peter’s example, in front of the Gentile believers who were being hurt and confused by it.

For if Paul hadn’t confronted Peter and nipped this in the bud, it would have destroyed the Church. Not just the church in ancient Antioch, but the Church in all times and places. If Jewish Christians had to go on keeping the Law and couldn’t associate with Gentile Christians, the only way to keep the Church together would be for Gentile Christians to become Jews. The men would have to be circumcised and all of them-- meaning, us, we’d have to keep the Law of Moses down to the last letter. As Paul writes in verse 14, Peter by his behaviour was forcing the Gentile Christians to follow Jewish customs! But trying to please God by keeping Jewish customs and rules is to depart from the faith of Jesus Christ.

Peter, of all people, should have known better. Didn’t he remember what the Holy Spirit had done for Cornelius the Italian centurion and his household? And now Peter wanted to go back to trying to earn his salvation by following the rules and make Gentiles do the same? No, no, no, no, no!!

In fact, if anybody is intolerant in this Galatians passage, it’s Peter himself, for cutting off fellowship with his Gentile brothers and sisters.

But stop. Please don’t fall into the trap of making Tolerance one more rule we have to follow to become and keep on being good Christians. The Scripture is not commanding Peter and the rest of us simply to "celebrate diversity," as the modern slogan goes. No, Paul rebukes Peter because he was departing from the one basis of our unity, which is faith in Jesus Christ alone. We don’t put our trust in rules, we put our trust in the Ruler, in the one crucified and risen Lord.

As the Holy Spirit says, again in verse 14, even Jewish believers like Peter and Paul "have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified."

Got that? "By observing the law no one will be justified." But it’s our sinful human nature to keep on trying to do it! Even in the church! Today our temptation isn’t trying to please God by keeping kosher or obeying all the Law of Moses. No, we tie ourselves up with other rules. God help us! in our foolishness we try to set aside the grace of God and earn our way into His favor a thousand other legalistic ways.

Like how? How many times have you heard that if you’re not giving money to the poor or tithing or working for social justice, you might not be a Christian? Haven’t you been told that a real Christian will never smoke or go to R-rated movies or drink alcoholic beverages? Ya got yer Ten Steps to living the Victorious Christian Life, and Four Golden Rules for perfect marriages and perfect children and perfect health, and Forty Days to fulfilling your Christian purpose! And don’t forget the requirement to be Nice and Tolerant, no matter what! Have you ever struggled with sin and the last person you could tell was another member of the church? (Maybe that doesn’t happen in this congregation!) Because, hey, you were supposed to be working hard enough to keep all the rules perfectly. And that, as we all know, is the biggest Rule of all.

Last Tuesday, the Tribune-Review published an article about the latest Pew poll on religion in America. It said three-fourths of Americans believe in heaven as a place where people who have led good lives will be eternally rewarded. I expect a large percentage of that three-fourths would call themselves Christians. But let’s have that again: "three-fourths of Americans believe in heaven as a place where people who have led good lives will be eternally rewarded." "Led good lives" means . . . what? It means being good and keeping the rules, whatever you believe the rules to be. "Eternally rewarded"-- that means most Americans-- or at least, most Americans questioned for this poll-- believe that if we keep enough rules well enough, God will have to reward us by letting us into His eternal presence.

Well, golly, if we’re going to do things that way, let’s at least follow the best rules there are and be circumcised-- the guys, at least!-- and go back to trying to keep the Law of Moses!

But the bad news is, "by observing the law no one will be justified." Paul had to face Peter down on that. Every true minister of Christ, in fact, every true Christian in our day and age has to face the world and the Church down on that. The good news is, we are justified by faith in the Ruler of all, Jesus Christ the crucified. Not only are we justified in Him, we are also sanctified and glorified!

We can tell from verse 17 what the false teachers in Antioch and Galatia were trying to feed the believers. Something like, "If you stop trying to please God by keeping the Law, unbelievers will think that Christ promotes sin!"

And it’s true, ungodly people do say that about salvation by grace alone. I had an atheist friend in college, he’d go around singing a satire on "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Like this:

Onward, Christian soldiers,
Plunder, rape, and kill!
Do whate’er you want to,
Jesus foots the bill!

Paul says yes, we justified sinners do keep on struggling with sin. It only goes to prove how helpless we are to keep the Law! What does the Law of Moses do for us? It makes us admit that our only hope for life is to be put to death in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You don’t have to earn your way into God’s favor! In fact, it’s an insult to the cross of Christ to try! With joy and relief, accept the grace of Jesus Christ! He perfectly kept the Law of God on your behalf, all His sinless life and especially on the cross. Please, understand that this acceptance is not a work that God requires of you, it’s a happy and humble taking hold of the gift that your Father in heaven has handed you!

If you have received this heavenly gift, rejoice! You have been crucified with Christ. Christ is living out His perfect, righteous life in you. The life you live in this body, you live not by your own effort, but by faith in the Son of God. For He loved you and gave Himself for you!

In St. Peter’s own letters, we learn that he took Paul’s words to heart. He repented of his hypocrisy in trying to replace the grace of God with his own keeping of the Law. And to the end of his days, his preaching was always holiness in Christ through the mercy of God alone.

Let’s follow his example. Let’s hold to the good news preached by St. Paul. Are you tempted to make things right with God by keeping the rules? Immediately call on Christ, the Ruler of all: "Lord Jesus Christ, live in me, rule in me, do Your good work in me!" For by observing the law, no one will be justified.

But we are justified by faith in Christ. Like St. Peter and St. Paul, let’s rest and rejoice in the life and freedom we have in Jesus alone. Come now to His table, eat and drink in testimony that everything you need to have peace with God, He has given to you in your Saviour.

This is the one true Gospel we and all the Church proclaim and celebrate. For Jesus Christ did not die for nothing. No, through Him alone, Jews and Gentiles, believers of every nation and race now have justification with God, and life, joy, and eternal blessing in the world to come.