Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 12

12 January 2020

Text: Rom 3:19-31

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

When someone meets me for the first time and finds out that I’m a pastor, sometimes my new friend will explain why he is a “good person.”  And the explanation usually involves giving money to the poor, being nice, not cheating on his spouse or committing acts of genocide.  It helps to keep the bar very low.  And certainly, striving to keep the law is commendable.  But no matter what you might think, you’re not a good person.  You just aren’t.  That’s why you need Jesus.

St. Paul says when you start talking like this, shut up.  That’s a paraphrase.  What he actually says is: “Whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  For by works of the law no human being is justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

St. Paul says that you are not a “good person” – for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

Since no “works of the law” can justify us, and to the contrary, they condemn us – “what becomes of our boasting?”  What does this reality do to our desire to say, “I am a good person.”  Well, the apostle says: “It is excluded.”  So our boast cannot be ourselves, our conduct, our obedience, our goodness – it’s all “excluded.”  For we have no righteousness of our own about which to boast.  Rather our boasting should be in Christ, for “we are justified” not by our works, but “by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  We are recipients of charity.  The word “charity” is derived from the Greek word for “grace.”  We are redeemed like an old glass bottle headed for the dump, until someone comes along and claims us because there is a redemption price.  What was formerly garbage has been recycled, because there is a value assigned to it, a value not of its own. 

Jesus redeems us from the garbage, and this is a free gift, dear friends.  It is charity.  We are rescued by God’s grace by means of Jesus’ blood, by which we are “propitiated.”  In other words, by Christ’s blood shed on the cross, our sins are expunged, His goodness is given to us as a gift, and the Father considers us to be good and righteous – again, not by our works, but by His grace.

So when you meet a pastor and want to explain why you are a “good person,” you can boast in Christ.  You are a “good person” not by your own works – which are evil – but by virtue of being redeemed by Jesus, the propitiation of your sins, by His blood and righteousness, by Him who truly does keep the Law, whose charity, whose love, toward us is perfect. 

Indeed, that is why we all need Jesus.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.