Sermon - Trinity VI - Matthew 5:17-26

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ELCA, the largest so-called Lutheran church body in the US held their national youth gathering the other week. As pictures and summaries were posted on the internet, it was a weeklong celebration of the LGBT agenda, which included a confused “transgender” boy, dressed like a girl, speaking in front of the assembly and promoting transgenderism to other children.

While I hope that you recognize this as a disturbing thing to teach children to embrace LGBT behaviors as good and God-pleasing, do know that it’s not entirely impossible for us to follow down the same or a similar road. In fact, this road is paved by not believing that sin is sin and that the law matters for our daily living. That is a temptation all too easy for Christians, and especially us Lutherans. Therefore today, our Lord reminds us that we have been baptized into Christ’s righteousness, so that just as we’ve been raised from the dead with Christ, so must we walk in newness of life with Him.

This is not a new temptation to mankind today, but it’s a temptation common to all people. For you see, throughout the Old Testamental period in the Bible, the life of the believer was shaped by the law. When “God spoke all these words” of the ten commandments, the people heard them and believed that the only way to reach heaven was through obedience to the law. As such, the people followed the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. 

Then over the course of history, the Pharisees and scribes interpreted the law to mean something that it didn’t mean. Furthermore, they created new laws which were measurable and attainable so that they could both define what it means to be righteous and then declare that they are righteous according to their new definition.

For example, it was a pharisaical law that you could only walk so many steps on the Sabbath in order to keep it. But that was just foolishness, it was a man made law with no foundation in scripture. As such, the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees actually is no righteousness whatsoever! So when Jesus commands: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” He means that you need to have real righteousness rather than just the made-up righteousness of the pharisees. 

When you first hear those words from Jesus’ lips it probably causes you a bit of distress, I would guess. Afterall, the scribes and pharisees prided themselves on their obedience to the law, there is no way we can be more righteous than they were! And yet Jesus does not lie. Your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and pharisees. 

But how? The more I hear the law, the more time I spend studying it, the more I realize my failure to keep God’s law. It’s just as St. Paul said “Now the law came in to increase the trespass.” The more I hear the law, the more I realize I am a poor miserable sinner who has utterly and completely failed. The more I study the law the more strongly I come to understand that I am the chief of sinners. The more law I hear, the worse sinner it seems I become, the more unrighteous I am. 

“But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Thus, if I am the chief of sinners, because of how terrible and magnanimous my sins, the grace of Christ must be all the more rich and abundant for me if it’s to forgive my sins. In fact, if I am the chief of sinners, I am also the chief of righteousness! The greater my sin, the greater my forgiveness. Therefore, because my sin is so great, my righteousness far exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees since my righteousness is from Christ alone. 

There’s the key, how are we saved? By the righteousness received from Christ alone. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” We have been saved by grace, through faith, not due to any works so that no man may boast. 

What a powerful thing! I am saved by grace alone! By Christ alone! Through faith alone! I didn’t do it, Christ did it all for me! Every one of you can say the same thing. That’s powerful. Christ saved us apart from our works. Wow. This is the core teaching of the reformation and what it means to be Lutheran, that God declares us to be righteous on account of Jesus alone, not because of anything we have done. 

Thus it becomes especially tempting for us Lutherans because we have that pure, beautiful, comforting doctrine, since the power of sin still clings to us as long as we have life and breath in this body of sin, the next conclusion we want to make is: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” Since Jesus has come, does this mean that the law and the prophets have been abolished? Since Jesus already died to forgive my sins, I might as well just go ahead and have fun and sin! Didn’t Luther say something like sin boldly? Amen to that!

“By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

The temptation begins with the belief that sin doesn’t matter, like it’s no more than a spot or a wrinkle, just a little oopsy, something easily brushed off which can be quickly removed. Jesus forgives me, so who cares! If sin doesn’t matter, if it’s just a light little thing, then it wasn’t necessary for Jesus to die on the cross and redeem us from our sins. If that wasn’t necessary, then it means that no sins matter, really if no sins matter then there really aren’t any sins at all. If sin isn’t sin, then we can live however we want.

That’s the lie that Satan tells us each day. And so long as you are alive, he is going to keep telling it to you. But dear Christian, resist Satan, firm in the faith. You have been buried with Jesus by baptism into death, so your sin has been killed with Jesus. When you were baptized into those waters something actually happened. It wasn’t just an outward sign of your faith inside of you, but you were actually buried with Jesus when you were baptized. 

Through your baptism, Christ’s death on calvary has been made your own death, and so through your baptism into Christ you have been united with Him in his death. Forgiveness belongs to you because His death is also your death. “We know that our old man was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” Since you have died to sin, you are free from sin! You’re not free from the law, because God’s law is good and eternal, it’s not going to pass away; you are free from sin.

Because you are baptized into Christ’s death, you are also baptized into His resurrection so that you also live with Him. Just as you are dead to sin, you are now also alive to God in Christ Jesus! Because Christ now lives inside of you, and you’re dead to sin, you have the power, although feebly and weakly, to keep the law.

Sure the old man is still clinging to your flesh, all that you do in this life will be tainted by sin. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t obey God’s law. In fact, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross actually means something for you today. It gives you life with Christ which has already begun. This new man, Jesus who is in you, is able to delight in the law of God day and night. 

So when Jesus expounds on the ten commandments throughout the sermon on the mount, not only should it cause us fear and anxiety because of our many failures to keep the law, but it should also cause us joy to learn how we are to keep the law and what is good for us. So for example when Jesus tells us that “you shall not murder” isn’t just doing physical harm, but it’s also being angry at someone else, it should cause us joy to learn how we are to live. 

Sure when we hear this it will cause us to be sorrowful over our sin. Such as when we get angry at someone else, even if our anger feels justified to us: this is still sinful and unchristian behavior. Though not only does it make us feel guilty and ashamed, but it also ought to cause us joy to learn how we may serve God and our neighbor by living according to God’s good and wise will for our lives.

Since we do this feebly, weakened as we are by the old man who still torments us, we are constantly reminded of why we need not fear death when it comes upon us. For at the moment of death, finally the old man will have completely lost its grip on us. No longer will we be tempted to sin, but the old man will be drowned completely and finally. 

Since we have already been buried into death with Christ at our baptism, this little bodily death is really no death at all. Instead, as Luther so beautifully puts it: “death and the grave mean nothing more than that God lays us – like a little child is laid in a cradle or an easy bed – where we shall sweetly sleep till the judgment day.” Death still causes us to fear and shudder because of our insane sinful flesh that cannot understand this. 

But dear Christian, find comfort in this, that if you are a Christian, then know that our Lord Jesus Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death and sin no longer have dominion over Him. Therefore, since you are baptized into Christ and are clothed in His righteousness, death and sin have no dominion over you. We have died to sin, we have been redeemed from death, sin, and the power of grave. Jesus has fully accomplished your salvation and defeated death so that you too shall reign over sin, death, and the grave, since you are alive to Christ.