Sermon on James 5:13-20; Pastor Edgar Mayer; Wilsonton/Glencoe Parish; 28.1.01; 4th Epiphany.
For more sermons and other writings check out pastor’s homepage: http://www.geocities.com/mayeredgar.
"Heavenly Father, let us not be so satisfied with our salvation that we do not go further
and experience the life of saved people. Amen."
Make The Most
We Christians get it wrong sometimes. Especially Lutherans sum up their faith by saying: "We are justified through grace by faith." What cannot be earned, what no human can achieve, God grants as a gift to those who believe – a life deemed to be just, blameless as far as God is concerned. The Bible confirms: " ... a peson is justified by faith apart from observing any commandments ... " (Romans 3:21-31; cf. Ephesians 2:8-10). That’s great. Good on Lutherans to get it right. And yet, our insights not withstanding we get it wrong sometimes.
We are justified through grace by faith, but what comes after justification? God loves us. Therefore he declares us innocent in the sense that we become free from punishment – justified. But is that all? Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we not sometimes like prisoners who receive the judge’s pardon but then never leave prison? What convict celebrates new-found freedom behind bars? We do. That’s what we seem to do when God declares us innocent and free but then we remain set in our ways and let old sins keep us in the same old prison of desolate lives. In the Bible Paul writes to people such as these: "You crazy lot! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses" (Galatians 3:1); "Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you." No harness must imprison you and I. God justified us through grace by faith and therefore we can live as free people.
How? Forgive me for asking: How do we do that? We may be justified but anyone in touch with reality knows: we are still sinners. This side of eternity our base instincts remain active. Sex, money and power tempt vulnerable souls and make us engage in self-destructive behaviour. How can our justification become something that we live every day? How can we be free?
That question is not an easy question. – We need to learn from the story of our forgiveness. We need to learn about Jesus Christ. The Bible says: " ... Christ carried the burden of our sins. He was nailed to the cross, so that we would stop sinning and start living right. By his cuts and bruises you are healed ... " (1 Peter 2:22-25).
The death of Jesus – what dark phenomena but deep reality. God used nails to grant forgiveness. God nailed our sin to the cross in the body of Jesus. God drives nails through sin and leaves evil for dead on the cross. That means: the cross of Christ is our victory. Listen to the Bible: "God wiped out the charges that were against you ... He took them away and nailed them to the cross. There Christ defeated all powers and forces ... " (Colossians 2:14-15); "You died with Christ. Now the forces of the universe haven’t got any power over you ... " (Colossians 2:20).
We come back to our earlier question: How can our justification/our declared innocence/our beauty before God become something that we live every day? How can we be free from the wiles of sin? How can we become freed prisoners that actually leave prison? The question remains difficult but down-to-earth. Tell me how to live. We don’t want scholarly answers that speculate about abstract hypotheses. We want to know the grace and power of the Christian life-style.
Listen to the answer: Our freedom comes from the cross. Even though sex, money and power still seduce the complacent, our freedom comes from the cross and our freedom leads to life-giving changes. I remind you of the previous Bible verses: "On the cross Christ defeated all powers and forces. Now the forces of the universe haven’t got any power over you ... " Wow! If that’s the truth of God, then we may transform our lives accordingly.
Through the cross of Christ we are justified and forgiven. And then it seems, we can use the cross of Christ as the source of ongoing life-style changes. If Christ defeated all powers and forces on the cross, then it would seem logical to bring to the cross all powers and forces that continue to oppress us. At the foot of the cross we ask for its victory: "God, I know that my sin is nailed to the cross and Jesus died for me. Therefore, please take away what hurts me still."
The Bible spells out exactly what to do: "If you have sinned, you should tell each other what you have done. Then you can pray for one another and be healed." (James 5:16); Jesus said: "I’m sending you as the Father has sent me. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven. But if you don’t forgive their sins, they won’t be forgiven" (John 20:21-22).
What the Bible commands, we do in every worship service. We bring our sin before God and hear words of forgiveness. That’s called the rite of confession and absolution. This particular worship routine may somehow no longer appear that powerful but maybe we need to relearn its true meaning. When we bring our sin before God – and we can do that by telling each other –, then we bring our sin to the cross. We let the cross deal with the powers and forces of sin and as we hear words of forgiveness, we are assured of their defeat. Now we are free.
It’s time for an example story. [Please don’t get impatient as the story takes some time to be told.] A counsellor writes: "Peggy came to us because her husband had left, and she couldn’t understand why. She had ’done everything for him’. Listening to her, I couldn’t see what was the real reason for the separation. Then it happened that Peggy was the guest host for a house meeting at which I spoke. The moment I entered, Peggy busied herself, blustering here and there, overserving. On her face and in her manner, even in her walk she was saying, ’Im performing well for you. Tell me that I am. Don’t you fee guilty if you don’t?’ I knew why her husband left. The poor man could never rest in his own home. Every service she did laid a demand on him to respond, to appreciate, to notice. A man gets tired having to prove over and over that he loves and appreciates. She could never simply believe she is loved, and rest beside him. She had to serve and he had to affirm ...
I tried to tell her. She couldn’t hear. She too was a born-again, Holy Spirit-filled, believing, churchgoing woman. She knew salvation. But her heart could not receive and rest ...
Her husband returned home, but lost his job. Now he lay on the couch and demanded service. She had to go out and find a job. Not only would he not help straighten up the house or do the dishes, he would not even drive her to work or let her take the car. She had to pedal her bicycle, work all day, pump home, clean up the house and his day’s dishes, prepare supper, do dishes, wash clothes, and get ready to do it all over again the next day.
... Finally there came a morning in which, still a half mile from work, Peggy turned to churn against a forty-mile gale. That did it. There on the bike, pumping for all she was worth, she blew up at God, screaming at the top of her lungs, ’Here I’m trying to get to work, I’m trying to serve you, I’m loving that no-good husband you gave me, I’m doing all that work at home and he won’t help me – and you have to send a storm against me’.
That outburst opened the doors and broke her control, and out of Peggy poured all of her pent-up feelings. She cursed, raved, and ranted, and wound up shouting obscenities at God. And what happened? No lighting bolts hurtled out of heaven to strike her down. No cars came along to crush and punish. Instead, there came an overwhelming peace. ... blessing and love poured out of heaven all over her. Right there in the middle of the road she stopped and cried like a baby. For the first time in her life she knew someone would love her – even if she didn’t do it all right. Her unbelieving heart had finally been evangelized" (John & Paula Sandford: The Transformation of the Inner Man, Tulsa 1982, p56-58).
I chose this example story because Peggy shows that there are many different ways to bring our sin before God. She did not fall on her knees and pray: "God, forgive me. I am a poor miserable sinner." She persisted in her efforts of overserving, slaving away to win approval, finally collapsed screaming obscenities at God but then experienced divine love which flooded her after her own forces were spent. The freed prisoner became free. The compulsion to earn approval was handed over to God, came under the power of the cross, and then liberating change followed. For the first time in her life Peggy knew someone would love her – even if she wasn’t perfect all the time.
You and I may differ from Peggy in the way we approach God, but we all escape from the old prison of desolate lives by nailing our old behaviour patterns one by one to the cross: "Jesus, you died also for my overserving, my greed, my jealousy, my impatience, my self-importance, ... Let my sin die with you. Make me free."
Back to the beginning. We are justified through grace by faith. God declares us innocent in the sense that we become free from punishment but – let’s not get it wrong – there is more to the Christian faith than that. Justified people also live like justified people. Every day now hand over to the cross what hurts and wounds. Find healing. Become free from sin. Experience change. Amen.
