Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Frustration.
How many of you here today have been frustrated in the past week? How many of you have suffered some form of frustration even this morning?
Did anybody pull out in front of you when you were driving here today? Did you have to lay on your horn to avoid a traffic accident or get somebody to move out of the way?
Did you maybe have an argument with your spouse or have to fight with the kids to get up to come to church?
Or perhaps you got here this morning and found that someone was sitting in YOUR seat.
This past week did your boss put some undo responsibility on your back? Did you wonder if you were appreciated at all? At home? At work? At church?
Frustration can come at all levels.
It can be a collective frustration.
Have you been to the airport lately and had to go through the security checks? Have you had to stand in the seemingly never-ending lines to listen to the same question, “Has anybody asked you to carry anything on to the plane? Did you pack your own bags?
Have they been out of your site since you packed them?”
If you think your alone in your frustration, turn around and look at the others in line behind you.
You haven’t been traveling lately? Well are you a sports fan?
Have you ever been a fan of a team that just doesn’t seem to get it done?
Being from Chicago, I had to make an early choice. I could be for the White Sox or I could be for the Cubs. Now, wanting to be for a winner, I became a White Sox fan. They, of course, as most of you know, won the World Series in 1917.
It’s only been a short 84 years since the Championship flag flew above Comiskey Park. The Cubs on the other hand, haven’t won a World Series in 93 years! (and probably never will.)
That’s frustration! In Chicago we just give thanks for the Da’ Bears.
That’s collective frustration.
Sometimes thousands, sometimes millions of people being annoyed, disappointed, aggravated all at the same thing.
But then there is individual frustration.
One quick example. You all know that I love to golf.
I’m sure you also have heard that the reason they call golf “golf” is because all the other four letter words were used up.
I have countless books on “how to” at home and at my office on improving my golf game. I have tapes that show how to hit ‘em long and straight. I have a putting contraption that teaches the proper motion and speed for sinking those long putts.
I’ve read scores of magazines, countless articles.
And yet, when I get out on the course, I inevitably a) hit a ball into the water, b) lose a ball in the weeds, or c) get asked by my fellow players to “just pick it up.”
The thing is, I know how, I just can’t keep all those things straight in my head. When I remember to keep my head down, I forget to follow through. When I follow through, my grip is wrong. When my grip is right and my knees are bent correctly, I swing to fast.
What’s a guy to do?
Those are a few somewhat trivial or humorous examples of frustration.
But frustration can also tear at our hearts. Frustration can mount within us to the point where we feel that no one could love us; no one could forgive us.
That kind of frustration can be compared to the type of frustration we see in the Apostle Paul in our Epistle lesson for this morning.
Paul is angry. He’s mad. He’s outraged!
And it’s not at anyone else, he’s mad at himself.
He starts out in verse 15 by saying something that I think everyone of us can identify with. “I do not understand what I do.”
Now, Paul isn’t talking about his golf game here. He’s not trying to understand why he continues to back a losing team.
He’s talking about something much more important. He’s talking about his life. And in particular, his spiritual life.
He goes on to say, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.”
All of us here know right from wrong. Most of us have gone through Confirmation classes. Almost everyone here has been in Sunday School at one point in their life.
We’ve been taught the Ten Commandments. We’ve heard the Law given to us by God.
We know that he doesn’t want us to do certain things. We know that He doesn’t want us to offend our parents or elders. We know that He doesn’t want us to lie, or cheat, or be envious, or steal, or covet, or commit sexual sins, adultery or any of the myriad of other sexual sins.
We know that He doesn’t want us to have other gods before Him. Not just the other false gods that permeate the other religions of the world, but the false gods of money, greed, lust, and power - anything that comes before Him.
We know that we shouldn’t take His name in vain. We shouldn’t curse, lie, use witchcraft or deceive by His name, but keep it holy and call upon it at all times. We should praise His name and give thanks.
We should worship Him, remembering the Sabbath Day and keeping it holy.
We know all of these things and so did Paul.
And yet, Paul, the great Apostle of Jesus Christ, the man who was confronted and converted by none other than Jesus on the road to Damascus while he was in route to persecute followers of Christ. Paul, this man, who with Barnabas and Timothy and Silas went to the far reaches of the known world to profess Christ and His salvation.
Yes, Paul, this rock of faith, who suffered ship wrecks, persecution, and imprisonment because of his call to preach the Word, was frustrated because even he could not do what he knew he should do.
Last week, we talked about Holy Baptism. In Baptism, our old sinful self is drowned. The Old Adam within us is crucified and buried with our Savior Jesus Christ. Our sins, all of our sins, are forgiven and forgotten by our Father in heaven.
From this Baptism, because it also connects us to Christ’s resurrection, springs forth, by the grace of God, a new life. A life dedicated to God. A life that should be ever grateful, ever thankful, ever giving in response to the gift given through the washing of the water and the Word.
So why can’t we follow through? Why can’t we now obey the Law?
It’s not the Law that’s bad.
In the Psalm appointed for this day, a portion of Psalm 119, we hear these words; “Righteous are you, O LORD, and your laws are right. The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy."
So why can’t we do what God would have us do? Why can’t we follow God’s will?
Paul continues his letter by saying: “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”
If we were Jewish, we might throw our hands up and exclaim, “Oi, Vai!”
But, Paul gives us some insight as to what is going on in the next passages.
He knows what’s happening. There are two opposing factions waging an internal war.
Like those two little guys that sit on your shoulders. One urging to do the things you know you shouldn’t and the other holding you back.
God has control of Paul’s inner self.
Because he believes in salvation through Jesus Christ, He knows that God is holding him in the palm of His hand. He knows that God will never leave him nor forsake him.
But, he also knows that he lives in a sinful world. A world in which Satan will try continually to try entice, entrap, ensnare, ensnarl, corrupt and literally beat him up.
That’s the goal of Satan. Through His death on the cross and victorious resurrection from the grave, Jesus Christ has completely defeated Satan.
So, Satan, once and for all defeated by God, now turns his sights on us.
You see, Satan realizes something that far too many people don’t. When Jesus died on the cross, he carried the sins of the entire world with him.
Your sins, my sins, the sins of our parents and grandparents, the sins of our children and grandchildren born and unborn. Friends and enemies alike. All sins were accounted for when Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished.”
Therefore, the only avenue left for Satan is to attack us.
Us. Sinful creatures who know better, but are far from perfect. If we were, we wouldn’t need Jesus.
Satan will tempt us. He’ll try us. And he’s good. He loves to see us sin, but that’s still not his goal. He wants us to forget what Christ has done for us. He wants us to forget about our Baptism. He wants us to forget about forgiveness.
Often times, just before I go to sleep at night, I shut off the lights, turn of the TV and go to my Father in prayer.
I pray for all of you. I pray for my family. I pray for our world. And then I start to pray for myself.
And I usually start with confession. This is the hard part. This is when I start to sound a lot like Paul.
You see, I know that I should pray more. I know that I should do more within the community. I know that I should spend more time telling others about Jesus. I know that, as your Pastor, I should be the one setting the example. I know that there are a lot of things that I should do. Like be kind and humble and generous. But too often, I’m just me. I’m gruff, I’m selfish, I’m condemning and judgmental. I’m my old sinful self.
And then I get to the list of things that I have done that I know that I shouldn’t have done. You all would love to hear that list, wouldn’t you?
Suffice it to say, that in my prayers, I cry out just like Paul and say, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
I want to share some words with you this morning from Dr. Martin Luther. Luther was a man just like me, just like Paul, just like all of you.
He fought against the demons that antagonized and distressed him and he found great comfort in his Baptism. He wrote this:
“We must boldly and without fear hold fast to our Baptism, and set it high against all sins and terrors of conscience.
We must humbly admit, ‘I know full well I cannot do a single thing that is pure, But I am baptized and through my Baptism God, who cannot lie, has bound Himself in a covenant with me. He will not count my sin against me, but will blot it out’”
You know, the older we get, the harder Satan will work. When we start to look in the rear-view mirror of our lives, and we see the destruction, the corruption, the wake of sin and the debris of our life, Satan will pull it all into focus. It can be over powering. We have been so sinful, how could God forgive us?
Once again, one of my favorite Luther quotes.
In this writing, Luther is addressing Satan himself: “Devil, rage as much as you please, I do not boast of my good works ... before the Lord at all, nor shall I despair on account of my sins, but I comfort myself with the fact that Jesus Christ died and rose again.... Therefore, be gone ... If I have committed some sin, go eat dung; it’s yours. I’m not worrying about it ... This is not the time for arguing, but for comforting myself with the words that Jesus Christ died and rose for me...And for a sign of all this I have his dear Baptism, his gospel, his Word and Sacraments...”
Our Gospel text this morning ends with an invitation. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus is saying, Come to Him, you who are weary from your failed attempts at commandment-keeping and perfectionism.
Come to Him, you who are burdened by guilt and fear, by broken lives and broken hearts.
Come to Him, those who are despairing and depressed, those addicted and abandoned.
Come to Jesus, and He will give you rest.
This morning we are invited by God our Father to his table.
We are invited to come to the altar of a loving God, to receive the very body of Christ that hung upon the cross and the very blood that spilled from his side.
We are invited to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion and through it, forgiveness of our sins.
Through the reception of these gifts from God and the forgiveness of our sins, we are promised eternal life in heaven.
Echoing the words of St. Paul, we can all say: “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Amen.
