How Are We Saved?
Not by the Law Which Brings God’s Wrath
But by God’s Grace Through Faith
The story is told about a small, country church where the pastor called a special meeting of the congregation to approve the purchase of a brand new chandelier. After some discussion pro and con, one member stood up and said, "Buying a new chandelier may seem like a good idea to you, but I’m against it for three reasons. First of all, it’s too expensive and we can’t afford one. Second, there isn’t anybody around here who knows how to play one. And third, what we really need in this church is a new light fixture."
In a way this story illustrates one of the basic points in sermon text for today. No matter how well-intentioned, sometimes we misunderstand what God’s will is and we get things wrong. But by the grace of God, he has given us his word so that any misunderstandings we have can be cleared up, if we only allow his word to say what it says and we do not try to make it say what we want it to say. In St. Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians we have a great example of this. For two thousand years people have totally misunderstood God’s plan of salvation and have concocted many different solutions as to how we are to be saved. This morning God spells out his plan as to how we are saved. This morning God answers the question, “How Are We Saved? Its not by the law which brings God’s wrath but by God’s grace through faith.
As most of you know, for the past two weeks the Olympic Games have been taking place in Salt Lake City. Our American athletes have performed exceedingly well but what makes these Olympic Games notable is not only the amount of gold, silver, and bronze medals we have won, but the ethnicity of the athletes. For example, Gold medalist Apollo Ohno is a Japanese American, Vonetta Flowers, the 1st African American to ever win a gold medal in the winter Olympics, and Derek Parra, is the first Mexican American to win a gold medal in the winter Olympics. These individuals are being praised not only for their athletic talent but they are also held up as an example to America’s young people as to what you can accomplish if you train and work hard.
Things were not much different in St. Paul’s day. The Jewish people held up Abraham as an example; they held him up as an example of someone who was justified by the law. The Jews believed that because Abraham had given God total obedience he must have earned God’s favor. Abraham had successfully passed God’s trials and under the most trying circumstances. As we heard in the 1st lesson, God came to Abraham and told him to leave his home, pack up his belongings and his family and go to the land that God would show him. At the age of 75, Abraham without knowing anything about the place he was going to, did exactly what God said and set out for the land of Canaan. He even followed God instructions to sacrifice his only son Isaac when God told him to do it. In the eyes of the Jewish people Abraham was justified, but was he really?
Paul writes, “If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God.” The person who says Abraham’s life was good enough to make him acceptable before God has not examined Abraham’s life carefully enough.
Our Old Testament lesson tells us how the Lord came to Abraham with the great promise of how all nations on this earth will be blessed through him; how through his son the earth would be blessed. And no sooner had that great promise been given than its fulfillment was placed in jeopardy by Abraham himself. Abraham tried to pass off Sarah as his sister, and was responsible for Sarah’s being taken into the pharaoh’s harem. Some two dozen years later Abraham did the same thing and Sarah was taken by Abimelech. Only a short time previously the Lord had promised that within twelve months Sarah would have a child. But God’s time table was to slow for Abraham. To help God out he fathered a child with Sarah’s servant Hagar and Ishmael was born. Throughout his life Abraham failed to obey the very first commandment of God to put him first and trust in him above all things. Because of his sinful nature, Abraham was impatient and tried to father an heir in his own way.
Like Abraham we also have broken God’s laws. But if you think that there is no way you could possibly do so much evil, just run through God’s law and commandments and see if you have kept any commandment perfectly. If you were to stand before God thinking you were saved because you have kept the law, what the verdict would be. God says, "You shall have no other gods before me." Have you devoted yourself to God totally, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Have you put off coming to worship the Lord so that you could do something else? The Verdict - GUILTY! God says, "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Have you used the phrase "Oh My God" lately? How about "Oh God" or "My Lord." If you are not using God’s name to give him thanks or praise, or witnessing about him, you are breaking the second commandment. The Verdict - GUILTY!
Do I need to go on? These are only the first two commandments and we are probably guilty of breaking them before we have our first cup of coffee in the morning. If we truly examine ourselves we find that in the course of a normal day we have gossiped and slandered our neighbor. We have cursed, threatened, and committed murder in our hearts against the driver that pulls out in front of us. We have treated our spouse and children harshly by using words of anger instead of love. We are selfish with out time and with our treasure. God has given us so many material and financial blessings and we fail to return to him what is rightfully his and return only what we think we can spare. The verdict - GUILTY! And with all guilty verdicts there is also the penalty.
There is but one penalty for the sins we commit and that is death. Eternal death, forever separated from God’s love, from God’s presence. God will send the guilty away to a very real place called hell. Anyone who thinks that they can keep God’s law and get into heaven is mistaken. God tells us that the law brings death the “law brings wrath.”
But praise God that we do not have to rely on our own ability to enter into his kingdom. We do not have to rely on how well we keep his laws to pass through the gates of heaven. We only have to rely on Jesus and what he has done. God sent Jesus into this world as our substitute. God required perfect obedience to his laws and commandments, an obedience that Abraham nor us could never give. But Jesus succeeded in giving God perfect obedience. An obedience that lived a perfect life and obedience that went to the cross on Calvary to give up that life for the sins of the world. God requires perfect righteousness from us and since that is totally impossible for us to do, God through faith in his one and only Son, credits us with Jesus’ righteousness. How are we saved? We are not saved through the law which brings God’s wrath, rather we are saved by God’ grace through faith.
You see it was not Abraham’s keeping of the law or his good works that saved him. No Paul tells us that “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham trusted in God’s promises. He trusted that God would provide him with a son in his old age. He trusted that God would keep his promise regarding the descendant he would have in whom the earth would be blessed. He simply took God at his word, the same word that tells us, “It was 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.”
In spite of Abraham’s failure to keep God’s law, God still considered him righteous. Not because of anything Abraham had done, but because he believed God’s word. That’s the miracle of saving faith - the kind of faith that comes by God’s grace and God counts as righteousness.
Saving faith is truly a gift from God. You and I deserve the punishment of hell because we prefer sin to righteousness and yet in his grace God becomes man and suffers the penalty of hell for us. You and I by nature run away from God and yet God in his grace runs faster after us with the message of pardon and peace in forgiveness. You and I by nature prefer death to life and yet Jesus dies for us and rises again to give us eternal life. God has done everything for our salvation and he offers it to us as a free gift and yet we prefer to earn our own forgiveness by thinking we can do such good and noble things to please God. And yet in spite of us, in spite of how the world rejects God message of peace and forgiveness, God in his grace offers it again and again and again. God still pleads and yearns to rescue the very ones who reject him; the very ones who think they can work hard and do it themselves.
Even the most gifted athletes as we have in the Olympics wonder if they have trained or worked hard enough if they fail to win a gold medal. Watch any interview with an athlete who has been beaten and you will hear them say that they need to go back and train some more and next time they will try harder. They say “I gave it my best shot but at this time my best was not good enough.”
God wanted to spare us the feeling that our best was not good enough when we come before him on the last day. In his plan of salvation he wants us to be assured, to be guaranteed that he has given us his best in Jesus Christ so that we will not wonder if we have done enough. So that we will not have to wonder “Am I saved or not?” “Have I kept the law or not?” God tells us, “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 but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.”
We by the grace of God also have his promises. We have his promise in his word that tells us we are baptized, forgiven, fed and nourished by his body and blood. God says, "I baptize you." "I forgive you all of your sins." "This is my body, my blood, given for you, for your forgiveness." These are words of life directed to you and by God’s grace they create and strengthened faith. Faith that completely trusts in God’s word, faith in the words of Jesus - that he is ours - that his death is ours, his life is ours, and that eternal life is ours because of his suffering and death.
Remember that we are saved by God’s grace through faith the next time the devil tempts you to despair by telling you that your sin is too great, that a real Christian would never do something like that. Remember God’s grace when you are tempted to be prideful or self-righteous. Remember God’s grace when you think that word and sacrament are boring. Remember God’s grace when happy because it is the reason we have to be happy. Remember God’s grace each and every day because it is how we are saved. AMEN
