Episode 32: 3/18/09

Readings:

Psalm 82
Jeremiah 8:18-9:6
Romans 5:1-11
John 8:12-20

Sermon:

“But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Matthew 15:9

Grace, Mercy and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

It’s the law… more than gospel, more than God’s divine mercy, more than Christ’s encompassing sacrifice, it is the law that appeals to our nature and to our flesh…

It’s perhaps a bit difficult for us to believe or for us to even understand and yet, it’s what our temperament and our disposition are most inclined to. Even from a young age it’s the environment that we are raised in, it’s the way we have been taught to think, it’s been what we’ve been told to believe of ourselves and our lives. After all, it’s the wisdom of this world that tells to us that each person, they are the masters of their own destiny, they are responsible for their own lives and, when it comes right down to it, only they can lay hold of their own fates.

And, in many instances, it’s the truth. Amidst the successes and the failures of this world, of this life, of this existence, the onus lies squarely on our shoulders as we feel the triumph of victory or the burden of defeat. Living in freedom we have the opportunities to live our lives according to our dreams, no matter how big or how small they may perhaps seem. It’s easy then to transfer that mentality to our salvation, believing that we can earn it, that it is our deeds, our works, our actions, our own righteousness that will pay the price, offering propitiation in the eyes of the Lord.

Even within an entitlement based mentality it just seems to fit. After all, we deserve the blessings that have been given to us, they are owed to us.

And there… well there, we have a tendency to look to ourselves as the authors and the finishers of our salvation, as those who set the terms of our own faith, bring ourselves to it, rather than being brought to it by the power of the Spirit, rather than by the mercy of God. In that we look for rules and guidelines, we look for law despite being freed from the power of the law, placing our faith not in Christ or in God but in the works of our own hands that we might be saved.

For generations men have used this mentality to oppress and to subjugate other men in the name of Christ. It has been used to add teachings to the bible that never were intended for it, offering the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of man, as the wisdom of God, masquerading it as something divine and inerrant that must be observed in order that one may find for themselves salvation. Never bore from the Gospel, always finding itself amidst the Law, understand that the Gospel, it sets each of us free, liberating us from Covenant of the Law that can overshadow our lives, it dictates to us that if we do this and that, if we conform to this rule or comply with this rule, then we are saved.

Yet each of us, though we admonished to contend for faith, to dwell amidst it, shining the salvation of Christ forth from our lives. It is, after all, the fool who, in being granted that redemption in Christ, allows for it to fall idle within their lives (Jude 1:3). It is then through our works that we are told to show our faith, understanding that though our salvation is a gift from God through the Spirit, though we are saved by grace through faith and not by our works (Ephesians 2:8 and 9), “faith without works is dead” (James 2:23). We are free from sin, not free to sin, finding that Christian liberty, it liberates us from the power the law and yet still calling us to be better, to do better, understanding that we are all accountable for our words and deeds, for our thoughts and our actions and that each of us is convicted by it to show us exactly why it is that we need the Gospel, why it is that we need Christ.

There, it is ever important to remember the words of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:23-24).

It must be ours to be vigilant against those who teach unto us the commandments of men, asking us to observe the doctrine of work righteousness that would tell us that for our salvation we are compelled to follow this rule or that rule, that we must comply with this ordinance or that ordinance in the belief that somehow that will bring us to a real and sincere faith, that that will somehow offer unto us salvation. God’s love, our reconciliation to the Heavenly Father is not reliant on what we can or cannot do, it is not dependant on the laws that we observe, rather it is based solely on Christ and that all encompassing sacrifice that he made at that lonely cross on Calvary’s height, paying the ultimate price for us and for our sins.

We must, through all things, remember that “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” (John 1:17 and 18)

There will always be men who shall come to us preaching other Gospels, preaching unto us other messages of salvation, and many times it is going to appeal to who we are and what our nature dictates to us. After all, if it was a message that didn’t sell they wouldn’t be bound to it, for they serve not the Lord nor Christ, but their own needs and wants and desires through their doctrine and their tongues (Romans 16:18). Ours must be to carefully guard ourselves from the commandments of men, turning our gazes to the cross, to the sacrifice of Christ, to the mercy of the Lord, to the works of the Spirit, placing our trust in God’s plan, in God’s divine love for each and every one of us. It is a freeing love, one that seeks to break the chains that bind us, never trying to tie us down or tie us tighter, never playing off the weaker places in us or on our sense of guilt. Rather it tells us to lay hold of our salvation, obtaining there our release from captivity.

Trust therefore in the Lord and His plans for your lives, trust in the Lord and His plan of salvation, knowing that none shall ever be confounded when, on Him, their trust they have built. Reject the commandments of men in all its forms, in all places, through all things, letting God’s love overtake you through the power of the Spirit, bringing you to that divine reconciliation that only comes from the Gospel of Christ, never through the laws of man.

It is then that we know, that we shall always know, that we do not worship in vain.

Lord, grant this unto us all.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that peace that transcends all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting, Amen.