Guilt and Grace

Text: Romans 3:19-28

Dear saints in Christ, grace and peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The hymn “By Grace I’m Saved,” which we just sang, has become one that I am really quite fond of recently. I imagine it as a triumphant proclamation or reminder of that Reformation truth (which really predates the Reformation and goes all the way back to God’s promise of salvation in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve) that we are saved by God’s grace, not our works. I want to draw your attention in particular to the third verse:

“By grace! Oh, mark this word of promise
When you are by your sins oppressed,
When Satan plagues your troubled conscience,
And when your heart is seeking rest.
What reason cannot comprehend
God by his grace to you did send.”

I love that this verse brings our conscience to mind and want to take some time today to talk about our conscience and what this good news that we are saved by grace alone means for our consciences.

The Reformation all started with a young man’s guilty conscience. Martin Luther was a young man with a seemingly bright future ahead of him. His father, a burgeoning entrepreneur in the mining business, sent him, his oldest son, away to university so that he could get a proper education and return to be groomed into the family business. Luther studied at the University of Erfurt and was an excellent student. It was expected that he would move on into higher levels of education and study law, much to his father’s delight. Something, however, was not right.

Despite all the successes and the promising future that lied in from on him, Luther’s conscience was plagued by guilt. Inside himself Luther did not see a young man with a bright future, a good student, or anything else positive for that matter. Inside himself Luther saw only one thing: sin. And he wasn’t wrong about that. Everything he did, every thought of his heart and mind, Luther realized, fell short of the glory of God. He didn’t know much about the Bible at the time, but he knew enough to know that this was a bad situation. He knew enough to know that God punishes sinners and he knew, as he looked inwards at his own heart, that he was a sinner. As he studied away at university the guilt festered.

If you’ve ever had a guilty conscience (and who hasn’t!) then I imagine that you can relate to young Martin Luther a little bit. A guilty conscience, a conscience that is keenly aware of our shortcomings and failures, can be crippling, it can bring life to a halt. When guilt seizes us we all of a sudden see threats and danger all around us and we begin to live in fear. All of a sudden it feels like everyone else is out to get us. That is what happened to Luther, nearly driven mad by his guilt, this smart, successful, young man having all the opportunities in the world laid out before him, saw death and danger at every turn.

While returning to university after another trip home to visit family a thunderstorm broke out. Luther was there, on the road, in the midst of the thunder and lightning with no shelter from the storm to be found. While that would be a frightful situation for anyone, Luther’s conscience only magnified the fear. In the thunder and in the lightning Luther saw the anger and wrath of God reaching down from heaven to bring an end to his miserable, sinful existence. In the midst of the storm of fear and guilt raging inside of him Luther called out for help, “Help me, Saint Ann, I will become a monk!” he shouted. Now we could say something here about praying to saints, but that is a conversation for another day. More importantly for us right now, the storm ended, Luther survived, and he went back to Erfurt and made good on his promise. He became a monk.

Now, becoming a monk would seem like a good thing for someone like Luther with a guilty conscience to do. Dedicating oneself to praying, studying, and living a holy life would seem like a cure for a conscience that could not find peace anywhere else. Luther probably thought so too. For Luther, however, things only got worse.

In the monastery Luther only became more and more aware of how bad his situation really was. The more he tried, by his obedience and dedication, to lead a godly life the more he realized how much he failed. He disciplined himself, beat himself, slept outside in the freezing cold of winter, deprived himself of good and healthy food, and did pretty much everything else a person could possibly do in his quest to find peace for his conscience, but every “good work” he did was matched with hundreds, if not thousands, of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. Even as Luther read and studied the Bible his conscience only grew worse. There in the words of Scripture all he could see was an angry God who would punish anyone who did not live up to the lofty standards of His Kingdom.

Then it happened. When Luther had moved on to become a professor and lecturer at the university in Wittenberg, God the Holy Spirit finally broke through the thick, German skull of young Martin Luther one day and brought the grace of God to bear on Luther’s troubled, guilty, sin oppressed conscience. For Luther it happened in the words of Romans 1:17, but these words from our epistle reading today say it even more clearly:

There is no distinction:  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

All have sinned and all are justified, made right with God, by grace. Grace is the key word here. Grace is the undeserved favour and love that God shows to sinners like us for the sake of Jesus. By grace, by the undeserved favour and love of God, sinners are justified, made right with God, through the redemption, the payment for sin, which is in Christ Jesus.

Just like that, with this understanding of God’s loving and forgiving grace revealed to him by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word, Luther’s guilt was gone. He said that it was as if the gates of heaven had been opened to him then and there. That’s the difference that grace makes.

Now, I haven’t taken the time to share this story about Martin Luther (a story which you have perhaps heard many times before) just to meet some quota for Martin Luther references on Reformation day or to show you how much I know about Martin Luther. No, I have taken the time to talk through this part of Luther’s life with you because there is a lesson for us in it.

Like Martin Luther each of us has a conscience. Our conscience was put there by God who has written His law on the hearts of every single human being. Our conscience guides and directs the thoughts, decisions, actions, and words of our day to day lives. Our conscience is also, however, a battlefield.

Our conscience is a battlefield on which Satan rages against God and His Word and tries to steal us away from our God and Father. Like I said, our conscience was given to us by God. It was put there in the beginning and ordered around His Word so that we would know what is good and pleasing to Him. Satan, however, works day and night to destroy us and our consciences. First he twists our consciences away from their roots in God’s Word and causes us to see things backwards, evil becomes good and good becomes evil. Then, through a constant onslaught of temptation, he dulls our consciences to the point that we hardly feel our sin anymore. And finally, when our consciences are ripe for the picking he throws our sins in our face and heaps up the guilt in order to lead our consciences into despair. For Martin Luther that happened to him pretty much every day of his life. For you maybe it might not happen until you are on your deathbed. But make no mistake, it will happen.

Like he did to Luther, Satan accuses us in our sin (that is what the name “Satan” means, accuser) and seeks to convince us that our sins are so many and so grievous that we are beyond the scope of God’s love and forgiveness.

It is undoubtedly true that we are all sinners deserving the wrath of God, God’s Word plainly says so. In our text today it says clearly, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All. Everyone. You and me. We have all sinned and fall short, but the sentence doesn’t stop there. Yes, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but God’s Word is clear that all are also “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

In the battle for our conscience God has a weapon that Satan cannot understand or overcome. That weapon is grace. In the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” which Martin Luther wrote and we sang at the beginning of the service today it says this,

“Let this world’s tyrant rage; in battle we’ll engage. His might is doomed to fail; God’s judgement must prevail! One little word subdues him.”

No one knows for sure what that “one little word” is that Luther says subdues the devil. Some say it’s “Jesus” others say it’s “faith.” I’d suggest to you that it is “grace.”

Satan can’t understand grace. He’s a book keeper, an accountant, who keeps close tabs on our sinfulness and the debt we owe so that he can accuses us. He doesn’t understand grace or forgiveness.

Grace robs Satan of the power He holds over us. When God announces to us that we are forgiven for the sake of Jesus, when God tells us our sins, our guilt, is gone, Satan has nothing left. He stands there empty handed, powerless, to do anything to us. Grace, the grace of God, subdues him.

Martin Luther’s conscience plagued him throughout his life. Even after coming to a realization and understanding of God’s grace as revealed in the Scriptures Luther still struggled with guilt. Satan does not give up easily. Standing firm in God’s grace, however, Luther was able to give some sound advice for times when Satan seeks to drive us to despair. Martin Luther said this,

“When the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: “I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!”

Thanks be to God that He has won the battle for our conscience overcoming our guilt by His grace! Amen.

By Comparison

Text: Mark 10:23-31

Dear Saints in Christ grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I never thought I would be one of those people who obsesses over their lawn. I remember telling Leah one time (before we had a lawn to call our own or care for) that I didn’t really see the point of investing much time or energy in grass. “As long as it is good enough for kids to play on it,” I remember saying, “then it is good enough for me.” Something has changed, however. I’ve spent more time than ever this year working on that grass. I aerated my lawn this year. I’ve watered my lawn more times than I can count. Twice in the past year I invested the time and energy to reseed the lawn. There have been days that the first thing that came to mind when I woke up in the morning was, “I wonder how the grass is doing?” Even when we were on holidays and were driving through the western prairies thousands of kilometers from home I remember thinking about that newly planted grass. I think I might have a problem.

What changed? What has cause me to go from being so nonchalant about grass and lawns to being someone who invests this kind of time and energy into their lawn? To find the answer you need look no farther than my neighbor’s lawn. His lawn is perfect. The grass is thick and full. It is perfectly even, there isn’t a bare patch in sight. All year round his lawn is a beautiful deep, dark green. It is also fake. My neighbor has fake, artificial, grass.

We have lived in our place now for three years. For two years I looked out my front window at my neighbor’s grass and saw the perfection of his man-made lawn. For two years I looked at the perfection of that lawn and then looked back and my lawn only to be disappointed by how dismal it looked in comparison. After two years I had had enough. I wasn’t about to put fake grass in, but something had to be done about this lawn. Just like that I became someone who invests substantial time and energy in the upkeep of his lawn.

It is interesting, isn’t it, how much of our lives and the decisions that we make in them are driven by comparisons to other people. A person like me who cared little about the quality of his lawn can become obsessed with it when the neighbor’s lawn looks better by comparison. We evaluate ourselves and our lives, our successes and failures, by comparing what we have done and achieved to what others have done or achieved. Facebook and other forms of social media or clear proof of that as people “follow” or “friend” distant acquaintances and high school classmate just to see how their lives and accomplishments compare. We see people whose lives seem to be filled with happiness and we wish that our lives were more like theirs. We see people whose lives are filled with sorrow and thank God that, by comparison, our lives really aren’t so bad. We are constantly comparing ourselves to others. This is also true in our lives as Christians and our gospel reading today bears that out.

Our gospel reading today is a continuation of our gospel reading last week. Since I was not here with you last week I want to take just a moment to recap that reading. Last week in our gospel reading a rich man came to Jesus. He came to Jesus with a question, just one question: “Good teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer to that question is simple. The answer (though this is not the answer that Jesus gives this man at this moment) is to believe in Jesus, to trust in Him for the forgiveness sins. That is what one must “do” (as much as you can call faith, believing and trusting in Jesus, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit something that we can “do”!) to inherit eternal life.

As I said, however, this is not the answer that Jesus gave to the rich man that day. Jesus knew that this man was not ready to hear that answer. So, instead of telling the man to believe and trust in Him, Jesus directs him to the commandments that he knew from his Bible. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. And so on. “I have kept all of these commandments since my childhood,” the rich man responded.

Now it is important that we understand that what the rich man said is simply not true. The rich man thought it was true. He sincerely believed that he had kept the commandments, each and every one of them, since his childhood, but it simply wasn’t true. No one, no single person on earth, can claim to have kept even one of these commandments for a single day let alone since childhood. Not you, not me, not him. No one.

What Jesus said next He said to bring this reality to the fore. “Go then,” Jesus said, “sell all you have and give the money to the poor.” The rich man’s heart was filled with sadness when he heard these words from Jesus. He went away filled with sorrow. He just couldn’t do it. He was rich. He had many possessions. He loved His possessions. He was unwilling to part with his possessions. By asking this man to sell all his possessions Jesus revealed the truth about him. This man, as eager as he was to inherit eternal life and as sure as he was that he had kept all the commandments, hadn’t even kept the first one: “You shall have no other gods before me.” With his heart filled with sorrow he walked away.

This is where our gospel reading today picks up the story. Peter and the rest of Jesus’ disciples are in shock. In their opinion this rich man is the ideal candidate to be a disciples of Jesus. First of all, he is rich. The way they see things this guy’s wealth was a sign of God’s favor. Secondly, he is a good guy. The way they see it he is also a really morally upright kind of person. He’s kept the commandments. When he walks away in sorrow they don’t know what to make of it and right away the comparisons start happening in their minds.

“If he’s not good enough for God’s Kingdom am I?” they think to themselves, “I’m not rich, I’m not morally upright, not like him!” When Jesus starts talking about how difficult (impossible in fact!) it is for a rich man like him to enter God’s Kingdom and compares this difficulty with the prospect of putting a camel through the eye of a needle the disciples are left in despair. “Who then can be saved!” they cry out.

Jesus calms their troubled hearts with assurance that it is indeed impossible for man, but not for God because, “all things are possible with God.” God does saved people, rich or otherwise. God takes camels, you and me, through the eyes of a needle. He has done this for us through the death of His Son, our Lord Jesus. We are in His Kingdom now and are heirs of that Kingdom eternally. We are saved.

With the panic put on hold the comparisons start again, however. This time it is Peter who speaks up when he realizes that maybe the grass is greener on their side of the fence after all. “See,” Peter says, “we have left everything and followed you.” Peter just ran the comparison through his mind one more time. He just compared his life and the lives of his fellow disciples to that rich man and he realized something. He realized that he and the other disciples had successfully done the very thing that the rich man failed to do. He wasn’t willing to leave everything and follow Jesus, Peter realizes, but we did! The panic is gone and pride has set in.

It’s interesting that Jesus does not rebuke Peter harshly here. Other times when Peter spoke out somewhat brashly he received rather harsh condemnation from Jesus (for example: “Get behind me, Satan”), but here Jesus speaks much more gently. At first Jesus acknowledges that his disciples have left homes, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and many other things in following Him. For this, Jesus assures them, they will receive blessings. But then, snuck in at the end, comes a warning. “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Pride, in particular the pride that arises from comparing our lives to others, has no place in the Kingdom of God.

When we live our lives by comparison to others, particularly in our lives as Christians, we end up in one extreme or another. We either end up in despair seeing our works, our lives, as coming up short in comparison to others or in pride as we see ourselves as superior and are filled with pride. What Jesus is teaching us here is to stop looking at others and making comparisons to find our sufficiency and goodness. He is teaching us to look to Him.

When we look at Jesus what we see is something incomparable, something beyond comparison. We see the ONLY begotten Son of God in our own human flesh. We see the ONLY man who can actually claim to have kept God’s commandments from His youth and actually fulfilled them by His obedience. We see the ONLY one whose blood could atone or pay for your sins and mine. We see the ONLY one who by His death could accomplish our salvation. We see the ONLY one who in rising from the dead could make a new life for all who trust in Him. We see the ONLY one who gives His perfect, holy, righteous life to imperfect, unholy, unrighteous sinners like us so that, like camels through the eye of a needle, we might enter the Father’s Kingdom forever. When we look at Jesus we see His love for us, a love that is beyond comparison, unmatched, and unequaled. Therefore, let’s stop the looking around and comparing. Let’s leave behind this living of our lives by comparison. Let’s fix our eyes of Jesus and find our sufficiency, our goodness, our worth in Him. For Jesus sake, Amen.