Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

                                                                                    Blessings in Christ

        Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes
from the Epistle, which was read earlier.

        In our
modern age of today, letter writing has gone out the window. Now, we send an email to a person, using
Internet lingo that if you didn’t use it, you would have no idea what it was
you were reading. Our life stories are
now on our blogs for everyone to read. Most of our emails or blog entries are short, disconnected pieces that
make little or no sense to those who don’t know us. In our Epistle reading for this morning, Paul
does the complete opposite. His letter
to the church at Ephesus is concise, it has a purpose. Paul sees
life from a cosmic perspective, giving us a God’s-eye view of things. He begins by seeing the individual
Christian’s life in the light of eternity. Our present faith has an eternal cause, God’s gracious choice of us in
Christ before the foundation of the world. It leads us to an eternal goal; that we may live forever to the praise
of His glorious grace.

        Paul
clearly wants to teach the readers of this letter to look beneath the surface
of life and understand its true nature. Life’s true nature is known only to God, summed up in Christ, and revealed
to us through the apostolic Word. The
impressive depth and breathtaking vision of the letter is all the more
remarkable in view of Paul’s confinement while writing it. Only faith in the promised love of God can
soar to such heights or sound such depths.

         That is why
Paul begins our text for today with the following: “Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with
every spiritual blessing in Christ.” These words are a hymn of
praise. They aren’t found in a generic
hymnal for anyone who believes in a “higher power” or “supreme being.” These are words that a Christian speaks. It is directed to the God who is the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus
is the only way we can approach God, trust in Him, and have life everlasting
through His death.

        For Paul,
he could not say these words of praise for the first part of his life. He was too busy crucifying Christians and
doing all he could to destroy Christianity until the fateful day on the road to
Damascus that he saw Christ and his eyes were opened to the gift of everlasting
life that Jesus Christ came to give to all of mankind. Paul, who was one of the staunchest at trying
to destroy Christianity, now became pastor or missionary to many of the
churches in the New Testament: Corinth, Rome, Galatia,
Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and Thessalonica. How is any of this possible? How can one kill Christians and then become
one of the chief teachers of the time?

         The answer
to this is simple: “For he chose us in him before the creation
of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” Before
the world was born, God set His heart on having you as His own forever.  Not only did He determine to embrace every
human being by the redeeming death of His Son, He also selected you personally
and individually in Christ before time began.  He chose you, not because you were holy and blameless, but that you might be holy and blameless
before Him.  The entire world can condemn
you, the devil may accuse you, and your own conscience convict you, but God has
determined that in Christ you are holy and blameless before Him.

        All of this
was done out of love by God for us in Christ Jesus. He chose us not out of a requirement or by
law, but we were chosen purely of His grace. He chose us “before the creation
of the world.” Even before the world
began, God chose us to be “holy and
blameless in his sight.” But ask
yourself why. Why did God do what He
did? If God knew that there was going to
be the Adolf Hitler’s and the Saddam Hussein’s and Osama Bin Laden’s of the
world, then why did He choose us to be His children? The answer is simple: it is because of the
love that He has for His creation. God
is the Father and we are His children. Ask any parent what they would give to their children and they would
probably answer that they would give them the world. If something bad happened to them, they would
do anything to save them. That is
exactly what God did for us.

        From the
moment that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
mankind became eternally separated from God. The only way to bring mankind back to God was through a Sacrifice like
no other. All throughout the Old
Testament, the chief priest would offer sacrifices to God on behalf of the
people. Once a year, the chief priest
would enter the temple and go to the Holy of Holies. These sacrifices failed in comparison to the
Sacrifice that would occur through the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ.

        Being a
child of God brings with it several benefits that we can barely grasp what it
means. First, “we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Stop and ask yourself if you
truly understand that we have redemption through the blood of a Lamb that was
sacrificed for us. When we were at the
Higher Things conference, one of the in-depth sectionals we attended was The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Liturgy. There,
the pastor presenting went through all the various parts of the liturgy. When he got to the Agnus Dei, “Lamb of God
you take away the sin of the world…,” he showed a picture of a lamb who had
its legs tied, pierced in the side, with blood flowing. This visual, while a bit disturbing, shows a
very moving picture of what it was like for Christ to give up His life and the
great cost it was for us to have redemption.

        In the final part of our text, Paul
says quite a bit about what it is that we have received. “In him we were also chosen, having been
predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity
with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in
Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.  And you also were included in Christ when you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you
were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit
guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s
possession—to the praise of his glory.”

         In these final verses, Paul talks
about “we” and “you.” “We” refers
to Paul and his fellow countrymen, the Jews. “You” refers to the people of the Gentile nations, among whom Paul
preached and for whom he had been appointed an apostle. The basic thrust of the passage is to tell us
that God decided from eternity to unite Jew and Gentile believers in Christ, to
form one people who would be His “treasured possession.” Paul shows yet again that there is no
difference between Jew and Gentile, for all are saved through Christ.

         We have been chosen by God to
receive forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Note what Paul says. All this happens “according to the plan of
him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Paul doesn’t say that it is due to what we
do. The plans of men fail, and
all our personal visions of the future fade, but God’s resolution concerning us
cannot fail. Through faith created in us
by the Holy Spirit, we have heard the saving message of the Gospel. Through faith, “you were marked in him with a
seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance
until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his
glory.” By means of the same gospel He will
preserve us in faith until we reach our glorious goal; heaven. To assure us
that the inheritance of heaven will be truly ours, He sealed us with the gift
of the Holy Spirit. Just as a seal
serves to mark out an object as belonging to an individual, so the Holy Spirit
is God’s “seal of ownership on us.”

         We have
been chosen to be the Father’s child. We
have been set free by the blood of Christ. We have been sealed by the promise of the Holy Spirit. These are the blessings that we have in
Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

        Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith until life everlasting.  Amen.

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

The Great Exchange

        Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes
from the Epistle which was read earlier.

        It’s
hard being a pastor. We get up each
Sunday, stand before our congregations and we preach about sin. We preach about the sin that first came
through Adam and Eve, we preach about the sin that we have, we preach about the
sin that Jesus doesn’t have. In our
ministry, people don’t like to hear about sin. If a couple comes for marriage counseling and we ask if they are living
together, the answer has a strong possibility of being yes. When we tell them that living together before
or without marriage is a sin, we become the bad guy. Who are we to judge them? What right do we have to judge their
behavior?

        When
people are unhappy about not being able to take communion because they are not
a Lutheran, we tell them that we are not a “members only” club, that we are
following the words of Scripture. We do
not commune them for their benefit, not because you have to be a card-carrying
member of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.

        At
times, we pastors are seen as Public Enemy #1. So why do we continue to
be pastors? Wouldn’t it be easier for us to just quit, find a different
job where
everyone likes us and we’re happy? What
keeps us in the Office of Holy Ministry and in the pulpit week after
week? The love of Christ compels us. The love Christ has for those for
whom He
died and rose again is the force that motivates us.  And the love of
Christ
doesn’t compel just us pastors. It
compels all Christians. Every human
being is one for whom Christ died. By
that substitutionary death all persons, their sin, and their sinful
nature are
dead. People who are redeemed by Christ
are not to continue in sin or factional infighting, but to live for Him
who
died and rose again for them. Martin
Luther wrote that “sin is forgiven not so that we may continue in it
but that
we might break loose from it; otherwise it would be called a permission
and not
a remission of sin.” It is, therefore,
to further the aims of the loving Savior and to prepare His people to
love and
serve Him in return that Paul preaches.  It is for that reason why we
pastors continue
to preach.

        The
message that Paul gave to the Corinthians is the same message that pastors give
today: Christ died for all people, and because of His death and resurrection,
we live for the One who died for us, Jesus Christ. I’ve said this before and I will say it
again. Christ just didn’t die for the
rich and aristocrats, or for the poor and the lame. He died for all people, regardless of who
they are. Jesus, unlike sinners, doesn’t
play favorites. He treats all of us
equally: all as sinners.

        Through
Jesus Christ, we have died to sin and been made alive in righteousness. Our old self was crucified with Christ and
died there as surely as He died there. From the throes of death rises a new man fully redeemed and cleansed in
baptism to the glory of Christ our Lord.

        “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation: the old one has gone and the new has come!” Our sinful self, though it is still very much
a part of us, is no longer seen by God. When God looks at us, He sees us wrapped in the holiness and sinlessness
of Jesus Christ. We have been made holy
by the blood of the Lamb who died on Calvary’s
mountain. While it is hard to understand
that we can be “simul justus et peccator,”
at the same time sinner and saint, that is exactly what we are. When we were brought into the family of God
by our baptism, we became saints, even though we are very much a sinner. Our old sinful self is now gone and replaced
with the newness of Christ’s righteousness.

        The
key to all of this is to remember that it is not anything that we did. Paul makes this point yet again in our text,
as he does in several of his letters to the various churches: “All
this is from God.” Paul doesn’t say that this is from us. He doesn’t say it is from what we or someone
else did. God has reconciled us
to Himself through Christ by forgiving us all our sins, by counting them
against Christ instead of against us. In
Christ, God does not impute sin to us. Indeed,
the whole world is the named beneficiary of this reconciliation. God now considers all people to be different from what they were. Formerly, by
birth and nature, they were His enemies to be cast into eternal punishment. Now
their status is changed to make them holy and blameless in His sight. This is the saving grace of God’s love for
His people.

        Jesus,
the Word made flesh, is our substitute. He is the second Adam, undoing what the first Adam did by his
disobedience. He will take our place
before His Father and buy back all of humanity. Through His unlimited atonement, the whole world is reconciled to God.

        Jesus
lived our life perfectly. He became
fully man so that He would qualify as our substitute. Righteousness is
what He brings to God. But instead of righteousness to guarantee
God’s approval, He trades it all away to us for our sin. Jesus’
righteousness becomes ours by faith,
and our sin becomes His.

        As
I said, this isn’t easy for us to understand. But that’s the good part
of all of this: we don’t have to understand
God’s forgiveness to receive God’s forgiveness. You don’t have to
believe in the forgiveness of sins to receive it. Christ died for all people, even those
who choose not to accept it.

        Being
in Christ, being a new creation, is quite a gift in and of itself. But Paul tells us what it is that we are to
be: “be reconciled to God.” Those who receive the reconciliation as their
own, who give up trying to reach God by their own good works and take
forgiveness and life as the gift it is, they are the ones who are finally and
effectively reconciled to God. All
others, rejecting Christ, reject this reconciliation. These are those who choose to be reconciled
to self, seeking their own vices in a vain effort to bring about salvation of
some sorts. Everyone knows that Jesus
died for all, so it doesn’t really matter what it is I believe or what it is
that I do. I still have my golden ticket
to heaven. That is exactly what Satan wants
us to think and believe. But Scripture
says otherwise. “God made him who had no sin
to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

        Paul,
in simple and forceful terms, gives the gist of the “message of the reconciliation.”  Jesus had no sin, being born without it.  Yet God made Him to be sin, so covered Him
with the sins of the world that Christ became, as it were, sin personified.
When God regarded Him, He was affronted by all that sinful nature had become
and wrought, the sorry history of humankind, all its wickedness, and the ruin
of its goodness. But it was there, in
Christ, that we are made the righteousness of God.  Our sins are stripped from us, and the holiness
of Christ becomes ours.

        This
“message of reconciliation” that Paul
speaks of is our ministry, all of ours responsibility. Our Lord’s great exchange, His power of
reconciliation has been given to us as our ministry of reconciliation that we
are to share with others. We are ambassadors,
making known the wonders of God who desires mercy and grace toward His
creation. Just as we are no longer to
see ourselves in light of our old self, so we are no longer to see others in
the same way either, because God no longer sees us in that light. The gift that God has given to us He has
given to the whole world, the gift of forgiveness and the righteousness of
God. Amen.

        Now
the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen.

Text: 2 Corinthinans 4:5-12

        Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes
from the Epistle which was read earlier.

        Have
you ever thought about what all it means to be a pastor, one who defends the
ministry of the Gospel? It’s a very easy
job because we only work one day a week. The other six days are just vacation I guess. But for that one day a week that we do work,
it takes a great deal of preparation. Sermons do not write themselves. Just
about anyone could sit down and write a sermon, but it takes great effort to
write a sermon where the Gospel is properly preached and Law and Gospel are
rightly divided. 

        When
a pastor preaches, it has nothing to do with him personally. It is the Holy Spirit, working through a
pastor who preaches. If we ourselves do
the preaching, we can preach about whatever we want to preach, however we want
to preach. But that isn’t what Paul
says. Paul says that we preach “Jesus Christ as Lord.”

        In
today’s text, Paul doesn’t focus on who is doing the preaching, but who it is
that is being preached about: Jesus Christ. Paul explains here why he is proclaiming Jesus and not himself, why he
is their slave and not seeking to be their master. It is because Paul had nothing to do with
creating this salvation. God the
Creator, who made light out of nothing, in the midst of blackest darkness, did
it. He proved His lordship even in our
conversion. He placed His light in the
heart of a man who once lived in darkness. The ministry of the Gospel is based on a justification and a conversion
which are entirely the decision and work of God. Paul has nothing to say about a contribution
on his part. God did it all. This is why he preaches only Christ.

        However,
that isn’t how it always is. Unfortunately, not every sermon a person will hear in their life will
focus on Jesus Christ and what it is that He did for us. We might hear a sermon that focuses on what
it is that we did to earn our salvation. We might hear a sermon that minimizes the salvific work of Jesus
Christ. God’s will is that people see
His glory and be saved, His glory is seen nowhere more clearly than in Jesus,
His person and His work. With faith the
light, the Holy Spirit gave Paul a drive to reveal Christ, God’s embodied
glory.

        For
Paul, there was darkness inside of him. He recognized that, as we should recognize the darkness inside all of
us, as well. That darkness is sin and it
is inside all of us, regardless of how much we try to deny it. Paul wrote to the Romans that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin is much a part of us. It became a part of us when Adam and Eve ate
from the tree and it will be a part of us until the day we die, and we will die
because of death.

        If
God wanted to, He could have left us in the state of sin and death but chose to
send us hope. That hope was in the form
of His Son, Jesus Christ. Instead of
death, Paul writes that “we have
this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from
God and not from us.” This light of God is a great treasure
and an all-surpassing power. It changes
people, as it changed Paul. It causes
them to preach Christ, too. It leads
others to ask them for the reason for the hope that lives in them. This treasure that we have is the knowledge
of God; it is the Gospel. But human
beings would not naturally assume this was from God.

        Every
Christian is a saint and a sinner. The sinner in all Christians will always try
to take some credit for what God has done. And people listening to a preacher may try to give humanity the credit
for what they hear: “It was his education, his family background, his
parents. The people he preaches to must
be wonderful people.” God made sure
that anyone looking at Paul would not be inclined to give mankind the credit for
Paul’s faith and accomplishments. God
did that by using such a fragile, homely, clay jar as Paul.

        In
Paul’s day, people often hid their precious valuables in the cheap pots used
for mundane household chores. A
wastebasket, a garbage bag, or a throwaway cup might come closer in translating
into our idioms the scandal Paul has in mind. We tend to do that today also. We
hide a spare key in a fake rock in our garden if we get locked out. People hide money under their mattress or in
a book that has the pages cut out of it so it becomes a hidden compartment for
valuables.

        Our
treasure was also hidden in a jar of clay; the treasure of Jesus Christ. He came in the form of a man to bring
salvation and the forgiveness of sins for all of mankind. People took one look at this “jar of clay”
and dismissed it. They didn’t want to
listen to what Jesus had to say. They
looked at the miracles that He performed and dismissed those, calling it
trickery and the like. When they looked
at Jesus, all they saw was a man and nothing else, until His crucifixion. There they made the poignant statement: “Surely he was the Son of God!” It was in that statement that they saw the
treasure hidden in the jar of clay.

        We
are all called, in some manner, to preach the Gospel. At times, it can be rather easy, while other
times it can be quite trying. For Paul,
he experienced times of both, but more often than not, it was trying times that
Paul was preaching the Gospel: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
down, but not destroyed.” Here, he was talking more about himself than
anyone else. He was plagued by
Satan, sinful people, a sin-riddled world, and his own sinful self with its
doubts and anxieties. Other things made
life difficult for him. But he never
became hopelessly pessimistic. The light
of the Gospel kept that from happening.

        The
same thing happens to us as well. We are
plagued by Satan, by sinful people, a sin-riddled world, and our sinful self
with its doubts and anxieties. But that
is not a cause for us to give up the fight of preaching the Gospel, the good
news of Jesus Christ. Paul used the
adversities in his life to push him all the more to preach the Gospel. When Paul visited the churches at Rome, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi,Colossae, he saw and heard things that were
devastating blows to the Gospel. Instead
of giving up, he fought all the harder to right the wrongs going on in the
churches at those places.

        We,
too, should never give up on the Gospel, for the prophet Isaiah records that “my word that goes out from my mouth: It
will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the
purpose for which I sent it.” God’s
Word does what it says it will, where it wills. We may not see the immediate response to that, but we know that it will
happen.

        For
us, we always have the great treasure in our jars of clay. “We always carry around in our body the death
of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given
over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal
body.” We are always a living remembrance of Jesus
Christ. People should be able to see
Jesus Christ in us. His love should
always be reflected in us.

        God proclaims His
Gospel through us jars of clay as He makes His light shine in darkness, Jesus
Christ taking our sin upon Himself and gives to us His righteousness. God proclaims His Gospel as He delivers power
in clay pots, using broken vessels to proclaim the saving message of Jesus Christ
and brings life from death, so that we all may have everlasting life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

        Now the peace of God
which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith until
life everlasting. Amen.