Peace Lutheran Church
Posts Tagged "Life"
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 12, 2026
Sanctification
SERMON
DATE
SCRIPTURE
Romans 8:12-17
Outline
1. Children by Adoption through Christ
2. Have HS living in us, sanctifying us!
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation is the Epistle of Saint Paul sent to the church in Rome the eighth chapter verses twelve through eighteen.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Beloved lambs, I pray that you are doing well today. When you want something, what do you do? Usually you come to me or mom, and ask for whatever you desire. You do not come scared and fearful, You boldly say, "Watch TV! Snack! Can we have a candy?" You ask, usually in triplicate, even after me or mom have already given an answer because you really want it. Mom and I know that you want whatever it is. Typically, we will give it if we can, sometimes we will say wait or no. Saint Paul writes in our text that we do the same thing we God. We cry out, Abba, Father! Does God ever get too busy for us? How are we made God's children?
Ponder these questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
I L L U S T R A T I O N
Have you ever been annoyed by your child? They come up to you and say, momma, momma, mom, mommy...what! Hi! Or they come up when you are cooking or baking, asking to help with pouring, mixing, or baking. Dad's if you are out in the garage, they will be coming out to help with whatever. Many times they certainly are helpful. This is a joy and a blessing from God. If your house is anything like ours, you will get questions in triplicate when each one asks for the same thing, even after the answer has already been given the first time! What do you do? I am sure that you get frustrated, annoyed, angry at times became of our sinful natures. Even if it has been a day of constant annoyances and fighting with each other, do you ever stop loving them? No, never. There is nothing that your child could do that would make you ever stop loving them.
Yet, what if it is a child not your own? What if it is a child that is adopted as a part of your family. He or she is not biologically a part of your family. You have brought them, and made them a member of your family. What do you do when they annoy you? Could you go back to the adoption agency saying, 'This one is a brat and annoying, give us another one.'? Probably not, especially given the high price for an adoption today. You love them, with the same great love that you love your biological children with. They may not have been born of your seed or womb, but they are still yours because of your great love for them.
The same is true of God. As Saint Paul talks about in our Epistle for today when he writes, "you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”." Our heavenly Father loves us with a love so great that it is beyond comprehension. This is not because of anything that we have done. We often annoy and cause God grief because we often fall back into the deeds of the flesh. We use our freedom to gratify our own desires. We break God's Law constantly. Holy Scripture states that even one little white lie, 'no honey, you do not look fat in those pants. You are just as beautiful as the day we met. Even one little thought of hatred, "That idiot just cut me off and totaled my car!" How easily we sin against Him and other people in thought, word, and deed. We do not deserve to be a part of God's family We deserve to be kicked out forever. We should not have been a part of it to begin with. We deserve everlasting death in the fires of Hell. To be separated from our Father forever and ever.
Yet, Almighty God in His great mercy, gave us Jesus Christ. God says you must be perfect. Jesus says, I am perfect in your place. Jesus took your sins, every single one of them to the cross. All of the times when you have broken God's law. All the times when you caused Him grief, anger and annoyance, has been covered by Jesus' blood. Jesus took upon Himself the great debt of our sins, in exchange, Jesus gives us His perfect righteousness. This is a great debt that none of us could ever pay. It makes the USA's $39.3 trillion debt seem like pennies. To pay that off with an average salary of 73,000 with nothing going towards food, drink, mortgage or bills would take 546,575,342 years. Jesus has paid the price of our even greater debt through the shedding of His blood upon the cross for you and me.
God no longer looks at us annoyed, frustrated, and angry over our sins. He does not kick us out of the family. Rather, through Jesus has made us heirs with Him. "if children, then heirs— heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ," It boggles the mind. Because of Jesus, we can go to the Almighty God, He who created heaven and earth purely thorugh the power of His word, and daily sustains it, and say "Hi Dad!" Asking for whatever we desire in prayer, knowing that everything will be given according to His good and gracious will.
E X P L A N A T I O N
How can we do this? Because are led by the Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit living in us, given in the waters of Holy Baptism. We no longer live in the flesh, to gratify our sinful desires. Rather, we live in the Spirit as children of God.
The Holy Sprit sanctifies us. Sanctification is a long church word. It means to make holy. We are made holy through Jesus' death upon the cross and resurrection from the dead. That holiness is given to you and me personally in the blessed Waters of Holy Baptism, and the Bread and Wine of the holy Eucharist.As we are made temples of the Holy Spirit and are strengthened by Jesus' body and blood in faith towards good works.
Sanctification is not just mere words. It shows itself in our daily lives. It is growing in the image of Christ, daily. through the Holy Spirit's work faith is increased daily, love strengthened, and the image of God renewed (cf., e.g., Jn 14:26; 16:13–14; Ro 6:15–23; 8:15–16, 26; 14:17; 15:13; 1 Co 12:7–11; Gl 5:16–18; 2 Ptr 3:18).
It's not like when we use our car on a daily basis, what happens to th.e gas gauge? It goes down, so you have to go to TownPump, Walmart, or Sam's Club and fill it back up again. Many say that is what happens to us throughout the week as Christians. All those good works we do drains our faith tank. We come to worship to get filled back up again. While it is true that you do receive the good gifts of God here, your faith tank is not empty. Notice the tense of verse fourteen. Saint Paul writes that Believers are being led by the Spirit. Ago, the word that we translate as Led is present, active tense.
It is steady, constant living out in your lives. The work of the Holy Spirit is a constant, effective, and beneficent empowering within our hearts and minds, enabling us to more and more to crush the power of indwelling sin and to walk in the way of God’s commandments freely and cheerfully as His children.
To be led by the Spirit means more than to be guided by him, though, to be sure, the Spirit is also our Guide (John 16:13). Cf. Matt. 15:14; Luke 6:39; Acts 8:31. The Holy Spirit leads believers. God Himself is controlling influence in their lives. He creates and sustains faith within us. He sustains it through Word and Sacrament to bring it to its blessed end, bringing us at last to glory in the now heavens and the new earth.
When the Holy Spirit leads God’s child, our responsibility and activity are not canceled or repressed. The blind man of Jericho was not carried to Jesus. He did his own walking. The Holy Spirit empowers and leads you to wrestle and fight against your sinful nature. If you were not a child of God, you would not be wrestling as you would not care about your actions or their consequences only your own pleasures. You live not in the ways of the flesh but the ways of the Spirit, choosing to do good and resist evil. That action is yours! As one pastor once wrote, “Though it is indeed the Holy Spirit who keeps us in the path and brings us at last to the goal, it is we who tread every step of the way; our limbs that grow weary with the labor; our hearts that faint … our faith that revives our sinking strength, our hope that instills new courage into our souls, as we toil over the steep ascent.”
What do when our strenth fails us? When our courge waxes and wains? When we fail to be led by the Spirit and fall back into the ways of the flesh? We cry out to God. The Greek word kraugazo that we translate as cry can better be translated as shout or scream. It is not a weeping of tears it is a shouting. It is the same word that is used in John when Jesus commands Lazarus to come out of the tomb. (John 11:43) It is the same word used by John when the crowd rejoices on Palm Sunday and shouts to Pilate for Jesus to be crucified (John 12:13, 18:40) Through the Holy Spirit, we shout to God for help in the midst of the sinful world, the constant temptations and attacks of Satan, and the intense wrestling that we do with our sinful flesh. We cry out as we did in the words of the Kyrie, "Lord have mercy!".
C O N C L U S I O N
Thanks be to God that He has mercy upon us in Jesus Christ! He keeps us in His family, continuing to give us of His Word and Sacrament, leading us by His Spirit, until that day we will be glorified with Christ forever and ever.
The Peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
June 28, 2026
Text: Romans 7:1-13
Theme: Dead to Sin
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation is the Epistle of Saint Paul sent to the church in Rome, the seventh chapter verses one through thirteen.
Beloved lambs, I pray that you are doing well today. Do you know what I have here? Right, I have a puppet. Can this puppet do anything on its own? No. All it will do is lie there. But if I put my hand in it, now it is moving, active, and speaking. Anything that my hand says or do, that is what the puppet does and says. Let’s say this puppet said a really really bad word, would you blame the puppet? You might, but the one to blame would be the person controlling the puppet. That is what Saint Paul explains in our text when he is talking about God’s Law and its relation to Sin. He says that sin used and controlled the Law to do bad things. Is God’s Law bad? How do we use God’s Law today? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
1. Death parts
We hear this promise made at every single wedding service. “I take you to be my wedding wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy will; and I pledge to your my faithfulness.” This is a binding promise, made before God and all those present, that you will be faithful to your spouse for the entirety of your life.
At that moment, husbands become the heads and wives become the ones under their authority. The Greek word that Paul uses for a wife is an under a man woman. Wives are under the control of their husbands and their responsibility and headship. If a woman breaks this promise then she is considered an adulteress. Why? Because they have broken the vow and are one who stands condemned under the Law. There is only one way to be freed from under this Law. One way to be free of this responsibility. The death of a husband. If the husband is dead, a wife is freed from that obligation and vow that was made. She could use her freedom to remarry or remain single, either is appropriate.
The same is true of us as Christians under the Law. We are no longer bound by the Law. We are no longer constrained by what we must do. We have been freed by its condemnation. How did this happen? A death. Specifically, the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. In the blessed waters of Holy Baptism, we are connected to Jesus Christ and His death upon the cross. There we die with Christ and are raised to new life. Through His body, we have died to the Law, we have been set free from its bondage. When Christ’s body hung upon the cross, when God spared not His own Son but gave Him up for us all, when Christ took on Himself for all of us the curse of the Law that struck us all, then we died to the Law. The Law had done its utmost and was done with us, for we were all included in the body of the Crucified. His Law, Gods love, has made His death the death of all. The same act of God that delivered us from the dominion of sin has freed us from the dominion of the Law, and for the same purpose; that we might live to Him who died and rose for us and thus bear fruit for God, the fruit of a life drawn from His life and lived to His glory.
As Rev. Black comments upon this verse, “The union of the risen Christ and the Christian has just been depicted in terms of marriage. Paul continues the figure: such a union is expected to produce the “fruit” of reformed life dedicated to God. “The believer is free to contract a new union with his Risen Lord, and obtain new progeny through this fresh marriage” (Black, Romans, 94) ”
2. Fruits
This union that we have with Christ leads to the fruit of new life. This is a fruit that we do not produce because of our own power or strength. To try under our own power leads to death because of how sin twists the Law for its own evil purpose. Death occurs because the Law demands perfection. Are you perfect? No, then you stand accused under the Law and bear the consequence of your sin, which is your death.
Even worse, sin takes the opportunity to rise up and twist the Law into something evil. Saint Paul states, “Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. ”. Paul uses covet because to covet has an inner heart desire which leads to an outward action.
When the commandment comes in not to covet, you begin to see that you are covetous. You covet all sorts of things: better health, more money, a different car, a better preacher, worship in the sanctuary, whatever. And then what do you do? You resolve to obey the commandment, “Thou shall not covet,” and you earnestly pursue that goal, that you may produce good fruit. But you don’t escape from the Law, because now you only covet something else. You covet being a non-coveting person. You covet righteousness. It is precisely in trying to fulfill the law that one comes to violate it.
The Law demands perfection to receive life. As the Lord says in Leviticus 18:5, “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.” Do the Law and you will live. Do not do the Law and you will be accursed. As the Lord says in Deuteronomy 27:26 “Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.” Do and live, do not do and stand accursed. I stand accused under the Law, as do you. Sin exploited the commandments to deceive us and so kill us. Sin invokes the deadly curse upon us.
The Law shows the stain of sin upon us. The Word of God is as a Lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It shines a bright light upon how deep and corrupt we really are. When we see how deep and vast the corruption of our sinful nature goes, we should be afraid.
As one of the monks of Qumran once wrote:
“When I called to mind all my guilty deeds and the perfidy of my sires- when wicked men opposed Thy covenant and forward men Thy word- trembling seized hold one me and quaking, all my bones were a quiver; my heart became like wax melting before a fire, my knees were like to water pouring over a steep (IV, 33-34)”
You see your corruption and mourn because the Law shows how much your have sinned. How imperfect you still are. Picture it this way. When you get done working on the car or out in the garden, you go inside to wash up and what do you see looking in the mirror? The oil and grim of the car, the dirt, mud, and muck of the garden.
Do we blame the mirror for showing the dirt and grim? Most people rejoice in it as it shows you where you most need to focus to be cleansed. The same is true of the Law. Even though sin corrupts and twists the Law for its own goals, a single step leading to death. We do not say that the Law is evil. Just as, we would not blame the puppet when it says a foul word or makes an obscene gesture, so too we do not blame the Law for revealing to us our sins. As we just sang, the Law of God is good and wise.
“The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. ” It reveals to us our sins, shows us sins corruption and our imperfections, that we might be prepared for the sweetness of the Gospel.
3. Guides
The Law also guides us as Christians. It answers the question, so you have been freed by Christ, what does that new life look like? You listen intently to the Law as it reveals your sinfulness and my own. We quake in terror turning towards God in repentance, remembering the mercy and grace shown to us in Christ Jesus.
We strive to obey the Law as best as we can because it is the good will of God for us. We do this imperfectly, thus why the Christian life is one of constant repentance. Jesus has freed you from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for you. He has borne all your sins, all the breaking of the Law. You are forgiven because of His sake. Live in that forgiveness as you and I wait in constant repentance, longing for His glorious appearing, and the recreation of the Heavens and Earth to life everlasting.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.