Pastor Steve Bauer

This is the sermon for the The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. The sermon text is: Romans 12:9-21. The sermon theme is: How Do You Look At Love?. Here is the Written Sermon.

How Do You Look At Love?

Allison in a Christian in the west. She loves her children dearly. So, she has them in sports and activities. She is so busy that she only manages to bring her children to church about once every six or eight weeks. Aria is a Christian in the east. She loves her children dearly. She didn’t grow up as a Christian. And so, she spends much of her time at church. She teaches Sunday School. She cleans around the church. She is involved in the women’s ministries at church. But, you wouldn’t want to surprise her and visit her home. It is often unclean and unkept. Doug is a Christian in the south. He loves his children dearly. So, he takes his job seriously. He gets up early. He works hard. And he comes home late. And when he gets home, he eats and then sits in his chair. And that’s what his children have come to know of their dad. He’s the guy who comes home and sleeps in the chair in the living room. But that’s about all they know him as.

Now, as you take a step back and look at these three parents, ask yourself the question: which one of these parents dearly loves their children? You see, if your definition is somewhat shallow, then the answer is ‘all of them.’ However, if you look at love the way Paul does here in Romans 12, you arrive at a different picture. In truth, none of them have the sort of love that Paul describes here. Listen to how Paul describes love in these words: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” ¹

As I was translating these words, I very quickly realized that these words were far more like nails than bandaids. And every time I studied another one of them, it drove another spike into my soul. Paul starts out and he says that love is not a hypocrite. How often has my love been hypocritical? Paul says that true love honors others above myself. And, as I peer into my soul, I see many times and many ways that my love has been self- serving and self-loving.

And, if you read these words closely and sincerely, the more you read, the worse it gets. Paul continues on and he speaks about the love we aren’t not just supposed to share with those who are close to us. He speaks about our love to those who are on the outside, looking in: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” ²

What about you, my brothers and sisters, how often do you repay evil for evil? If someone wrongs you, you may not go out and harm them back. But how often have your really wanted to? How often do we leave room for God’s wrath. So very often, if their’s justice and wrath to be done, our Lord doesn’t have much to do because we have either avenged ourselves in our actions or in our thoughts.

How do you look at love? If love is a shallow feeling that we can make up as we go along, they we can do it. But, if you look at what God’s word says, you find something different. You find an impossible standard. For all of us continually love ourselves. For all of us continually wants to avenge ourselves—to defend our honor and our glory.

Why would God do this? Why would he set the bar so high? Why would he command us to love perfectly? Just look at our gospel for today.³ There we meet a teacher who needed to be a student. He thought that he loved God enough. He thought he loved his neighbor enough. Jesus walks him through a story. And every word must have pierced that expert in the law. The expert learned the lesson that everyone in his life was his neighbor. And if he couldn’t even a good neighbor to his neighbors, then how could he love God perfectly? Jesus demanded his perfect love not because he expected it a price to earn heaven. No, he spoke these words to show him that he had to look outside of himself for salvation.

And there is where we rejoice. For just when we are at the point when we despair in our own works, then we can look to Jesus and rejoice in his works. In Jesus we see a Savior who loved those close to him. In Luke 18, we hear about a woman who had been crippled by a demon for eighteen years. Jesus heals her. And, of course, since he did so on the Sabbath, the Jews accuse him of sin. Listen to his response: ““You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”” ⁴

Jesus loved this woman, who was like him. She was a daughter of Abraham. He loved her enough to be persecuted by the Jews. He loved her enough to heal her and take away her sin. But Jesus also loved those who were not daughters of Abraham. In John 4, we meet the Samaritan woman. This was a woman who was very much not like Jesus. And yet Jesus goes to her, searches her out. He exposes her sin. He tells her that he is the Messiah.

Now my brothers and sisters, I spend the time reminding you of these times that Jesus showed real and true love to those near and those far away for a reason! If you hear about Jesus perfectly loving this daughter of Abraham and this daughter of Samaria your response is: “I gotta be more like Jesus”, then you have completely missed the point. Jesus was perfect because you could not be. Jesus loved those near and those far away because you are unable to. Jesus loves perfectly as your substitute, not as your example. And there on that bloody cross and there in that cold, empty tomb Jesus takes away your sin and earns this perfect love for you. And then, in water and word he gives to you what he won for you. He baptizes you and washes away your sin. But there is also something else meaningful and wonderful that happens there. He gives you a new person inside of you. So now, there is a perfect person inside of you who is stronger than your old self. It is to this new person that Paul speaks these words here in Romans 12. He speaks them as commands to our old self. But he speaks them now as invitations to our new self.

My brothers and sisters, I mention these facts because, as we look at ourselves it is all too easy to see the old self. It is all too easy to see how impossible it is for us to love completely. But it is difficult to see our new self. It is ever-so-difficult to see the Holy Spirit at work in us. He is there. But he is invisible.

Since we have these great and wonderful promises, we can turn to these invitations of Paul and look at them with joy. Love sincerely. And that starts with seeing Jesus’ great love for you. Spend time in God’s word. Read God’s word at home. Study God’s word here with your pastor and your brothers and sisters in Christ. Put others ahead of yourself. Build others up in the faith. Pray for others. Serve others. And finally, leave room for God’s wrath. Your are a baptized child of God. You are his. He will look out for you. He will protect you. Let him avenge his own name and his own children.

How then do you look at love? It is impossible for us. It is accomplished in Christ. It is given to us in baptism. Amen.

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¹ (Romans 12:9–12 NIV)

² (Romans 12:16–19 NIV)

³ Luke 10:25-37

⁴ (Luke 13:15–16 NIV)

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This is the sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. The sermon text is: Luke 10:1-12, 16-20. The sermon theme is: Know that the kingdom is near. Here is the Written Sermon.

Know That The Kingdom Is Near

Where did you get that from? As Christians who share our faith, that is a question someone might ask you. You say that people are sinners and evil from birth, and what do they say? Where did you get that from? You tell them that Jesus has taken away not just some of your sins, but all of them, and what do they say? Where did you get that from? It reminds us to be in God’s word so that we can give an answer to those around us.

But this question isn’t just a question that others ask us. It’s also a question that you might find yourself asking Luther. When Luther was speaking about the words, “Your kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer, he said: “How does God’s kingdom come? God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy Word and lead a godly life now on earth and forever in heaven.”

God’s kingdom is not laws and states. God’s kingdom is God’s word working on the hearts of us humans. But we ask the question of Luther: where did you get that from? And, as we read sections of God’s word like these, this morning, we see so very clearly what Luther meant and that he was right.

In these words Jesus sends out 70 disciples to do evangelism work. He tells them to go from town to town and preach God’s word. He even gives them their sermon theme. He tells them to say: “‘The kingdom of God is near you.’”¹. And then what happened? Jesus told them exactly what would happen. There would be some who would accept them, receive them and rejoice in the words they would share. But there also would be a different group. There would be a group who rejected their message. Now, notice what Jesus tells them to do when this happens: “But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near”.²

Notice and see very clearly what was happening here. The kingdom of God was near. The Holy Spirit was active. God was getting his work done. How did they know this? They knew that the Kingdom was near because they saw opposition.

Jesus is teaching us a very important lesson. It is a lesson that many Christians have forgotten. When we are born we hate the Holy Spirit. We hate Jesus and the wisdom he teaches us. We go out and say: “you are a sinner.” And we say: “Jesus has taken away your sin.” And what is the result? They hate us.

What is going on here? What is going on in their hearts that they hate this Jesus that we treasure so much? For most unbelievers, God’s word is a closed book to them. It is foolishness to them. They don’t care about what the bible says simply because they don’t get it. But, then there is another group too. There is a group who has heard the voice of God. They have heard God speaking to them through his word. But, when the Holy Spirit presses on their hearts, they push back. The idea that we don’t just mistakes, but that we are really, truly evil when we are born—who wants to hear that? Jesus did all the work. He took away our sins. He doesn’t let us earn our salvation by working for him or choosing him—who wants to hear that? These are the thoughts that push the Holy Spirit away.

And what does Jesus say to us? Now you know that the kingdom is near them. When they push us away when we share our faith, then is when we know God’s work is being done. How so? Jesus tells us: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” ³

How do you know that God’s kingdom is near? We know it’s near because of the opposition we face. That is what our Savior tells us. How sad and sinful it is then when we conclude the opposite. We talk to our relatives or to our friends about Jesus and they push us away. And what is our conclusion? We conclude that God’s kingdom isn’t here. We wonder what went wrong. We shared good news and they reacted like we were feeding them poison. Or, we are tempted to give up on his word. We tell ourselves: If people do not like to hear all of God’s word, then we won’t talk about the stuff that is truly offensive. We won’t talk about baptism. We wont’ talk about the Lord’s Supper. We won’t say that every breath and sylable of God’s word is true and perfect. We won’t say that because, people get angry with us. When, instead, we should boldly speak the truth because it is the only thing that will bring God’s kingdom to them.

We face all these temptations. And, we see so clearly that there have been so many times we have given into these temptations. We should have seen the opposition and rejoiced that we have the privelige of suffering for the name of Christ. And, instead, we are tempted to abandon God’s word and blame our Savior. When we see these sins, then we can rejoice in the words which follow: ““I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”” ⁴

Jesus told them that again, and again, and again, Jesus kept seeing Satan fall.⁵ You can just imagine Jesus talking to the 70. You can just picture him saying: “Peter, when you told them that they were sinners on a one-way road to hell and got angry with you, I saw Satan fall. Philip, when you told them so sincerely and clearly that I am the Christ and they laughed at you, I saw Satan fall. Stephen, when you tried to show them from the Old Testament that I was there, leading and guiding history and they refused to hear you—I saw Satan fall. Matthias, when you said that I came to take away all the sins of all the people and that widow, weighted down by the Pharisees cried with joy, I saw Satan fall.”

Satan fell every time they shared God’s word. And every time they shared God’s word, God’s kingdom came to them. These words are sweet, beautiful words. For, we know that God’s kingdom is near not just because of the opposition we see. No, in a better, fuller way we know the kingdom of God is near us because of what Jesus sees. Just as he spoke to them, he speaks to us. Jesus says to you: “O my child, when you confessed your sin to me and did not cover it up, I saw Satan fall. When you opened up your bible and read God’s word, I saw Satan fall. When you came to church and tasted the forgiveness in the Lord’s Supper, I saw Satan fall. When you spoke to your relative about sin and they hated you, I saw Satan fall. When you spoke about me the sin I took away and they laughed at you, I saw Satan fall.”

And so, my brothers and sisters, the kingdom of God is near you and in you. How do we know this? We know this in part because of the opposition we face. But, most of all we know that we have the kingdom because Jesus sees it.

When we see this, how can we not? How can we not sing words like we find in our final hymn ⁶:

O Christ, who sent the Twelve on roads they’d never trod
To serve, to suffer, teach, proclaim The nearer reign of God:
Send us on ways where faith Transcends timidity,
Where love informs and hope sustains Both life and ministry.

How can we not sing these words? How can we not rejoice in this truth? Our names are written in heaven. They are not cut into earthly stone that weathers away and people forget. Our names are written in the book of life and given to us through water and word. And finally, how can we not share? Let us always pray for opportunities and courage to share God’s kingdom with the world. Amen.

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¹ (Luke 10:9 NIV)

² (Luke 10:10–12 NIV)

³ (Luke 10:16 NIV)

⁴ (Luke 10:18–20 NIV)

⁵ ἐθεώρουν τὸν σατανᾶν ὡς ἀστραπὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πεσόντα.

⁶ CWS 770:3

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