Continue Sinning? By no means!
The Baptism of our Lord
Romans 6:1-11
8 January 2017
I have some really good news for you this morning. A day is coming when you will no longer need to listen to sermons, when you will no longer need to struggle against daydreaming, disruptive children (your own or others), or simply your boredom at listening to me or any other preacher. A day is coming when you will not need to hear God’s Law anymore because your mind, body, and soul will perfectly desire God’s will and only His will. In fact a day is coming when you will no longer need to hear that Christ Jesus died for you sins because you will be wholly sanctified and without sin. That day is coming – it is coming as soon as Christ returns to judge the living and the dead and to raise our bodies to join Him in life everlasting..
But since we are still here and Christ has not returned I still need to preach and you still need to hear God’s Word of Law and Gospel to put to death the old sinful man in you and to raise up the new man who lives in Christ. Today’s Word of God from Romans is a Word our ears truly need to hear as there is much confusion in the world today and even among Christians about sin and forgiveness and what it means that we are baptized.
The Roman Christians need Paul’s sermon in Roman’s 6 because Satan or some ungodly preacher was preaching a bad and misleading sermon to them. The sermon began like this. God’s grace in Christ is greater than your sins. There is no sin so terrible or sins so numerous that Christ’s death on the cross does not cancel them. You are forgiven and that forgiveness Christ won is always more than your sin. Now that’s a great beginning. That’s some 200 proof Gospel and it is absolutely true. Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Christ Jesus died for our sins.” There’s no asterisk or footnote at that Bible verse that excludes any sin or any sinner. Christ Jesus died to forgive you your sins – all of them, the worst of them, the whole sordid mess of them – forgiven.
But then this sermon’s good beginning turns bad as the preacher goes on to say something like this. You cannot out sin God’s grace and forgiveness. So don’t worry about your sin. Don’t watch out for temptation. Let’s stop talking about sin and the Law. God loves to forgive, so just keep on sinning. God’s grace will cover it.
Such preaching didn’t just happen back in Rome. It happens right here in Saint Cloud. It happens when someone preaches “Everyone sins so we shouldn’t talk about sin. God loves everyone and forgives everyone – so don’t worry about sinning.”
What is dangerous from those bad sermons is the death of Jesus Christ preached at the beginning of the sermon is forgotten at the end of the sermon. His death for our sins and our baptism into His death and resurrection are forgotten. Christ did not die so we could live on in sin. He died to set us free from sin.
“What shall we say then?” asks Saint Paul about this misguided message. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Are we to continue in sin? That word “continue” has the idea of hanging around. The relatives you had over for Christmas dinner don’t leave – they continue to stay with you. They sleep on your couch, eat your food. Every time you open the fridge or prepare a meal they sitting at the counter. How would that go over? Should a Christian who not only believes that Christ has died for his sins, but also has been baptized into that death of Christ and received the benefits of Christ’s death, namely the forgiveness of sin, should that Christian continue in sin? Dine with sin? Sleep with sin? Live with sin?
“By no means!” says Paul. To grasp Paul response “by no means” I want you to imagine one of those words your mother told you never to say, a word that if you said it and your mother heard it she would run after you with a wooden spoon and a bar of soap. And as she is scrubbing your tongue with ivory she would say, “I don’t ever, ever, ever want to hear you say that again young man.” That is Paul’s response to the question, “Should we continue in sin that grace might abound?” Is it OK to keep on sinning since God forgives us anyway. Never, ever, ever, should a Christian think that, say that, or preach that. “By no means!” says Paul.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? When God put His name on you in the waters of Baptism He baptized you into His Son’s death. In those waters God buried you with Christ and raised you to a new life. Your baptism and Christ’s death preach some very important sermons about sin – your sin is real and it leads to real death because it is rebellion against the God who made you. Every week in the bulletin we print a commandment and some examining questions so you know your sins and your need for Jesus. Today was the second commandment about God’s name. It is a sin to say, “O my god.” For that is a cheap and frivolous use of God’s name. It is a sin to be bored with God’s word. It is a sin to mouth the words of liturgy while your heart and mind are far away. Sin is real, as real as death. If you don’t think sin is real drive by the cemetery. See if anyone escapes from their coffin – if not then you know the wages of sin is death. When you love sin you love death.
But your baptism preaches a greater sermon than sin and death. Your baptism preaches Christ’s death for sin, His death for you, and therefore His life for you. Baptism gives you the death that paid for your sin. God’s only begotten Son became a real, live human being. In His very real flesh, flesh born of Mary, flesh which walked and talked and slept and ate and cried, He took your place. His flesh for your flesh – that’s what He was doing in today’s Gospel reading – Jesus is being baptized with sinners because He came to go where sinners go. God sent His Son into the world to take our sins into His flesh and die the death of sinners to free us from sin.
By the death of Christ your sins are paid for. In your baptism His death becomes your death and you are set free from sin – you are no longer enslaved to sin and that means you are no longer dying, but living. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. Death doesn’t rule Jesus. Jesus rules death because He took away death’s hold on us – He took away sin. Baptized into Christ, death doesn’t rule you; Christ rules you and that means life rules you.
The baptized Christian walks in newness of life. Does that mean we do not sin? No. Sin will remain with us until we die or until Christ returns. That’s when we can stop listening to sermons.
• In the meantime Christians still sin, but we do not make excuses for our sin.
• We don’t say it’s OK to sin because everyone sins.
• We define sin according to the Word of God, not the vote of congress or the desires of society.
• We don’t preach the love of God apart from the death of Christ for sinners – God’s love is not permission for you to sin. It is forgiveness of your sin paid for by the death of Jesus.
• We call sin sin – whether it’s wasting God’s name with an OMG, or being bored with preaching, or two men pretending to be married, or an unmarried couple playing at marriage.
• We confess our sins – and we don’t invite sin over for dinner or to sleep on our couch or to join us for date night.
• We don’t continue in sin because we have baptized into the death of Christ and raised with Him to a new life.
That’s your sermon for this week. Come back next week for another one – unless Christ returns. Then I won’t be preaching and you won’t have to listen – for we will be raised to life because we have been baptized in the name of Jesus. Amen.