Sermon for the Sun after Ascension

It is one thing to keep doing a blog from a Law and Gospel perspective analyzing specific texts. It is quite another to provide an example of an actual sermon. What follows is the sermon preached this past Saturday and Sunday at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois.

Liars Don’t Go To Heaven

Revelation 22:15. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

I hated to eat peas when I was a child. At first, I would eat the good food first and hope my mother wouldn’t see the peas still on the plate. She did. So then I began eating the vegetables first waiting until later for the food I really enjoyed. The veggie part of our text is unpleasant not only because it is talking about hell but because it hits close to home. That’s the way with proper Law preaching. It really isn’t about someone else; it’s about me!

At first hearing we tend to nod our head in agreement that those going to hell should be sorcerers, the sexually immoral, murderers and dogs. Dogs? The terms dogs is used by the Old Testament to refer to male prostitutes. But then the list includes idolaters and liars. That makes us uncomfortable because then we are included in the list. However, from God’s point of view, in light of His Sermon on the Mount, we are also included as sexually immoral, murderers and the like not perhaps by deed but often by word and certainly by thought.

Is it that by eating our vegetables first, we become so ill that we are unable to partake of the good food? Or perhaps, for us, there is no good food to balance the veggies. That is true with every other religion in the world. Their diet of salvation includes eating the veggies of good works or good suffering or good sacrificies until you work off your sins. No other religion in the world has the good food of what Christianity refers to as the Gospel that salvation is by grace and not by works.

Unfortunately, many Christian groups cannot get away from making the veggies part of our spiritual diet. In some way, you become responsible for your salvation. One group talks about the need to purge your sins in a purgatory; another insists on your requirement to invite Christ into the heart; a third insists on using the Holy Spirit to finally stop from sinning.

You may remember the Worldwide Church of God under the leadership of Herbert W. Armstrong which was a cult. By God’s grace in 1995 many of their pastors and congregations became Christian and are now known as The United Church of God. They truly teach that salvation is a gift from God by grace through faith. They teach that salvation is not of works, lest anyone should boast. In fact, 90% of their doctrinal position is Christian. 90%? Listen how hard it is to leave the veggies.

In the same sentence they not only confess that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone cleanses from sin but they also confess that happens only when we repent and cease from transgressing God’s law. Do you hear the contradiction? You can’t say on one hand that only through the atoning sacrifice of Christ are we cleansed and then in the same sentence say only when we stop from sinning are we cleansed. If I could stop from sinning, I don’t need Christ’s sacrifice!

It’s like a father who answers his son’s question as to whether he is loved. The father responds, “Son, I will always love you because you were born into our family as long as you are obedient in all that I tell you to do.” What the father gives with one hand, he snatches away with the other. Love is either unconditional or it’s conditional.

In every religion in the world and in a number of Christian denominations, love is conditional. But the Bible reveals only the God Who loves you unconditionally. Recall the verse, “God so loved the Lutherans, that He…” Oh, I’m sorry. “God so loved the Christians, that He…” Still not correct. Yes, “God so loved the world…”

The radical teaching of the Christian faith is that your works simply don’t count in regard to your becoming saved or your staying saved. Think about it. There is nothing you can do to get God to love you more; there is nothing you can do to get God to love you less.

But how does one resolve this unique revelation from God with the words of our text that speak of those who practice such sins will to hell? It sure sounds like your works make a difference. How can you, Pastor Baker, say that God doesn’t regard your works as the basis of whether you go to heaven or hell in light of such a clear passage from God’s Word?

I’m not telling you works are no longer the basis for God’s Judgment. God is telling you this. Where? Listen to verses 1-3 of the same text.

1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.

Did you hear those phrases, “water of life,” “tree of life,” “healing of the nations” and “no more curse.” You and I have the disease of sin. But is it NOT sin that sends anyone to hell. It is the power of sin which according to 1 Corinthians 15 is the law. What law? The curse of the Law. “In the day that you sin, death is the result.” Hell is the result due to the Law’s curse!

It is not sin that separates us from God; it is the curse of the Law. Death refers not to temporal death but spiritual separation from God Himself. In every other religion of the world, healing takes place by you stopping your sin. Only in Christianity does healing take place by getting rid of the curse of the Law. And when did that happen?

It happened on a wind-swept hill centuries ago outside of Jerusalem when a man from Nazareth spoke these words, “It is finished.” What was finished? Certainly not the fulfillment of our salvation because we are still sinners? But not from God’s point of view and that’s the only viewpoint that counts. In case, you don’t get what was finished, Jesus elaborated with another word from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Good Friday changed everything. For through His death on the cross, the dividing wall of hostility between you and God; namely, the curse of the Law, was destroyed! The words of verse 1 of Romans chapter 8 ring true, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Are you ready for the radical teaching of Christianity? As you look at yourself you may see the sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, murder and even being a dog. But God no longer regards you in that way.

Such sins no longer apply to believers from God’s point of view. To offset your sins of commission, God gives you the gift of the forgiveness of sins; to offset your sins of omission, God dresses you in the robe of Christ’s righteousness. All because of the grace of God. Grace trumps condemnation. Under the Law, you both see yourself and properly confess that you are a poor, miserable sinner, deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. But under the Gospel, God regards you as such a holy and sinless saint in Christ, that He invites you to receive within yourself the holy body and blood of your precious Savior. It’s called the holy Eucharist!

The holy festivals of the Church’s liturgical calendar can be viewed as continual fulfillments of the words “It is finished” from God Himself. The “It is finished” of Good Friday reveals the fulfillment of the curse of the Law being taken away by the death of Jesus Christ. The “It is finished” of Easter Sunday reveals the fulfillment of our justification through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The “It is finished” of Ascension last Thursday reveals the fulfillment of Satan, our prosecuting attorney, being replaced before the throne of God by our Defense Attorney, Jesus Christ. The “It is finished” of Pentecost reveals the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit making your body His holy temple through the waters of being baptized into the name of the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son, Jesus Christ.”

And there’s more to come; that is, to be fulfilled. The “It is finished” of your temporal death, your departure from this vale of tears, is the fulfillment of your spirit being taken into the presence of your Lord Jesus Christ. And the final “It is finished” of Judgment Day is the fulfillment of the rejoining of your resurrected body with your spirit to live an eternity with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

While the “It is finished” may yet to be fulfilled in our experience, they in reality have all taken place in the mind of God. For in Christ, according to Ephesians 2, verse 5 and following, you who were dead in trespasses have already been made alive together with Christ, have already been raised up together with Christ and are now sitting together with him at the right hand of God. How so? He is the head; you are the body. And where the head is, so also is the body.

God, in Christ Jesus, ate the veggies first. You are now eating the main meal with the dessert being prepared for you in the mansions of heaven. Under the Law you look at your report card and fear you will fail to be promoted to heaven. Under the Gospel, God reveals that Jesus’s score is A+++ and he transferred his score to your report. That is why your works simply no longer are factored in as to whether you go to heaven or hell. Instead, the works of Christ save all who trust in Him for salvation apart from any works lest we boast. Not works, but faith or unbelief now is the deciding factor in regard to heaven or hell. It is absolutely true that liars will not be going to heaven. It’s just that God does not regard any Christian as a liar!

And even that precious faith you have received is not of your own making; it is a gift from God as David reminds us in Psalm 51 that God creates within you a new heart and a right spirit. You no longer need to look to your experience of who you think you are; you now are to look to the promises of Jesus Christ that assure you that the threats of the world, the devil and your own flesh have been removed by the “It is finished” of Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Ascension Thursday, Pentecost Sunday and the glorious homecoming of the Day of Judgment soon to come. As the third chapter of Titus reminds us,

4. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
5. not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6. whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7. that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is most certainly true. Amen.

May the words of God, “It is finished” that passes all understanding, sustain your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.