“God’s Grace For Messed Up Sinners”
Rev. Don Meyer
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
11/27/2011
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
11/27/2011
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. By the looks on a few of your faces, some of you are confused. Judging by all the decorations that you see going up all around you along with the ads on the TV, it’s obvious that Christmas is coming... soon! So you come to church on the first Sunday in Advent and what do hear? A Gospel reading about Palm Sunday!?! Then, to top it off, a strange Pastor is standing in the pulpit. Something must have really gotten messed up because this doesn’t seem normal or right. Well, please allow me to clear up your confusion. First of all, Jesus’ triumphant ride on Palm Sunday was not read by mistake. Just as He arrived humbly at Jerusalem, so He did at Bethlehem when He was first born into our world. And in both circumstances He had one goal and mission in mind– to go to the Cross to pay the price for our sins. He did it so that God’s grace could be delivered to you and me. God’s grace is what I’d like to focus on with you today.
Which leads me to the second confusing factor... the strange Pastor in your pulpit. Now I would agree that the label of “strange” does apply to me, but you can be sure that Pastor Moline would not have asked or allowed me to preach if I was strange in a doctrinal way. He loves you and is very protective of your souls. Actually, I am his father-in-law and I’m here to celebrate my granddaughter Claire’s Baptism. And when you think about it, that too is all about God’s grace being delivered through those Holy Waters. I can’t begin to tell you what a privilege it is to witness that AND to be honored to share with you God’s message of grace in the sermon!
I would direct your attention then, to the Epistle lesson. These are St. Paul’s introductory remarks to the Corinthian Church that he was writing to. In verse 3 he says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Does that sound familiar? It ought to because this is how your Pastor and others often begin their sermons. And what an appropriate note to begin on! Wishing God’s grace upon you. But maybe we take for granted that people understand what that word “grace” really means. You may recall from Confirmation Class that grace is God’s undeserved mercy and kindness towards us sinners. Because of that, we have the peace from God that flows from His grace. Then Paul goes on to say, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus...” There’s that grace mentioned again. Please notice that Paul is reminding the Corinthian Christians of the grace they had already received through Jesus Christ. For this, he gives God thanks for them.
But does that introduction sound odd to you? It might if you understood who Paul was writing to and what he was about to say. To put it nicely, these Corinthians were REALLY messed up spiritually. Paul was writing to correct some of the serious problems in their Church and advise them on how to proceed in a Godly manner. A little background will help us understand the seriousness of this letter.
Corinth was a coastal town in southern Greece and was part of the Roman Empire. It was an important city for trade and shipping which meant that people from all over the known-world would pass through there. With them came a wide variety of customs... and yes, vices. If you think that San Francisco is a coastal city with all kinds of sick perversions, Corinth was a hundred times worse. The temple of Venus was located there and over a thousand cult prostitutes were made available to any visitors who “worshiped” there. That was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of their sexual perversions. As you might imagine, they were unrestrained in the sins that would violate all the rest of God’s Commandments too. In a nutshell, they were really messed up people. And yet God’s grace came to these undeserving sinners. The Lord sent Paul there on his second missionary journey in the year 51 A.D. For 18 months he preached both Law and Gospel to them. They received God’s grace through Baptism, the preaching of God’s Word, and through the Lord’s Supper. The result was a thriving new congregation in this pagan town.
However, as they say, old habits die hard. Yes, they were true believers, but after Paul had left, the devil masterfully got them to incorporate their sinful past into their newly found faith life. Cliques had formed in the congregation which led to an attitude of arrogance and superiority that led to divisions. A man in their congregation was shacking up with his step-mom and the church merely winked at his sin. They were suing each other rather than working things out as Christians. Evidently some of them thought it was still okay to visit the temple prostitutes. They were conflicted over whether it was okay to eat food sacrificed to idols. And their own worship practices were all messed up. Selfishness and gluttony had invaded their celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Speaking in tongues had turned the preaching of the Gospel into a cacophony of indiscernible babbling. There were also doubts and confusion about whether the dead would be resurrected on the Last Day. And you thought your congregation had problems!
News of all this got back to Paul, and to say the least, he was not happy. So he sent Timothy to investigate and try to get them back on the right path. In the meantime, Paul wrote them a letter which our text is drawn from. He was about to take them to the woodshed. Isn’t it interesting then, that he started out his letter the way he did? I mean, was he just trying to put on a happy face with this introduction so as to trick them into reading the rest of the letter? That’s certainly not what Paul was up to. What better way to correct the problems than to remind them of God’s grace that had taken them out of their sinful way of life in the first place? Paul was focusing on that grace which was given to them through Christ Jesus. Yes, they were still messed-up sinners, but God’s grace is greater than any sin of ours. That’s why Paul could thank God for them always. And he reminds them that God’s grace enriched them with the ability to speak their confession of faith and to have the knowledge of God’s truth in their minds.
Paul then turns them from what God’s grace had done for them in the past, to what it was doing for them in the present and the future. They need not go looking for some mysterious additional grace. No, Paul says that they were “not lacking in any gift.” God’s grace is distributed equally to every Baptized soul. And they need not worry about whether they would have enough of that grace to carry them safely to the end of their lives. Paul says that the grace they had already received would sustain them to the end so that they may stand guiltless before God on Judgment Day. Keep in mind, he was writing this to some really messed up sinners. But that’s precisely who God’s grace is intended for! Those Corinthians needed to be reminded of the bottomless well of God’s grace which they could freely dip into.
Christian friends, that very same grace is what we are celebrating today. God’s grace is meant for messed up sinners. As much as it pains me to say this, my little granddaughter, Claire, is a messed up sinner. We may look at her sweet little cherub face and say, “There’s no way this innocent child could be guilty of any sin.” But you would be wrong. You see, you don’t know how rotten of sinner her grandpa is... this grandpa... the one who’s preaching. Seriously, the sin that is active daily in my life... and yes, in the lives of her other grandparents and parents... has been inherited by Claire. That original sin has been passed on from generation to generation going back all the way back to Adam and Eve when they fell into sin. Because of it, we have no choice but to declare that my granddaughter was born a really messed up sinner who was a lost and condemned soul.
Ah, but thanks be to God, His grace has been shown toward this little messed-up sinner! Baptism is a means of grace. In other words, it’s part of God’s delivery system for distributing His grace to us needy sinners. In those Baptismal waters, God washes away the stain of original sin with the forgiveness that is ours through Jesus Christ. And He plants within us a faith which is able to receive that grace. Once {Now that} Claire has been Baptized, as Paul says, she is “not lacking in any gift.” She doesn’t need to go looking for some new, greater grace from God as she grows older. Like the Corinthians, this grace is sufficient to carry her through the rest of her life. God is faithful to His Word of promise and will sustain her faith by His grace.
That’s great news for the rest of us! Because you see, like Claire and like the Corinthians, we too are really messed up sinners. And God in His mercy has made His grace available to you and me. We call it His “Means of Grace.” In Holy Baptism, you also received that gift of grace which is complete and not lacking in anyway. As I mentioned before, God’s grace is like a bottomless well that never goes dry. We can daily go and dip into it for the forgiveness of our sins. Along with Baptism, God’s grace flows to us through His written and preached Word. That Word sustains your faith over and over again with God’s grace so that you are able to confess Jesus as Lord and grow in your knowledge of Him. When, like the Corinthians, we discover that we’ve really messed things up with our sinfulness, we can come to God and receive His grace through the Absolution as we hear that all our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. And through the Lord’s Supper, God once again grants to us His grace through the very Body and Blood of Christ in the bread and the wine. This means of grace continues to sustain our faith.
I am deeply moved each and every time I perform or witness a Baptism. That’s because it’s such a joy to see another needy, messed-up sinner receiving the free gift of God’s grace. That’s something to celebrate. But I would remind you that this celebration is why we gather each Sunday for worship. We are here to receive and celebrate God’s grace which is bestowed on us messed up sinners. And that grace sustains you and goes with you all throughout the week, even as God will sustain you by His grace until the end of your days, so that you may stand guiltless before Him and inherit His gift of eternal life. Amen!
Soli Deo Gloria!
