5 Things to Remember (and Proclaim) in the Face of the Sexual Revolution

[Below you'll find the prepared message and video of the two Sunday morning worship service of Living Water Lutheran Church for Sunday, February 12. I want to thank Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller, who I've never met, for a sermon that inspired me to use the approach to the Gospel lesson I used. He provided a good context for the message I preached. But, of course, it's God's Word--Law and Gospel--that most inspired me. I pray people will find it helpful.]





Matthew 5:21-37

The Sexual Revolution began in this country and in western Europe about sixty years ago.

It started with the idea that because sexual intimacy is a natural human desire, it needn’t be confined to those married to each other and ought to be expressed in any way a person wishes.

Open Marriage, a best-selling book published in 1972, declared that, “Sexual fidelity is the false god of closed marriage…” And, the authors wrote, “We are not recommending outside sex, but we are not saying that it should be avoided, either. The choice is entirely up to you."

Starting in the Seventies, the revolution fostered more widespread acceptance of homosexuality.

And in its current iteration, this revolution is about “gender fluidity,” in which people can choose gender or no gender. 

Now, a sermon is no place for a preacher to talk about how public policy regarding sexual mores has changed or maybe should be changed. Those are political and legal questions. Churches and pastors should address such matters only in rare and specific circumstances.

But the sexual revolution isn’t primarily a political movement.

Effectively, it’s a religion subscribed to by millions of people, many of them our neighbors and family members, many in churches.

This religion tells us that whatever one’s sexual preferences, “Love is love.”

It tells us that a kind of redemption and freedom happens when we follow whatever our sexual impulses may be.

It tells us, as a prospective groom, explaining why he was living with his fiance, told a pastor, “You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive,” as though the people we marry are commodities that need to measure up to our standards.

This false religion also tells Christians that if we don’t agree with the ethic of the sexual revolution, we are repressed bigots and haters. (I get that one on Twitter from time to time.)

So, what can Christians do or say in the face of the sexual revolution?

The first thing we can do is remember (and proclaim) that there is nothing intrinsically bad about sexuality or sex. Sex is God’s idea. God invented it. Genesis tells us that “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26) Christian faith isn’t anti-sex any more than people who build dams to prevent floods are anti-river.

The second thing we can do is remember (and proclaim) that sexual intimacy is a gift from God for husbands and wives committed to each other for life. Faithless, abusive marriage partners may destroy their marriage covenant with partners seeking to be faithful to Christ and to their partners. But God’s intention is that sexual intimacy will exist in lifelong heterosexual marriages. “A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh,” Genesis 2:24 tells us. Marriages including sexual intimacy were part of the creation God called “very good.” Or, as it’s put in the Hebrew in which most of the Old Testament was written, “Tov. Tov.”: “Good! Good!” (Genesis 1:31)

Thirdly, we can remember and proclaim the Sixth Commandment that Jesus cites in today’s Gospel lesson. “You shall not commit adultery.” This is God’s Law and whenever law, holy or secular, is brought up, we human beings look for loopholes. “Two consenting adults,” someone will say, “can’t be committing adultery if neither one is married.”

The English word adultery is related to the verb adulterate. It means “to corrupt, debase, or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance or element.” In God’s eyes, we adulterate the pure gift of marriage when sexual intimacy happens outside of marriage. Adulterating marriage is not what God wills for us and the condemnation for this sin is no different from God’s condemnation for any other sin.

Now, if all of this weren’t convicting enough, Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel lesson: “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

We violate the Sixth Commandment then, whenever we entertain lustful thoughts about others or give these thoughts a place in our imaginations, any time we see sexual intimacy as a commodity–a thing in itself–to be used outside of the marriage covenant.

Jesus then goes on to speak metaphorically about our need to get rid of any element of our lives or thinking that turns us away from God’s will in this matter. “It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” (Matthew 5:30)

Critical though we Christians must be regarding the sexual revolution however, we need to remember two additional truths from God.

The first is that none of us is guiltless when it comes to the Sixth Commandment. (And all the other commandments!).

If we say otherwise, we fall for a self-righteous delusion. The Bible teaches us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

The Sixth Commandment, along with the other nine commandments, convict us of sin.

We sin when we put other things ahead of God; resist spending time hearing God’s Word; dishonor parents and others charged with leading us; lie, covet, or steal. When we hold grudges, let bitterness invade our relationships, or commit adultery. We can violate God’s commands in thought, word, OR deed.

So, we dare not let our critique of the sexual revolution turn into an excuse for bragging about how wonderful we are.

As Christians, we should be proclaiming God’s truth on these matters not from self-righteousness, but to remind ourselves and others of God’s love for all people.

The Bible tells us that “the wages of sin [any sin] is death.” (Romans 6:23)

But God asks in Ezekiel 18:23: “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? Rather, [He goes on to say] am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”

This leads us to the final thing we need to remember and proclaim on this subject: The God we know in Jesus Christ has entered our world to give us a new, a better, and an eternal way of life.

Jesus says of all of us born “lost in our sin”: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

This includes violations of the Sixth Commandment.

To the woman caught in adultery who didn’t run from acknowledging her sin, Jesus said after He chased her self-righteous accusers away, “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:11)

To the woman at the Samaritan well, Jesus offered “living water”--Him and His grace and forgiveness–”welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:1-14)

The wonderful thing about the God we meet in Jesus Christ is that He doesn’t wait for us to get our acts together before He takes action to save us from our sin.

He dies on a cross to take our punishment for sin before we even knew that sin brings eternal damnation to hell.

Before we knew we were sinners in need of a Savior, Jesus said, “It is finished!”

Every one of us can and is called to repent for all our sins and to trust that when Jesus died for us, then rose again to open up eternity and new life to all who repent and believe in Him, He did it for us!

Jesus is bigger than your sin, friend.

Jesus has borne your sin.

Jesus has conquered your sin.

God justifies and makes saints of sinners who, by the power of God’s Spirit-borne Word receive Jesus’ call with gratitude: “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)

At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, of which today’s Gospel lesson is a part, Jesus said, “Blessed is the poor in spirit.” (Matthew 5:3)

The “poor in spirit” are all those who, on hearing God’s Law, such as, “You shall not commit adultery,” recognize that they are far from guiltless.

It’s the poor in spirit, convicted for their sin, who are then ready to hear the Gospel–the good news–that Jesus gives forgiveness and everlasting life with God to all who turn to Him in trust and are empowered by God to believe.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, let us not be proud in either self-righteousness or in resisting God’s good will for our lives.

But let us speak God’s truth in love, including both the truth that the sexual revolution that pervades our culture is the way of sin, selfishness, condemnation, and death, AND the truth that forgiveness, joy, and new and everlasting life belong to all who daily turn from sin and follow Jesus.

No sinner will be morally perfect on this side of the resurrection of the dead Jesus gives to all who believe. But any sinner who daily entrusts their sins and their lives to Jesus will live in the joy of forgiven sin, will be given the power of God to live more in God’s grace, even in the midst of a world gone mad with sin, and will one day stand in the presence of God, our sin eternally covered in the righteousness of our sinless Savior Jesus.

That’s the message that God has called this sinner justified only by God’s grace through faith in Christ to proclaim to you today.

And this is the message it is our joy to remember (and proclaim) to all we meet. Amen

Impossible Righteousness...Forgiving Christ

[This message was shared during worship this past Sunday with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 5:21-37
I was baptized as an infant. 

As I was growing up, I loved going to church and I loved Jesus. 

In my pre-school and elementary school years, I broke all the Sunday School attendance records.

I was president of my third-grade Sunday School class. 

I starred in all the church plays. (I remember vividly playing the apostle Paul imprisoned with Silas, both of us shackled with construction paper chains!) 

My dad told Ann this past Thursday, “After we came home from church on Sundays, we had church again because Mark would re-preach the pastor’s sermon almost word for word.” 

My great-grandmother called me her “little preacher.” 

According to my pastor, I was the star pupil in Catechism class. When I got a 92 on an exam, he handed it back to me and said, “You could do better, Mark.” 

Here’s the deal: I believed in Jesus. 

To the extent that I was able to understand, when I heard His Word calling me to turn away from sins, I did that, asking for God’s forgiveness. 

And when I heard His Word, with its power to save and create faith, I believed.

But, as you know, when I was about fourteen, I stopped believing in Jesus. I was an atheist...for more than ten years. 

No trauma caused this change. I was just an adolescent who thought that science had somehow disproven God’s existence, as though knowing the answers to the what, when, and how of the universe somehow also answered the questions of its why and who. 

On top of that, my dad was working eighty hours a week, we had transferred to a different church to which none of us felt connected, and, I suppose, getting five kids ready for church was a mountain my folks found too difficult to climb. 

The upshot of it all was that I lost my faith. 

I no longer had a relationship with Jesus. 

I was dead, lost, just like the prodigal son, who knew about and had experienced the love of his father, but walked away from that relationship until he came to his senses and returned. He had been lost but was found. He was dead but was alive again. 

The amazing thing is that through the preaching and teaching of the Lutheran congregation that was Ann’s home church in Columbus, I heard the Law that convicted me of my sin and I heard the Gospel that brought me once more to faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. I was lost but was found. I was dead but was made alive.

Over the past two Sundays, as we’ve listened to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we’ve heard Him make a series of gracious declarative statements about us. He has conferred status on us that we do not deserve, but which He gives by grace through the faith in Him that His Word creates within us. 

“Blessed are you…” Jesus has told us. 

“You are the salt of the earth,” He has said. “You are the light in the world.” 

Elsewhere in the New Testament, we hear echoes of Jesus’ gracious words for Christian disciples: “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession...Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10) 

And what do we do to get the incredible gift of life with God that u starts now and culminates in perfection in eternity? Nothing. 

As Ephesians 2:8 reminds us: “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

But the Bible reminds us that, just like the Prodigal Son and just like Mark Daniels, it’s possible for Christians to walk away from God and the salvation He gives through Jesus. The apostle Paul tells the young pastor Timothy, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” (1 Timothy 4:1) 

There is evidence of the devil’s work in churches all around the world today--in those that say that God saves everyone no matter how contemptuous they may be of Christ or God’s Word as well as in those that say God only saves those who follow their rigid rules. 

Here’s the deal: When God saves us in Christ, we are saved. But God doesn’t hold believers in shackles. 

If we refuse to hear His Word calling us to repentance and faith, we erect a wall between God and ourselves. 

This is why Jesus warns, “...every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit [that is, refusing to let the Holy Spirit convict us of sin or convince of us Christ’s power to save us] will not be forgiven…” (Matthew 12:31). 

God gives life. 

He declares you His own through faith in Jesus. 

But He will not stop you if you choose to walk away from life with Him.

All of this, I believe, lay in the background of Jesus’ words in today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 5:21-37. 

If almost all of Jesus’ words up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount have been Gospel--pure, undeserved grace, His words today are Law, showing us the depths of our sin and our need of His grace. 

At the end of last Sunday’s lesson, Jesus said, “...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) And, we said that we have that righteousness through Jesus, Who covers those who repent and believe in Him with His righteousness. 

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus shows us how high a standard for righteousness God has for human beings. 

He says that not only are we not to murder but that even anger against fellow Christians can be sinful. 

He says that to look at someone lustfully is a violation of the sixth commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” 

He says that divorce apart from a spouse’s disloyalty is a sin. 

And He says that our truthfulness should be such that we needn’t resort to oaths. 

Quick poll, no need to raise hands, two questions: How many feel like you’ve been innocent of all these sins as God interprets them? 

And if you feel utterly innocent, the second question is this: How long have you been in living in denial about yourself? 

Truly, no human being measures up to the standards for purity of life and thought that we find in these words about the righteousness we need for entering the kingdom of heaven. 

This is what Scripture teaches. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” we’re told in Romans 3 and elsewhere in Scripture.

When I first began digging into God’s Word with a group at that Lutheran congregation in Columbus, I began to see the depths of my sin and rebellion against God. I wondered if I wasn’t doomed to separation from God, now and always. 

But I ran into passages of Scripture like this (listen carefully, please): 

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11)

If we take our cues from the world, accepting its standards, being pacified by its entertainments and rewards, relying on ourselves, following our own deceitful hearts, we will drift from God. 

But if we remain attentive to God’s Word, we will hear God’s call to repent--to turn from sin--and we’ll be saved by His gospel. Christ will transform us. He will make us new each day. 

This is the work God does in us when we read, study, and listen to His Word together and on our own, when we worship and receive the sacraments: God saves us from our sin and replaces it with the righteousness of Jesus. 

That’s grace! 

And for that, this old sinner says, “Thank You, God!” Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Tough Talk from the Tender Savior (AUDIO)

Here is the audio from yesterday's message from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.

Tough Talk from the Tender Savior

Matthew 5:21-37
Before considering Jesus’ tough words to us in today’s Gospel lesson, it’s important to remember several things.

First, our lesson continues Jesus’ sermon on the mount. This “sermon” is an extended time in which Jesus teaches disciples like you and me about life in the kingdom of heaven we enter by faith in Christ.

It’s also important to remember that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

People who deliberately violate God’s laws are, in Jesus’ words today, “in danger of the fire of hell.” But, God also understands us. There isn’t a soul who doesn’t sin unintentionally, every day. God, the Bible tells us, “...remembers that we are dust.” [Psalm 103:14]

Thank God that Jesus, as He told us last week, came to fulfill the law you and I are incapable of fulfilling and covers those who repent and believe in Him with His righteousness through the power of His death and resurrection!

So, once again this week, we remember that, in these words, Jesus isn’t saying: “Do these things and your will be saved.” He’s really saying, “If you have received new life through Me, this is how you get to live.” For all their toughness, Jesus’ words for us today are brimming with love for those for whom He died and rose. And they teach us what it means for disciples to live in Jesus’ kingdom of love.

There isn't a soul in this sanctuary or in this world who perfectly keeps the commands Jesus lays down here. If anyone says they do, they're lying. But these commands reflect the pattern in which God's Holy Spirit is forming us--in the image of Christ--each day as we turn from sin and trust in Christ.

In today’s lesson, Jesus looks at anger and murder, lust, divorce, and oaths. (You know, the stuff that makes up a lot of the daily programming on HBO and Netflix.)

Let’s take a look at what the Lord is telling us, starting at verse 31: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment...”

Here, Jesus refers to Exodus 20:13, which gives us the fifth commandment. Our English translations of this verse and of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel lesson almost always mistranslate it, rendering the commandment as, “You shall not kill.” Even our catechisms are translated in this way.

But that’s not what God’s Word says. God recognizes that there may be times when a parent, soldier, police officer, or good neighbor may be forced to take the life of someone out to murder someone else. People in these circumstances do not violate the fifth commandment. What God does condemn is the willful taking of a human life. The command is, “You shall not murder.”

Just as we start to wipe our brows in relief over this understanding of the commandment though, Jesus expands the definition of murder. Jesus says that sustained anger, hatred, or disdain of another human being is murder. That means that in Jesus’ eyes, it’s possible to murder someone without laying a hand on them. (I learned this a long time ago as a kid whenever my folks gave me a withering look for misbehaving.) Seriously though, anyone who’s ever been bullied by classmates, belittled by parents, treated with contempt by a spouse, or abused in any way knows exactly what Jesus is saying.

A person who willfully murders another human being seeks to rob their victim of the life and dignity that only God can give. In just the same way, the person who denigrates another person or holds a grudge against them is harboring the same hatred, hostility, and denial of respect that murderers harbor toward their victims. In treating others as though they have no right to exist, we are guilty of murder. In 1 John 3:15, we’re told: “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.”

Jesus then emphasizes how seriously He takes this matter through the use of a little exaggeration or hyperbole. (Jesus often used hyperbole. Remember when He talked about a camel going through the eye of a needle?) Verses 23-24: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”

Remember, that Jesus is in Galilee as He speaks these words. His first audience is composed of Galileans, who live about 75 miles from Jerusalem, the site of the temple where pious Jews leave their sacrifices. It would be preposterous to think of a Galilean leaving the temple, going back to their home region to make things right with someone, then making the return trip to Jerusalem.

What Jesus is saying this: Don’t dare to worship God without trying to be reconciled with those with whom you have differences. The reason for this is simple, as we see in 1 John 4:20:: “For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” We can’t claim to truly love God if there’s any person with whom we’re not willing to be reconciled.

In verses 27 and 28, Jesus goes on to say: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

As with murder, it’s one thing to be technically compliant with God’s will, but still be in violation of the sixth commandment.

That’s because adultery is a sin that happens in the heart, mind, will, and words long before it happens bodily. Adultery is a rebellion against God’s will for marriage that may never be expressed in an affair, but in things like the pursuit of pornography, or fantasies of being with someone other than the person to whom we’re married.

From the standpoint of the Bible, lust in itself is a good thing, given by God to men and women bound together by God in marriage. And also from the standpoint of the Bible, lust is not exclusively sexual.

Any desire that we allow to carry us away from being faithful spouses adulterates a marriage. The dictionary gives this definition of adulterate: “[to] render (something) poorer in quality by adding another substance, typically an inferior one.” Our marriages can be adulterated--made poorer--whenever we give other things--another person, our careers, our hobbies, alcohol and drugs--consideration, respect, and attention that belongs exclusively to our spouses. Because God wants our marriages to be blessings to us, Jesus takes a dim view of all forms of adultery.

Then, Jesus says maybe the toughest thing in our entire lesson. Verses 31 and 32: “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

These were tough words because in the first century Roman world in which Jesus lived divorce was at least as common as it is today. (Probably more common.) And in the Jewish nation of which Jesus was a part, a man could send his wife a certificate of divorce just because she no longer pleased him.

In Matthew 19:8, Jesus says that Moses allowed divorce among God’s people because of their “hardness of heart.” But even in Deuteronomy 24, where Moses makes the allowance for divorce, Moses makes it clear that divorce should never be undertaken for frivolous reasons. Jesus mentions unfaithfulness as a grounds for divorce. Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 7:15 that spiritual abandonment their by unbelieving spouses is a legitimate reason for divorce.

But Jesus’ words are tough for us too.

Rare is the extended family, even among Christians, that hasn’t been visited by the tragedy of divorce. In my own extended family, several members have been victimized by constant emotional abuse from unbelieving spouses, making divorce seem like the only option.

But even under those circumstances, committed Christians will take stock to see how their own “hardness of heart” may have contributed to the demise of their marriages.

Always it’s important to remember that the God we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ is able to cover the sins of the repentant in His grace and forgiveness. As we currently have posted on our signboard out front, “Jesus can forgive all that we regret.”

What Jesus wants us to remember is that marriage is a sacred thing, instituted by God, the only legitimate place in which the intimacy between woman and man is to be expressed, the place from which the young are to be prepared for adulthood and introduced to Jesus Christ as God and Savior.

At the end, Jesus addresses the business of oaths. Jesus says, “do not swear an oath at all.” The key to understanding Jesus’ words here come in verse 37, where He says: “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

People who are truthful don’t need to swear by God or anything else. Their simple yes or no stand on their own. Jesus is saying here, Don’t you dare invoke the name of God to prop up your lies!

I grew up in a family in which lying was just part of every day life. It made me comfortable with telling lies. It’s a habit that I’ve had to learn to hate, repudiate, repent for, and learn from as God’s grace has sunk more deeply into my life.

I'm not certain that I'm so alone in that experience, though. The truth is that descendants of Adam and Eve are prone to lying, distortion, exaggeration, misstatements, responsibility-dodging, excuse-making, and “little white lies,” whatever those are.

Often we lie just to avoid the unpleasantness of the truth. But Jesus says that lying has no place in the Kingdom of God.

Of course, some people take words like these from Jesus as license to say whatever comes into their heads, no matter who gets hurt by it. But Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak “the truth in love.” If it’s not loving, even the truth shouldn’t escape our mouths!

The love of God given to us through Christ is, in fact, to be reflected in everything about us, in everything that Jesus talks about today! That's something you and I will do only imperfectly on this side of our own deaths and resurrections. But to all who believe in Christ, God sends His Holy Spirit to daily refashion willing believers after the image of Christ.

In the meantime, for those saved by God’s grace in Christ, as God transforms us day in and day out by the power of His grace, love is becoming less of a distasteful obligation than it might otherwise seem to be.

Our call is to daily repent for sin and trust in Jesus Christ as the Lord Who has conquered sin and death for us.

Our joy is to live as people set free from our slavery. Jesus sets us free to live lifestyles of true, pure, Godly love:

• free to seek reconciliation with others because Christ has reconciled us to God for all eternity; 
• free to seek to be faithful in all of our relationships because Christ has set us free from death, hell, and futility; 
• if we're married, free to pursue solid, joyful marriages because Jesus Christ has made us eternally part of His bride, the Church; and 
• free to become more honest people because we know that no matter how the truth may offend, in Christ, we belong to God forever. 

May we daily repent and trust in Christ and so, live in His kingdom of love! Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was prepared for worship this morning.]

Tough Talk from the Tender Savior

[This was prepared to be shared with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, during worship this morning.]

Matthew 5:21-37
You know, we Lutherans generally follow a plan of Sunday morning Bible readings called the lectionary. It's structured in three-year cycles, so we get the same sets of lessons--Old Testament, New Testament, Psalm, and Gospel readings--every third year. A smart pastor, knowing that Jesus' words, comprising today's Gospel lesson from Matthew, was coming up, would plan their vacation on this Sunday.

But I'm not a smart pastor. I'm preaching on this lesson.

So, as we begin this morning, be warned that we are going to cover some uncomfortable topics--uncomfortable for all of us. Uncomfortable for me. As we do, remember the love and the desire to bring you forgiveness and healing that God bears for you.

Now, please pick up a Bible and turn to Matthew 21:28. We're going to look at a parable told by Jesus that relates to our Gospel lesson for this morning. It says:

[Jesus asks:] "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 29 " 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. 31 "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered.”

Jesus told this story to demonstrate that it’s possible for someone to appear to obey God’s commands and yet be far from God. Jesus wants our hearts, minds, bodies, wills, and lives to be aligned with the faith we confess.

Where are your heart, mind, body, will, and life oriented this morning?

I’m not asking if you sinned yesterday or today.

You did.

So did I.

The question is how our lives are oriented today: Are they oriented oward Christ and the new life He gives to those who repent and believe in Him?

Or toward the world or our own preferred behaviors and ways of life?

Despite the sinful detours we may unintentionally take in our daily lives, is it clear to God that our lives are pointed toward Christ and heaven or toward sin and hell?

Every Lutheran Catechism student has been taught that the Ten Commandments, God’s inviolable law for the whole human race for all time, is divisible into two tables.

The first three commandments command us, as Jesus sums it up in the Great Commandment, to love God completely.

Commandments 4 through 10 command us, as Jesus also sums it up in the Great Commandment, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

In our Gospel lesson for last week, Jesus said that He had come into our world not to abolish these commandments, but to fulfill them.

He went on to say that unless our righteousness exceeds that the of the Jewish sect known as Pharisees, none of us will even get a whiff of the kingdom of heaven!

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day, you’ll recall, looked at the commandments and tried to discern what it was they absolutely had to do in order to obey them. They reduced relationship with God to a list of dos and don’ts, effectively putting God on the same level they would put a street vendor with whom they might negotiate prices in the marketplace.

The Pharisees, though claiming to revere and honor God, in effect, thought they that they could force God to bless them as they self-consciously adhered to the strict letter of God’s commands.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus challenges us to move away from Pharisee-like religion to a trust relationship of love with God, our fellow church members, and the world around us. He does this by confronting us with the full implications of God's moral law. And when we see the impossibility of keeping it completely and purely, we are driven to the foot of the cross of the Savior Who fulfilled the law for us, died to take the punishment we deserve for failing to keep it, and then rose from the dead to open up new life and eternity with God to all who repent and believe.

Please turn to our Gospel lesson, Matthew 5:21-37. Jesus starts by saying: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

First, we should say something about Jesus mentioning hell here. Someone asked during this past Wednesday night’s Discipleship 101 class why we Lutherans seemed so hesitant to talk about hell. I don’t know why exactly. I suspect it's because we want to make Jesus acceptable to a world bent on doing its own thing.

But Jesus, the One we call God and Lord, certainly didn’t hesitate to warn us about the perils of hell, of eternal separation from God. We shouldn’t obsess about hell, of course. But we also shouldn’t be in denial about it either. According to Jesus, hell is real, a place of eternal sadness and regret.

But to the core point Jesus makes here: We should note that Jesus’ version of the Fifth Commandment is the accurate one. In the original Hebrew, God doesn’t say, “You shall not kill,” but “You shall not murder.”

But if you're issuing a sigh of relief right now, Jesus’ explanation of the commandment hardly gets us off the hook.

Evangelist Billy Graham’s late wife, Ruth, was once asked if, in their long years of marriage, she had ever considered divorcing her husband. Her reply: “Murder yes. Divorce no.”

She understood the reality to which Jesus is pointing us today: Physical murder is only the outward manifestation of a sin that occurs inside of us first. That sin is to be so angry with someone that we want to murder them, to take away a life that is only God’s to give and take.

And, I'm afraid this commandment is violated far more often than we may imagine. I know of parents, for example, who, when their children displease them, give the kids the silent treatment. Until their anger is assuaged, their kids don't exist to them. This is murder and it's wrong. The same can be said of spouses who use the silent treatment.

Don’t be confused by Jesus' words here, though. Anger in itself is something that happens to us. It’s a basic human trait.

I would go so far, that our capacity for anger even reflects the image of God in which every human being is created. Even God gets angry. Remember that Jesus overturned the tables of the extortionists in the Temple, enraged by their exploitation of God’s house of prayer and of God’s people. 

The New Testament book of Ephesians tells us, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”

In other words, don’t allow your anger to cause you to dehumanize the person at whom you’re mad and always seek reconciliation. Otherwise, we will have committed murder without raising a fist.

Slip down to verse 27 in our Gospel lesson, please. Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

As in the earlier verses, Jesus is telling us to look at more than the letter of God’s commandments, so that we see and understand their intention.

God has created sexual intimacy for one man and one woman in a lifetime covenant known as marriage. Lust, like anger, isn’t a bad thing in itself. In fact,  it’s the mechanism God invented to foster intimacy in marriage. But, irrespective of the popular romantic myths of our world, lust need not be in control of our behavior. No one should be able to say with a straight face, “I couldn’t help myself.”

Jesus says that we are to be in control of our impulses, not the other way around. In this, He echoes the words of God, when he told Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, “Sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Given weak human will and our inborn sinfulness, we know that this is just another way of telling us, place your life under God's control.

Please look now at verse 31 now. Jesus says, "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”

These are hard words. They were even harder in Jesus’ day. In that society, a man might come home and find a burnt dinner or no dinner and feel justified in divorcing his wife on the spot. Divorce was even more common then than it is today.

But however hard it is for us to hear, here again, Jesus is pointing us to something deeper than the letter of the law.

Ancient Jews thought that a person must be married. God’s kingdom only grew when couples had children. Singleness and barrenness were regarded as curses from God. But Jesus ushered in a more eternal understanding of God’s kingdom. The Church truly grows not through the birth rate, but when people hear Christ’s call to repent and come to believe in Him.

Marriage isn’t a necessity for Christians. But if we do feel called to be married, Jesus says that it’s to be undertaken with seriousness.

Of course, we know of tragic situations in which divorce becomes the only option. Situations of abuse, adultery, or spiritual abandonment come to mind.

And I’ve never known a spiritually healthy person who had been through a divorce who couldn’t also enumerate some things they brought to their former marriage that contributed to its demise, even if what they contributed was little more than being naive.

One of the great errors we've made in the history of the Church is to hold up some sins as more horrible or more worthy of condemnation and censure than others. God doesn't see things that way! God understands and God can forgive our relational sins, just as He understands and can forgive all our sins.

The Bible says that God remembers that we are dust, created beings filled with frailty and sin. But, in this teaching on divorce, as in today’s entire Gospel lesson, Jesus commands us to take the call to love our neighbors—even the neighbors with whom we have shared a marital bed—with utmost seriousness and respect.

Look now to verse 33. Jesus says, "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all...[please slip down to verse 37] Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

And really, these final verses from our lesson, with their call to unswerving authenticity and openness, will serve as a good summary of everything that Jesus has been telling us today.

Remember that these words come to us as part of his Sermon on the Mount. It was directed not so much to the crowds who thronged around Jesus, but to His disciples, people like us, who seek to follow Jesus.

In it, Jesus is telling us about what it means to live in His kingdom here and now. We are to be authentic in our openness to Him and to others. This sermon explains the radical ethic of a people who know that they cannot keep God’s commands by their own strength or resolve, yet know that God is implacable in His demand that we keep those commands.

But we don’t despair! We come as imperfect sinners to a gracious God committed to healing our every ill and, if we will be honest about who we are and who we are not with Him, will help us to become the people He calls us to be.

At another point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says that it will be harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples are befuddled. They think that wealth is a sign of blessing from God. “Who then can enter the kingdom?” they ask. “With people, it’s impossible; but with God all things are possible,” Jesus says.

A committed Christian aspires to live with the kind of inner authenticity and commitment to love of God and of neighbor that Jesus describes in today’s Gospel lesson. But the point is that none of us will ever live like this if, like the Pharisees, we strive to do so in our own power.

Jesus has fulfilled God’s implacable law for us.

Jesus’ call and command is to simply, day in and day out, surrender to Him.

This is what He means when He says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus’ kingdom has come. He died and rose to make it so.

Surrender to Christ honestly and you will do the impossible: You will be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven in the midst of this world.

The love of God will live in you and, even in a world of conflicts and challenges, you will be right with God, right with your neighbor, at peace with yourself, filled with the very life of God Himself. Amen