ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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Your salvation rests in Christ and what He has done. Not in what you do. Christ died and rose from the dead, He died for you, His Gospel is preached to you, that you might hear and believe (Romans 10:17), and you are baptized that you have died in Christ, been buried with Christ, and are alive again in Christ (Colossians 2:12-13)--you have been born again by God's grace (John 3:5).
Your sins are forgiven.
You belong to Jesus Christ.
You have peace with God.
You are reconciled to God.
You are freely justified by His grace.
Now, in the freedom of God's mercy you are called and invited to the life of Christian discipleship, of loving your neighbor. How can you love your neighbor? There are many ways, but first think about your own vocations in life--your relationships with others, your family, friends, and immediate neighbors. If we are fathers, how can we be loving fathers? If we are mothers, how can we be loving mothers? If we are children, how can we be loving children? If we are siblings, how can we be loving siblings? How can we love our friends, how can we love others in our vocations of friendship.
This is not about you "getting saved", but rather about what it means to live out our salvation in the midst of the world.
I want to introduce you to two Latin terms that are used in my own theological tradition (Lutheran), they are Coram Deo, which translates to "Before God", and Coram Mundus, which means "Before the world", before other human beings.
There is Righteousness Coram Deo, the righteousness before God; this is the free gift of righteousness we have been given by God's grace, through faith. We are righteous--justified--before God not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of Christ's work, which is given to us as a free gift by the grace of God, through faith--and faith itself is a gift from God, not ourselves. So we read in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is God's gift; not of effort, lest anyone should boast." We are righteous before God solely by the righteousness of Jesus which is ours as a gift, and so before God we stand righteous, justified, and holy solely by what we have received as a pure gift, entirely apart from all of our works, efforts, and attempts to be good.
We do not have to try to impress God with our works, because God has already accomplished the only work that matters--He sent Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, to save you. It is not about what you can do for God, but what God has already done for you. God saves you, God loves you, God rescues and redeems you. God comes down for you.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to lay down His life as a ransom for many."
There is also Righteousness Coram Mundus, the righteousness before our fellow human beings and the world. This is what taking up our cross as disciples of Jesus is about. It's not about being "righteous" for God, but being righteous for our neighbor. And what does it mean to be righteous for our neighbor? It means that we love our neighbor as ourselves. That we treat others as we would be treated. That we imitate Jesus in His own self-giving love to others, by giving ourselves away also, in love, for others. This is what the Apostle Paul means in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." This is what it means to be loving spouses, loving parents, loving children, loving siblings, and what it means to love the least of these. If we are physicians, it means loving our patients; if we are lawyers or judges, it means loving and promoting true justice for victims. If we are ditch diggers, it means loving others as ditch diggers. If we work a 9-5 office job, it means loving your co-workers.
If it is within our means to provide, then we can give selflessly and generously. I don't have the financial means of donating huge swaths of wealth to charitable causes. But if I see someone who is hungry, I can still buy them a meal. If I see a man that is cold, I can offer a jacket. I can still treat my friends to lunch, I can still sit and listen when someone needs an ear to listen to them.
It's not about performing wonders, it's about caring about other people. The smallest acts of compassion are still good, because they benefit our neighbor. That is what it means to do good works in faith. It does not mean doing a work and attaching a little cross to it because God will be impressed; it means loving our neighbor.
Before God you have the Gospel, with all its promises, you belong to God and God has justified you freely in Jesus Christ; and you can cleave to this truth with full confidence because God has given you the external, visible reminders of this: You can read His word in the Scriptures, you have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit as a Christian, you receive the Lord's broken body and shed blood in and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion. All of this points you to Christ and what Christ has done for you, these are His gifts, the signs and seals of His love for you. Don't dismiss your baptism, but rejoice in your baptism, because Christ says that whoever is born of water and the Spirit is born anew from God (John 3:5). Rejoice in your baptism, because the Scriptures say that all who are baptized have been clothed with Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:27). Receive the gifts of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper with humility and thanksgiving, because Jesus says, "This is My body broken for you" and "This is My blood of the new covenant", and so let us with confidence believe that Christ gives Himself to us, right here, in these meager emblems of bread and wine. It is for you.
With that foundation of faith, we are invited to live lives of faith and love. Love flowing from a thankful, forgiven heart. That's what discipleship is about, it's not about climbing up a ladder of moral perfection that we will never attain in this life; it is about loving our neighbor as ourselves, it is bout caring for the least of these, it is about doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.
St. Augustine once said, "Love, and do what you will." Meaning that rather than fretting about our own moral aptitude we should instead just love. If we love, the other things will fall into place. Because the whole point of God's Law is that we love. St. Paul writes in Galatians 5:14 that the entire Law of God is summed up in one statement: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." It's not about you or me doing X, Y, and Z for God; it's about what God has done for us in Jesus, and in Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, granting us the grace and mercy to love all God's creatures.
Will we love others perfectly? No, we won't.
Will we mess up, and mess up a lot? Yes, we will.
That is why the Scriptures say, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9), that is why the Church preaches repentance, it's why we are invited to confess our sins. Called to confess our sins. Because we are sinners. But where sin abounds, says St. Paul, grace super-abounds. God's grace is always bigger than our sin, God's mercy is always stronger than our trespasses. The Gospel is bigger than every sin of every person who has ever, or will ever exist. Christ died for all. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world.
So, when you sin, do not despair--but confess you are a sinner, and hear God's word to you: "You are forgiven". In Christ you are forgiven.
Believe the Gospel.
Love your neighbor.
-CryptoLutheran
Your sins are forgiven.
You belong to Jesus Christ.
You have peace with God.
You are reconciled to God.
You are freely justified by His grace.
Now, in the freedom of God's mercy you are called and invited to the life of Christian discipleship, of loving your neighbor. How can you love your neighbor? There are many ways, but first think about your own vocations in life--your relationships with others, your family, friends, and immediate neighbors. If we are fathers, how can we be loving fathers? If we are mothers, how can we be loving mothers? If we are children, how can we be loving children? If we are siblings, how can we be loving siblings? How can we love our friends, how can we love others in our vocations of friendship.
This is not about you "getting saved", but rather about what it means to live out our salvation in the midst of the world.
I want to introduce you to two Latin terms that are used in my own theological tradition (Lutheran), they are Coram Deo, which translates to "Before God", and Coram Mundus, which means "Before the world", before other human beings.
There is Righteousness Coram Deo, the righteousness before God; this is the free gift of righteousness we have been given by God's grace, through faith. We are righteous--justified--before God not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of Christ's work, which is given to us as a free gift by the grace of God, through faith--and faith itself is a gift from God, not ourselves. So we read in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is God's gift; not of effort, lest anyone should boast." We are righteous before God solely by the righteousness of Jesus which is ours as a gift, and so before God we stand righteous, justified, and holy solely by what we have received as a pure gift, entirely apart from all of our works, efforts, and attempts to be good.
We do not have to try to impress God with our works, because God has already accomplished the only work that matters--He sent Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, to save you. It is not about what you can do for God, but what God has already done for you. God saves you, God loves you, God rescues and redeems you. God comes down for you.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to lay down His life as a ransom for many."
There is also Righteousness Coram Mundus, the righteousness before our fellow human beings and the world. This is what taking up our cross as disciples of Jesus is about. It's not about being "righteous" for God, but being righteous for our neighbor. And what does it mean to be righteous for our neighbor? It means that we love our neighbor as ourselves. That we treat others as we would be treated. That we imitate Jesus in His own self-giving love to others, by giving ourselves away also, in love, for others. This is what the Apostle Paul means in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." This is what it means to be loving spouses, loving parents, loving children, loving siblings, and what it means to love the least of these. If we are physicians, it means loving our patients; if we are lawyers or judges, it means loving and promoting true justice for victims. If we are ditch diggers, it means loving others as ditch diggers. If we work a 9-5 office job, it means loving your co-workers.
If it is within our means to provide, then we can give selflessly and generously. I don't have the financial means of donating huge swaths of wealth to charitable causes. But if I see someone who is hungry, I can still buy them a meal. If I see a man that is cold, I can offer a jacket. I can still treat my friends to lunch, I can still sit and listen when someone needs an ear to listen to them.
It's not about performing wonders, it's about caring about other people. The smallest acts of compassion are still good, because they benefit our neighbor. That is what it means to do good works in faith. It does not mean doing a work and attaching a little cross to it because God will be impressed; it means loving our neighbor.
Before God you have the Gospel, with all its promises, you belong to God and God has justified you freely in Jesus Christ; and you can cleave to this truth with full confidence because God has given you the external, visible reminders of this: You can read His word in the Scriptures, you have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit as a Christian, you receive the Lord's broken body and shed blood in and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion. All of this points you to Christ and what Christ has done for you, these are His gifts, the signs and seals of His love for you. Don't dismiss your baptism, but rejoice in your baptism, because Christ says that whoever is born of water and the Spirit is born anew from God (John 3:5). Rejoice in your baptism, because the Scriptures say that all who are baptized have been clothed with Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:27). Receive the gifts of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper with humility and thanksgiving, because Jesus says, "This is My body broken for you" and "This is My blood of the new covenant", and so let us with confidence believe that Christ gives Himself to us, right here, in these meager emblems of bread and wine. It is for you.
With that foundation of faith, we are invited to live lives of faith and love. Love flowing from a thankful, forgiven heart. That's what discipleship is about, it's not about climbing up a ladder of moral perfection that we will never attain in this life; it is about loving our neighbor as ourselves, it is bout caring for the least of these, it is about doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.
St. Augustine once said, "Love, and do what you will." Meaning that rather than fretting about our own moral aptitude we should instead just love. If we love, the other things will fall into place. Because the whole point of God's Law is that we love. St. Paul writes in Galatians 5:14 that the entire Law of God is summed up in one statement: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." It's not about you or me doing X, Y, and Z for God; it's about what God has done for us in Jesus, and in Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, granting us the grace and mercy to love all God's creatures.
Will we love others perfectly? No, we won't.
Will we mess up, and mess up a lot? Yes, we will.
That is why the Scriptures say, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9), that is why the Church preaches repentance, it's why we are invited to confess our sins. Called to confess our sins. Because we are sinners. But where sin abounds, says St. Paul, grace super-abounds. God's grace is always bigger than our sin, God's mercy is always stronger than our trespasses. The Gospel is bigger than every sin of every person who has ever, or will ever exist. Christ died for all. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world.
So, when you sin, do not despair--but confess you are a sinner, and hear God's word to you: "You are forgiven". In Christ you are forgiven.
Believe the Gospel.
Love your neighbor.
-CryptoLutheran
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