“Independence from Sin”

Ezekiel 2:1-5

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Mark 6:1-13

6th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ.

From 2nd Corinthians, chapter 12, verses 9-10: “The Lord said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore (Paul said) I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Bridge

Oppressed by taxation without representation, people took up arms and fought to do what they could to gain independence from British governance. What they could do, they did, making us a representative nation free from that kind of tyranny because of those efforts … people graced us that gift.

There are, now (and will continue to be in the future) other tyranny’s which people will have to decide what to do with. With those, we’ve got the ability to do what we humanly can.

And we have an example of the willingness of some (a couple of hundred years ago) to do what they could … that (especially this weekend) is something that we have to honor. We, now, enjoy a particular independence won by folks exerting effort and making sacrifices … and, for that (and all other liberating-noble work), we have God as well as certain people to thank.

Text

Paul didn’t take credit for the massively-liberating work that he’d done. Part of his point in our Epistle was that, if he’d wanted to, he could have demanded the respect that (for instance) Christians in Corinth owed him. He’d given them the Gospel (he’d brought them salvation) … and He was (of all the apostles) the one most-notably-successful in doing that. Of all human efforts to do something eternal, Paul ranks only behind God’s-Son-having-become-human in bringing Heaven to where Hell was.

Today we stand where Hell is. Maybe it doesn’t look enough like that with trees blooming, grass green, and family prospering, but wherever sin is, there, also, is Hell unless sorrow-for-it allows the Gospel-assurance of divine forgiveness to bring life and salvation upon repentance. But things that we don’t call sin that are, Jesus’ blood doesn’t forgive … therein lies the problem because sufficient grace is always bestowed upon confessed sin. Upon an acknowledgement of any temptations that we’ve-given-into, cleansing (absolute cleansing) happens … because Jesus sacrificed, we can count-on what He made available to sufficiently offer forgiveness for our sin. “Independence from Sin” can be enjoyed if we don’t cling to them. Sufficient grace (undeserved favor) is fully-given to anyone struggling-with and repenting-of sin. It’s, just, not given to those lying to themselves, demanding grace from God no matter what temptations they think are OK to give-into.

Paul dealt the arrogant and self-determined … confessed it in himself, even … but chose to submit to God from all the choices he had, and called others to make that same decision. See, Corinth was a city very much like our cities. Its influences resembled that of our nation’s … and it did so to an extreme that other cities Paul dealt with didn’t (at least others weren’t as documented). Sexual ventures that entertained the whims of individuals reigned as the gods people served … and that was done just as blatantly as choices those directions displace God now. Paul talked about all the abominations outside of God’s Kingdom in his first letter (1st Corinthians 6:9 ought to be an eye-opener to many). At the end of 2nd Corinthians, Paul, just, finishes up his commentary, and begs people to serve not sin but, rather, the sufficiency of the Lord God (and He’s not silent on what that service of, uniquely, Him is).

Maybe that’s where His Words speak these days: begging people to not make choices selfishly-away from the sufficiency of God. The great apostle Paul, even, didn’t mind begging that way. He knew himself as a “Chief of Sinners” and, so, begged for his sins. He begged, also, for the independence from sinfulness of others, recognizing that Christ’s power demonstrates itself everywhere repentance is. Even with all the things Paul could have humanly boasted about, what he did was not exercise his privilege … knowing and living under (under the sufficiency of) God’s Word and His Christ.

We, of course, have our own sins to beg for (they are, always, great because of things that we do, think, and, even, don’t do which we should). We must beg, in repentance, for all of our sins (recognized and not), and if you love me (and I’m not recognizing sin in me), you’d better love me by helping me recognize blind spots, or else you’re not, really, loving me. Lying or leaving me to live in sin would be hating me, and I don’t think any of you hate me.

Begging for ourselves is appropriate (necessary, even), and absolution is only fully offered when we’re not hanging onto things we shouldn’t be … and I (as your pastor) assume that you’re giving all of your sin to the Lord’s grace when I announce forgiveness upon your confession. But begging, also, for the repentance of other sinners is something we must do. If we don’t, we let them go to be, potentially, lost forever. Sinners refusing to beg for themselves (giving-over everything), we must charge to do so (turning it all over to God). Like Paul, we’ve got the Gospel to offer that gives “Independence from Sin” when confessed. That’s what God gave to us who are willing to speak of it for those who would hear it … it’s what can take sinners (like us and anyone) through all of our sins into every benefit of grace.

The “Independence from Sin” that we (or anyone) can have gets gained by, only, a with-everything dependence upon God’s sufficient grace (something delivered through every sentence of His clear, and entirely-divine, Word).

We heard it, again, in our Old Testament lesson (Ezekiel 2) and (Mark 6) Gospel, as we have, there, two examples of God’s Word’s authority and power … and what happens when His entirely-divine Word gets delivered and, then, dealt with one way or another. In Ezekiel’s case, God told him to speak it (to say, “thus says the Lord”). If he’d kept silent, he would have been sinning by not doing what he should have; as he did, though, pass on what God said (even if that Word was ignored), the sin would be with the hearer.

Jesus taught … and what He said was God’s Word, certainly (both from His own authority as well as the authority that He’d brought from the Father). He delivered that Word (that same Word that we, also, have to deliver) … and Jesus faithfully delivered that divine Word to different ears (including to His family, friends, and neighbors in Nazareth) … and, even, His speaking of God’s Words weren’t always received. In Nazareth, it says, even Jesus couldn’t bring the results of its power because the Words weren’t accepted, so, even, He “marveled because of unbelief”. I imagine the Lord shaking His head and dusting off His feet as He left those people who wouldn’t listen, to take, then, powerfully-saving Words to other towns to offer them to.

500 years ago, Luther worried that God might, one day, leave his country behind. He wrote that he wondered if there’d come a time where the amount of blatant unbelief and disrespect in Germany would cause God to pull His Spirit away from that whole country (and we remember the time of Hitler and the Holocaust, wondering if that came from the effects of the country’s overall ignoring of God’s Word.

Application

Paul had great temptations to want things the way he wanted them … to change God’s Word to something, more, that he had in mind. He talked about how much he had to brag about and of how capable he was, and how much more he could be doing if it weren’t for a “thorn in his flesh” that limited his abilities to make everything exactly how he wanted it. We don’t know his limitation, or challenge, (what temptation, maybe, nagged him), but we know that he fought it because he wrote about it … and relied on God to help him overcome it.

All of us have, I know, unique “thorns in the flesh”. Each of us has a cross that the person sitting next to you doesn’t have … it’s different, one from another. For some, that may be temptations toward alcohol or drugs (maybe born inclined toward a dependence upon a substance that others aren’t as tempted by). Maybe some know that they’re especially driven and could be sinfully prideful if humility isn’t fought for. Some, maybe, are harder to satisfy than most, having trouble, even, satisfying themselves. Some get especially tempted toward inappropriate sexualities, and might, even, wish that they weren’t so-inclined.

Jesus told followers to pick up unique crosses (each one of us) and follow Him. He didn’t say “pick up someone else’s cross or His” (as if we could), but to “pick up what is our own”. We, each, have a unique cross / unique challenges, and a cross isn’t something, really, pleasant, but to be endured / to suffer-through (it’s the call to stay Holy and pure in-spite of any tendencies and temptations), and God gives us power through His Word to do that (if we care) … offering the faith it takes to be faithful.

His “sufficient grace” He gives us through His Word and Baptism and Supper … those deliver the “mighty works” Jesus offers. His “power is perfect when it rests upon us weak, repentant, sinners” and that’s how it does it and faith receives its promise: “sufficient grace”.

Sinners need that Grace of God. Some may not think they need it upon everything, but repentant sinners know they need it upon all things. Unbelief denies that; faith receives it.

Paul decided it this way: “What I will boast about is my weaknesses (which I admit, not leaving any out). I will leave it in God’s hands, being under His authority and not my own wishes. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities (and to add a few, unhealthy desires, tendencies, temptations, and, even, my own arrogance). For when I am weak, then I am strong because God’s grace makes me so.” ….

We have a lot to honor and be thankful-for to people who’d been willing to exert effort and sacrifice for benefits we enjoy. We’re independent from a particular tyranny because of what folks a couple of hundred years ago did. Jesus won “Independence from Sin” for anyone who repents of all-of-it … and He won it by His willingness to exert effort and sacrifice. For any of us (or anyone in this world), what we admit-to-in-sorrow as sin, the Heavenly Father forgives for His Son’s sake (for every confessed failure or weakness in us). God calls us to be honorable in whatever battle against the slavery of sin we have or see. We must confess all of our sins and speak and do what we humanly can to, actually, love others by charging them to gain independence from sin likewise. Some who listen (maybe now, but also, maybe, in the future) may enjoy the independence that Heaven awards because we nobly fought now as we could.

May this be so, in +Jesus’ name. Amen.