Midweek Advent II The grace of God has appeared, bringing AND training!
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! Last week, God declared that His “hope of eternal life” gets “manifested… through preaching” (Titus 1:2-3). Tonight God speaks in a very similar way, declaring that “the grace of God has appeared.” (“Manifested” and “appeared” are very similar Words.) “The grace of God has appeared.” These Words mean that God miraculously manifests, reveals, and makes plain His grace toward you, in the same way He manifests to you His “hope of eternal life,” as you heard last week. Listen again to the two things God does for you because His grace has appeared: “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people and training us…” Dear Christian friends, In order to help people understand certain passages from God’s Bible, Martin Luther talked about two totally different kinds of righteousness, or holiness, which God has given to you through Christ and His Word. • The first kind of righteousness is the righteousness that Christ Jesus has laid upon you like a blanket, covering your sin and allowing you to stand before God without fear. This righteousness is not a righteousness or holiness that is inside of you, but it is the righteousness and holiness that God has wrapped around you—like bacon around a Little Smoky. • The second kind of righteousness deals not with God, but with your neighbor. This second kind of righteousness has to do with the way we live our everyday lives: the choices we make, the actions we undertake, and the words we speak. You might call this a “civil righteousness” or a “public holiness,” if you will. The second kind of righteousness does not give you any status or benefit before God. (The first kind of righteousness—that is, the righteousness of Christ laid upon you like a blanket—takes care of that.) The second kind of righteousness gives you certain benefits with regard to your neighbor. The second kind of righteousness is the stuff you build your reputation upon. For example, o If you treat your neighbor kindly and generously, he will not feel the urge to spit whenever he hears your name. o If you pay your taxes and obey the laws of the land, your government will consider you a good and upright citizen—and you will have nothing to fear. As God says in Romans 13, “Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do good, and you will receive his approval” (Romans 13:3). In tonight’s reading, God speaks about two good things that He does for you, now that His grace has appeared. The two gifts that result from the appearance of God’s grace are two different kinds of righteousness! For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. • The Words “bringing salvation for all people” describe the first kind of righteousness—Bacon-Wrapped-Around-a-Little-Smoky Righteousness—that God has given to you! This is the righteousness of Christ that covers you, by which all your sins are now forgiven. This is the same righteousness of Christ that God delivered and made personally certain for you through Baptism; the very same righteousness that God confirms and assures to you through preaching and through Holy Communion; the righteousness to which you now cling by faith. The Words “bringing salvation for all people” indicate that the first kind of righteousness is for everyone everywhere—even though many people ignore or refuse or stomp upon this righteousness, preferring instead their own unrighteousness (Romans 1:18, 2:8, 2 Peter 2:15). “The grace of God has appeared” and that grace is Christ Jesus Himself, who is the salvation of the entire world. “The grace of God brings salvation for all people” and God has wonderfully, miraculously enlivened you to that salvation by giving you your Baptism. • The first righteousness is not the only gift God gave to you when His “grace appeared”! God has a second kind of righteousness for you, and this second kind of righteousness is also yours by the miraculous power of His grace. “For the grace of God has appeared … training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.” With these Words, God is telling you that His grace will patiently, miraculously produce in you that second kind of righteousness, which helps you to treat your neighbor decently, to curb your poisonous tongue, and to avoid living as if you had no God. The Word “training” is a very sweet and lovely Word from God! This Word speaks about the way a parent patiently and lovingly would train a beloved child: • Think of the way a mother might train her son to walk. The little boy’s balance is not yet developed and his legs are not yet ready to support his weight, so momma holds her son’s hands in her own. Momma walks along and holds the boy up while he practices his walking. That is what God likewise does for us when His grace trains us in the second kind of righteousness. “For the grace of God has appeared … training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.” Just as a mother attentively and painstakingly walks with her toddler child, so God’s grace likewise attends to us, training us to live decent outward lives among our neighbors. • Think of the way a father might likewise teach his daughter to catch a fish. Most of the time, young children slap the water with their fishing pole, tangle the line, and constantly threaten their father’s safety with fishhooks whipping through the air. What does dad do? He patiently repeats himself. He continually sets the line straight for his child. He lets his little girl practice and practice and practice until a sunfish accidentally lands in the boat. In a comparable way, “grace of God has appeared…training us… to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Things are not going to work out perfectly for you—no more than a fishing trip with an adolescent child ever works out too well. But God is patient with us. God is a good and gentle Father and a forbearing Elder Brother. In this second form of righteousness God has given to us—the righteousness that has to do with the way we live our lives and treat our neighbor—God has all the time in the world to help us get it right. By His grace and by His patience—miraculously given to us through His Word—we eventually learn how to minimize the damage we might to do each other. Both kinds of righteousness come completely and entirely from God! Both kinds of righteousness redound to His praise and glory. God have even gone so far as to keep these two kinds of righteousness separate and distinct for us, so that our forgiveness and life might not be destroyed by the foolish things we do. Praise be to God! God goes on to explain in tonight’s reading that, not only does His grace bring us salvation and train us to live decently, but His grace also allows us to rest secure—“waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us.” _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons