Sunday September 1, 2024 (Pastor Ungemach)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, my brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

I invite you to turn back with me again to the lesson from Romans for our looking in detail today.

What then shall we say?

That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness but obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith,

but the people of Israel who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal?

Why not?

Because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works.

They stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written.

See, I lay a stone, I lay a Zion, a stone that causes people to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.

And the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.

Brothers and sisters,

My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved,

for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God,

but their zeal is not based on knowledge, since they did not know the righteousness of God

and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

Christ is the culmination of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

The word.

Over the years, I have taught world religion content to people of all different generations, many different times.

I've also spent a significant amount of time in my life observing and noting how religion impacts life on a daily basis

in the immediate world in which I live and in general across the world.

But I've also observed, certainly, that there are many people

who do their very best to live their life completely free from religion as human beings present it to others.

What they fail to understand,

is that every single one of us has a soul.

And at the center of that soul is a chasm that only the true God can fill.

And so,

As a result, there really is no such thing

as any human being that has no religion.

Everybody believes something.

Even the nihilist,

the person who believes that there is nothing supernatural,

and when the end of life comes,

there is absolutely nothing out there

beyond this life.

He has a religion, whether he wants to admit it or not.

And what most people also never come to understand

until they study it

is that every single other pursuit of religion

in action, philosophy, whatever,

that is not defined by Judeo-Christian scriptures.

That are not a scripturally based Christianity

that focuses on Christ alone for forgiveness and salvation.

Every other pursuit of human religion

can fall into a singular category.

And that category would be of human making.

There are so many people in the world

who admire others who are spiritual,

at least more spiritual than they are.

But just being spiritual,

also simply acknowledges

that we all have a soul or spirit

that desires and deserves our attention and our nurturing.

But all spirituality

that does not connect to

and then find its total guidance from

the creator of all things

will always and only

be humanized,

and we will only be human.

And so,

there are so many human answers

to elements of our existence

that only the God who had created us

can actually point to and give true answers.

So,

in every

single human pursuit of philosophy,

religion,

whatever you want to term it,

everything that human beings come up with will always follow that path.

follow the path to eventually coming to the same clearing

in the foggy woods of our minds, the same outcome.

Apart from a Christianity defined solely by Scripture,

every other human pursuit of religion

eventually does become a pursuit of the Creator himself.

But the limitations of the human mind in that pursuit

will always, without fail,

every single time produce a philosophy or an activity

that relies on human beings somehow making God happy,

having the responsibility for moving the needle with God.

And I find it fascinating.

As the words of our verses today,

especially the Gospel lesson, revealed to us

that Jesus, during his time on this earth,

defining and...

revealing who the true God is,

spent so much time in,

you could call it conversational verbal combat

with religious teachers.

The generation of teachers that was presenting

the material for most of the Israelites,

those living in Jerusalem and surrounding geographical areas

at the time of Jesus,

were people who knew the Scriptures.

In fact, they studied them thoroughly.

They likely knew...

knew them better from front to end

than any other generation

that has become...

come before or since.

But even though they had God's Word,

when you look closely at what they were teaching,

they had still built

a human-centered religious tradition and practice.

While they knew,

and they acknowledged the true God,

they still led people

far away from God.

They led people farther away from God eventually

by their teaching.

By anybody who would be teaching something

that we would label as God-less.

Jesus made clear confession on many occasions

of just how wrong-headed they were.

That they were looking in the right place,

but coming to all the wrong conclusions.

They interpreted every word of God

as pointing at us humans.

They insisted on putting the onus on us

in regard to making God happy,

earning God's pleasure.

Jesus called all of that nonsense.

He referred to it as burdens

that human beings not only couldn't carry,

but were never meant to carry

and not capable of ever carrying.

And that is the conversation

that's actually going on in these verses

as the Apostle Paul engages us today

at the end of Romans 9

and the beginning of Romans 10.

Paul takes it up

to make a very clear and profound point.

He's asking the question,

how is it that all kinds of Gentile believers

who first came to know God's word,

the gospel,

pointing to Jesus Christ

through his journeys through their areas,

never once knew first the commandments

or any of the laws of God

and didn't try to keep anything

to make God happy,

and yet they all now stood righteous before God

and welcome in God's sight,

certain of heaven with God forever.

And yet,

that Hebrew nation that had produced Paul

had absolutely no freedom from their sins

and felt an overwhelming and enduring obligation

of obedience to God

that clearly permeated every element

of their lives and their culture.

Paul's point,

really could be focused on every single human being

that has ever pursued religion

through the lens of making God happy.

Every single person who pursues religion

apart from what God reveals

in the heart of his word,

throughout its compilation,

from the very first

words produced by Moses

to the very last words

written by the Apostle John.

If you aren't finding freedom,

forgiveness,

and the promise of eternal life

apart from everything that

and anything you can do,

you've missed the purpose

of God having them recorded for you

in the first place.

And you and I have our own

very practical experiences

in our lives

of this concept

through the relationships

that we've experienced

that set this in

this contrast in bold relief.

I am certain

that every single one of us

has encountered

in our journey of life

individuals

that made us feel as though

they were morally superior to us

by the way they lived their lives.

They're honest.

They are selfless and sacrificial.

They're chaste regarding their sexuality.

They are patient and compassionate.

They basically hit all the marks

in such a way that

everyone who knows them

sooner or later

in their experience with them

has the thought, eventually,

this might actually be

the best human being

I have ever met.

But,

if you are like me,

most of the people

you encounter in that category

do not believe

that their only hope

of eternal life with God

of being saved for eternal life

is through Jesus Christ

living and dying and rising

to pay for every last one of their sins.

No.

Most of these people

who are amazing at their ability

to live moral lives

believe that their stellar behavior

is playing some role

or even a significant role

in their being acceptable

in God's sight

to live with Him forever.

And it's very important to understand

that anyone who believes that,

even in the slightest,

should never actually

believe themselves to be

or present themselves to be

a Christian.

That's because

they've looked Christ directly in the eye

and told Him that

what He has done for them

in living and dying on the cross,

overcoming every temptation

and completely devoting Himself

to obedience to God

throughout an entire lifetime,

that wasn't good enough.

That they must

understand their salvation as equation

to which they have to add their own obedience

and their own stellar living

in order to add enough

of what's necessary before God.

To make themselves righteous before God.

And that is exactly what Paul is referring to here

when he quotes the Psalms

and refers to them eternally

stumbling,

those who believe that Christ is not enough,

stumbling over Christ,

the cornerstone of saving Christian faith.

The letter to the Romans is a masterclass

on the concept of righteousness,

God's gift of righteousness.

And Romans is consistent

to the letter with every other one of Paul's letters

that he wrote

and to all of the rest of the New Testament writers

teaching on this topic.

And it certainly also agrees

with every single place that Jesus

speaks in the Gospels about this concept.

It's clear that anyone

who teaches anything other than righteousness

that God requires for salvation,

being only and always able

to receive a gift from God

is establishing their own righteousness.

Paul labels it exactly that right here

and says they lose the gift of righteousness

that God intends for every human sinner

to have in and through Christ

by actually stumbling over Christ

instead of standing on Christ alone

in hope of forgiveness and salvation.

Any human being

being good

is truly a fable.

And it is exceptionally hard for us to get that

through our heads.

No one is righteous before God

apart from Christ.

Not one.

And our struggle to admit that

also becomes the struggle

to find the peace that God intends for us

to know and live in

that might calm

and free

our souls.

From burdens God had never intended us to carry.

He's carried them all for us.

So don't let anyone ever burden you

with your need to establish your own righteousness.

Don't ever let that happen.

Don't let them create rules

that they label for you

religious necessities

that you have to live by

in order to be saved.

God clearly tells you in His word

that those rules don't exist.

God gives us rules

and consistently focuses on the rules

but for only three reasons.

None of which is ever about us

earning anything from God.

Not His pleasure.

No favors.

Nothing.

So let's take a trip for a moment

back to the catechism of our youth

maybe more recently than that

to remind ourselves of why God

gave us any rules in the first place.

The first use of the rules

the reason for it

is to keep us

from completely devastating each other

as human beings.

On our own, apart from a

universal, timeless, objective rule

like the Ten Commandments.

The human race would have finished itself off long ago.

The Lutheran catechism calls this reason

for rules from God

the curb

or the barrier use of God's law

to keep us generally in line

as we live our lives with each other.

It's the second reason that God focuses

us on the rules.

That shows us how each of us

and how often we have completely

broken those rules.

Some of us break some of them

more often than others

and others of us

we break the others more often

but we all break the rules

on a daily basis.

Which leads to this enormous

heap of sin.

And also reminds us

that we have to keep in our minds always

that God requires a perfection

a flawlessness in the keeping

of every one of his laws

every thought, every word

every moment of our lives

everything that we do

if we are hoping that it is obedience

that's going to make us right with God.

And that is why the catechism

terms this reason for God

focusing us on the rules

as a mirror.

It shows us who we really are.

Leaves us absolutely no pretense

about establishing our own righteousness.

And God's final reason for rules

is only of value after we have

come to know and believe Jesus

is our savior correctly

the only source of righteousness

before God.

Once we've got all of that straight

and understand how completely Christ's

righteousness covers us

and frees us from all of our sins

then we have a desire

a rightful desire to live for God

and thankfulness

as much as we

and as often as we can.

His rules give us clarity

as to how we can live our lives

in ways that

keep us from doing things

that make God angry with us.

That really is the essence

of the Christian life.

You'll hear it all over the place

and people will point you to it

but don't listen to them.

That idea that you keep the rules

and you make God happy

that's never going to work.

It's the other way around.

Someone who is clear on Christ's forgiveness

clear on the gift of righteousness

that it covers them

and gives them a completely new identity

their effort is all about

looking at God's rules

as a way of living

that keep you from doing

the knuckle-headed things

that make God angry with you.

You don't want to make God angry.

You know He's already happy with you.

Jesus made God happy with you long ago.

Now it's about

never showing God that you're intentionally sinning

with a lack of concern at all

for what He says is right or wrong

in regard to your relationship with Him

or your relationship with anyone else

because you no longer desire

to make God angry with you.

Because you love Him

for loving you so unconditionally.

It's clear

why Paul hopes that you and I

in reading these words

will be warned and will stop

stumbling over

God's gift of righteousness.

Paul wants us to know

the freedom

the peace, the hope that Christ intends for us.

For us to live every day

because of that gift.

So let everyone else

enslave themselves

as Paul says it

establishing their own

righteousness before God.

You, Christian,

don't fall over

that stumbling stone

again and again.

You know that you are

righteous with God.

You are

you are welcome

in His sight to live with Him forever.

And

you go live that way

as a witness.

You live that way as a witness

to every other person who believes

they're somehow being good

and earning their way to God

especially those

who put themselves in front of you as Christians

but who are

adding their obedience

as a way that makes them

better in God's eyes

and hopefully

better in your eyes as well

because every one of them

needs to understand

that none of us is earning anything from God

by being good.

You witness to them

what joy and freedom look like

and sound like

when you let God define

your religion for you.

After all

isn't

His opinion what everyone

who is searching for religion

is actually looking for in the first place?

Amen.

Now grow in the grace and knowledge

of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

to Him be the glory

both now and forever.

Amen.