Mercy and Grace from the Beginning

 Read Genesis 45

Finally, after 9 chapters, Joseph’s brothers find out what happened to Joseph. They were dumbfounded, shocked, and in disbelief. 

Ain’t no way!

Yes, way.

Joseph could no longer contain himself.  He kicked all of the Egyptians out of the room and revealed himself to his brothers. That had to be a moment.  That had to be an emotional roller coaster ride compressed into a moment.

He’s alive!

We’re going to be slaves.

He’ll kill us!

This can’t be real.

This is real.

It’s him.

No, it can’t be him. Not with all of this power and authority and wealth.

Our brother is alive.

We’re dead men.

We have not even gotten to the part where they are going to have to tell their father.  What will he say after the story they had told him was revealed to be false? What will Israel say when he finds out that Joseph is alive?

What would he say if Joseph told him what we did to him? Maybe, Joseph will just have us all turned into slaves or killed and we won’t have to explain ourselves to our father.

What a mix of joy, anxiety, excitement, dread, amazement, and who knows what other emotions flowed into this confluence of thoughts and feelings.

Joseph was alive.  We sold him into slavery.  This can’t be good for us.

Now consider what Joseph had to say about this.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!  And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.  For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.  But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Joseph personalized this even more.

So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

Does anyone remember Flip Wilson?  The devil made me do it!

It sounds like Joseph was telling his brothers that God made you do this terrible thing.  That’s not exactly what Joseph was saying.

There was evil in the hearts of these 10 brothers, but God used it to accomplish his purpose.  Joseph was going to Egypt. Joseph would be the only person on the planet able to know what was coming and how to deal with it.  The 10 brothers were just part of the logistics.

You were just playing your part in this divinely orchestrated deliverance of Israel and his family, which would come to be the nation of Israel in Egypt.

Yes, the 10 brothers gave in to evil and should have felt remorse and regret and come to repentance, but Joseph told them that revenge would not come their way.  Joseph, who trusted God in all circumstances, had eyes to see what God had done and was doing through him, and as it turned out, through his brothers.

That doesn’t mean that Joseph enjoyed his time in the hole.  It doesn’t mean that his lifelong ambition was to be a slave.  It doesn’t mean that he had always hoped to do a bit in prison.

Prison would have been a chance to get a tat before the law said don’t get inked and the discussion about what that actually meant ensued. Prison was never on Joseph’s bucket list.

It means that through it all, he trusted God. Through it all, he grew where he was planted.  Through it all he bloomed where he was.  And through it all, he gained eyes to see his part of God’s plan. 

Joseph could have exacted revenge and nobody on the planet would have had anything to say about it. But Joseph saw that his suffering was nothing compared to the salvation he would bring to this part of the world.

Centuries later, the apostle Paul would remind us that our present suffering is nothing compared to what the Lord has in store for us and the glory that will be revealed in us.

Jesus told us to love our enemies.  When your own brothers sell you into slavery and an unknown future, they might just fall into the worst class of enemies.  They were your brothers but they did this to you.  How could you not hate them?

We are beginning to see what mercy and grace look like.  These 10 men deserved punishment.  Joseph could deliver punishment in any form or fashion he desired. No one would question him.

Instead, he delivered mercy and grace.  He did not hold his brother’s sins against them. In fact, in the worst time that the world had known since the flood, he would bless these brothers, his father, and everyone related to them.

We see mercy and grace at work in Joseph.  Those qualities could only come through God.  Human nature would have said, “This is your time now Joey boy.  Make them pay.”

Do you remember the Parable of the Lost Sheep?  The shepherd left 99 in the wilderness to search for the 1 that was lost and when he found him, he rejoiced like crazy.  That’s the first part of this story.

Then, Jesus then told those with ears to hear that there is more rejoicing in heaven over a single sinner who repents than there is over 99 who don’t need to. Okay, I’m sure that Jesus wouldn’t have ended his sentence in a preposition, but you understand the parable.

Joseph was rejoicing that his brothers who were lost to him—who had surely sinned against him—were with him again.  Yes, he had a special affinity for Benjamin, but his joy, his mercy, and his grace were for all.

We get a glimpse of our Divine Father in this encounter.

We have all been through some stuff, some suffering.

Death of a loved one.

Divorce.

Imprisonment.

Job loss.

Protracted unemployment.

Addiction.

Ridicule.

Abuse.

Isolation.

Bullying.

You might think that at least nobody was sold into slavery, but we have people who have sold themselves into slavery with significant debt.

We have all been through some stuff, but for those who believe and trust, we can be confident that God will use whatever we have been through for the good.

Knowing this, can we forgive those who wronged us.  Can be content that God will take everything that happens to us and use it for good?

Can we be content in the sovereignty of God that vengeance belongs to him alone?

Yes, what happened to us or those we love might have been unforgivable, but can we forgive?

It probably won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Joseph is our example.  In a series of stories that have bad decisions, deceit, and being downright dirty, we get this model of mercy and grace.

Joseph showed mercy and grace. He was going to bless his father’s family with the best land in Egypt. The Pharoah said, “Oh we can do better than that.”

There should have been no forgiveness for these 10 brothers, but God was at work here not only saving people with the storehouses of food that Joseph had put together but with this revelation of mercy and grace in Joseph.

We are reading the Old Testament but we are seeing mercy and grace.

We are going to wrap up Genesis in just a few weeks.  We will then do some seasonal messages.  In 2024, we begin a series that we are calling the Words of Jesus.  I know, some of you can’t wait to get there.

Words like mercy, grace, forgiveness, and love abound in the New Testament, but we should clearly see that mercy and grace have been there since the beginning.  We know and we worship a God of love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

God, whom we know best through Christ Jesus, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has always been a God of mercy and grace. We see those qualities manifested in Joseph.

Joseph went through so much that all traced back to his brothers selling him into slavery. Who could fault him for seeking vengeance, but he did not.

Joseph realized the sovereignty of God and if God’s plan required him to be sold into slavery and thrown into prison to get where he needed to be to save those God directed him to save, then so be it.

But beyond accepting and embracing God’s sovereignty, Joseph embraced God’s mercy and grace. Joseph practiced mercy and grace.

It’s one thing to post these words online.  It’s another to practice them.

If Joseph could do this long before anyone was talking about a Savior that we know as Jesus, what is our excuse?

We should be modern-day models of mercy and grace.

That means that we can’t park ourselves in the judgment seat.

We are not to be the ones sitting on the sidelines pointing fingers at the wrongdoing of others.

We are not building a clubhouse. We are building God’s house upon the solid foundation of Christ Jesus. There is no other foundation!

We are people of mercy and grace because we have received the mercy and grace of our Father in heaven through Christ Jesus his Son.

As we face this world which can inflict so much pain and suffering upon us and those around us, let us have eyes to see how we may live by mercy and grace.

Our mercy and grace should be for all. We can start at home, but here are a few places where we might start looking to apply them as well.

With those who are broken in spirit.

With those who are hurting and mourning.

With those who are not bold in the ways of the world.

With those who have forsaken the ways of the world and truly seek to live right by God.

With those who practice mercy with others.

Those who endure the process of truly trying to resolve conflicts.

Those who are persecuted.

These should sound familiar. If you need a place to start practicing mercy and grace, look in these places. The opportunities abound.

What did we learn from Joseph this week?  Let mercy and grace be the mainstay of your life.

As you go into the week ahead, let these two words abide in your hearts and minds this week.

Mercy.

Grace.

Amen.

Mercy

Read Psalm 51

We are going to spend a little time on the topic of mercy.  Mercy is a recurring theme in God’s word.  Mercy is a quality of God and a quality of his people.

If you follow Jesus, then you are called to be merciful.

So mercy is just another word for grace or forgiveness, right?

Sort of but not exactly.  Precise definitions are elusive, but let’s take a short at this.   Mercy is God not giving us what our sins deserve.  Mercy abates God’s punishment.

That mercy is rooted in forgiveness and grace.  It’s all about who God is and not what we did or did not do.

Grace extends God’s favor and blessings to us even though we don’t deserve them.  Mercy delivers us from judgment and grace extends God’s lovingkindness to us.  Neither which we deserve based on anything that we did or did not do.

Mercy, like grace and forgiveness, is about God’s divine heart.

David—a man after God’s own heart—had surrendered to his lust with Bathsheba.  That lust resulted in pregnancy and the sequel here is that David arranged for Bathsheba’s husband to get killed in battle.

Just when he thought he had put all of this in his past, Nathan who was both prophet and friend to David, showed the king what he had done.

When David realized just how far he had fallen, he was broken.  He had disqualified himself from living in God’s goodness, at least at first glance.  But in the course of his relationship with God, David learned that he was a God of mercy.

God’s desire was not punishment.  God was not looking for more sacrifices.  God did not want David walking around in ashes and sackcloth for the next 7 years.  God’s desire is mercy.  God is merciful.

So, David called out to God to have mercy on him.  In this request, David acknowledged his sin.  In fact, he said that he couldn’t get away from it.  It was always there right in front of him.

David’s request was to blot out his transgression, take his sin away, create in him a clean heart.  David knew how terrible his sin was but he also knew that it was not game over.

In verses 11 and 12 we see David seeking mercy and grace.

Do not cast me from your presence

    or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

That’s a bold request.  Head hung low in shame asking God not to punish him is one thing but to be so bold as to ask to have the joy of salvation and sustenance was another. 

To understand mercy, we must understand that God not only wants to forgive us but he also wants to bless us and pour his favor out upon us.

So why ask God for a half-measure of anything?  When we seek his mercy, follow David’s example and seek his blessing and favor.

What’s our part?  Repentance.  We must desire to turn away from and leave behind that which is not of God.  That doesn’t mean leave all of your worldly stuff at the pawnshop and get a receipt.  Leave it all behind.  You are not coming back for it.

We did this when we turned away from the world and professed Jesus as Lord.

We became a new creation.  I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me, but the old creation just won’t go away and if we are not diligent, it takes a shot at getting its old job back.

We are his disciples.  We are known by his love.  We press on towards the goal.  We are running a good race, and then we slow down or stop and take a breather in our race of faith and start focusing on others and what they are or are not doing and our eyes are no longer on Jesus.

It happened to Peter as he took a few steps on the water and then started focusing on the storm.  So much for walking on water.

That’s when that old creature can get its hooks in us, when we lose sight of where Jesus is leading us and start focusing on everyone else.

The disciples struggled with this.  They saw some people driving out demons in the name of Jesus and so they told them to stop.  Why?  They were not part of the group.

Jesus admonished them noting that they could not do this and the next moment become his enemies.  If they are doing this and not against us, then we are surely on the same team.

The disciples were not quite ready for what would happen after the death and resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Their tight-knit little group would launch similar events all over the known world. 

We do this too.  We stop running our race.  We stop following Jesus and we start judging other believers for how they respond to God’s grace.  Who am I to judge another man’s servant?

When this happens to us, let’s repent.  Let’s ask for God’s mercy.  Let’s ask to receive God’s blessings as we get back in the race.

We know that God doesn’t want to hear our excuses.  He wants to hear our confessions.  He doesn’t want our apologetics for our divisiveness.  He wants us in one accord in his love and mercy.  He wants to give us his mercy.  He wants us to know his heart.  He wants us to live in his favor.

But first comes mercy.  We have all fallen short of the glory of God.  That’s a familiar scripture most know from Romans, but understand that we all need mercy to rescue us from that fallen state.

The dictionary defines mercy as compassion or forgiveness given to someone who is within your power to punish.  Before we live in God’s favor, we need merciful forgiveness.

When we ask God for mercy, we must first repent.  It’s not, God forgive me so I have a clean slate and can do this sinful thing again.

God grants us mercy knowing full well that we will likely sin again, and soon.  It is our human condition.

God has always been merciful.  He has the absolute right to judge and condemn but his divine heart is one of love and we know that love in his mercy.

His mercy is so great that his own blood was given in sacrifice.  The mercy seat in the Old Testament was that place above the ark of the covenant—between the two golden cherubim—when God would appear in the Holy of Holies.   Once each year, the high priest would enter with the bull’s blood and atone for his own sins and those of the people.  Some translations read those that the people committed in ignorance.

But this was a foreshadowing of things to come. 

The blood of bulls could not give people a clear conscience.  The people had made their part of the prescribed sacrifice, but atonement was not complete.

Only by the blood of Jesus are we free of our sins.  Only by the mercy of God, can this atonement be for eternity.  Only in this New Covenant can we truly live.

All of this comes from God’s divine mercy.

When we truly examine our lives with eyes to see granted to us by the Holy Spirit, then we see that the difference between what we deserve and what we receive is mercy. 

I am going on record today saying that I am a big fan of mercy.  It is so intertwined with forgiveness and grace that we often see them as one, but know that it all began with God’s mercy.

As we move forward in our exploration of mercy, know with certainty that God created no one for the purpose of condemnation and eternal destruction.

As we move forward, know with certainty, that God knew we would fall short but that mercy not sacrifice was and is always his first choice.  External rituals—even though they came from his own directives—give way to mercy.

There was sacrifice, but God in his mercy and compassion, make this sacrifice himself.

I know that mercy and grace and forgiveness are tightly intertwined, but this week set your thoughts and prayers on God’s mercy. 

God is merciful.

Amen.

Full of Grace and Truth

Read John 1

And the word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.  The Greek word is σκηνόω (skay-no'-o).  You might think that you missed that part in the gospel.  You didn’t.  Words have changed over the past two thousand years and somewhat in translations.

The word became flesh and tabernacled among us.  You probably have not seen tabernacles used as a verb in most of your readings, but that’s what happened.

For the Christian, Jesus did more than pitch a tent.  He came to dwell with us as his Father dwelt in him.  It’s more than just claiming a camp site and making sure that your satellite television antennae is set up right.  It’s about intimacy between the Creator of the universe and us.  He is with us and within us.

We have been talking about truth for a few weeks and we come to this wonderful pericope about grace and truth.   The gospel author notes that Jesus came in glory that could only belong to the one and only Son of the God who sent him.

He came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  Grace and truth have a nice ring to them but in actuality may seem to be opposed to each other.

Let’s look at truth.

We know God is the Creator of all things.  He has the right to make the rules.  He has authority to reward and to punish.  He is eternal and not swayed by man’s thoughts about what is right. 

We miss the mark on a recurring basis.  Truth says that we deserve punishment.  We deserve punishment. 

Truth says that we do not have a passing grade.  Truth says that we did not live up to expectations and requirements.

Truth is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow.  Had Jesus come only in truth, our pucker factor might have been off the charts.

But he came from the Father full of grace and truth.  I have earned nothing as far as right standing with God goes, but he loves me more than I can comprehend. 

I have missed the mark so many times, but Jesus tells me that he took care of that.

John wrote that the law came through Moses but grace comes through Jesus Christ.  Both are from God and essential to our relationship with the Almighty. 

We know that we have all fallen short of the glory of God.  We know that.  I don’t know anyone here who thinks otherwise.  We have all fallen short, but that is not the end of the story.

In some cases, realizing that we missed the mark is truly our beginning. Having eyes to see that:   We can’t fix it.  We can’t mend it.  We can’t make it like it was.

But God can.  David, a man that sought after God perhaps more than others noted in the Old Testament, knew that he was broken.  He knew that he could not fix his own brokenness.

David had done many great things in the Lord’s name.  David was a warrior’s warrior.  David was a poet and musician.  David brought a broken kingdom together.  David had many accomplishments to his credit but he could not cleanse himself of his transgressions.

Sure, there were sacrifices required by the law but David pleaded with the Lord to create in him a clean heart.  Create in me a clean heart.

David knew the truth.  He had sinned against God and his fellow man.  He had lived in the favor of God and God had richly blessed him but now, he had thrown all of that away.  God had done so much for him; yet he gave in to his selfish nature.

But David had some insight that we could all learn from.  He sought to be made right again.  He pleaded with God, he petitioned God, to create in him a clean heart.

Truth said, “You blew it.  You threw it all away.”

Grace said, “Let’s move forward after I put you back together.”

Truth brings us to the cross.  Grace leads us to life.

Truth brings us to confession.  Grace says, I have already forgiven you.

Truth shows us our acts of omission.  Grace tells us, there is still time so long as it is called today.

Truth examines our history.  Grace leads us to eternity.

Both truth and grace came in one package.  The only human flesh to have lived in God’s heavenly presence who was in fact God in the flesh, came in grace and truth.

We love the grace part, but sometimes we avoid the truth. 

We live in a world of idolatry.  We don’t want to admit it, but we have more idols than Rome or Greece or Asia Minor had two thousand years ago.  

They come in the form of star athletes, our favorite teams, movie stars, and even in shows named America Idol and all of its spinoffs.  We adorn our homes and our cars with posters and stickers and license plates.

We covet like no other nation in no other time.  It’s not so much that our neighbor has something, it’s that the world has something and I want one.

God is seldom first.  We work him in after ourselves and our kids and the things we just have to have.

We often do not worship in Spirit and in Truth.  More and more, we look at our phones during worship.  Are we bored with this He is worthy stuff?

Sometimes it seems easier to throw some money at somebody’s problem instead of speaking the truth in love.  How many times do we forget that to come to salvation we first repented of our sin and then rejoiced in the good news.

I’m not going to go on.  We could be here a long time.  When you get home, look in the mirror and ask the man or woman in the mirror who is first in your life.  Do a fearless and searching inventory of your life.  Anyone who has been through a 12 Steps program knows this as step 4:  Conduct a searching and fearless moral inventory.

You don’t have to be an addict to conduct this inventory, but if we did a searching and fearless inventory instead of the surface level look we give ourselves day-to-day, what would we find?

And here is what I can say with confidence to every one of you.  God still loves you.  In spite of everything that truth revealed to you, grace has yet embraced you.

The mercy of God is more than we can fathom.

The love of God is more than we can comprehend.

The grace of God that we know in Christ Jesus goes far beyond any sin that the truth has revealed to us.  We need the truth to receive God’s grace.  If we do not have eyes to see that we have fallen short of the glory of God, why would anyone believe they need the grace of God.

The western world today is so afraid of offending someone that God’s truth has been glossed over if not outright set aside.  Why do we need grace if the world says that however we live is just fine?

There is a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes like this.

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?

Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.

We who seek to follow Christ must stand in and live in the truth of God every moment of every day.  We are not going to get everything right, but knowing God’s way and seeking it are essential to our well being.

Remember, God told his own people, I’m giving you these directives for your own good.  The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Christ Jesus.

We need to know where we stand with God.  The law helps, but the truth that came with Christ is what prepares us to receive his grace and continue to live in his grace.

The law without Christ was incomplete.  Jesus came to complete the law, not so that we could be condemned but so we could finally live.  Jesus completed the law.

Truth and grace came in one package.  His light shone in the darkness and the world did not comprehend it but that same dark world cannot overcome it.

We are a mess.  We who follow Christ know that we are a mess.  We have the truth.  We can’t fix our condition.

But the truth also introduces us to grace, favor from God that has always been there but which we could not see before the truth set us free.

God has never stopped loving us.  He will never stop loving us.  We are his and he wants to keep us close to him for all eternity.  Where we are weak, his strength is even more visible.

We are saved by grace.  To which everyone says, “Amen!”  But we already knew that.  Couldn’t you save this verse for Christmas.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Merry Christmas!

We know this but are we conversant in what we know.  Can we, without condemning another person, explain the truth to them, and lead them to the grace of God that we know in Christ Jesus?

Can we do that?

If we are following Jesus, we need to be people of truth and grace.  We need to help people understand that we all have fallen short of God’s glory.

We all have fallen short but he loves us anyway.  If we can’t speak the truth, why would people think they need Christ?  The world has convinced them otherwise.

Jesus showed us the glory of the Father.  He came in grace and truth.  We are to live in grace and truth.  We should not be afraid of the truth for it prepares us for God’s grace.

Again, you say, we know this.

So again, I say, share this.

This is our message that leads people to Christ.  Let us live as people not only of grace but of truth.

Amen.

I did not know what sin was...

Read Romans 7

It is good to be a disciple of the Lord.  It is good.

Paul has taken his readers on a journey to discipleship.  He began with knowing there is a God.  It was a simple thing.  “C’mon guys, look around you.  You know this didn’t ‘just happen’.”  There was and is a Creator God at work.  To deny this is to deny the intellect that your Creator placed in you.

Theological statement:  There is a God.  Duh!

The next part was a little tougher.  God had standards, and you didn’t hit the mark.  In fact, everyone missed the mark.  Some were given more instruction than others but nobody could hit the mark.  Everyone fell short.

On top of the fact that nobody had a passing grade, the learning curve was going the wrong way.  Nobody was catching on to doing things God’s way.  It was as if the entire creation was rebelling against God.

But while we were still rebelling against God and surely not doing things his way, God himself made a way for us to be right with him.  It cost him a lot.  God paid the price and made us right with him once again.

God did what we could not do on our own—put ourselves in good relationship with him, our Father, our Creator, our God.

Through Jesus, God did it all.  We are made right in God’s eyes and so it became time to live fully for God in response to his great love.

That brings us to chapter 7.  We have come here without words such as sin and transgression, atonement and grace, righteousness and salvation.  Some of you put those words in my rapid recap of the first six chapters.

We can let him get away with leaving out:

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

What shall we say then, shall we go on sinning so that grace shall abound even more?

Paul brought his readers not only to salvation but to discipleship and chapter 7 puts us squarely in the middle of discipleship.  Isn’t it great to live in response to God’s unbelievable love?

You get up in the morning and you set your sights on living fully for God.  You can do this now.  We don’t have to worry about sin and death having a grip on us.  They don’t!  We are saved!

We get to live fully for God and everything just falls into place.  It falls perfectly into place.  We know exactly what we need to do and we do it and God is glorified.

And then the alarm goes off and we have to enter the world again.  It is like, “Wake up!  It is time to go back into the world.  You had better put on the full armor of God because it is a war zone out there!”

So we get our self-talk going: “My eyes are fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of my faith.  I can do this!”

We are free from sin and death.  We don’t carry those burdens around with us anymore.  We can live for God.  We are free to be the people that God made us to be.  We can finally live a life that brings glory to God!

And then we go and do the exact opposite of what we set out to do.

We screamed at or digitally signaled the guy who cut us off in traffic.

We walked around all day with a long face.

We cussed out the dog again.

We made ourselves read the day’s devotion just so we could say that we did.

We lined out the words judge not lest you be judged from out Bibles because that was just too hard.

We put off working out for one more day.  That temple maintenance will wait another day.

We did eat our salad.  We put a pound and a half of bacon on it and didn’t eat that green leafy part but we ate our salad.

It seems that everything that I set out to do I did not do or messed it up so badly it would have been better if I hadn’t done it at all.

All of which brings us back to the law.  What?  The law—I thought that we were beyond the law?

Paul told his readers, I did not know what sin was before the law.  I did not know what it was to covet until the law said, Thou shalt not covet.

But we are not bound by the law!  How does this relate to us?  More than we may ever realize.  Remember that the law is 248 directions to “do this” and 365 regulations about not “doing that.”

“Do this.  Don’t do that and don’t do that either.”  I hadn’t even though about not doing that until the law said not to do it, then I wanted to do that very thing, and I did it or at least the thought of doing it continued to occupy my mind.

But now we are not bound by the law.  Christ has set us free from having the curse of sin which is death hanging over us as a consequence for our transgressions; yet, when we set out to follow Jesus free from the eternal consequences of sin, somehow we do exactly the opposite of what we set out to do.

This is not in everything that we do, but I suggest that it is universal among Christians. We set out to love one another and the next thing you know we are giving someone a piece of our mind instead of God’s love that resides in our heart.

THAT’S NOT WHAT I SET OUT TO DO WHEN I STARTED THE DAY! 

Some would say that the Devil out there and he will get you.  Okay, he is out there but if I know it’s him, I have the name of Jesus on my side.  No weapon formed against me will prevail.  I can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and know that God is with me.

I get that!  I am ready for that.

Some would contend that maybe I forgot a piece of my armor.  Remember Paul’s instruction was to put on the full armor of God.  Maybe that’s it, but sometimes it seems that something is already at work when I am putting on my armor.

Paul told his readers and he is telling us that sin is still at work in the world.  It cannot change our destination.  We are God’ kids.  We are brothers and sisters to Christ Jesus.  

That’s forever.  By the blood of Jesus, he has claimed us and that’s forever but sin is still at work in the work and wants to wrestle with us.

The more that we set our sights on fixed objectives, the more leverage that sin finds.

Thou shall not covet—you name the person, place, or thing. 

These days we don’t covet our neighbor’s goat or ox or donkey very much but we do still covet, especially when reminded not to covet what our neighbor has.

Sin now knows where to wrestle with you and it will.

You have driven by your neighbor’s Ford F-350, 96” wide cut lawnmower two hundred times in the past year and thought to yourself, “Nice mower.  I’ll bet that cost him a pretty penny,” but you just kept on driving without giving it another thought.

But this time when you drive by, your wife remarks, “You are not getting one of those.  Don’t even think about it.”

Well, up to that point the thought of getting such a monstrosity for yourself had not really crossed your mind and if it had been a momentary thought, it vanished quickly as your returned to reality and drove down the road.  But now, oh but now, your mind holds on to that thought.  Why?

You were told that you can’t have one.

What happens now?  You start thinking about what your neighbor has and it would be nice to have one.  Maybe I don’t really need it but it would be nice.

Where there had been no thought before, now we ponder what might be.

I do work hard and need to take care of myself every now and then.  I think maybe I do need this lawnmower.

Now the fact that for the monthly payments that this thing is going to cost, I could hire every kid in town to cut my grass twice a day for the next thirty years gets pushed out of the operating parts of my mind.

I not only need that mower; I deserve it.  I wonder if they have a 104” model?

If it had been offered on Amazon 1-Click that baby would be here in 2 days.  The mortgage, gas and electric bills, and feeding the kids might have to be put on hold for a few years but I had to have that mower.  I gotta have it!

Man, I can see me now cranking that baby up and using it as a hovercraft.  There will be people on the other side of town thinking that a Huey helicopter is coming in at rooftop level.  There are probably a couple Vietnam vets out there who instinctively pop smoke in an open field.

Until your wife said, “Don’t even think about it,” you hadn’t given it much thought.  Now you must have it.

Were her words evil?  No.

Was the law evil?  No.

So what exactly is going on here?  What is this dynamic at work in me, in us?  Sin, seeing its chance, jumped in head first.

Here we are shoulder deep in discipleship and somehow we are still swimming in sin.  We are saved from sin and death and we are wrestling with sin?  Really?

Yes.

It is still there.  It doesn’t go away.  Sometimes it messes with us and we don’t seem to come out on top.  Sometimes it seems that we do exactly the opposite of what we really want to do.

I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.  I sing it with all of my heart.  Though none go with me, I still will follow.  I believe this is exactly what I am called to do no matter the cost.  Lord, I will follow you.  You can count on me.

Then suddenly we are in company with Simon Peter as the cock crows and we cry and say “What did I do?  What did I do?”

What a piece of work have I become?  I know what Christ did for me; yet, I live doing things that do not bring glory to his name.  I do not want to do them.  I say that I won’t do them or that I will do something and then I do the exact opposite.

I am singing the world behind me and the cross before me but the next thing I know it seems like the cross is behind me and I am right in the middle of worldly things.

What a piece of garbage I am.  What a miserable, wretched person I am.

Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ!  

Thanks be to God!

In the previous chapter, I asked those of you who wrote in your Bibles to draw a line between chapter 5 and chapter 6.  On the chapter 5 side, I asked you to write “Salvation” and on the chapter 6 side to write “Discipleship.”

Now, somewhere in the margins of chapter 7 write, “Salvation realized in Discipleship.”

Until the power that sin and death had over us was removed, we did not and perhaps could not realize how great the gift of life is.

We have been given life and life eternal.  Sin can no longer take that away from us so it targets our life abundant.  We no longer wrestle with sin so we don’t go to hell.  Our eternal destination is secured.  It is a done deal!

We wrestle with sin only because we long to bring glory to God.  We want to live God’s way and sin fights us and it fights like a terrorist.  It will not fight strength to strength.  Jesus wins.  He has won the victory.  Sin will not seek a rematch for it is defeated.

But it will try some cheap shots.  It cannot steal the promise of life eternal, but it will try to steal the abundance of life in the here and now.  Sin targets us where we are weak.  Where are we weak?

We are weak where we seek to comply with a rule or law or direction or directive for we were not created to be a compliant being but to exercise our free will and be an obedient son or daughter of God. 

What!  Are they not the same?

They are not!

Compliance is about following rules to avoid consequences or sanctions or punishment.  Punishment and fear are old buddies and we do not do fear.  God did not give us a spirt of fear!  Obedience is rooted in love.

When we shrink back from the fullness of life into a compliant mode, we give sin a chance to mess up our abundant life.  When we try to comply with good rules, we give sin a chance to mess with our minds.

Now rules are great things for our children, but we who have taken on the yoke of our Master learn from him and find that what he gives us is not a heavy burden.  His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

When we live in obedience to our Master, our Lord, our King then we find that we don’t give sin a foothold.  We are living fully and obediently for God.  We are fully trusting our God.  We know the rules and the rules can tell us how much we need God’s grace, but our response to his grace must not be just to be better rule followers.  We trust, obey, and love.

But when our life becomes governed by rules, count on doing some wrestling with sin.  It will take every opportunity to steal the abundance in abundant life.

Here is our challenge that comes from chapter 7:  Live in loving obedience to God not in compliance with his rules.  Seek his kingdom and his righteousness first instead of filling out a scorecard on yourself.  Trust in him over your own understanding and see if the wrestling matches don’t become less frequent or at least less intense.

There is another component to this discipleship that helps us fully realize our salvation that we will talk about more the next time.  It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what the next chapter contains.  We have talked about God the Father and Jesus the Son, so get ready to bring God’s Spirit into our walk of discipleship as we continue farther into Paul’s letter to the Romans.

For now, when sin turns us upside down and we do exactly what we didn’t want to do, pause and consider how great a gift that we have received in the blood of Jesus, confess to God, and then get back in your walk of discipleship, your race of faith, get back up and press on towards the goal!

When sin tangles you up in a big mess, stop right where you are and thank God for his grace that you now know all the more, confess to him, and get back in your race of faith.

Sin is still at work in the world and sometimes it will trip you up.  You don’t want it to.  You didn’t go looking for it.  You set out to do all the right things.

Do not be discouraged but give thanks to God for how great his grace is.  Cry out to the Lord, “I am a mess.  Thanks be to God for his grace that goes so far beyond my mess!”

It is good, very good, to be a disciple of the Lord.

Amen!