Trinity 15
Beloved. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us something that gives us great comfort and takes a lot of worry off our shoulders—if only we’d believe it and take it to heart. For this reason I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?.... So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unbelievers chase after all these things. Certainly your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. The Lord in His grace and mercy does take care of us and provide for us. And He does this not only because He is gracious and merciful, but because He is the almighty Creator. The world, the universe, and all that is in it is His creation—and He takes care of it. God is actively involved in the world. He is not standing off in the distance unconcerned let alone unable to do anything; it’s not as if He made the world, got it going and now stepped back and lets it run only according to the law of nature/ science that He set up. Instead, as St. Paul preached [Ac 17.25, 28]: He gives to all life, breath, and all things….in Him we live and move and have our being; and as the psalmist writes [36.6; 147.4; 145.15-16: O Lord, You preserve both man and beast; and He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name; and The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
There’s something amazing going on here. The Lord preserves us and all creation but He does so in such a way that He uses and blesses the work of our hands: fields of grain that feed millions don’t just spring up on their own but are the result of the work of industrious farmers; in the same way in the animal world, dead wildebeests don’t just appear before lions but are the result of a well-executed hunt after much effort. So what does this mean for us? We do the work the Lord has called us to do and rely on His blessing our efforts. Here, in a glorious way, we cooperate with God. And the very fact that the results of our work—be they great or meagre—are in the Lord’s hands are very comforting to us. Which of you can add a single moment to his lifespan by worrying? This means that we can live a life free from care, that is, we can be content and not in any way fretful because why? Yes, we do the work, but the Lord blesses and works through our work and whatever He grants we, in faith, know is right and proper for us—is His will for us. That is very freeing and liberating. God—the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, God—who loves me and is my Savior, is the very One who is blessing the work of my hand—with much or little—and He is the very One who is taking care of my burden.
So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unbelievers chase after all these things. Certainly your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. So what does all of that mean? Since we know that the Lord blesses the fruit of our labor and is providing for us, we can live a life free of care from our earthly needs and focus on our life of faith and good works. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Our lives as Christians, resting on the Lord graciously blessing the work of our hand, providing us according to His will what we need, is now one of active, energetic, devoted service to the Lord and our neighbor—again, a life of faith and good works; or, as St. Paul puts it in our text: If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in step with the Spirit. Our life in the Spirit, our life as a Christian, is described as a walk—a walk in step with/ in line with/ together with the Holy Spirit Who is in us. That means our lives as Christians will be lives of humility and of love.
If we live by the Spirit, we are living a life of humility. For by also walk[ing] in step with the Spirit, we are fighting against and resisting our sinful nature that wants to follow the siren call of the world and follow its ways; we are fighting against our old sinful nature that wants to follow/ go along with the temptation to sin, that finds joy in sin. If we are walk[ing] in step with the Spirit that means that we are not doing our own thing but what the Holy Spirit in us wants us to do. If you are walking with someone—especially someone younger and more fit—and you want to keep up, you will at times certainly have to pick up the pace; you will have to exert yourself; and you will not be able to wander off to do your own thing.
Fighting against our sinful nature, resisting sin as we walk in step with the Spirit is a difficult thing but it is a good thing for us spiritually. Day by day as we fight against sin and by the power of the Holy Spirit strive to live that life of faith and good works of single minded/ hearted devotion to our Lord, we grow stronger and more and more walk in step with the Spirit. And that is an absolutely vital thing for us. Later on in our text St. Paul writes: Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. We cannot claim to be Christians and yet willfully not walk in step with the Spirit or not care that we don’t. Wherever there isn’t that constant striving to walk in step with the Spirit/ of trying to keep up with the Holy Spirit in us, we are mocking God and deceiving ourselves. We deceive ourselves and mock God when we convince ourselves that we believe in Jesus and have the mercy of God and forgiveness of sin, and yet let our sinful desires rule and serve self and our desires and disregard the love we should have of and show God and our neighbor.
Then St. Paul writes to warn us: To be sure, whatever a man sows, he will also reap. Indeed, the one who sows for his own sinful flesh will reap destruction from the sinful flesh. Following our old sinful nature, doing what it tells us to do, serving self, living a life of sin ultimately only brings God’s wrath, death and damnation. And notice: the one who sows for his own sinful flesh—we have no one to blame but ourselves. So, yes, it is for our good that we walk in step with the Spirit and keep up with the love He leads us into, a life of faith and good works.
That’s why If we live by the Spirit we will live a life of humility—because, if we are honest, we will daily see that we are not also walk[ing] in step with the Spirit. St. Paul writes: Brothers, if a person is caught in some trespass, you who are spiritual should restore such a person in a spirit of humility, carefully watching yourself so that you are not also tempted. Note especially that last part: carefully watching yourself so that you are not also tempted. Yes, we notice that others are sinners, even our fellow Christians. But we dare never think that somehow we are better than others or that we are more worthy of heaven because in our eyes others sin a great deal more than we do. Our Christian life is one of constant self-examination, a daily examining of self in light of the mirror of God’s holy Law because, after all, we live in the world surrounded by sin and temptation and we ourselves are sinful flesh and blood. We need an honest look at ourselves, lest we overestimate our supposed holiness and look down on our fellow Christian for his/her weaknesses and sin.
The apostle also writes in our text: For if someone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each person test his own work, and then he will take pride in regard to himself and not his neighbor. Our opinion of ourself shapes our conduct toward others. If we see ourselves as better than others, morally superior, then we close our hearts to them in need. Instead, let each of us examine our heart and life in the light and mirror of God’s holy law and we will see how things really stand, if we are really also walk[ing] in step with the Spirit. Then we see how much we need to improve in our own lives, how far we are from all the time walk[ing] in step with the Spirit. And as we do that, and strive all the more to order our life according to God’s holy will, to live a life of love and devotion to God and of love and service to our neighbor, to walk in step with the Spirit, we will have no time to criticize our neighbor and find fault with him. We will instead, as a humble fellow sinner, in all humility and gentleness also strive to help our fellow Christian.
The vital thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of our self-examination of heart and life in the Law of God to discover our sin is not to beat ourselves or some sort of self-flagellation. It is to, first, give us a true and honest picture of ourselves, of who we are—sinners who need the grace of God; sinners who need a Savior from sin; sinners who by our sin earn only God’s wrath, death and damnation. And, yes, this keeps us humble and from looking down on our fellow Christian struggling with sin, even one who has perhaps fell into grievous sin. But the second purpose of examining heart and life in the Law of God to recognize and sorrow over sin is to see what sort of God and Savior we have in Jesus. He is not a Savior for small and insignificant sin and sinners but for grievous sins and great sinners. Here we see how great His love for us sinners is—for us who are completely unworthy of it; here we see His great grace and mercy to us; here we see the enormity of His sacrifice for the sin of the world, for my sin. As we remember that Jesus took all of our sins on Himself to the cross and there suffered all of God’s wrath and punishment for them for us, how can love not rise up in our hearts for our dear Savior. How can we then not want to love and serve Him all the more? How, we then, all the more hate our sin and strive all the more not to crucify Him again by unholy living.
Our life as a Christian is marked by humility as we recognize who/ what we are—sinners; and as we walk in step with the Spirit and strengthened by Him we fight all the more against sin and temptation. Let us remember that simple phrase that begins our text: If we live by the Spirit. Dear Christian, we have received the Holy Spirit in Baptism. We are alive, spiritually; we believe/ trust in Jesus our Savior; we have a new heart and new desires to love and serve the Lord and our neighbor. How can we not live lives of love? We live in and by the Holy Spirit. He is in us. He is both the source of our life of faith and good works as well as the One who guides us into them. How can we not live lives of love—we have experienced our Lord’s love and as we humble ourselves under the law of God, we feel and experience that divine, saving love for us sinners anew and afresh. And what does that do? –Lead us into lives of love toward others—especially our fellow Christians. Our text: Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ. Our love for others flows from Jesus’ love for us. We see our fellow Christian bearing the same moral burdens we are carrying—temptation, moral faults and frailties. And what do we do? Out of love, we help them in ways that we can—with prayer and encouragement; perhaps we can even share with them our own experiences and how the Lord helped us; perhaps we see them engaged in a certain sin and in all gentleness and humility we can warn them of it and call them to repentance, if need be. The Church is the communion of saints —we are one with our fellow Christian. Out of love, we help and encourage them when and where we can and they, in love help and encourage us in bearing our burden and even, if necessary, in all humility and gentleness calling us to repent of a sin we are engaged in to save our soul.
Yes, this life of a Christian as we walk in step with the Spirit —a life of humility and love—is often difficult. Because of our old sinful nature, we are weak but as we live by the Spirit we have the Holy Spirit strengthening us and leading us. So, Let us not become weary of doing good, because at the appointed time we will reap, if we do not give up. In grace the Lord crowns the good works He has led and strengthened us to do with an eternal reward. INJ