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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. And let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus' name. Amen. So last week, we heard the beautiful and climactic benediction that comes at the end of Romans chapter 11.

 

O the depth and the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable his ways. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.

 

Amen. And with that amen, Paul brings an end not only to chapter 11, but to the first part of Romans altogether. From here on out, Paul's language will shift.

 

It's a pattern you see not only in Romans, but throughout Paul's epistles. After laying the foundation of who God is and what God has done, he turns his attention to what that means for the lives and the relationships of God's people. And so there's a shift from what we call descriptive language to prescriptive language.

 

So while there's almost no commands at all in the first 11 chapters of Romans, there's almost 50 commands in the final five chapters. We heard a string of them already today. But before we consider that list of behaviors and attitudes that Paul put before us, it's important to remember what else we heard last week at the beginning of Romans chapter 12.

 

Paul said this. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

And so Paul began the final section of Romans by talking about living sacrifices and spiritual worship. The Greek word there that's translated spiritual is actually the word logikos. That's where we get the word logic or logical.

 

So the King James translates that phrase not as spiritual worship, but reasonable worship. And the NIV calls it true and proper worship. What Paul's saying is that based on everything he just said about the universal nature of sin, the law holding everyone accountable, the Christ who came to die for us while we were still sinners, the regeneration that's ours in baptism, and faith that comes by hearing, based on all of that, the Christian life he's about to describe is the only life that makes sense.

 

It's the logical conclusion, the logical outpouring of who God is and what God has done for us. It's the life that must flow from the gift of salvation he just described. It's a life lived not in conformity with the world, the expectations there, but life that is regularly transformed in harmony with God's revealed will by the power of his Holy Spirit.

 

So what does that life look like, both for the Roman Christians and for all of us? Well, last week Paul mentioned a spirit of humility, saying each one ought think of himself or herself with an honest evaluation, not thinking more highly or more lowly of ourselves than we ought. He points us to the gift of vocation, the metaphor of the body. For as in one body we have many members, and the members don't all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ.

 

We are individually members of one another. That body metaphor is one Paul uses also in Ephesians and in 1 Corinthians, and in each case Paul is rejoicing, both in the diversity of gifts that God has given to the people of his church, while simultaneously reminding us of the unity that we possess in Christ. For the Christians in Rome and Corinth and Ephesus, he continues to break down the distinction between Jew and Gentile, to build up a congregation of all people, all nations, all languages.

 

And for Christians of all places and times, including us, he's eliminating any thought of hierarchy when it comes to the gifts our Lord gives, preaching, teaching, hospitality, generosity, compassion. Each member in the body does, to the best of its ability, whatever is appropriate to it, and all members of the body rejoice in each other's contributions, with no jealousy, no pettiness, rejoicing in the unity that we possess as the body of Christ. That sets the stage for the rest of what Paul has to say in Romans 12, which we heard just a few moments ago, a series of exhortations that need no real explanation.

 

But it's also significant that Paul introduces this list with the phrase to let love be genuine. A more literal translation of genuine would be without hypocrisy. But more interesting is the fact that there isn't actually a verb in the Greek phrase.

 

Most translations, like we heard today, say they take it as an exhortation. Let love be without hypocrisy. Others make it more of an imperative.

 

Love must be without hypocrisy. But it's also possible that Paul begins his list with a simple statement of fact, a fact that serves as the foundation for everything that comes next. Love is without hypocrisy.

 

True love, God's love, the love with which God loves his church in Christ Jesus, and the love with which we love each other in Christ is a love without hypocrisy. And what does this genuine, unhypocritical love look like? Well, go through the list that we just heard. We love each other as family, for we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Families don't always agree on what to have for dinner, where to go on vacation, or even what to do with all the stuff in Grandma's house. But they share a common love because they share a common identity. We share a common identity because we are baptized into the name and into the family of our Lord.

 

And so we love each other like family. Rather than seeking accolades for ourselves, we take the initiative in honoring others. We serve the Lord by offering our bodies as living sacrifices, not lazy ones or inactive ones.

 

We're not like stagnant water. Paul says we're like boiling water, water that bubbles. It's bubbling and dancing through the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

The love of God at work in us shapes the way we live together in this congregation as the body of Christ in this place. It empowers us to rejoice in the hope that our Lord is trustworthy. He will fulfill his promises, even if that fulfillment will only happen in the life to come.

 

It empowers us to be patient in tribulation, standing firm not by ourselves, but standing firm side by side with one another. Heals dug into our Lord's promises when the winds of life threaten to sweep us into doubt and despair. It's a life lived in constant prayer with each other and for each other.

 

And because we are united as the body of Christ, we live in fellowship with each other, sharing in the needs of our fellow saints who have been made holy at baptism and showing love to the strangers who visit us here in this congregation. When it comes to life as the body of Christ in the world, Paul says, we don't curse those who oppose us. What he means is that we don't wish them to be cut off from the grace of God that is ours in Christ Jesus.

 

Rather, we bless them with the greatest of blessings, a genuine prayer and a genuine hope that they would be brought to repentance, that they would become united to us in the body of Christ. When a brother or sister in Christ has cause to rejoice, even when our neighbors in the world around us have cause to rejoice, Paul says we rejoice with them. There's no need for jealousy.

 

Also, we weep with those who have cause to weep. We live in harmony with ourselves in the body of Christ. We live in harmony with the world around us, always according to our vocations, recognizing that our true worth comes as a gift from our Lord.

 

So we don't consider ourselves lifted up above others, but we willingly associate even with those whom the world considers lowly. We don't consider ourselves wise in our own sight, Paul says, but we remember that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and from his word comes right understanding. We repay no one evil for evil, for that would only escalate the evil further.

 

Rather, Paul says, because we are transformed by the renewal of our minds, we set our minds on that which is honorable and blameless and excellent in the sight of all. In other words, we live above the pettiness of revenge, the world's tit-for-tat scorekeeping. Instead, Paul says, when it comes to the things we can control, we seek to live at peace with all people, both those inside and outside the body of Christ.

 

And when we are wronged, we don't set out to make it right by ourselves, no, we leave it to the wrath of God. As Paul will emphasize in the next chapter, leaving it to the governing authorities that God has put in place as a terror to bad conduct. Instead of trying to find ways to take revenge on those who oppose us, if our enemy is hungry, we feed him.

 

If he's thirsty, we give him something to drink. For by so doing, we heap burning coals on his head. That image of burning coals might be a little bit strange.

 

It's like that Paul is just referring to the embarrassment that someone feels when they've received mercy from the hand of one they've treated so poorly. Just think of all the movies and television shows, other stories you're familiar with, where someone who's been mistreated extends kindness to their nemesis, and that act of kindness changes their relationship from animosity to friendship. So also the kindness of the Christian towards the hostile world.

 

And that's why Paul concludes this section with a reminder that we cannot overcome evil with more evil, and that we ourselves should not be overcome by the world's evil spirit of victimhood and revenge. Rather, we overcome the evil of the world with God's good gifts of patience, compassion, forgiveness, because these are the things that characterize the new life we have been given in Christ. Which brings us back to the beginning of Romans chapter 12.

 

The foundation for the description of the Christian life that Paul just gave. It's a life built on the identity we have been given in Christ. It's the reality that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

 

We all have been declared righteous through the sacrifice of Jesus as a gift. It's a life of the renewed mind that is ours through the mercy we have been shown in baptism. And such a life is the only reasonable and logical result of seeing ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 

It's what it looks like to present our members to God as instruments of righteousness. Paul's going to have a lot more to say about what this looks like in practice, and we'll hear a lot of it over the next few weeks, our last few weeks of Romans readings. But today we simply recognize and rejoice in the reality that upholds it all.

 

While we were yet sinners, without any merit or worthiness in us, Christ died for the ungodly. We have been united to him in baptism to walk in newness of life, and that new life is one of unity in the body of Christ, humility in our vocations, sacrificial love for all people. That's who our Lord is, and that's who we are in him.

 

So may our Lord grant us his spirit that we would live in such faith toward him and fervent love toward one another until the day of Christ's return. In Jesus' name. Amen.

 

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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. Before I was out of town last week, we had spent the previous two weeks in Romans chapters nine and ten.

 

The section of the epistle where Paul directly addresses the question about what's going on with first century Jews who had rejected their own Messiah. His point in chapter nine was that we should not conclude that the unbelief of so many Jews means that somehow God's word and promises have failed. Being a true Israelite, he said, was always a matter of faith, not genetics.

 

God never promised that every genetic descendant of Abraham would be saved. We need look no farther than Ishmael or Esau to see that. In chapter ten, Paul said that the purpose of the law of Moses was not to make the Jews right with God on the basis of their works, but to foreshadow Jesus, who he would be and what he would do when he came.

 

Jesus is the end of the law, Paul says. It's goal, it's fulfillment. Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ, not by submitting to the law of Moses.

 

Today, we turn our attention to chapter eleven. Paul began chapter eleven with a very important question. He says if God sent Jesus to bring about the end of the law of Moses, does that mean that God has rejected those who live under that law? Paul's answer, as you might expect, is of course not.

 

If God can work faith in the heart of a Pharisee like Paul, one who at one time zealously persecuted the church, when certainly you can't say God's written off all the descendants of Abraham. In fact, the Lord doesn't want any of the Jews to remain fallen in unbelief. Paul's evidence of that, too.

 

God did not desire any of his people to reject his Messiah. He would have preferred that all of his people in the first century received their Messiah in faith, that they joyfully took the good news of salvation out to the Gentiles. Obviously, Paul says, that's not what happened, but this is the God who works all things for his good.

 

And so even though many of the first century Jews rejected the Messiah, through their rejection salvation still went out to the Gentiles. Of course, Paul says, that doesn't mean there's no room for Jewish converts in the church. The hope is that those who forfeited their place as the people of God will see the Gentiles who took their place and be jealous for what they once had.

 

And that jealousy would in turn lead them to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Just imagine, Paul says, if God can use something as tragic as Israel's unbelief to accomplish something as great as bringing Gentiles into his kingdom, how much more could he do if all Israel believed? Then Paul continues with two important messages for the Gentile Christians in Rome. First, he says his ministry among the Gentiles should not be seen as if it's a rejection of the Jews.

 

No, it's an effort to make those first century Jews desire to return to their place as the people of God. It's true that the Christian church in Rome was not a Jewish church to the exclusion of the Gentiles. The law of Moses had been fulfilled.

 

Therefore, Gentile converts were not expected to live under that law. But Paul cautions, neither was the church a Gentile church to the exclusion of the Jews. Paul will address that more directly in chapters 13 and 14, but he's already laying the foundation here.

 

There was a long-standing rivalry, a hostility between Jews and Gentiles, not only in Rome, but everywhere where the two groups coexisted. And in every place, each group looked at the other one with contempt. The Jews looked down on the Gentiles for being unclean, Gentiles looked down on the Jews for being standoffish.

 

But as Paul says in Ephesians, Jesus tore down that dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile. So Paul warns that the Gentile Christians should not continue to look down on Jews, even though those Jews had rejected their Messiah. Rather, he says, they should pray for their conversion.

 

Be thankful that the Jews accomplished what they did as God's people. For without what God did through the Jews of the Old Testament, there would be no Gentile Christians either. Which leads to the second message Paul had for those Gentile Christians in Rome.

 

It's a message with clear implications for us today. It's a message that comes with a warning. Paul says that Israel of old was like a tree, a tree that God planted when he made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, including the promise that the Messiah would come through them to save all nations.

 

Israel was a tree that God nurtured by dwelling in their midst in the tabernacle and in the temple, giving them growth and abundance of life. Israel was a tree that God pruned and shaped according to the law of Moses given on Mount Sinai, cutting away that which was sinful so that that which was holy could flourish. And as God's tree, as God's people, it was Israel that had done the heavy lifting, not the Gentiles.

 

As Paul said at the beginning of this whole argument two chapters earlier, to the Jews was given the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the Torah, the temple, the promises. It was the Jews, not the Gentiles, who were given those things, and they were the ones who were expected to use them according to God's design. When they failed or missed the mark, they were held accountable.

 

The Gentiles weren't. The Gentiles were not accountable for the laws regarding fabrics or foods or fields. The Gentiles didn't face God's extra measure of judgment like Israelites who built the golden calf or who married pagans in the days of Phinehas.

 

The Gentiles were not entrusted with the scriptures and the promises. Those things were given to the Israelites. And while they were never perfect in their task, the fact remained that by the power of the Spirit they did well enough that everything was in place for the arrival of the Messiah when he came.

 

And so, Paul says, now that the Messiah has come, some of those natural branches have been broken off of the tree because they're dead. Dead branches, dead in their unbelief. And new branches have been grafted into the tree from outside.

 

Many Jews had fallen away from the faith, Paul says, and many Gentiles had come to faith but he offers a word of caution. The fact that so many Jews had fallen away should not fill the Gentiles with pride, as if they're somehow better because they did believe. That's a temptation we're all too familiar with in our own lives.

 

How easy is it for us to look back on the sins of previous generations and think, well, I wouldn't have done that. How easy is it for us to look at the monstrosities of history and assume that, well, if I had been alive at that time, I would have joined the right side. I would have fought for the right cause.

 

How easy is it to be the hero in our own hypotheticals? So Paul cautions the Gentile converts against such thinking, against looking too harshly at their Jewish neighbors for rejecting the very Messiah they were supposed to be looking for. Rather than filling them with contempt, Paul says, such rejection should fill the Gentile converts with fear, a holy fear. After all, if God is willing to cut off the normal branches when they die, branches that he spent generations cultivating and tending to, if God cuts off those branches in which he's invested so much time and energy, do you not think he will cut off Gentile branches if they die in their faith? So note well, Paul says, both God's kindness and his severity.

 

He's kind enough to graft you in, you Gentile Christians, and he's severe enough to cut off his own people when they persist in unbelief. He'll cut you off too, Paul warns, but his desire is that all would be saved. So don't think for a second that God won't graft back onto the tree any dead branches, Jew or Gentile, who come to life through faith.

 

And then Paul concludes chapter 11 with this final thought. He acknowledges that there's a certain hardness of heart that has come upon a portion of Abraham's descendants, ethnic Israel, but the result, he says, is that the Gentiles have been brought into the kingdom of God. And thus, Paul concludes, all the branches on God's tree, both the Jewish ones who have grown naturally from the trunk and the Gentile ones who've been grafted on, all the tree will be saved.

 

The salvation of all people and the creation of a new Israel from all people, nations, and languages. That was always the point. And as for those first century Jews who became unbelieving dead branches, Paul agrees, they have made themselves enemies of the gospel, but, he says, that doesn't fill God with anger or bitterness, it fills God with sadness.

 

Those first century Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah, they had grown up as the people of God, circumcised into his covenant, worshiping at his altar, gathered around the words and promises he had given through Moses and the prophets, and they still held a special place in his heart. And God did not regret in any way giving them the gifts and the calling that he did, even though they turned their back on him. He still desired their presence at his table.

 

And in that, Paul simply echoes what Jesus himself taught in the parable of the prodigal son. There is great rejoicing over the Gentiles who have come and been welcomed into the people of God, but the welcoming of the Gentiles doesn't mean the father stopped caring for the older brother. He is invited to the banquet, too, and that's where we find our comfort today.

 

Simply put, all throughout chapter 11, Paul shows us over and over again that we have a God who loves to forgive sins. We have a God who loves to save people. We have a God who, in Christ, was reconciling the whole world unto himself, which means that in Christ, you are reconciled to God.

 

In Christ and through baptism, you are a branch on the tree of true Israel. You are sons and daughters of Abraham through faith, heirs of the promise Abraham was given. And the same God who does not regret giving promises to Israel of old, he doesn't regret the promises he made to you, either, in your baptism.

 

The same God who broke down the distinction between Jew and Gentile, he's welcomed you into his one holy church, his universal church, his church of all time and all places. He rejoices in your salvation. And when the time comes, he will welcome you, he will welcome all his people into your new home and his new creation.

 

That's the promise God made to Israel of old, that's the promise God extended to Gentiles in the days of Jesus, that's the promise that is yours today, and the reality that is yours in your baptism. So may our Lord sustain us, united as his people of all languages and all nations, may he sustain us as his church until the day of Jesus' return. In Jesus' name, Amen.

 

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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Dear friends, in Christ, for this morning's meditation, we come again to the gospel given for us. Jesus said, O woman, your faith is great, be it done for you as you wish.

 

And her daughter was healed at once. This is from this morning's text. The Lord be with you.

 

Thank you. It's interesting that this one line is the only line in this pericope where the word faith is mentioned. And it's to this woman who has said nothing about faith, the word faith.

 

So, what do you think of when you think of someone with a great faith? Often in our society, and very much in our American society, it's usually someone who's got, they've got a little pizzazz to their spiritual life. They've got a little extra knowledge, a little extra fervency. Man, I wish I could have strong faith like that.

 

And suddenly we hear faith being preached about, almost like it's a virtue. Boy, if only I could have the faith like that. You know, I remember once going off to a Lutheran school, and one of my roommates came back and told people in the local congregation, well, how's Doug doing? Oh, faith.

 

Not Clarence Dub Barnett's kid, not that way, not that way. But that brings us to Matthew then, because it is quite, it is quite interesting. And Jesus went away from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.

 

We hear that and go, okay. Well, Tyre and Sidon is outside Israel. It's not part of the promised land.

 

In fact, it's over on the Mediterranean Sea. There are seaports. You hear about them sometimes today even.

 

I think today it would be Lebanon, back then it was Phoenician, it was different ones, but they were not Israelites. Yet, Tyre and Sidon, interesting that reference. And behold, a Canaanite woman, that's one of the locals.

 

She's not one of us, not by blood. Well, I can't even say that. We're not even one of us.

 

But a Canaanite woman came out from that region and began to cry out, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is cruelly demon-possessed, but he did not answer her a word. Interesting that a Canaanite woman would come to the Lord and say, son of David.

 

Except that you know this region, we don't know because I know you didn't get up and read about this this morning, but if you'd go to 1 Kings chapter 17 about the newly ordained prophet Elijah, about 700 years before this event, you would know that he had dealings with a certain widow from a place called Zarephath, the widow of Zarephath. Well, Zarephath is a little community between Tyre and Sidon. This prophet of the Lord named Elijah came to this widow, and the Lord direct… because the Lord directed it, he didn't go there because he was looking for a new mission field.

 

He went there because it was by the Lord's bidding. And so in that place he met this widow, and she had a very ill son as it were as well, but it really didn't matter because it was a time of famine, no food. And yet you might remember the account about Elijah then asking her what she had, and she had a little handful of flour, just a little handful of flour.

 

And so she put it by his direction into a jar, and from that jar she drew out enough flour for her to have bread for her life and her family for months and months and months. It was a miracle of the Lord through his prophet Elijah who was sent to her by the Lord's bidding, not his own bidding, to this little place called Zarephath. So it's not coincidental that we see that Jesus is going to Tyre and Sidon, and there a Canaanite woman of all people approaches him and pleads for mercy because she has a very, what a very ill daughter, demon possessed.

 

But she calls him son of David. So you go, oh, maybe news traveled generation to generation to generation, and this woman and her family knew Israel and knew they were also called to be part of Israel by the prophet Elijah who brought the name of the Lord even into their Canaanite community way back then. This is how the Lord operates.

 

He's not looking for your blood relatives. He's looking to bring His name to be set forth among you in your family the same way He does with us today in the name, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We say so many things here in the church in the name.

 

You're baptized into the name. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We're going to sing it again today, but it's interesting this account.

 

So she addresses him, and he says nothing. Oh, you're one of us. Oh, you're a true believer.

 

What faith do you have? No, he says nothing. But the disciples say plenty because they're bothered, and you can see. It's just, he didn't answer a word, but his disciples came to him and kept asking him.

 

That's very interesting. They kept asking him. They persisted asking him, saying, send her away.

 

Get rid of her, for she's shouting out after us. She's making a scene. Do you like to be in the middle of scenes? Nobody likes to be in scenes.

 

Everybody gets away from the scene, but she's making a scene, and she's making a scene there with Jesus and His disciples, and so they're going to try to do something about it. Send her away. She's just a Canaanite, I guess you'd wonder.

 

But he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The lost sheep of the house of Israel. Okay.

 

Yes, he was, because he is the fulfillment of Israel. By his blood, by his life, by everything, by his sacrifice, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and began to bow down before him, saying, Lord, help me.

 

If you look up your Greek, it's even in the Greek, Kyrie eleison. That's a phrase we hear in the Lord's church very often. Lord, have mercy.

 

Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. We just sang it.

 

We sang it in English, but it's always been there in the Latin and the Greek before this. And he answered and said, it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Wow.

 

You're low when you're talking about dogs. Unless we think that our Lord was just trying to get even with her, no. He's just stating the fact.

 

I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. And Lord, help me. It's not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

 

But then you listen to this. See, because she's interested not in big things. She's interested in the small things.

 

She knows about that small handful of flour. She knows about that small handful of flour that sustained families for months and months and months, and even years through the famine during Elijah. But she came and began to bow down before him saying, Lord, help me.

 

And he answered and said, not good to take the children's bread, throw it to the dogs. But she said, yes, Lord. So let's just acknowledge that she agreed with the Lord on this dog comment.

 

You're calling me a dog. I'll tell you, you know, none of us would have made it through the conversation. Well, I'm never going back there again.

 

That's enough for me. No, she agrees with him. Yes, Lord.

 

But even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table. It's the small things that do big things. With this Lord, He's upside down from this world.

 

And then suddenly we see that He takes heed. Yes. Then Jesus answered and said to her, oh woman, your faith is great.

 

You see, she has big faith because she understands the little things. And she understands the unobvious things of God, that God does not work in His great grandiose ways of power and might and all the rest. She understands that this Lord comes to His people in the small things, a handful of flour, a crumb of bread, because in that is life and full life and everything you need in life and ever want in life.

 

That is the big faith. That's so often when Jesus is talking about have big faith. That's what He's talking about.

 

Big faith that understands our God works not in big ways to the world like, oh man, awesome God. But our God works in the things that are weak in the world's eyes. Our God works in the ways that are, well, what should we say? The cornerstone of His church was on the stones that the knowledgeable builders reject, cracked, broken.

 

That's the stone the builders reject because they want strong, solid stones. So when Jesus comes and responds to this woman about, and she responds about small things like dog crumbs, that's it. That's big faith.

 

Is that how you hear it out there? I dare say, probably not. It's an amazing thing. And because of that it perplexes us like, man, what's the, why does He say your faith is great? Because she understands how this Lord comes to His people, gently riding on a donkey, gently in His Word, placing His name.

 

He empties Himself from all of His power and His might as God's own Son. Oh, He can do all those things, that's for sure. He can prove that, but that's not how He's come to the world, and that's not why He's come up here to Tyre and Sidon at the place of the widow of Zarephath.

 

He comes in weakness and gentleness. Because He comes to broken people like you and me, who never feel like their faith is big enough. That's why it's profound that this passage is not talking about faith.

 

It's simply the woman pleading for mercy. Son of David, have mercy on me. Yeah, woman, great is your faith.

 

You see, because it's not about, oh man, you got awesome faith. It's because her trust and her hope in that moment is on the object, the great thing of her faith. It is this Lord who has come for her sins and the sins of her family.

 

That's the greatness. It's the object of the faith. It's the trust simply in, well, the Lord said it, the Lord meant it, He put His name on us.

 

It's incredible. Even one crumb of bread with this Lord is everything. Even one crumb of bread at this Lord's altar is everything.

 

My body, my blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Man, what great faith. And isn't it interesting that the church, the church for centuries has put into the liturgy as we prepare to come to the Lord's table and receive His crumbs and this little small sip of wine that is His body and blood.

 

The church rings out in the holy, holy, holy of Isaiah 6, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. That's where you and I are here today gathered, not because, I tell you what, I wish they could be like us out there.

 

We know we're not. We're just too Lutheran. It's because we have a fantastic Lord who comes to us in the very weakness of His body and blood given and shed on the cross to pay the price for all of your sins, my sins, all of our sins.

 

Wow. Now that is faith to be followed because that is faith in something not so small but that is amazingly large. The love and the grace of this God and this Lord.

 

Who wouldn't want to come and hear those words into their ears as it is given into their mouths, my body and my blood for you for the forgiveness of all sins. Just like with that Canaanite woman who came to Jesus. Oh woman, how great is your faith.

 

You have gotten it totally. It's the name that you have come to, the name that has been put upon you, and here you are ready with that name. That's how to qualify and have faith in the gospel.

 

Be a sinner. That's when you know you're ready and you're faithful, is when you admit you're sinner and you're coming here to plead for mercy and to receive that mercy. So, Jesus' word to this woman and to all those listening including His disciples, be a sinner looking for mercy, looking for even a small crumb and saying, yeah, that's for me.

 

Knowing that even a crumb from Him is everything. Take and drink, says Jesus to those sinners thirsting for righteousness. This is my blood, my body.

 

I forgive you your sins. Amen. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding.

 

Keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. And let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus' name. Amen. For those of you who've been keeping score at home, this is the 10th consecutive week we've been in Romans.

 

We've only got a few more weeks to go, which means we're coming up to the concluding portions of the letter. Remember that last week Paul ended chapter 9 with the statement that the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness before God through works of the law, because they didn't have the law, those Gentiles still attained that righteousness through faith in Christ. And the Jews, who did pursue righteousness through works of the law, they did not get righteousness, because righteousness doesn't come through works of the law.

 

Thus, Paul says, Jesus becomes a stone for all people. He's a stone of stumbling for those who want to pursue righteousness through works of their own, but for those who believe they're declared righteous through faith, Jesus becomes the stone for standing, the rock-solid foundation. Paul then opens chapter 10 by saying that God's righteousness was never meant to come through any law, not even the law of Moses.

 

For, he says, Christ is the end of that law. The end of the law is righteousness for everyone who believes. Now when Paul says Jesus is the end of the law, he doesn't just mean in a chronological sense.

 

It's not just that Jesus is the end of the law in the same way that the inauguration of one president signals the end of term for the previous one. It's true that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus means the law of Moses has reached its temporal conclusion, which is why Old Testament laws about what we wear, what we eat, are no longer binding on Christians today. But there's more to it than that.

 

Saying Jesus is the end of the law is more like saying Jesus is what the law was always meant to point to in the first place. It's not just that when Jesus arrived, the next thing started. Paul's point is that Jesus was always the point of the law.

 

Not only was the law of Moses a reflection of God's holy nature, but it was designed in such a way as to prepare Israel and to prepare the whole world for the Messiah, for who he would be and what he was sent to do. And so the countless animals sacrificed in the place of the Israelites, that foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, sacrificed in our place. The weekly observance of the Sabbath, that foreshadowed the rest that belongs to those who have fellowship with God through the work of Christ.

 

The entire law of Moses was given in ways that foreshadowed the work of Jesus, because Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. He's the purpose of the law. He's the end of the law, the goal, the talos, Paul says.

 

That's where today's reading picks up. After arguing once again that a righteousness gained through works of the law is no real righteousness at all, Paul shifts his attention to the righteousness that comes through faith. He points us to the work of Christ in our place.

 

The righteousness that comes from faith does not attempt to bring Christ down from heaven. Jesus has already done that in the incarnation. Nor does it seek to raise Christ up from the dead.

 

Jesus already did that too. What does it say? It says the word is near you already. True righteousness comes through faith, and faith comes by hearing the message of Christ.

 

While a righteousness sought from the law demands that you do something, a righteousness from faith actually specifically excludes it. There's nothing left to do. Jesus has already done it.

 

He's already with you. Believe it. Walk in newness of life.

 

Paul's still heartbroken over the lack of faith from so many Jews. He maintains this confession that there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek. He says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

 

All have been declared righteous on account of Christ, because the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing on all people who call on him his riches, both Jew and Gentile. It breaks Paul's heart that even though God is Lord of all, so many of his kinsmen have rejected it. But it's the death of Jesus and the proclamation of that death that brings righteousness to all people.

 

And so even though not all believe, even though not all have obeyed the gospel, the fault lies not with God. That language might be a little bit confusing for us, because we typically understand obedience to be the response to the law. But Paul says here they have not obeyed the gospel.

 

To paraphrase Walther, the law is what gives me something to do. The gospel gives me something to believe. How can we obey the gospel? But the great root there is the word akouo, where we get words like acoustics.

 

Paul's talking about hearing. It's a listening word. Paul's talking about the response based on hearing more than simply being obedient to a set of rules.

 

So think of it like this. Imagine hearing the message that your mother-in-law's coming to visit, or that your favorite celebrity is down in Old Town signing autographs and taking selfies with fans. If you believe that proclamation to be true, you're gonna act one way.

 

If you think that proclamation is made up, you're gonna do something different. But it's the belief that motivates the action. That's what Paul's talking about when he says obedience to the gospel.

 

Faith that believes the proclamation is true is faith that changes the way a person lives. Paul's saying that even though the proclamation has gone out, not all have heard it, not all have responded, but it's not as though God has failed. God's Word has gone out to Jew and Gentile alike, calling all to repentance, calling all to reconciliation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

 

The fact that so many of Paul's kinsmen rejected that proclamation, it saddens Paul. But it's not as though God has failed. It's not as though God has abandoned His people.

 

That's the topic that Paul takes up in chapter 11. But as far as today's text is concerned, today our Lord simply calls us back to the promise He gives, the promise to work through His Word, the gift of the Word. That's what Paul puts before us this morning.

 

He's maintained throughout the entire letter that true righteousness comes through faith. Today he's explicit. Faith comes by hearing.

 

It's the bedrock of our Lord's message throughout the scriptures. It's the bedrock of the Reformation, and it's a truth that the Israelites got wrong, a truth the Gentiles missed, and a reality that we still struggle with today. Because the sinful flesh is always looking to contribute something.

 

We want to control something. We want to be involved somehow in our own salvation. Paul says no.

 

Faith comes by hearing. Faith comes by the proclamation of God's Word. Now Luther was never one to mince words, and some of his strongest language is found on this exact subject, God working through the proclamation of His Word.

 

Think, for example, what he wrote in the Smalcald articles. He says we ought and must constantly maintain that God does not wish to deal with us in any way other than through the spoken word and the sacraments, and that whatever is extolled as coming from the Spirit without the Word and sacraments is from the devil himself. Or Luther said this in a sermon, there's no other way to have sins forgiven than through God's Word.

 

The Lord our God has not promised to forgive our sins through any work that we do, but He's connected it to the irreplaceable work of Christ Himself. He is the one who suffered and is risen from the dead. And this work of Christ, He placed it in the mouth of His apostles.

 

He gave it to the ministers of His Church, puts it on the tongues of all Christians to the end, that they would distribute and proclaim the forgiveness of sins through the spoken word. Proclaiming forgiveness to those who desire it. Proclaiming forgiveness to those who need it.

 

That is our forgiveness. That is your forgiveness. Your Lord speaks to you through His Word.

 

He gives you life through His Word. And so we immerse ourselves in that Word. I heard another pastor put it like this.

 

He says we all speak language, at least one, our native language, simply because someone else spoke it to us first. None of us invented English. None of us invented Spanish or whatever your native tongue might be.

 

We received it from someone else and we did so long before we understood the grammar or anything about how the language worked. We just learned to speak it through constantly hearing until eventually it came out of our own mouths. He says the same is true about God's Word and the Word of the sinful flesh.

 

Sin has its own language. The language of sin is fluent in self-justification, self-improvement, comparison, pride, despair, excuses. As Jesus says, the devil is the father of lies, so lying is his native tongue.

 

And left to ourselves, that is the language that we speak, the language of lies. Even our religious vocabulary becomes infected. We begin speaking about our own decision, the sincerity of our faith, our progress, our morality, our feelings, our commitments.

 

We may use Christian words, but we're still speaking sin's language because we're still trying to find ways to contribute to our own righteousness. So our Lord gives us a completely new language. And like every language, it's not mastered simply by memorizing vocab.

 

It's learned by immersion. The language of heaven is learned by continually being surrounded by our Lord's Word. For here, sinners are pronounced forgiven before they ever learn to pronounce it themselves.

 

In our Lord's Word, we hear that Jesus is Lord before we can ever confess it by ourselves. And in the Word of Christ, sinners hear absolution before they can ever speak words of comfort to one another. Our Lord surrounds us with his word of forgiveness.

 

He surrounds us with his word of promise. He surrounds us with his word of comfort and reconciliation, to the point that it becomes our language because we're immersed in the speech of our Lord. So we find great comfort in the word of our Lord.

 

His words of forgiveness reconcile us with the Father. His words of promise that the bread and wine of this altar are his very body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. His words that there is no condemnation for those who belong to him.

 

Those words will not fail. Your Lord will never leave you or forsake you, and he tells you that every week that you come to this altar. He tells you that every day.

 

These words not only point us to his promises, they create in us the faith in what they say. Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. So may that word guard and protect you in the true faith till the day of Christ's return.

 

In Jesus' name, Amen.

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Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears that it may bear fruit in our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen.

 

It takes a lot of creativity to invent an alternate universe in which to set a fictional story. It's even more complicated when the stories created are loved so passionately that fans begin to notice discrepancies. They point out unanswered questions or plot holes.

 

For example, if the whole point of sending Luke Skywalker into hiding was to protect him from Darth Vader, why send him back to his father's home planet and why not change his name? It's a plot hole, one that was most likely created by adding a plot twist later on, but the effect is that after people enjoy the emotional high of the happy ending, they later look back and realize there are some unanswered questions. Such is the reality that helps us understand what's going on in Romans chapters 9 through 11. The first half of Romans chapters 1 through 8 is a beautiful crescendo.

 

The climactic words of chapter 8 just layered with gospel promise. There is no condemnation for God's chosen ones. If God is for us, nothing can stand against us.

 

There's nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And it's not hard to imagine the swell of comfort the first hearers would have heard and felt with these strong words of gospel promise. That's comfort we ourselves feel at these words.

 

But now imagine what would happen if the epistle ended there. Imagine yourself on the walk home, maybe later in the week. Step into the shoes of a first century Christian being told that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law.

 

He is the Messiah promised to Israel from of old. Imagine hearing that nothing can separate God's people from him. And then picture walking into the market, seeing all those Jews in your city who rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

 

Imagine being a Jewish Christian yourself who was rejected by your own family, cast out of the synagogue for following Jesus. Would you not then ask Paul the simple question about the seemingly glaring hole in his argument? Paul, if God's choosing is so certain, why have the majority of his people refused to believe in him? Why aren't all the Jews followers of Jesus? And it would be a fair question. And it's the question that Paul takes up in today's text.

 

In a few chapters, he'll address the Gentile Christians more directly. But today, he begins an answer focused on the Jewish conference, and he starts by pointing out the anguish that he feels based on the sad reality. Those Jews who rejected Jesus are his kinsmen.

 

They are the Israelites. They are born the people of God. To them belongs the adoption in Abraham, being chose out of all people on earth purely by the grace of God without any merit or worthiness in them.

 

To them belongs the glory of God at the tabernacle, in the temple, God's gracious presence among his people. To them belong the covenants God made with Abraham and Moses and David. To them belongs the law given on Mount Sinai, but also the whole law, the Torah, the fullness of God's revelation to the people of earth through the prophets of Israel.

 

To them belongs worship at God's altar where he comes to them to forgive their sins, to dwell among them for their good. To them belong the promises of God, the promise of the Messiah, the restoration that he would bring. To them belongs every advantage over the Gentiles, and yet so many of them are blind to what God is actually doing in Christ.

 

So many of them have rejected the fulfillment and chosen instead to stay with the foreshadowing, and it breaks Paul's heart. And what are we to say to that? Perhaps the first thing we can say and should say is that Paul's lament over the Jews of his day easily translates into our own setting, into our own lives. It's not hard for us to look at Christians born and raised in the faith who in adulthood turn away.

 

We might say to them belong the water and the word, the body and the blood. To them was given the liturgy and the catechism, but where are they now? And our hearts might break like Paul's, especially when those who have walked away are our own children, our grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, family and friends for whom we care deeply, which is why Paul's next words are as important for us as they were for the Jewish Christians of the first century. As sad as the reality is, it's not as though God's word has failed.

 

God's word does not fail. Paul goes on from there. To be an Israelite of the Old Testament was not a matter of genetics, he says.

 

It's a matter of confession, a matter of being chosen by God. It was not determined ultimately by whom your father or grandfather was. It was determined by whose altar you worshiped at, which God you trusted.

 

Not all who were genetic descendants of Abraham were true Israelites, but only those who trusted in God's promise. It was not the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael who were the people of God, but the descendants of Isaac, but not even all the descendants of Isaac. For those who were descendants of Isaac through Esau were not even Israelites, even though they could trace their lineage back to Abraham through Isaac.

 

Paul's pointing out the key factor is not DNA. The key factor is the promise of God, a matter of God's choice, not man's genetics, which of course raises the objection that Paul anticipates. Paul, that doesn't seem fair.

 

If it truly does all come down to God's choice, then why would anyone be left out? Paul, why doesn't God just choose everyone? Again, it's a good question, and it's an objection that Paul answers in two parts. First, he echoes the sentiment of God's words to Job when Job begins to question whether or not God really knew what he was doing. Who are you, Paul says.

 

Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Can that which is created say to the creator, why have you made me like this? Can man say to God, you're doing it wrong? Paul then provides a series of Old Testament references from Hosea and Isaiah and demonstrates that the Jews' rejection of the Messiah was already foretold in the Old Testament. And when we get to chapter 11, Paul's going to point out that it's not like God rejected the Jews entirely. He saved a remnant for himself of first century Jews like Paul, like Peter, like so many other Israelites who did receive Jesus as Lord.

 

We'll look at that text in a few weeks when we get there, but today, today what we're left with is one of the great unanswered questions of scripture. A plot hole, according to some. Supposedly irreconcilable inconsistency.

 

If God desires all to be saved and if the death of Jesus on the cross is really for all people, if faith comes by hearing the proclamation of that message, then why are not all who hear saved? Why do some people not believe? Why did so many first century Jews reject their Messiah? Why do so many of our own fall away? And it's a good question and it's a fair question and it's a hard question and it's a question that our Lord refuses to answer in the way that we want. He refuses to point us to something specific that we could maybe manipulate, somehow modify or tap into to ensure a successful evangelism. Instead, our Lord gives us two simple truths to stand on.

 

First, to use Paul's language from Romans 9, it's not as though the word of God has failed. Whatever else is going on that's resulting in people falling away from the faith, the fault is not in God's word. The failure, the shortcoming is not in the work of Christ.

 

And it's an invitation for us to continue to cling to that word, to look at Christ alone as our hope and our comfort. The work of Jesus on the cross was for all people, which means it was for you. Paul has already made that abundantly clear in Romans, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and all have been declared right with God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

 

All have been declared right. And as the trespass of one man led to condemnation for all people, so also one man's act of righteousness leads to justification for all people. Paul is adamant.

 

The cross was for all people, which means the cross is for you. And so we cling to that cross. We cling to the hope it brings, especially in the midst of things we cannot understand.

 

That's the second thing we're given to remember. It's the next thing Paul says, the knowledge about why some believe and why others don't. So that knowledge belongs to God himself.

 

It's not our concern. Now the sinful flesh will not see this as a gift. The sinful flesh sees this as an insult because the nature of the sinful flesh is that it always wants to be in charge.

 

The sinful flesh wants to be top dog. Satan and his demons were cast out of heaven for trying to usurp God's throne. The temptation in the garden was to be like God.

 

And so also in questions like this, the desire of the sinful flesh is to accuse God of injustice, to accuse the one whose very nature is justice. So Satan presents it as if it's a simple request for clarification. That's because Satan is clever.

 

He frames it as God's refusal to answer as some sort of insult to our intelligence. But the great deceiver is just pulling a bait and switch. If God's word about justice cannot be trusted, then none of his word can be trusted.

 

Not his promise that Jesus is the name under heaven by which we have been saved. Not his promise that comes by hearing. Not his promise that baptism now saves you.

 

Not his promise that the bread and wine of this altar is the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. Not any of his promises. The deceiver packages it as if it's a legitimate question about the fairness of God or how God operates.

 

But really it's an assault on the goodness of God and on the trustworthiness of what he says. So in next week's reading from chapter 10, we hear Paul once again direct us out of speculation concerning the hidden things of God and put the spoken word of God, the revealed word of God right before us. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of Christ.

 

So today that's where we find our comfort. As Paul says at the end of chapter 9, the first century Gentiles who did not pursue God's righteousness attained it, but the Israelites who pursued the law did not. Why? Because Israel did not pursue God's righteousness through faith.

 

So we will take our stand on the promises of God received in faith. We will not be shaken by Satan's attempts to undermine God's mercy, to get us to doubt God's love for his creation. Like Paul, we will continue to pray for those we love who have fallen away from the faith.

 

We will continue to proclaim God's word of promise and reconciliation to them. No longer the gospel alone produces faith. We continue to pray for reconciliation and restoration and following where Paul is pointing, we find our ultimate hope, our ultimate confidence in the work of Jesus in our place.

 

For if God is the author of it, it cannot fail. We will not allow Satan to distract us with hypotheticals, with questions that our Lord has left unanswered. Instead, we find our comfort in what he has made so abundantly clear.

 

We fix our eyes on Jesus, whom God did not send into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. We rejoice in that salvation. We trust in that salvation.

 

We trust in our Lord's promise that Christ is our rock. We take our stand on him. May God grant it for Jesus' sake.

Amen.