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Cantate Sunday
Sermon
God is Right
and the World is Wrong
May 14, 2006
Saint John
16:5-15
The Holy Spirit is the
Comforter. He comforts us by telling us the truth. People often look for comfort in lies. They try adultery or drugs or something else that will give
them the feeling they need. But
true and lasting comfort is deeper than how you feel.
It is a permanent condition or state.
It is the way things are and will be.
The Holy Spirit brings us true comfort by bringing what Christ
has won for us and making it ours.
He tells us the truth about Christ and in telling us the truth
about Christ He brings Christ into our lives and gives us our reason for
living.
The Holy Spirit does not
speak as the world speaks. The
world speaks as it knows. It
knows what it knows by observation.
The world’s wisdom is quite impressive, but it is limited to
matters of this world. Christians
have no more common sense than heathen do.
When it comes to practical tips on how to get along with people,
make money, be successful in this or that job, a Christian has no
advantage over someone who doesn’t know Christ.
I grew up in Clayton, Missouri, a town that was predominantly
Jewish. The public schools
in Clayton were better than the Lutheran schools or the Catholic schools
in the St. Louis area. You
don’t have to be a Christian to understand what makes for success in
this life. People who think
that the church should provide them with keys for successful living will
generally find what they are looking for, but they won’t find the true
Church. They will find a counterfeit church that imitates the
standards of the world.
The Church is the pillar
and ground of the truth. The
Church is born by the power of the Spirit of truth.
The truth upon which the Church stands is the truth that our Lord
Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel Lesson.
It is the truth about sin, righteousness, and judgment.
Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin,
righteousness, and judgment. He
will show that God is right and that the world is wrong about these
matters. What the world
calls sin is not sin. What
the world calls righteousness is not righteousness.
What the world calls judgment is not judgment.
What God calls sin is sin. What
God calls righteousness is righteousness.
What God calls judgment is judgment.
What does the world call sin? The world calls sin whatever offends the world.
Since everyone has a conscience and since the Ten Commandments
agree with the conscience, the world praises the Ten Commandments.
But the Holy Spirit contradicts the conscience.
He tells Christians that they are justified by faith alone. He tells them that Jesus took away all their sin on the cross
and that they are forgiven freely by God’s grace.
This is the heart of the Christian faith. It is revealed by the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said, “He will
take of what is mine and declare it to you.”
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.
The very heart of Christianity is a contradiction of this world.
Make no mistake about it.
When the world follows what
appears to be true it doesn’t recognize the Christian truth as truth.
This is why the religions of the world are all fundamentally
different than the Christian faith.
Jesus says it is sin not to believe in Him.
This is the sin that makes you guilty of all sins.
It is the source of all evil.
It is what makes sin sinful.
But the world doesn’t recognize this.
Why should faith in Jesus Christ make any difference?
Right is still right. Wrong
is still wrong. The
commandments are clear enough as standards for human conduct.
But Jesus says the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin
because they don’t believe in Him.
The world teaches a bloodless
religion. There is no need
for God to become a man. There
is no need for a Savior to die. Whatever
trouble sin may cause, it is surely without our power to overcome it.
But the Comforter disagrees.
He says that sin is too deep for us to fathom.
It is too strong for us to conquer.
The evil that besets humanity – that resides deep down in our
hearts – is too powerful for any human solution.
It required nothing less than the sacrifice of God’s eternal
Son made flesh on the cross to forgive us our sins and to destroy the
power of sin over our lives. Jesus
is not an option for sinners. He
is a necessity. To reject
Jesus in unbelief is to hold on to sin, to trust in sin, to embrace the
very evil that enslaves us. The
world is wrong in what it says about sin.
And for that reason the world is
also wrong in what it says about righteousness.
Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of
righteousness. That is, He will show the world to be wrong about
righteousness. The world
doesn’t understand sin and so it cannot understand righteousness.
Righteousness is the opposite of sin.
By making sin less than sin it makes righteousness less than
righteousness. If sinners
don’t really need a Savior to bear their sins and to suffer the
punishment their sins deserve, neither do sinners need a Savior who will
fulfill the law for them and thereby gain true righteousness for them.
Jesus says the Holy Spirit will convict the world of
righteousness because He goes to the Father where we cannot see Him.
Jesus offers a righteousness that we cannot see.
The world prefers what it can see and measure and show off before
others.
That’s the essence of all
human religions. It is a
matter of displaying to others how good we are.
It is adding up points, counting credit, gaining merit, winning
recognition from the world. Jesus
says of such people, “Truly, they have their reward.”
The world is wrong about righteousness.
True righteousness is not something you can see and measure and
display to others. True
righteousness comes only from Christ who goes to the Father to intercede
for us. True righteousness
is hidden from view. It
exists under the cover of great sin and weakness.
True righteousness is received in repentance, and what does
repentance do? Does it lift
up its good deeds for recognition and praise?
No, it beats the breast and prays with the tax-collector in the
temple, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
True righteousness is Christ’s righteousness.
Just as Jesus alone can take away sin, Jesus alone has lived a
truly righteous life. It is
His suffering for us that takes away our sins.
It is His righteous living and dying that wins for us the
righteousness that covers us and renders us justified before God.
The world knows nothing of this, but when it comes to such
things, God is right and the world is wrong.
The world is also wrong about
judgment. Everyone goes
around judging his neighbor. It’s
as if religion is all about standing in judgment of others.
But the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, shows how the world is
wrong about this by showing that the ruler of this world is judged.
The devil is called the ruler or prince of this world.
He isn’t in control of it.
He doesn’t govern it. But
he does govern the thinking of those who belong to the world and don’t
know Christ. Since these
people don’t enjoy the forgiveness of their own sins they must
constantly be looking at the sins of their neighbors.
Since they don’t have the righteousness of Christ that is
received by faith alone, they must constantly be comparing themselves
with others to see if they are more righteous than others.
Only those who know they are forgiven can forgive.
Only those who know they are righteous can cease the constant
judging of others and rest secure in the knowledge that they have passed
out of judgment into life.
The prince of this world judges. He judges Christians. He
judges them falsely. He
points to their sin and claims it claims them.
But that’s a lie. He
points to their righteousness and tries to convince them that this is
how God sees them. But
that’s a lie. God sees us robed in Christ’s righteousness, not our own.
God forgives our sins for Jesus’ sake.
And God has judged the father of lies and murderer of souls.
He has judged him and thrown him out.
The judgment of Satan against us Christians cannot stand.
He stands judged himself.
God is right and the world is
wrong. God is right about
sin. It isn’t simply a
matter of outward disobedience to the Ten Commandments.
It’s the total corruption of our nature. Sinners are bound by sin.
They cannot set themselves free.
They are blinded by it. They
can’t see things as they are. Only
by Christ taking sin away by suffering for it can sinners be forgiven
and set free. Yet the world
looks at Christ as a new lawgiver, a great prophet, or a moral teacher. They don’t know sin and so they don’t know that faith in
Christ is the only hope for sinners.
God is right and the world is
wrong. God is right about
righteousness. Only the
doing and dying of Jesus can stand before God as pure unadulterated
righteousness. This is unseen by the world and therefore despised.
But to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness makes us holier
than to parade around in the best and noblest and more revered works we
could ever produce by ourselves.
God is right and the world is
wrong. God is right about
judgment. It doesn’t
matter how the world sees us or judges us because God is our judge and
God has already brought us out of judgment into the grace in which we
stand. It doesn’t matter
how the devil slanders us because he stands condemned.
The blood of Jesus Christ that washes away all our sins also
silences the accuser. Of
what sin can he accuse us? Of
no sin at all because Christ bore all sin away.
God justifies us.
He pronounces us forgiven and truly righteous.
He justifies us by His grace alone.
We don’t deserve it. He
justifies us for Christ’s sake. Christ
Jesus is the One who took away all our sin and brought us true
righteousness. He justifies
us through faith alone. We
receive this righteousness and forgiveness simply by believing the
gospel that the Spirit of truth impresses on our hearts.
This is why we sing with joy this Cantate Sunday.
O SING
unto the Lord a new song;
For he hath done marvelous things.
With his own right hand, and with his holy arm,
Hath he gotten himself the victory.
The Lord declared his salvation;
His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the nations.
He hath remembered his mercy and truth toward the house of Israel;
And all the ends of the world have seen the salvation of our God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and evermore shall be, world without
end.
Amen.
Rev. Rolf D. Preus
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