Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Epistle Lesson just read, from Romans 6. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- One of the first things that young children have to learn is how to make distinctions. We teach them colors, and shapes. It is important to know that a square peg doesn’t go into a round hole.
- It is also important for children to be able to make identifications – to know the people who care for them and love them, the people that they belong to. Even before little ones can talk they show recognition and identification of parents and loved ones with their big smiles and giggles.
- Finally, one of the most important things for us to have is a sense of “inclusion,” the sense that we belong and that we are appreciated. It is a terrible thing to feel excluded, and especially to think that we are on the outside of everything. We want our children to know how much we love them and that they will always be part of our family.
- In our Scripture lessons for this morning we see that God also has concern about these three things: “DISTINCTIONS, IDENTIFICATIONS, AND INCLUSION.” Of course, He is concerned about more important distinctions and identifications than mere shapes and colors. And His love for us and His desire that we know we are included in His family forever is far stronger than any mere human love.
- But just as we understand that learning these things is important for our children, so also God has provided instruction for us so that we may be richly blessed in our life of faith in this world. First, we see that:
I. God Makes Distinctions In Creation, By His Word
A. He Makes Natural Distinctions – Between Light and Darkness
Gen. 1:3-5 “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.”
B. And God Also Makes Moral Distinctions – Between What Is Good And Evil, And Reveals The Difference In His Word Through His Prophets
Deut. 30:15,16 “”See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”
Statement: God has also placed into our hearts the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, when He wrote His law in our hearts. But it is God Who makes right and good what it is, and God who declares wrong and evil to be just that. Whether in the created world, the cosmos, or in the micro-cosmos of human morality, it is God Who creates and identifies the distinctions. Likewise, it is God Who seeks to teach these distinctions to us – and as we well know, the ability to make distinctions is quite important.
Application: So you can see how it is part of the perverseness of our modern times that people think they can create and determine good and evil contrary to God’s Word and judgment. This is like the insanity of someone confusing light with darkness, or the daylight with the darkness of night. So it is that we actually have to tolerate the insanity of people who want to poke square pegs into round holes – trying to ram their immorality down the throats of decent people. Surely this is quite hideous to people who actually care, as God does, about the good and welfare of others – for life and good go together just as death and evil belong together.
But it is also part of our own fallen and sinful nature, and what we are strongly inclined to do – to justify our own evils, explaining how there is nothing wrong with them, and exaggerating our own “rightness.” But this blindness must be corrected by the Word of God as we are taught the true distinctions between good and evil.
Transition: This is quite important in the larger scheme of things, and especially in regard to God’s ultimate good will for us. For we have already sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and if we can learn to acknowledge and confess this, then we can see that:
II. God Also Creates And Identifies Good To Us, The Great Good Of His Salvation – And This Is Also Recorded In His Written Word And Proclaimed By His Servants
A. That Jesus, God’s Son, Is Our Savior
John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.”
1 John 4:9,10 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the blood atonement for our sins.”
B. This Good And Salvation Is Revealed Also In His Baptism
Mark 1:10,11 “And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son; with You I am will pleased.”
Heb. 1:1-3 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He appointed the heir of all things, through Whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Statement: Without discerning the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, we cannot discern our need for a Savior. And without the revelation and identification of Jesus as the Savior of the world, as presented in God’s Word, the Holy Scripture, we would not be able to know and believe Who Jesus is and what He has done for us and for our salvation. But God has revealed these things to us through His Word, so that we also have come to know and believe the love that He has for us.
Application: Through His Word God enables us to continue growing in our ability to identify what is truly good – and to especially recognize His great gift of love to us of His Son, our dear Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. So He invites us to confess our sin and to rejoice in His forgiveness and mercy, and to know that He is our Heavenly Father, our greatest good, our Savior, and our eternal life. If we know and believe what He reveals of Himself in Christ Jesus, then we too like little children will delight in His presence and His love – able to identify Him. If you are pleased when your little ones recognize you, then you have an inkling of how God, Who is love, feels about your faith and trust in Him, and your joy in His love.
Transition: And our heavenly Father has also provided for our full and complete “inclusion” in His love and family, for:
III. God Includes Us, Joining Us To Himself, To Jesus, In Our Baptism
A. In Our Baptism We Have Died And Have Been Buried With Jesus
Text: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore by baptism into death.”
B. Our Being Joined To Jesus In His Death And Burial Is Intended To Join Us To His Resurrection And To Newness Of Life
Text: “in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
C. So That Now We Are Free From Sin’s Condemnation And Power, Dead To Sin, But Alive To God In Christ Jesus
Text: “One who has died has been set free from sin. . . So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Statement: Inclusion, reality and certainty that we belong, is so important, and in our baptism God has incorporated us into the very existence of the Lord Jesus Christ – having died with Him, having been buried with Him, having newness of life in Him, dead to sin and alive to God. Now, no matter what happens to us in this earthly life, we will never be lost to God, for “if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
Application: This is the joyful certainty that God wills for us to have. To have it we must know that He makes the distinctions, so that we confess our sin. And we must allow His Word to enable us to make identifications – of God and of His Son, our dear Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. And through His Sacrament of Holy Baptism, He has surely included us in His family, having incorporated our lives into that of Jesus, His beloved Son. This is the blessedness of God which He provides to us in His Word, of “DISTINCTIONS, IDENTIFICATIONS, AND INCLUSION.”
Conclusion: We know how frustrating it can be to teach these things to our children, and the great blessedness of them finally coming to know them. If we do not allow God to teach us these things, we will remain spiritually like little infants who don’t know their shapes or colors, who cannot identify even their own dear parents, and who have no clue as to where they belong. Who would want to remain in such a pitiable state of ignorance? Certainly this is not God’s will for us!
So let us learn from Him, and learn of Him, and allow Him to continue renewing, remolding, and reshaping us in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the life of repentance and faith which nourishes true spiritual life. God provides these gifts to us through His precious Word, so that as we grow to maturity in faith and life we too can “MAKE PROPER DISTINCTIONS,” and can easily and joyfully “IDENTIFY” God as our heavenly Father, through His salvation in Christ Jesus, and live a new life “INCLUDED” and incorporated into the very life of Jesus, alive to God.
God grant such blessedness to each of us, Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.