Author: John Langenstein

Sermon 05/10/2026 – St. Stephen the Deacon

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Acts 7:55-60

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Sermon Text

 Stephen is someone I look up to. A Greek speaking Jew, a Hellenist to use Biblical Language, he was something of an outsider in Judea. Judean Jews would not see him as being really Jewish. Likewise, Gentiles would look at him as just another Jew in the gutter. He is a foil to Paul in the book of Acts. His death inspired Paul to go on with his attempt to persecute the Church – a mission that was as much about Paul denying his identity as it was any genuine religious conviction.

Unlike Paul, Stephen embraced his identity. Though we are given just a handful of verses describing him, we can see that he was a trust member of the Christian community and someone who made a lot of difference. Firstly, we know he was a Hellenist by his name. Stephen is a thoroughly Greek name. While all the apostles’ names are written in Greek, most are cognates. In other words, people like John, are named Yoannen in Greek, which is just another way of saying the Hebrew Yohenen. In the same way today John is the same as Jean is the same as Johannes. Stephen is just a Greek name, and so we know that Stephen is of Greek descent.

Secondly, we know he was trusted because of the moment he enters the Biblical narrative. A concern is raised by Hellenistic Christians that their widows are not getting the same help that Judean widows are. We are never told the cause of this – was it intentional because of bigotry? A barrier of language? The scripture never says because the Disciples were focused on remedying the problem more than they were trying to find someone to blame. They called forward several Hellenists to take over the distribution of food. One of these people was not even Jewish, just a God-fearing gentile.

The work embarked upon by these men erased the issue. No longer did anyone feel that they were being overlooked. I think today of our modern struggles with racism. Sometimes you hear people worrying that if people of color are put in positions of power they would abuse white people in the same way that they have historically been abused by white power structures. While we must admit that power is a corrupting influence, we cannot have oppression ever be considered a natural condition of humanity. Stephen and the other Greek Jews did not begin to deny Judean widows food once they were in charge of food distribution. Why? Because the oppressed are never the enemy of one another. We could learn a lot about listening, and about promoting leaders from all backgrounds, from just this brief episode in Acts 6.

After this episode, Stephen is arrested for the preaching he has been doing in Jerusalem. Stephen is, again, an outsider. His preaching would have been easier to attack than that of the Judean disciples. The words he spoke were easier to paint as heretical, because people were already looking for excuses to exclude him for one reason or another. A false accusation of blasphemy is brought against him and a mob is formed to take him before community leadership. Reading the text, we might be led to believe this was the full council of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, but that is unlikely.

Jews in the first century were against the death penalty, those who were in power at least. This makes it unlikely that the death of Jesus or any other apostle was carried out with the full council present. Secondly, the full Sanhedrin was seventy people, good luck getting even half of them into a room at a given time. Instead, this is probably a small group of community leaders and a mob who opposes Stephen’s work. Stephen, who does preach a sermon born out of frustration with his Judean brethren, has angered a select group of people willing to kill. Stephen is lynched by a mob, not executed by a lawful authority.

Stephen’s death marked the first time someone died on behalf of Jesus. It started the series of events that would bring Paul to be converted, by first inspiring in him a plan to execute the same mob justice in other cities and towns. His ministry was perhaps the most dangerous one to the status quo of anyone who had been active in Jerusalem at the time. He was getting people to come together, Jews from Judea and from outside Judea. He had a Gentile under his leadership who had committed to living among God’s people as a believer. He created, in microcosm, the Church as it is meant to be. A people who care for one another, a people from all walks of life, a people saved by God’s grace and committed to the community they have become a part of.

Stephen will always be someone I look up to. He transformed his anger and frustration at the way the world was into action on behalf of, not only his own people, but all people. He was devoted to service and to love. Many have used him as a weapon, describing his murder as justification for attacking Jews. That is a travesty, a misuse of his legacy. Stephen, like so many advocates today, was fighting against a system that overlooked the least of these, and as a Greek Jew, his people were first on his mind. Stephen was willing to look injustice in the face and tell people that he and his people mattered just as much as anyone else. As such, he like advocates who say something similar today, he was rejected – and, yes, killed – for that belief.

We have to band together as a people, to serve one another, and to promote goodness in the same way that Stephen did. Listen to people when they tell you about their pain. Advocate for putting people in power who want to change the world, not double down on obviously broken systems. Work to repair this world that has become fractured, not by ignoring the problems that are but by fixing them at their root. We choose, day after day, if we will be with Stephen or with the mob that killed him. I choose to be with Stephen, with the Church, with Christ. – Amen.

Sermon 05/03/2026 – Good Answers

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

1 Peter 3:13-22

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight lives, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Sermon Text

Apologetics is the discipline of answering questions people have about the Christian faith. The word comes from the Greek, “Apologia,” which connotes a legal defense of a position. More properly, an “Apology,” traditionally refers to the process where somebody defends or recontextualizes accusations placed against themselves or on another person’s behalf. There are many famous apologies in the world, but my favorite is written in 1611 by Amelia Lanyer. In her poem, a long description of Christ’s passion, she takes a moment to lament the Herod would not listen to his wife when she said to leave Jesus alone. Building on this, she looks to Adam and his treatment of his wife in the Garden, and our subsequent blaming of Eve for the fall.

“And then to lay the fault on Patience back/ that we (poor women) must endure it all/ we know right well he did discretion lack,/ being not persuaded thereunto at all; If Eve did err, it was for knowledge’ sake,/ The fruit being fair persuaded him to fall: No subtle Serpent’s falsehood did betray him,/ if he would eat it, who had power to stay him?”[1]

Lanyer goes on to paint a little more of the picture of this unhappy arrangement, but her main focus is to tell the story of salvation, so her “Apology,” on Eve’s behalf is short. Still, I hope you can see the typical form of an apology. “What you have heard is this/ what is actually true is this/ therefore we should really see things as this…”

In the early days of the Church, Apologists worked hard against the criticisms of Greek and Roman philosophy as well as Jewish religious tradition. Incorporating those worldviews into their arguments, the early apologists adapted where possible, conceded where common ground could be found, and rejected what could not be reconciled to the Gospel. Today, apologetics is mainly a pursuit of historical and scientific criticism, and less a matter of philosophic debate – though this too comes into the field. Most “apologetic,” classes teach people a very specific kind of worldview and argument.

The curious thing to me, however, is that the context in which we are told to arm ourselves with “apologia,” is not in the context of learning clever arguments or discourse. In fact, later in the Letters of Peter, he specifically speaks against “cleverly devised,” stories in favor of the simplicity of the cross.[2] While I am thankful for the ability to defend my faith intellectually, I do not believe Peter expected everyone to know everything about philosophy, history, and the natural sciences in an attempt to justify their faith. Instead, I think there is academic apologia and practical apologia, the latter being what all Christians are called to.

Peter begins our reading today by asking his people to do good, not only to themselves, but to the ones around them. Feed the hungry, help the widow and orphan, supply for the poor however you can, these were the kind of works he was asking them to engage in. Along with this, the early Church was actively gathering to worship, celebrate the eucharist and the love feast, and to read the scriptures together. Peter was asking his folks to live a life that made it so that, if anyone accused them of wrongdoing, it would be obviously false. In being above reproach, when their enemies came against them to kill them, those who were being honest about the situation would see they were wrong to punish the innocent Christian.

Recently I reread the story of Polycarp’s martyrdom. Polycarp was a bishop in Smyrna, a city sitting in a bay on the coast of what is now Turkey. Polycarp was noted for his teaching and his leadership. Likely a student of John, Polycarp was a second generation Christian. He led the Church through a time of persecution, in which the government of Smyrna was heavily invested in killing Christians.

His Martyrdom, the story of his death, tells us a lot about how we are meant to defend our faith. When his captors came to steal him away, he did not run, despite having the time to do so. He walked downstairs, welcomed them in, and set a table for them to eat. He said they should take as much as they wanted, and that he only asked for an hour to pray. Standing in the house, Polycarp would pray for two hours for the good of all those he knew, had met, or had even seen on the streets. When he was done, he climbed into the carriage, and submitted to be taken to the arena to die.

He would be asked to offer incense to the god who protected Caesar. He refused, saying Christ alone was his God. The rulers begged him to recant his faith, to accept that an eighty-six-year-old should not die in an arena. He refused, and when he was asked to explain his faith he said, “I will to you, if you want to sit down and talk about it. I will not stand before this crowd just for them to shout me down.” Polycarp would be tied to a stake and burned following his refusal to talk or recant. The fire, it is said, would not burn him, and it took a dagger to the heart to kill the saint.

Polycarp, in the extremity of his martyrdom, gives us a lens to the reality that Peter’s contemporaries were living in. People were dying for their faith and the defense they had to give was not just a conversation over coffee, it was usually a matter of them standing up before their death and giving an unwavering declaration of their commitment to Jesus, even if that means death.

1 Peter is a guide for living as an exile in this world. He asks hard things of the faithful in his charge. He says they should obey their leaders, even as their leaders kill them. He says they should not return the abuse they receive, because Jesus did not abuse his tormentors, but forgave them. The evil around us, Peter says, cannot be allowed to corrupt us. We have to do right, to love, and to pray even in the face of the most terrible situations we can imagine.

The key take away for today is that our faith is something that will cause people to expect answers from us. We are blessed that, in our context, those answers are not usually a matter of life and death. Living in a country, living in a world that has known Christendom for some ten centuries, we have somehow lost track of something the martyrs of history, and even of today, inherently understand. Jesus, Polycarp, thousands of saints since them, died without a harsh word on their tongue… Yet, when it comes to our conduct in the world, we have a reputation for anything but gentleness and peace.

What would it look like if Christians lived a bit more like Peter asked them to? If we were gentle and kind and righteous. That does not mean we have to be complacent or unopinionated, but it means that we have to act like the examples of faith we have been given throughout history. How often does someone publicly question our faith and we find ourselves angry? Disagree with us and we prepare to make war with them? Christ, while dying, prayed for those who nailed him to the cross – why am I about fight people for some petty grievance?

I usually like to be a bit more optimistic in my closings, a bit more focused on our potential than our reality… Yet, I have to ask, “What is our excuse?” In a world so full of conflict and pain and war, why am I feeding into the anger and pain and more… I who suffer nothing, who go through life with complete freedom, who am I to wage war against my neighbor in this way? Again, not that we cannot have disagreements, maybe even fights, if we really need to litigate something going on… But I don’t think we go into most battles trying to provide an “answer,” we go in trying to “win.”

Christ, the fullness of God and perfected humanity, did not win in this life. He suffered and died and was pressed down, though never crushed… All throughout this, his anger was only lifted in righteous indignation for others, he answered questions so that others might know truth, he lived in gentleness and peace, and in all that he did modeled what a perfect life could look like for us. If we wish to be Christians, who can answer for the hope which we have been given, then we need to give good answers – not through rage, legislation, or discourse – but through earnestly living into a life where we, “have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind…”[3] – Amen

[1] Amelia Layner. Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. 1611

[2] 2 Peter 1:16

[3] 1 Peter 3:8

Sermon 04/26/2026 – Costly Communion

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Acts 2:42-47

[The believers,] devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

“They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Sermon Text

It may come as a shock to many of you here, but I am a collector of miscellaneous knowledge. All things I can know, I would like to know. Whether that is the full workings of an obscure computer program, the long and storied history of a piece of media and its strange creator, or just the little bits and bobs of what different parts of the world are properly called. Whether it is identifying aglets on the ends of strings or cataloguing the rise and fall of a single video effects artist – knowledge is power and I wanna be real strong. It is my passion and my goal to know about everything, everywhere as much as I can.

Despite this propensity and love of the quixotic aspects of life, I have a bold statement to make about what information I have accumulated. That is simply this: knowledge, though incredibly helpful, is not the single most important aspect of life and especially the life of faith. I do not say this in an anti-intellectualist way, there are a thousand million different ways that knowledge can augment our faith, protect us from scam artists and bad actors, and generally help us in our discernment throughout life. However, even all that knowledge is not enough without a proper understanding of something far more important – κοινωνία (koinonia.)

A pretty speech about the potential follies of knowledge, followed by a Greek word, how trite. Trust me though! This Greek word has a purpose here, in fact, I would say that koinonia is the only Koine Greek you need to know! Why? Because Koinonia is the foundation of all Christian ethics, all Christian life, and all Christian religious practice. It is, in a single word, community. To put a few more words to it, it is the way that a community comes together to share, love, and care for one another. This single word undergirds everything we do because it calls us to be together and hold all things in common. In fact, Koine, the root word of Koinonia, just means whatever is common, banal, vulgar – the things all people share.

For me, knowledge is the thing that I have to subject to this rule, but it stands for any advantage we might have in life. When we have money, that means nothing without and undergirding of community. When we have talent, it does not matter unless we use it to better the lives of others. When we have any advantage of circumstance, birth, or labor, we subject them to this one idea which the Church established from the very beginning – shared responsibility for the good of one another. No one joined the early Church without an expectation that they would be cared for and that they would be expected to care for one another.

Expectations are something we all fear to have put upon us because expectations naturally breed responsibility and even worse, regret and disappointment. I think one of the things that has damaged the Church in its witness to the world is we stopped having expectations of anything that was not programmatic. We expected on a Sunday the sermon would be just so and the music and the order of worship exactly as we like it, but once we left the building, who knows or cares? Our private life is somehow removed from our religion and we are not willing to always take the things we hold call, “mine,” and transition them to a more communal “ours.”

This problem is more apparent in the wider Church with a big “C,” than this particular church we now stand in. As I have said many times, this is a generous congregation, and one that does far better at taking care of its members and the community around it than most. I would encourage us, however, not to rest on our laurels when it comes to this virtue. There is more than money and time that goes into making a community vibrant, it takes all kinds of gifts and work to really see something like what we see in Acts comes together. It takes the strong, the knowledgeable, the gifted, the moneyed, the visionary, the [insert gift or talent here,] ad infinitum to make vision a reality and the Church in the Community of God.

Going back to my particular gift – I know lots of things. It is one of my pride and joys in life to be a veritable encyclopedia of miscellanea. However, that is a useless endeavor if not for the commitment I put next to that – to use my knowledge for good, to teach others all of it I can, and never presume that intellect is the same as know-how. I’ve been blessed with a life and a curiosity that makes me willing and able to seek out the rabbit holes of life that let me know things others might not. The only true value these things have is in being able to share them with others, so that they may build up their own stores of know how and critical thinking. Likewise, it is only circumstance and interest that has let me get here, the second I think that I am any better than anyone else for knowing that “Phoenix,” and “Palm Tree,” are the same word in Greek is the moment I have lost the point of this life.

Put another way, the Apostle Paul called us to understand “Love,” as the guiding force of every aspect of our life. “If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.”[1] Love, Community, Care – these define a human being as being part of God’s family, God’s Kingdom, and whatever our gift or ability we have to use them for the good of all people.

So let us combine our forces – whatever we can bring to God, God will accept gladly. If you have money to spare, and do not use it for good, then it is useless. If you have talents and never apply them to help those in need – they are going fallow. Whatever you bring to the table, set it down and let God do something with it. Cause when all is said and done, we will be evaluated by nothing other than our ability to love and serve one another. The only word we need to know in Greek or any other language is, “Community,” because in that one word is all love, cooperation, goodness, and greatness that defines our faith. Be a “Community,” not an island, and give your best as best you can. – Amen.

[1] 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3

Sermon 04/19/2026 – The Lord, the Judge

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

1 Peter 1:17-23

If you invoke as Father the one who judges impartially according to each person’s work, live in fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile conduct inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your trust and hope are in God.

Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual affection, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

Sermon Text

Judgment. What kind of image does that conjure in your brain? Do you see court rooms or hellfire? Maybe you see the snickering of gossipy onlookers or a cruel glance from across a room? Whatever the word makes us imagine, it is a word we cannot escape. We are all of us subject to judgment in a multitude of ways, the only question about the way judgment manifests in our life is which judgments are valid, therefore worth listening to, and which are not, and then worth ignoring.

This cuts in both directions too. We are not just evaluating the judgments we receive to know if they are valid, we have to know if the judgments we make are worthy as well. We are all constantly evaluating the world around us. Arguments, bits of information, people, as well as situations are put up against a rigorous and sometimes automatic set of criteria that then determine what we should do about them. Sometimes the decision is affirmative, sometimes its negative, but it happens without us trying to make it come into being. Without a single ounce of intent, we can pass judgment upon someone or something.

With this in mind, we are faced with a singular contradiction within our life of faith. We are called to be discerning people, we talked a bit about that last week. Yet, in the midst of our discernment, in the midst of our evaluations we are also warned “Do not judge, lest ye be judged.”[1] While part of this could be hand waved away with an argument regarding specificity of language and differences in Greek words for judgment and discernment… I think any such argument will fall flat in light of the practical considerations we face. To live in this world, we must make judgments, but to make a judgment is to ask for an equal measure of judgment to be applied back toward us.

Our scripture opens with a brief meditation on judgment. “If you invoke as Father the one who judges impartially according to each person’s work, live in fear during the time of your exile.” We need to break that apart to really make sense of it. Firstly, “If you invoke as Father,” is referring to our paternal relationship we have with God. The argument Peter makes in this verse is that, by making the claim that God is our Father, we are subject to subsequent truths and expectations. “… the one who judges impartially according to each persons’ work,” tells us the character of the God who we call Father, namely that God is perfect in the judgment God makes, because God is capable of making judgments impartially, only looking upon what a person does or does not do. This implies that God’s judgment being impartial is different than ours. Finally, because we worship an impartial God who is “Father,” to us, then we are to live a quiet and “fearful,” life because of that truth.

With that basic outline examined, we can talk but the two pieces of instruction Peter gives. Firstly, that God is impartial, and therefore our judgments are not. If we can make that acknowledgment, then a lot of life becomes easier. I often criticize the aphorism that somebody “Just tells it like it is,” because such thinking is deceptive. When we “tell it like it is,” what we are doing is telling our version of the truth as though it were absolute. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we are the one sane observer in the world, and ignore that we too are fallible and capable of making bad choices and decisions.

I will speak of my own failing here. When I worked somewhere outside of the Church I had this wonderful thing called, “coworkers.” Coworkers are something I miss in churchwork, but that had their own sets of problems. Once, I made two mistakes of judgment in talking to one of these coworkers. Firstly, that they were trustworthy. Secondly, that they would understand the Spirit of my evaluating a friend of mine. So when she said, “Your friend is real weird around my friend, I think he thinks she is into him.”

To which I said, “He thinks every woman’s in love with him.” I did not mean this as a serious critique of my friend, and I do not think I was wrong either. However, when she inevitably told her friend, and my friend inevitably confronted her about his fear she had feelings for him, her friend told my friend, “You really do think everyone’s in love with you, don’t you.”

This is a silly, dramatic example, but if you think on the way we live our life we make more serious judgments all the time. We assume someone is dangerous because they look mean, but maybe they’re just tired. We assume someone isn’t really in trouble and just after something, so we ignore them when they approach us on the street. We assume that someone who decides or even entertains a decision other than one we would make is either uninformed or wrong… We assume and assume and assume, such that we are unable to make an actual determination about the individual situations in front of us.

We are not, however, in a world where we can go without some level of judgment. Sometimes people are trying to take advantage of us. Sometimes someone is truly making a bad choice and we might be able to help them avoid it. Sometimes we are in a circumstance where we have to do something and sitting around waffling is not going to get that thing done. Judgment is not something we are forbidden from doing, it is something we are asked to weigh heavily before we act upon. In the context of Matthew 7’s prohibition against judging, Jesus immediately says that we ought to “remove the plank,” from our own eye, before “removing the sawdust,” from our neighbors. That seems to imply that familiarity with getting through a problem does give some grounds for us to help others.

That’s where the next part of the admonition comes in. “live in fear,” does not mean to clutch at our pearls or shake at every little opportunity to worry. It is instead a call for us to take seriously every aspect of our life. If God, the impartial judge, judges us by our actions, and Matthew tells us that we are reciprocally judged based upon how we judge others, then suddenly everything is placed under an umbrella of responsibility. If I choose to make a judgment, and to make that judgment known, I should be confident that it is really made impartially and toward the good of those it will affect. If I am to voice my opinion, to follow through on a course of action, to raise concern… Again, and again, and again we are asked to do these things with a great deal of seriousness.

I think that is why our reading ends with Peter calling on the people to practice “mutual affection,” literally, “love like a family.”[2] The ideal familial love asks for us to look out for each other’s good. It means sticking through hard times and difficult conversations. It suggests investing in one another enough to choose our words carefully when we speak and not being too upset when someone fails to do the same. It also means owning up to wrongdoing. To admitting when the judgments and actions we took were not good, appropriate, or for the good of others. We have to be serious about our words, our thoughts, and especially when the two collide in our judgments.

So, here’s the homework for you to take with you this week. Keep track of your judgments, large and small, write them down if you have to. Then, look back at them. Evaluate, “Now why did I think that? Was it right to think that way? Did I really need to say it after I thought it?” Ask these kinds of questions, interrogate your own decision making, and see if in the space you make through your serious consideration, God gives you a much better sense of mercy, grace, and impartiality. – Amen.

[1] Matthew 7:1-3

[2]Philios – “The love of brothers/family.”

Sermon 04/12/2026 – Believe, However you Can

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Sermon Text

I am a lifelong skeptic. I do not believe anything easily. Despite this, I have a fascination with the fantastical. Stories of the paranormal and whispers of secret realities always interest me, not so much because I believe any part of them, but because I think it is interesting how we get from the stable ground of reality into the shifting sands of speculation, Whether the topic is UFOs, ghosts, cryptids, or just mysterious internet rabbit holes, I am always ready to learn more about something, especially if that thing lets me understand more of why we believe the things we choose to believe about the world.

Being a skeptic is not a virtue unto itself. In fact, I would say, that many times it leads me to question things that you could just take at face value without issue. Likewise, being a person who questions things, I can sometimes swing around to accepting supposed truth from a trusted source without further investigation. Afterall, if I did my due diligence previously, then I should not need to do it again. Why question what has already been answered? As with anything, the virtue of “prudence,” is found in discerning how much questioning is reasonable and how much goes too far or not far enough.

In our own faith, discernment is a specific term given to describe a spiritual as well as mental ability to evaluate a situation or teaching and determine its validity and character. We are all called to discernment in our lives, but some are gifted with a special degree of sensibility. A story comes to mind of a friend of mine who, while attending a revival, had to leave during the altar call. When asked about it, he said, “I don’t care what he’s saying, but I can tell that man preaching is of the devil!” From anyone else I would question that assertion, but knowing my friend, and his usual response to others, I’m willing to say something was happening that night that he, being a discerning soul, could see that others could not.

The scripture we read today is usually presented in terms of skepticism. Thomas, having been absent for Christ’s appearance to the disciples, doubts them when they tell him that Jesus is raised and that they saw him in the room with them. We are never told why Thomas was absent, but his absence is the root cause of his doubt. While everyone else saw Christ, examined his wounds, learned about the resurrection, Thomas is left to take them at their word. He refuses to accept what they said, unless he sees the truth himself.

Another personal story comes to mind. My Grandfather, in his final months of life, was on a lot of drugs to manage pain some of his worse cancer symptoms. One day, my family came home to him talking about the pure white chicken that had perched outside his window. All of us refused to believe there was actually a chicken in the middle of Martinsburg and wrote it off as his pain meds causing vivid hallucinations. Yet, one by one, we saw that chicken outside. Though we never learned where it was from, we learned that it was a real bird perched outside our house. Until we saw it, though, none of us were willing to take our other family members at their word regarding that bird.

Thomas is not asking something unreasonable by saying that he will not believe Christ is risen and walking around unless he sees him do so. He is asking only for what the other disciples were given. “If you all really did see him, then I want to see him too. More than that, I want to investigate those wounds and prove you aren’t just painting some guy who looks like Jesus to look like he’s been hurt. Thomas eventually gets his wish, he sees Jesus and Jesus offers his side and his hands to Thomas… Yet, when given the chance to investigate further, Thomas refuses. He has been given the gift of Christ visiting him once again, and that is more than enough for him to believe.

The lesson that we should take from the story of Thomas is not that we should believe something without evidence. “Blessed are those who believe without seeing,” is a blessing of all Christians after Christ’s ascension, not a reprimand for folks who need an extra push to believe in Christ. The real lesson is that, when Thomas needed something more to move from unbelief to belief, Christ was willing to provide that for Thomas, so that he could believe. Jesus offered Thomas his hands and side, and if Thomas needed to examine them, Jesus would have let him, because Christ is much more interested in us believing, than the means by which we come to believe.

I had a group of young people in one of my churches. One of them said, “I struggle to have faith in God right now, because I look at the people of God and how they treat each other and people not like them, and I cannot imagine having faith in something that makes people like that.” So I followed that up with a question. “Ignoring the people you know are doing the wrong thing… Who is the godliest person you know?” Immediately they named a sweet, kind, prayerful lady in the church. “If you cannot believe God for God’s sake,” I told her, “Then believe God for her sake. If you can believe God is good because the Godliest person you know is good, then that is a bridge at least to getting you to faith for its own sake.”

I am a skeptic, as I have said before, and if you want to know how a skeptic keeps their faith and is able to be a minister, the answer is, “With great difficulty!” I need more help than some others to keep my faith going. That’s why I take intentional time to be in prayer, to celebrate the sacraments as often as I can, and to engage with the work of God in the world. I need those extra trappings to keep my faith fed. Other people can simply sit down and say, “I believe in God because of who God is.” God bless them for it. Most of us, above this, fall somewhere on a spectrum of how easily belief comes to us. All are valid, so long as we acknowledge and pursue what we need to believe.

I like to leave you all with a practical note, so I’m going to give you some questions to ask yourself this week. Take time to notice, maybe even write down, the times this week you feel close to God and the times you feel far from God. What triggers those feelings? Once you know which things make you feel closer to God, ask yourself what you can do to more intentionally and frequently engage with those things. Finally, for those things that make you feel far from God, if they are things you cannot avoid entirely, then ask how you can wrap them in one of the practices that does make you feel close to God.

Here’s an example of this kind of examen. I feel close to God when I am in prayer, even if it is just praying “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Repeatedly. Therefore, to feel close to God I should take intentional time to pray – sneaking down to the sanctuary throughout the week to be alone and pray as well as praying as part of my nighttime routine. I feel farthest from God when I am caught up in busywork – the third load of laundry for the day or the second run of the dishwasher. Dishes need done and laundry needs folded, so what would it look like if, as I did both of those, I layered prayer into my work. Every time I take something out of the basket, “Lord Jesus Christ son of God…” Every time I finish folding it, “Have mercy one me a sinner…” In this way, I may strengthen my faith, even just a little.

Belief is the state of trust we have in God because God’s goodness and power has been proved to us. It is not a static sensation or reality. It needs fed, nurtured, and sometimes coerced into being. Sometimes we will be on fire for God, sometimes it will feel like we need a lot of help to even utter an “Amen.” The good news is that, when we doubt or are unsure, God offers us what we need to believe. If we are willing to ask… If we are willing to try… Amen

Sermon 04/05/2026 – Go and Tell

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 28:1-10

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Sermon Text

Easter is a day of transformations. It is a day when the past falls away and reveals, not just the present, but the brilliant future that God has inaugurated around us. The light of what will be bursts out and makes the world shine, even just for a moment, with a light only Heaven can bring about. The glory of Christ resurrected, the fullness of God represented in the fullness of a perfected humanity, this is a glimpse of what we all will someday know when God’s perfected world is established and Christ returns in final victory.

For the women at the tomb that day, the emptiness of their friend and teachers resting place was a cause for extreme alarm. Was the body stolen? Did the Romans dispose of it somehow? What caused them to be deprived of this one bit of peace, properly burying their beloved companion as all people deserved to be buried. The alarm they felt melted through the words of a mysterious stranger – “Be not afraid… He is not here. He is raised from the dead.” The reality of his absence was met with something new, the reality of his continued life. Christ had been raised, not by another prophet or miracle worker, but of his own power, a master over life and death, Christ showed us what he will do for all of us someday.

Across Lent we at Grace talked about… Well, Grace. The gift of God to all of us which allows us to live a life like what Christ called us to. This free gift, offered to every person who calls out to Jesus to be saved, is more than just a “Get out of Hell free card.” It is more, even, than a guarantee of Heaven. Grace is the ability to live a life like Jesus’s. A life where we can serve others, love others, deny ourselves and our tendency to sin, and all the while find enjoyment in the goodness that we are taking part in. Grace, poured out freely from the cross, through the sacraments, and in our mutual presence today. That grace is why we are able to say we trust that as Christ was resurrected in Glory, so will we experience the same.

As people who have this trust, we must also know that when people ask where Jesus is, the answer must be, “He is not in the ground or far, far away. He is raised from the dead and he remains present through his Church.” We do not have the immediate consolation of Christ standing, bodily just a little ways off to meet us, reassure us, and comfort us. However, we are given the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to settle in our hearts. The presence of God, until that day comes where all is accomplished, sits within us. The light of Easter, of the resurrection, is ours to share, if we are willing. The light shines in the darkness, and shines out most brightly when we gather as we do this morning. The people of God, looking into the darkness of our fallen world, proclaiming the resurrection, and the hope it gives. We are Christ on earth today, go and tell of the resurrection wherever you go, in whatever you say, and in whatever you do. – Amen.

Sermon 04/02/2026 – Taking Unworthily

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Romans 7:21-8:8

So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Sermon Text

 Today, we gather to remember Christ’s final meal with his disciples. As he sat in their midst, in a room prepared by hands that did not know who the table was even meant for, he worked a wonderful thing. There, with friends and with foe, Christ celebrated God’s deliverance one last time.

This meal was not the only time this meal would be celebrated. With and through the Spirit, Christ sits down with all who take the time to remember his story. In breaking bread, in taking up a cup, we declare Christ’s deliverance until we see it fully perfect through his physical, and not just real, presence.

Yet, as we remember this eal, we will be joining in another rite of the Church. We will eat and enjoy fellowship, we will thank God for the true abundance set before us. In this way, we remember that we, having been delivered by Christ, are his presence in this world.

This meal sits before us, all the same, alongside the words of Paul. A reminder that as we gather for food and fellowship, not just in this meal but all our gatherings, we do so with an eye toward service. We should not feast and give thanks without also thinking of the hungry. We should not celebrate communion without thinking of those who do not know the taste of God’s deliverance and who have drank deep of his presence.

We are warned not to take of God’s feast unworthily, but the definition of “unworthy,” is not left to our imagination. Sin and failure are cured by this table, and so are not obstacles to it. Fitness to receive God’s grace is a fond fantasy. No, Paul is clear, to take unworthily is to lock away access to food people need to live. It is to bar them from the table of Grace. To say God’s deliverance is ours, and his presence reserved only for our table.

What are we to do with a God who came to serve, except to serve him in return? The presence of Christ is revealed to us in two ordinary ways. The first is in the eucharist, the bread and cup which we break and bless. The second is in the people we see around us in need. Those who we are called to walk alongside and to serve. Every hungry, addicted, marginalized, or forgotten person is Christ here with us. They cry out for deliverance, that we may be the presence of Christ to them and they to us.

The table of our Lord is set, with both bodily and spiritual sustenance. Let it show us the road toward right action, toward service, toward the full embrace of God’s presence in all its forms. Let us be delivered by our God, who brought us here today to remember. – Amen.

Sermon 03/29/2026 – Amazing Grace

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Romans 7:21-8:8

So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Sermon Text

 This month has been a lot. We’ve looked at how Jesus’s death, the sufficiency of that death to cleanse of our sins, and the need for us to truly put away sin to live our life in Christ to its fullest. Grace, it turns out, is not just something that we say before a meal or write on our sign. Grace is the lifegiving gift of God that invigorates every aspect of who we are. To be a Christian is to be a recipient of Christ’s goodness, and in the goodness that God has given us, we have a great deal to give praise for.

As we gather today for Palm Sunday, we do not tell the story of people gathered outside Jerusalem, as we usually do. We do not recount our humble Lord riding into the city on a donkey. Instead, we gather to be that crowd. We who have seen Christ’s salvation, having been reminded over the course of Lent what it means to receive grace upon grace, have a prerogative toward singing of God’s goodness. We declare, today and always, that there is power in what Jesus did two thousand years ago precisely because Jesus is still saving us today.

The Church year begins with Advent, just a month ahead of the secular calendar. In that season we await Christ to be born into our hearts once again. Christ, living in the flesh, is an inspiration to us across our walk through January until the end of Lent. Those forty days of preparation begin with the reminder that we are just ash given life for a time. They conclude today with the cheers we raise to our one true savior who has never stopped saving us. Today as we sing “Hosannah!” I hope you are not just doing it because it is in the hymnal or written on the bulletin, but because you truly feel that call in your Heart. “Save us, O God!”

Today, though we are in Keyser and not Jerusalem, we remember the truth that Paul restates in our scripture for today. “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” We are rescued from our “body of death,” which chooses sin over righteousness again and again, not through anything we do, but through the all sufficient and wonderful sacrifice of Christ. We see, with the benefit of hindsight, what the crowd gathered that day never could. We know that Christ’s crucifixion waits on the horizon. It is a dark and cruel day on which the price of our salvation must be paid. We celebrate today more fully than they ever could have, and yet we also are bound up with the weight of Good Friday’s terrible cost.

We ought to wave the palm branches we have, because we are alive and more than that made fully alive by what Christ has done. Sin has no power over us, nor does death keep its sting. For even as our flesh fails, we have the promise of a future resurrection. The wonder of God is not limited only to the three score and ten of a human life – it stretches into eternity through the wonderful work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today is a day to praise God for all God has done.

We end our series on grace with a simple declaration. Grace is truly amazing. Whether it is the grace which calls us to be part of God’s church, or the grace that allows us to get rid of sin, it is that grace which makes this life we live in Christ possible. The same grace equips us to move from evil and into good, a move we would never make on our own. Grace, the blessing of God delivered to us through the work of Jesus Christ, is always available and always at work. All things are reconciled to God through this force of good and all good is made possible through the same.

As we wave our palm branches, especially here in a moment as we bring forward the elements for Holy Communion, I hope you will be able to reflect on God’s grace in your own life. Maybe you have just started a serious walk in faith, God’s grace just now bringing you into understanding what it means to be saved. Maybe you have faith, but have not yet chased off the lingering sin you hate in yourself. Maybe the next step of developing goodness is where you are. Maybe your somewhere in between any and all of these stages of life. Wherever you are, as we gather to celebrate our coming salvation, the grace that God offers us is here, ready for you to receive.

We read through the book of Romans throughout Lent. A book written by a man who devoted his life, at one point, to the persecution of Christians. It was written to Roman citizens who had celebrated the expulsion of Jews from the city, and now were being asked to welcome them back into the congregation. It remains for us today as a book that tries to make sense of God’s grace by specifically looking at how it interacts with the real lives of God’s people. The righteous, the wicked, Gentile and Jew, killer and healer, all are invited to a table that can set all things right… If only we can take seriously our call to make use of it.

If God’s grace is sufficient for all people, then it is certainly sufficient for us individually. If we are so saved by so amazing a God, then I hope that we can truly celebrate the work of God today. Let those palms wave, let your voice rise up, let your praise be true! For God’s grace is amazing, and it is given freely to you and to me, to all flesh that we may be saved. – Amen.

Sermon 03/22/2026 – Perfecting Grace

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Romans 6:15-23

What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you who were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of your limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to even more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the fruit you have leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sermon Text

 Good to see everyone back after our, admittedly, dour service last week. We looked at sin, its dehumanizing and deadly effects, and I promised you all that we would look beyond sin this week to something a bit more hopeful. This week I want to point out the most powerful thing I can about God’s grace. The grace which we receive from Christ, through his death and resurrection and our faith in the same, does not just save us from death and hell and sin, but frees us to do good and to be good in ways we never could be alone.

Protestants are not good at talking about “doing good.” We are a tradition that has focused in on the fact that we are saved through faith alone, we had a reformation and several wars about that fact! Yet, if we are being truthful about the work of God in our hearts, then I do not think we can look at our Spiritual Health without considering the goodness we learn to do. That goodness may be in spiritual matters – prayer and scriptural study and affection toward God – but it must also be in more worldly signs of goodness too – prayer and service toward and beside others and affection for our fellow human beings.

To be a Christian is to be a person who realizes that they can only truly be saved through faith in Christ. To live as a Christian is to, having acknowledged our dependency on Christ, invest ourselves in the life of Christ such that we begin to resemble the savior who first called us. The life of a Christian can be a static thing, clinging only to as much grace and growth as might save us from hell. However, if we truly want to experience the fullness of God’s mercy, then we must take “the more excellent way,” of a pious life.[1]

Paul uses a metaphor out of his own world to describe the way in which Christ allows us to be freed from sin and equipped for good works. He says that in the same way that a slave is completely subservient to their master, so is a Christian completely subservient to Christ’s example and rule of life. The slavery we once had to sin, such that it controlled our every desire and action, is now a slavery to Christ, such that we are freed to do all good through the perfectly good God we call our master.

We may bristle under the language of “slave,” to describe our role in serving Jesus, but Jesus uses the same language in the Gospels.[2] I will not paint you an overly generous picture of Roman Slavery to suggest it was much better than American Chattel slavery. Our discomfort at the term was probably shared with the first Christians in Rome who read Paul’s words. It is an uncomfortable idea to think that we, free people that we are in most respects of life, should be called “slaves,” and by God no less.

What I would like to put forward, however, is that this kind of absolute service we render to Jesus and the mastery that Jesus shows us is only called “slavery,” because no earthly parallel truly exists. To give ourselves entirely to Christ, to have every breath be filled with the fullness of God, that is freedom itself. That Christ looks to this metaphor, and that so does Paul, perhaps is more an indictment on our own world that on Christ’s words. We cannot imagine giving ourselves completely to anything without “ownership,” being part of the equation. I think that is why “marriage,” is the other metaphor used to describe our faith. It again fails to address all aspects of our life with Christ, failing in different ways to the other metaphor, but all the same it approaches the right idea.

Our service to Christ is another thing only made possible through the grace we receive by faith. We are given the spiritual strength we need to develop our skills in holiness. Praying without ceasing, forgiving as we have been forgiven, honoring all people and all life as sacred, and serving all people and our God with all our hearts are all marks of a holy life. Yet, if we are to summarize what that holiness looks like, we just need to see it in terms of “love.” When we are unsure the way to move forward, we can ask ourselves the simple question, “Would the thing I am doing allow me to better love others and to love God?” If the answer is yes, then we move forward in holiness.

1 Corinthians 13 is usually the verse you will hear quoted talking about love, and almost always recounting romantic love (usually at a wedding.) Today though, I want you to apply it to your actions toward God and others. Are we being patient? Giving people time and taking time to work? Are we being kind? Not just good, not just right, but also kind? Are we shunning all envy? Pride? Boastfulness? How long of a list have we kept of the wrongs others have done? Do we have a kind of heart that, “… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

To grow in holiness takes intention. As we discussed last week when we looked at avoiding sin, we must intentionally seek to do good. Have you made yourself available to serve? Have you taken time, more than once, to pray for others? To read the scriptures? Have you practiced loving your enemies? I can ask more question! The simple thing we have to ask is, are we willing to be perfected in love? Christ has given us Grace that we might be made whole. I would ask that all of us devote ourselves, intentionally, to letting the grace of God lead us into life, and life abundant. – Amen

[1] John Wesley. “The More Excellent Way.” Available at: https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-89-the-more-excellent-way/

[2] Luke 17:7-10

Sermon 03/15/2026 – Cheap Grace

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Romans 6:1-14

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey their desires. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Sermon Text

Last week we talked about the fact that Christ’s life, his perfect and immense humanity, was enough to swallow up all of death. Sin has no claim on our lives anymore because Christ has freed us completely from it. No matter the sin, we are freed to be able to go forward and change our life, to be born again in the truest sense of the word. Through faith, with Christ’s purifying Spirit, in all things we are able to know a life that is free from guilt, full of joy, and that reflects the grace that God has shown us in every part of our life.

The grace we are offered, however, is not an excuse for us to live life however we please. We are bound by the freedom we are given. There is a great contradiction within our faith, that by being freed we are restricted. We are restricted in the sense that, having been freed from death, we now have the opportunity to choose life. Being freed from sin, we can be holy. Being freed from all that is bad, we can choose to do all the good we can. We are freed, not for the sake of freedom, but for the joyful obedience that faith allows us.

We often see sin in terms of a sickness, something that we inherited that makes us do the wrong thing. That is partly true, but misses the point that we can, through God’s help, no longer consciously sin. Likewise, when we see sin as just a matter of following rules, then we tend to see our infractions as something Jesus will just take care of, balancing the scales through his righteousness. The reality, however, as we discussed last week, is that sin is death and death can and will find its way into our life if we give into sin. Not a physical death or sickness, not usually, but a death of the divine image within us, a degradation of all that makes us truly human. Death, having been chased away from our souls, may only enter back in with an invitation, and we must be willing to say “No,” when the shade crouching at the door asks to come in.

Paul uses baptism to explain what Christ has done for us. In faith, we who are baptized are not just washed with water, but joined to Christ through death. Christ who died physically for us, allows us to die to our sinful nature through faith, as shown in the grace of baptism. When we sin after having been joined to Christ, we do so as people who have been freed from sin and then have made the choice to enter back into its clutches. For, as we joined Christ in death through baptism, so Christ has allowed us to know regeneration through the Spirit. We are no longer who we once were, we are made new through Jesus. As Christ was resurrected, so now we have the hope of resurrection through faith.

This means that we not only can, but must work to free ourselves from the chains of sin that we keep placing back on ourselves. We can sit talk all we want about being born again, but if we do not show that through the cultivation of good and the banishing of evil, then we are only just talking. We need to try to be better, to try and put away sin, because if we do not we will always find a way to excuse it instead.

I had an ethics professor who always told us, “A lot goes wrong in your life before you find yourself knocking on a motel door.” In that example, what she wanted us to see was that making little excuses can lead to big consequences. The almost absent-minded flirtation, the conversations we have that we suddenly find ourselves hiding from our partners, the emotional investment into someone we ought not to be invested in. Her choice of an obvious wrong, adultery, was intentional. She wanted us to understand that no person is above sinning, and sinning grievously. If we do not monitor ourselves, if we do not take even the “small,” transgressions we commit seriously, we will allow more and more egregious ones to enter in.

I hope we can see how easily we fall into the trap of saying, “Well, this is just a little sin.” “I’m just angry at this person because they deserve it.” “I spent more than I should have because I was up for an upgrade anyway.” “I never planned it this way, things just happened.” We get lost before we know it in a sea of choices that make it so that we have sinned more greatly, and to our greater detriment, than we ever imagined, because we knew Jesus had our back and that all would be taken care of at the end of it. “Surely this little bad choice wasn’t really that bad.”

A cheap grace that does not hold us accountable will always become an excuse to do what is wrong, because it is easier or more satisfying in the moment. If we truly wish to be people who can fully enjoy the benefits of our salvation, we need to let go of the idea that sin is ever going to do anything but destroy us. Slowly, sneakily, it will find its way inside our hearts and break them down into nothing. We will make small concessions, until the foundation we need to keep is broken away. We will excuse great evil because we let little ones fill our hearts.

So what is our cure? Next week we’ll talk about developing good habits to replace bad ones, but first let’s figure out how we can get rid of bad ones. Firstly, acknowledge that they exist. Secondly, confess them to God if they are personal, and to the person they have hurt if they involve others. Thirdly, seek to make right any wrong you have caused. Finally, having done all things to repair what is broken, put in place whatever protection you need not to sin again. If you cannot be strong, then be smart and avoid temptation. If you cannot avoid the temptation then steel your nerve. In all things, find support where you need it to make it through.

And if we do fall? If we fail? “God is faithful to forgive us.”[1] This is not a call for us to feel so ashamed we are paralyzed. This is an earnest request that we take sin seriously. Sin has no power over us, except the power we give it. Christ made sure we can live well, let us commit to working toward that good life. – Amen

[1] 1 John 1:9