The Victory is Yours :: 1 Corinthians 10:1-5, Exodus 17:1-7
1. You should be ashamed of yourselves!
The Lord God Almighty has led each of you out of the wilderness of sin by stages. He has passed each of you through the waters of baptism. He has nourished each of you with the bread of heaven. He has provided more food than you can possibly eat every day. You have called on him, and he has heard your voice. You have sought salvation, and he has set you free.
But no sooner than salvation came unto us by God’s free grace and favor (LSB 555:1) ... you began grumbling and complaining about it ... just like the people of Israel ... just like the people of Corinth.
You don’t have enough, you say. And what you have isn’t good enough.
We can take better care of ourselves, you say. And you aren’t interested in receiving the tangible forgiveness of sins every week.
You convince yourselves that if you just try a little harder ... fight a little stronger ... read a little deeper, I’ll all be OK.
2. We should be ashamed of ourselves!
It’s a hard word to hear, isn’t it? That we should be ashamed of ourselves.
The world around us has been teaching us not to be ashamed of ourselves, but to love ourselves most of all, to take pride in ourselves. Only you can make you a better you, they say. Only you can embrace who you really are. Let us go back to our old way of life. It’ll be cheaper and faster, and we get to do it our way ... Right?
Besides, we like our routines. It’ll feel safer and more secure. And we like it like that.
We should be ashamed of ourselves!
We know God says he’s the only way, that he’s the only truth, but like the Israelites, we honestly think that we can walk as we please ... that our drunkenness at home isn’t hurting anyone ... that our gossip is just small talk ... that our pledge to the church is just a pledge ... that they won’t know if I give a little less.
We lose sight of our way, and our mission in life.
Besides, we tell ourselves, no one will see what I am really doing in my proverbial closet. No one will hear what I’m really thinking. I don’t need to speak up for the least among us. If we just ignore sin, it’ll be like it never existed.
That’s what we tell ourselves.
And we should be ashamed of ourselves.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Paul Gerhardt reminded us in our hymn of the day ...
It was a false misleading dream that God his law had given,
that sinners could themselves redeem and by their works gain heaven (LSB 555:3).
I had honestly thought about pairing down this week’s hymn of the day. But it has an important message we can’t hear enough. The Lord has revealed his saving love and we can now see our savior.
So let’s face our shame for once in our lives ... Our guilt is ever increasing (LSB 555:3). Sin poisons everything we say and do, and everything we don’t say and don’t do. We need to stop quarrelling with Moses. We must stop testing the Lord.
Our Old Testament and Epistle readings, in particular, and even our Gospel from Saint Matthew, are all speaking this truth to us in no uncertain terms.
We are grumblers and complainers.
For I don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, that all of our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all into Moses were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food, and they all drank the same spiritual drink, for they continued to drink out of the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. But God was not pleased with many of them, for they made their bed in the wilderness. (1 Cor 10:1-5)
They should have been ashamed.
But you knew that today when you came, didn’t you?
3. That is why you’re here: You are ashamed of yourselves.
You see ... we Christians are all alike: Every single one of us starts with the best intentions. We are all sinners. We start running the race, striving for the prize (1 Cor 9:24), the upward call of God (Phil 3:14). But low and behold, it starts to hurt, and then we start to wane.
There is nothing easy about this life as a Christian. Then, to make matters worse, too many of us ... myself included ... try to do this on our own merits.
Joining the right church does help. But membership in the right church doesn’t insulate you absolutely. Look at all those people in our Exodus reading! Talk about being in the right church! They were God’s people, chosen by him. God was present with them visibly and audibly. They saw him in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. He protected them around the clock. He provided a couple million people with the daily miracle of food and drink ... in the desert ... for 40 years.
And shamefully, they said it wasn’t good enough.
In a similar way, he came to us as well, delivering us too, crushing our enemy too. We too passed through the sea, which Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls baptism (10:1). We also have eaten the spiritual food and drank the spiritual drink, which Paul ... again by inspiration ... will tell us is the Lord’s Supper (10:16-17).
So, brothers and sisters in Christ, what shall we do?
As we approach the season of Lent ... this is a good time to prepare ourselves ... to recognize our sin and our need for a savior. Like Paul, we don’t want to run aimlessly (1 Cor 9:26). That’s what false Christians do as they set aside God’s Word in the interest of self-serving glory. And it is a dangerous mistake.
Therefore, in the name of Jesus, repent, and thank God for his gracious generosity, knowing that ...
EVEN AS WE SHAMEFULLY GRUMBLE EVERY DAY, CHRIST STILL SAVES US
That is the theme of our readings today.
It’s abundantly clear in Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard. It doesn’t matter whether you were last or first, it doesn’t matter how long you have been working here in the vineyard at the corner of Locust and First Street.
What matters is that ...
4. While we were grumbling ... He took our shame and bore the heat of the day so that you don’t have to.
Our Lord Jesus Christ came to us for this reason. He was born for this reason. He was manifested in the flesh for this reason. And now as we plod toward the season of Lent, we bear witness for this reason. Jesus took our sin and shame to the cross to bear the full wrath of God, for you.
Jesus had no reason of his own to be ashamed of anything in his life. He was born without sin, unlike you and me. He lived a life without sin ... unlike you and me. He lived a life without shame, unlike you and me. The King of Kings shamelessly humbled himself, going silently and ungrudgingly to the cross for you (Phil 2:6-7).
As we heard just a few weeks ago, he first shamelessly united himself with you in the sinner’s baptism. And in this way, the Word of God passed through the waters to lead us out of the wilderness of sin and into the Promised Land of his eternal kingdom.
This is baptism.
After baptism he shamelessly faced the heat of temptation ... and won.
Finally, on account of his life and his death on a cross, he covered the shame of your sin by shedding his innocent blood for you. And he has risen from the dead, giving you the living hope of eternal life.
Because of his death and resurrection, you will not be shamed. His righteousness is now yours. He took you guilt and shame, and he gave you his holiness and blamelessness. He united himself with you in baptism. He is now in you and you are in him (Gal 2:20, Col 2:9-12; Rom 6:5).
Through baptism, he leads you to confession and absolves you, cleansing you of your guilt and shame. He reassures you with his word of promise, and finally the King of Kings delivers to you the feast of forgiveness we call the Lord’s Supper.
In these means of grace ... he removes our shame and saves you not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things (Titus 3:4-8).
These means enliven our faith in Christ. And ...
5. Our faith cannot be put to shame. We will never perish (LSB 555:7).
Brothers and sisters ... Christ is the rock that satisfies your hunger and thirst. Christ is the rock who preserves you into life everlasting. Christ is the rock on which you can stand, free of shame.
There’s no reason to doubt your salvation any longer. Baptism now saves you (1 Pet 3:21). The righteousness of Christ is now yours (Rom 3:21-26) because as the evangelist to the Hebrews also declares Jesus endured the cross for you ... despising the shame for you (Heb 12:2).
Since Christ has full atonement made, and brought to us salvation,
Each Christian therefore may be glad and build on this foundation.
If you have grown weary of the race in the past, hear our Lord’s exhortation and don’t give up ... the victory is yours. As Jesus said ... the last will be first (Matt 20:16). He has chosen you, called you, cleansed you, redeemed you, and will nourish you into eternity.