LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Sheet 82

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80 CONVENTION SERMON

And do you hear those precious words, “for me”? Not
only did the Son of God love and give Himself for “people”
in general, or the “world” in some abstract sense, not only
for rich people or good people, or informed people or pow-
erful people—but for me! Tonight He impresses those pre-
cious words not only upon our ears, but upon our tongues
and upon our lips as He, in His own body and blood given
into death for us for the remission of our sins, again says
in that most tangible way of all, “My son, my daughter, be
of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you. Take, and eat,
and believe.”

Dr. Luther calls particular attention to the words “for
me” in this beautiful passage of Scripture. He wrote,

Therefore read these words “me” and “for me” with great em-

phasis, and accustom yourself to accepting this “me” with a

sure faith and applying it to yourself. Do not doubt that you

belong to the number of those who speak this “me.” Christ did

not love only Peter and Paul and give Himself for them, but

the same grace belongs and comes to us as to them; therefore
we are included in this “me.”

Oh, the wonder of it all! Paul exclaims, and with him
we do, too, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no
longer live!” The old “I,” the one who hates God and prefers
self, the one who wants to live under the Law and justify
himself before God in so doing, the one who is dead in
trespasses and sins, the one who can’t believe that God is
as good as He says He is, the old “I” has been crucified
with Christ, put to death upon the cross. “J,” that old law-
ful, sinful, death-full “I,” no longer lives! In the waters of
Holy Baptism, Paul reminds the Romans and all of us, “All
of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into His death” and “buried with Him through Baptism
into death, we have been raised to new life” and “united
with Him in His resurrection.” “If we died with Christ, we
believe we will also live with Him.” What wonderful words
of good cheer these words are! The old “I” has been put to
death with Christ as He loved us and gave Himself for us.

Ill. By Faith, I—the New “]”__Am Alive in Christ

But if the old “I” was crucified with Christ and buried,
Paul is quick to add that we are truly alive in Christ—
powerfully, eternally, victoriously! He says in our text:
“Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me.” Christ—the crucified and resurrected and victorious
Christ—lives in me! To be sure, this old body of mine con-
tinues to exercise its five senses. We walk and talk, we
laugh and cry, we eat and sleep, we play and work. But
that old Adam, crucified with Christ through our Baptism,
has been replaced with a newly created life. Christ Himself
lives in me! We live by faith in the Son of God.

Again and again, the New Testament reminds us that
it is through faith, not the deeds of the Law, not the things
we do, not some mystical transformation of the inner self,
not deeds, not magic, that Christ takes up His life in us
and makes us alive in Him through faith in the Son of God
and His redeeming work for us and all people. And even
that faith that simply takes hold of Him who lives in us—
that faith is a gift of God, not of works, not some new kind
of good work as though God now justifies us by having
faith in “faith.” Faith simply receives what God gives! And

that faith that lays hold of Jesus Christ justifies because
of Him to whom it clings, and not because of faith itself.
What a magnificent message that is, too! This is the pure,
unmitigated grace and mercy of God, the all-giving One
who even gives us the faith to receive the gift of life itself.
To us and all people throughout the world, this new life of
God in Christ is simply offered with the plea, “Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your
house”! What an amazing gift that is!

We are alive in Christ! What marvelous words! They
are words to live by, words to die by, words to work by. To
each and everyone of us here this evening and to the two
and one-half million people we represent in our congre-
gations all over North America, and especially to the world
at large, that does not even know Jesus Christ and this
tremendous gift of life that He offers to one and all—think
of it, nearly three out of every four people in this world of
five billion—these are tremendous words of great and good
cheer. Again tonight, they bid us to confess our continuing
sins and transgressions, our tendency to live by the Law,
our failure to love and serve one another. But even more,
those words of precious Gospel invite us to recall that our
sins, yours and mine, were crucified with Christ and are
daily drowned in the waters of our Holy Baptism. In mo-
ments of doubt and frustration—and we all have them—
at times when we feel inadequate and powerless, when our
hearts ache because of the inhumanity of man to man or
the burden of grief or doubt or betrayal, again and again
comes the reminder of our Baptism, the comfort of the
Lord’s Supper, and the word of Good Cheer from the cross:
“The Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you.” You
have been crucified with Christ, but you now live! The life
you live in the flesh, you live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved you and gave Himself for you.

And now alive in Christ, we live for Him, in word and
deed. Our whole life becomes a life in the Spirit freed from
the bondage of the Law, and freed to serve one another in
love. The fruit of the Spirit is, as Paul reminded the Ga-
latians (5:22), “love, joy, peace, patience . . . gentleness and
self-control. . .. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have cru-
cified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” We
are alive in Christ, as St. Paul reminds us in our epistle
lesson from Ephesians, and because we are God’s work-
manship, “we are ... created in Christ Jesus to do good
works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (2:10).
Freed from the curse of the Law, we now seek to be alive
in service and love to one another. We organize our con-
gregations, and congregations organize as church bodies.
Church bodies hold conventions, we elect officials, we take
actions. But we do it all because we are alive in Christ and
we want to share that life with others. We seek to be lively
Christians because we are alive in Christ, awake and on
fire for the Lord, living the forgiven life and sharing it with
others, sparing no effort at all to live for Him who died
and rose again! Instead of the old evil triumvirate of sin
and Law and death, to be alive in Him means that we have
forgiveness and Gospel and life as the dominant themes
in our life and in our work.

Well, these are common words. Sometimes I think that
we in this wonderful Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
have heard those words so often that we almost think that

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