A note from Pastor regarding his sermon:

In some Christian denominations, a lot is made of the active obedience that a Christian is supposed to display as a way of earning, accepting, or cooperating with one’s forgiveness and salvation. We sometimes hear about “inviting Christ into one’s heart,” “accepting Christ as one’s personal Savior,” or “following Jesus’ example” as a necessary prerequisite for the salvation that we know Jesus won for us through His sacrifice on the cross.

Our Lutheran theology teaches us, however, that Christ’s sacrifice is wholly sufficient for giving us the comfort and confidence of our salvation. We must still do good works and call upon God in times of trouble and to praise Him, but we do so in the freedom of a Christian who has already been saved and declared righteous because we are covered by Christ’s righteousness. And therefore we can live Christian lives free of the worry that we “haven’t done enough” to be certain that we are saved.

Our Epistle reading for this week reminds us of this distinctive element of our theology, which many other churches sometimes overlook. In the struggle to train and convince Christians to actively pursue their salvation through their own actions or cooperation with Christ’s sacrifice, they sometimes lose sight of Paul’s declaration that we “present ourselves” to God as instruments of His Will, and that He in turn guides us to the ways we serve Him and love our neighbor.