The Eighth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 8:12-17

In Christ Jesus, who shed His holy blood to cancel the immeasurable debt of our sin, dear fellow redeemed:

It must be the case that all of us here have some regrets. How can it be otherwise for sinners—at least sinners with a functioning conscience? We might regret how we hurt someone by our words or actions, how we lost our temper at people we care about, how we didn’t help when we knew someone needed it, how we said too much at certain times and not enough at others.

Along with these regrets can come a feeling of indebtedness, that we owe to others what they should have gotten from us but didn’t. That can really nag at us. We can find it difficult to be around certain people because of the guilt we feel toward them. We wish we could make up for our wrongs, but we can never take back what has been done or said. And the longer we carry these debts and dwell on them, the more they burden us.

There is also the other side of indebtedness—not what we owe others, but what we think others owe us. It is not a far step to go from feeling guilty for the wrongs we have done, to thinking about the wrongs that have been done to us. In fact, this might be the way we try to escape our guilt—trying to forget our sins by focusing on the sins of others.

The devil is ready for both situations. He is eager to magnify our own sins if that can move us to despair, or to magnify the sins of others if that can move us to bitterness or self-righteousness. In either case, the debt of sin remains. It is impossible for us to make up for our sins toward others, or for them to make up for their sins toward us. So if you want to talk about the “cancel culture” which is so popular today, not one of us can escape being cancelled because we have all sinned.

This is why St. Paul writes that there is no hope in living “according to the flesh.” There are different ways to live according to the flesh. The most obvious way is by doing the opposite of what God commands us and indulging in whatever comes to our mind and heart to do. Living according to the flesh also means thinking we can fix whatever we have done wrong. We can pay our debt of sin toward others by being good, generous, and charitable. Or we can prove by our good behavior that we are not as bad as the people around us.

This is all emptiness and vanity. This thinking shows that false prophets are not just outside us. One of the loudest and most deceitful false prophets is the old Adam inside us, our sinful nature. But contrary to the opinion of your old Adam, you can’t do yourself or others any good by staying focused on what you do. St. Paul states it plainly, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die.” You owe nothing to your sinful flesh. You can’t gain anything from your sinful flesh. The old Adam in you does not need to be fed; it needs to die. Paul continues, “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

But how do you “put to death the deeds of the body”? If you were in a life or death struggle against someone or something, you would apply every ounce of your strength to survive and overcome. That’s how we need to struggle against our sin. We need to stay on the lookout for temptations, fight against them with all our might, and get rid of any sin that has wormed its way into our hearts and minds. We get rid of sin by getting it out in the open—identifying it, owning up to it, and repenting of it.

This is how to address the debt of sin. We can’t pay it down no matter how hard we try. But we can hand it over to One who can. We are taught to do exactly this in the Lord’s Prayer. In the Fifth Petition, Jesus taught us to pray to our Father in heaven, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” You may have also heard another translation of this petition, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

This petition is an acknowledgement that we are unable to pay our debt of sin to God and to our neighbors. That’s a big thing to admit. By saying this prayer, we are saying we do not want “to live according to the flesh” anymore. We don’t want to live for ourselves; we want to live for God. And He is the One who made this possible. He is the One who makes this happen.

We pray for His forgiveness with confidence, knowing that He will and He does forgive all our sins. He forgives our sins because each and every one of our sins has been paid for. They were paid for, not by us, but by the God-Man Jesus, whom His Father sent to save us. The debt for sin had to be paid; God is just. And that debt was paid in full by Jesus who suffered and died for all our sins.

His work settles the debts we owe to others because of our sin and the debts they owe to us because of their sins. What a relief that is! No more dwelling on our failures. No more dwelling on our hurts. We promise in the Lord’s Prayer to forgive the sins of others because we know God has forgiven us every one of our sins. “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24).

Think of the work that Jesus did to save us like a blank check. There are sufficient funds to cover your tremendous debt of sin. The check is written and signed in the blood of Jesus with more than enough to cover the bill. But who is the check made out to? By the work of the Holy Spirit your name is included on that line, so you are certain that Jesus’ work was done for you.

Today’s reading makes it very clear that you don’t find your own way into God’s kingdom—you can’t save yourself. Paul writes that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” In other words, you can’t become a son of God unless you are led by the Spirit of God. And again, “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons.” Like any child who is adopted, you did nothing to get adopted by God. And again, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

We are children of God because the Holy Spirit has joined us to Jesus. In Baptism, we were given the full payment for our sins through Jesus’ death on the cross, and we were given the free gift of eternal life through His resurrection from the dead. We became “heirs of God” because the Holy Spirit made us “fellow heirs with Christ.” All that Jesus earned, we inherit. He paid our debt of sin, so that we inherit His perfect life and eternal kingdom.

This is why Paul writes that we are not debtors to the flesh. We can take no credit for our good standing with God. All we have done is accrue more and more debt by living according to the flesh. And living according to the flesh can only end in death, both temporal and eternal death. But the Lord has redeemed us—bought us back—from our sin. So Paul writes that those who put to death the deeds of the body by the power and work of the Holy Spirit will live.

He specifically credits the Holy Spirit for our repentance and faith. He says, “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Our life of repentance, our life of faith, our life of love, none of it happens by our own efforts. It is a gift, a gift of the Holy Spirit through His Word and Sacraments. We are not indebted to our flesh. We are indebted to the Holy Spirit who has imparted to us all the good gifts of Christ.

In the Nicene Creed, we confess that God the Holy Spirit is the “Giver of life.” The Son of God won eternal life for us, and the Holy Spirit brings it to us. This is why we are right with God the Father. Each Person of the Godhead, the Holy Trinity, worked for our salvation.

So we are no longer slaves of sin, lugging around the debt of our wrongs. We are free people, unburdened by God’s forgiveness, living every day in His grace. The same is true for our fellow sinners. This is why when we ask for God’s mercy and grace for ourselves, we also promise to extend the same grace and mercy to others. We pray to our heavenly Father, “Forgive us our trespasses—our debts—as we forgive those who trespass against us—our debtors.”

We look at one another as God looks at us—as people who are perfectly loved by Him and who are redeemed by Jesus’ precious blood. Our Lord Jesus paid the debt for all. The Holy Spirit works through this message to bring forgiveness and faith to the hearts of those who do not yet believe, and to increase the faith of sinners like us whom He has graciously led from death to life.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

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(picture from stained-glass window at Saude Lutheran Church)