Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2025

The Law will sound good as long as you can keep it. Yet the moment you break God’s Commandments, the Law will leave you hanging, doomed. Jesus, however, was nailed to the tree to hang on the Law for you. By this, you are saved. 

By this, also, comes great joy! For Jesus has sorted salvation out for you. Therefore, you no longer need to be like the Pharisees and try to figure out which commandment is more important than the others. No longer must you try to figure out how much good you have to do in order to balance out the evil you’ve done. There’s no more trying to figure out how you’re going to live like a religious person while trying really hard to avoid living like religious people! Most of all, no more trying to get on God’s good side by how you behave; and, no more treating people nicely because you hope God will notice and you’ll feel good about yourself, fooling yourself into thinking you’ve earned something from the Lord! No, instead of all that Pharisee way of doing things, you have the Jesus way of doing things: He gave His life into death for you. Which means: you don’t have to worry about pleasing God; Jesus has done the lifting, the hanging, the dying. In Him, you are the Father’s beloved child, for you are what Christ is.

Readings:

• Old Testament: Deuteronomy 10:12-21

• Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

• Holy Gospel: Matthew 22:34-46

Sermon: