Bethany Bullet Sermon Message - Week of March 18, 2018
Sermon: “Faith
Alone…It’s Never Alone”
Text: James
2
As the season of
Lent draws to a close those who as part of their spiritual disciple forsook
something this season are most likely quite glad that Easter will be here
soon. “Giving up something” for Lent can indeed be a great benefit
in our discipleship and growing closer to our Lord in His suffering.
That being said,
the thing which Lent ultimately calls us to refrain from is: sin! Not
just for 40 days, but for all our days! We’ll need that Easter,
our personal Easter when we rise, to take place before we are free from sin
forever. Yet, even now we who are both, ever and always saints and
sinners hear the Lenten call to not only forsake but to take – up – our cross
daily.
Cross bearing is
nothing less than a response to the faith by which we alone are saved; that
bears witness to that faith being never alone. In other words, fruits
follow faith. A life of relying on Christ will be at the same time a life
of reflecting Christ. Now, it won’t be perfect, not even close, while we
are the Lord’s new creation in Christ, our nature still clings to the old Adam too!
Luther reminds us of the struggle the saint/sinner experiences when in speaking
about baptism he says, “We should daily remember God’s promise made to us in
baptism, drown the old Adam, and rise anew to live before God in
righteousness.”
That is another way of saying, we are saved
by faith alone; yet ours is a faith that is never alone.
-Pastor Kevin Kritzer
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