The Bethany Bullet Sermon Message - Week of June 14, 2020

Link to Worship Video for 6/14/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser:

http://www.bethanylutheran.org/worship-service-resources/

*Direct link to Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/428559286

Link for printing Sunday’s Bulletin for 6/14/20 – HERE

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http://216716c740411890a61b-baadebb03584b8c460640ee327586b9d.r93.cf2.rackcdn.com/uploaded/b/0e10544406_1592058625_bulletin--june-14-2020.pdf

Link to Bible Discovery Resources for 6/14/20 – HERE

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http://www.bethanylutheran.org/bible-discovery-resources/

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Message from Romans 5:6-15

From Perry Mason to Boston Legal, from The Good Fight to The Good Wife courtroom dramas are and have been a staple in the American TV menu.  Thus, trials and testimony are things with which we are familiar.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul, presents us with a “brief” and we discover that our names appear on the docket.  When we take the stand we cannot plead the 5^th, though guilty of breaking the 1^st through the 10^th - commandments that is.   We are guilty – “sin entered the world through one man (Adam was his name), and death through sin, and in this way death

came to all, because all sinned (add your name to his). 

There is no argument to be made, the evidence is incontrovertible, no conjecture or conspiracy here–  just the facts:  we’ve broken the law of God.  While he could have, at this point, Paul doesn’t break out a list of charges.  No mention of specific sins:  Racism or radicalism, apathy or animosity, greed, gossip or gluttony.  He just addresses the case, “You see, at just the right time, when we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though

for a good man someone might dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  If when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of His Son, how much more shall we be saved through His life!”

For your guilt and for mine, for your sins and those of the world, for your big transgressions that perhaps others know about (and maybe are even talking about), for those hidden sins that you pray no one ever finds out about, for all iniquity of the fallen the only innocent man took the fall.   “Very rarely will someone day for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might dare to die, but God demonstrates His love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!”

This is the Gospel in all its purity.  It’s on this reality that the rest of Paul’s letter rests.  Sin is rebellion against God, and yet, God, in Christ, dies for sin – specifically sinners.  We’ve been acquitted because another has been convicted in our place.                    -- Pr. Kevin Kritzer