First Sunday in Advent – November 27, 2011

1 Corinthians 1:3-9 - ³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. ⁵ For in him you have been enriched in every way—in all your speaking and in all your knowledge— ⁶ because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. ⁷ Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Dear faithful saints waiting for Christ’s return,

Happy New Year! That’s right - today marks the beginning of a new church year. Just like our calendar year, the church year has seasons and it starts with the season of Advent. Now, advent means coming, and during the season of Advent we prepare our hearts for Christ’s coming. So, since it is a new year, let’s make some resolutions this morning.

Here are four that I thought would fit all of us well. We, members of Emanuel Redeemer resolve to…

1) Exercise our spiritual muscles a little more

2) Work on forgiving others a little better

3) Be less lazy with our prayer life

4) Attempt to read our entire Bible by this time next year

What kind of resolutions do you think God would suggest? Certainly all of the previously mentioned ideas are good and pleasing in his sight. But God sets a higher standard for you and me. He says, “Be perfect, as I your heavenly Father am perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Whoa! There’s no way we could ever accomplish that goal. Yet, in our study of his Word this morning you will learn that your God not only suggests this resolution but he also carries it out for you. It is my prayer through Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that you will see: God is faithful – he will keep you blameless.

God’s resolution for us in this new church year is to be blameless; to be without fault in all our thoughts, words and actions. Of course, that is something impossible for us to. On our own, we cannot keep ourselves free from blame. We trespass every day. We are responsible for our words and actions and thoughts that are not perfect. And as we stand before the great judge on the Last Day this fact remains, from our own sinful nature comes sinful thoughts, sinful words, and sinful deeds. We are to blame for our sins.

To put it into a picture, it’s like a computer virus. When a computer virus sneaks into your computer it corrupts all of your files. Eventually, your computer will crash. We all have the virus of sin. It permeates through our entire being. Try to blame it on Adam and Eve, your parents, or the world around us, but the fact remains - we are still guilty of our sins. We are to blame for our sinful actions. And as a result, on the Last Day, the judge should sentence us to an eternity in hell’s prison.

So what we need is a God who can free us from blame and accusation. And guess what, we have a God who has done just that. You see, instead of blaming us for our sin, he showed us his grace. It was that grace that Paul was so thankful for as he wrote to the Corinthians at the beginning of this letter, “I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.” And God has showered that same undeserved love on us, and he has done it through his Son Jesus.

You see, the story of our salvation stats with Jesus obeying the Father’s demand to be perfect as the Father is perfect. That perfect life was made possible because Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin mother. As a result, Jesus was not infected with the virus of a sinful nature like you and me. So Jesus was able to live without sin and its consequences. He did not have a sinful thought, word or action. That didn’t mean Satan didn’t still try to make Jesus fall short of God’s demands of perfection. But every time Jesus was tempted, he used God’s Word to defeat Satan’s trickery. And now, the Father has accepted the work his Son accomplished. The Father considers the Son’s blameless life as enough to give each and every person on earth, as if they had lived that perfect life. In Christ, the Father gives you perfection.

But something still had to be done about all our sins. For God is just. He cannot and does not ignore sin. Someone must suffer the consequences for them. As so, although Jesus lived a blameless life, his Father blamed him for all our sin. We fall short of a perfect life – but God accused Jesus of that crime. We failed to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself – but God made Jesus the guilty party. We give in to Satan’s temptations - but God made Jesus guilty. As the sinless Son of God, he took the blame for our sin and so became the worst sinner of all time, paying for each and every sin with his death on the cross – “God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In Christ, God has declared you blameless.

Not only has God declared us blameless, but Paul assured the Corinthians, “God will keep you strong to the end.” That same promise is given to us. Through the good news of our Savior Jesus found in the Word, God assures us that he will keep us blameless until the day Jesus returns to judge the world. But, in case our sinful nature wants to take the statement and run with it, we need to understand that this does not mean that we have a license to do whatever we want. It does not mean that the doors of heaven open for us if we continue to live a life of sin and live in unrepentance. It does not mean that it is impossible to fall away from God and his grace.

Jesus made that very clear for us in our gospel lesson this morning. There, Jesus gave the very strict warning, “Keep watch! You don’t know when I will return again. Don’t be caught sleeping” (Mark 13). Don’t be caught sleeping he said. In other words, keep holding to Christ Jesus in faith. Nine times in the first nine verses of this letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses the name Christ Jesus. He says, “God has given you grace in Christ Jesus.” “God has called you in Christ Jesus.” That takes all the focus off of us and puts the spotlight on Jesus. He is the reason you will be blameless to the end. If it were up to us, we would not be able to keep ourselves free from accusation until the Last Day. This is all God’s doing…his grace…his faithfulness.

And he gives us the warning of our Gospel lesson to encourage us because it is so easy to lose our grip on Jesus and to take our focus off of him. Well, in Luke Jesus warned, “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap” (Luke 21:34). It is easy for our hearts to become so full with all that this life has to offer that we can become spiritually tired. There are so many other things demanding our time. Some of them are evil in and of themselves. Getting drunk. Using drugs. Abusing God’s gift of sex. Others are not evil in and of themselves, but the devil can use them to make us spiritually drowsy. Things like sports or work or family or all the little worries that keep us awake at night. When these good things crowd time with God out of our lives, they make us spiritually drowsy.

Just think about it! We live in a world that wants to put us back to sleep. Just thirty years ago Christian Americans wouldn’t have dreamed of seeing what we watch on tv – they would have been shocked. Yet we see it and listen to it every day and act as if it is no big deal. Are we losing our awareness to what is good and what is evil? Our kids are being raised by a world that wants them to think that sex in high school is the natural thing that “everybody does.” Slowly we are losing our edge – the covers are being pulled over our heads. Are we are falling back to sleep?

That’s why Jesus has come to us so frequently in Scripture imploring us to watch and be ready. That’s why he has given us signs to tell us to he’s coming back. In Mark he says, “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁶ Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. ⁷ When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁸ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains” (Mark 13:5-8).

The first birth pains don’t mean the baby is coming right that minute. But they do say, “Get ready right now!” Wars and rumors of wars - do you see them? Then get ready right now! Earthquakes and famines - do you see them? Then get ready right now! Christians being persecuted – do you see it? Then get ready right now! In other words, make sure you are awake; make sure you are holding in faith to the righteousness that is yours in Christ alone. Make sure the entertainment you are enjoying or the jokes you are telling are ones you want to be a part of when Jesus returns. Make sure you aren’t saying that you will grow up spiritually after you are married and have kids, or after you retire and have more time. Make sure you are not putting off repentance until tomorrow. The signs remind us: you may not have any more time.

In other words, make sure you are found by the Lord on the Last Day with faith in Jesus, with your nose in his Word and your heart trusting in him alone for salvation. When we do that we have nothing to be afraid of, because in Jesus God has declared us blameless. And he has promised to keep us blameless until the end of time. Amen.