The text for our meditation on God’s Holy Word is the epistle lesson appointed for the day. I bring you grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Here in the United States, 26 percent of the population 18 and older has some form of mental disorder such as depression or anxiety. The cost to our economy in treatment and lost wages is 200 billion dollars a year. 33 percent of our fellow Americans are addicted to drugs and alcohol and the cost to our economy for treatment of these addictions is 300 billion dollars. Millions more of our fellow citizens use pornography and live beyond their means financially.
What connects all of these problems together is that they affect—or really, are reflective of—who we are in the deepest part of our beings. They are indicative of a deep unhappiness within the human soul. This, of course, is nothing new. Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and Christian philosopher explained it this way:
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace. This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him…though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and unchangeable object; in other words by God himself. St. Augustine said it even more simply:
Our hearts are never at rest until they find rest in God.There are three great questions that lie at the heart of our human existence—questions that find their only real answer in Christ—question that speak to our identity and the meaning and value of our lives. Those questions are: Who am I? What am I doing here? Where am I going? Those are the questions that the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives answer to today as he writes to the congregation at Corinth and to believers in every time and place—including us here today. Paul writes:
Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes…When you go into Barnes and Noble—one of the largest sections in the whole bookstore are those books devoted to: “self help”. Row after row after row of books trying to answer life’s great questions—all of them offering nothing more than the limited perspectives of their human authors.
But the words we hear today about our identity, purpose, and value are the words of God himself through the apostle Paul who was called by God for that purpose: to tell the world that the answers to the questions that lie at the deepest part of our human existence are found in Jesus Christ and a life with God through him.
God does not want us to go through life addicted to some substance- or seeking fulfillment in sex or money- or brokenhearted and depressed about our lives. God has created us for fellowship with him and that is why he sent Jesus—to remake and restore what sin has destroyed in us. And that is why he called Paul to be an apostle—so that the whole world would know the real answers—God’s answers-- to life’s great questions-- beginning with our true identity. Paul writes:
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This first letter to the Christian congregation at Corinth is one of the most timely, relevant books of the Bible with a profound connection to our modern existence because Corinth was a place that would be familiar to us as Americans.
Corinth was a place of wealth and commerce. It was religiously diverse. It was full of sexual immorality. The things that were valued were material things. A place much like our nation today.
And the problem that occasioned the writing of this letter was that the Corinthian Christians much too readily identified themselves with the culture around them. They were not immune to sexual immorality even in their own congregation—and in fact, bragged about how their freedom in Christ allowed them to live like this. They were very aware of financial differences among their own members and looked down upon those with limited means. They valued spiritual celebrities.
They had an identity crisis like so many in our nation today—even within the church—because they had forgotten who they were—that they were called to be saints.
From the Bible’s perspective, to be a saint is not just someone who lived in Bible times- or someone fantastically holy- or someone listed on a liturgical calendar of a church. To be a saint is to be someone set apart for God. Set apart for God.
That’s what the word means --and to put it terms from the beginning of our sermon it means that we find our identity—how we understand who we are--in terms of our relationship with God.
That is what Christ allows us to do—he sets us apart for God—sanctifies us—by forgiving our sins with his blood on the cross—and living in our hearts by his Spirit—restoring us to the life we had with our heavenly Father in the beginning of time.
It is only in Jesus Christ that the deep craving within our heart that Pascal mentions-- and the rest that St. Augustine mentions—is met—because Jesus brings us back to God and once again makes us his children.
These words from the apostle Paul were not just written for the Corinthians—they were written for us too-- for we also call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and confess him to be our Lord. The Christians sitting in these pews today do not have to find your identity in the world or wonder who you are-- for we know that we are God’s son and daughters—called to be set apart for him in Holy Baptism. And this identity then gives answer to the next great question of our human existence: Why am I here? Paul writes:
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, The Corinthians were a spiritually gifted congregation. There were those who had the gift of discernment and those who had the gift of speaking and those who had the gift of healing and those who had the gifts of serving and giving and administration. When God granted them the gift of faith in Jesus Christ-- he also lavished upon them spiritual gifts that gave meaning and purpose to their lives.
But what was happening in that congregation is that the gifts given by God were not uniting them as members of the same body—they were not serving the common good—but they were dividing them-- and exalting some over others. There was a “celebrity” status for those who were remarkably gifted.
But this was completely the opposite of why God had gifted them in the first place. Paul told them:
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… so that there may be no divisions in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another. But instead of caring for one another—they were living for themselves.
That is what we see so much of in our world today. Those who spend everything they make and then some on themselves—are living as if they stood at the center of the universe. Those who use pornography-- are turned in upon themselves in a world that exists only in their minds. Lives devoted to the service of a “god” as small and insignificant as ourselves cannot help but leave modern man feeling as if his life does not count for much.
But when we find our identity in Christ, God himself breaks into our narrow little lives and gives us a purpose that is not only beyond the bounds of our individual lives-- but above the bounds of time and space. HIS eternal purposes and plans now include us-- as we serve him and his people. That is the purpose of our lives!
To that end, he gives each of us spiritual gifts with which to serve him and others—gifts of administration and giving and leading and speaking and teaching and serving. This is what Paul means when he says that the testimony about Christ was confirmed among them—the apostolic message of Paul converts us to Christ and the spiritual fruits of that re-birth are seen in our lives in this world.
As children of God, our lives have meaning and purpose: to know God and his ways—to speak of him to others—to serve those around us in the context of our daily vocations. The life of the Christian in this world is the most exciting, fulfilling way to live because it is what we were made for—to love God and love our neighbor. Paul says that this is the way we are to live:
As we wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.At the beginning of the sermon we talked about the emotional and psychological and spiritual toll that is taken on the human person when we do not know who we are and what the purpose of our life is. This is especially true when we do not know the answer to the third great question of life: where are going? Are we simply going into a grave and that’s it? Will our lives ultimately end in futility and nothingness?
All you have to do is look around at the culture we live in to see people caught up in mind-numbing addictions—constantly seeking one new experiences after another—grasping for their fifteen minutes of fame—to see what happens to people when they do not know where they are ultimately going when this life is over.
All of us, by nature, are afraid of death because deep within us is the realization—placed there by God--that futility and death is not the way it is supposed to be for the human person—the recognition that we were created to live forever—that hopes and dreams and aspirations for the future are not just a cruel hoax perpetuated on us by evolution-- but placed there by God to draw us back to him.
Jesus Christ has made the way back for us to God and a life that does not end. He has taken away our sins that keep us from a holy God. He has conquered death for us in his own resurrection from the dead. His bodily resurrection and ascension is the assurance that our own bodies will rise from the grave and live eternally with God.
To that end, Christ works continually in our lives to keep us in faith until the Last Day. That same faithful God who chose us from eternity -and sent his Son to live and die and rise again for us- and called us into fellowship with by the Holy Spirit—will work in our lives with the same powerful love to keep us in faith and bring us to our heavenly home.
The Good News for us today is God’s answer to life’s great questions about our identity and purpose and value and it’s this: We are God’s children, living lives of loving service here on earth, headed for heaven when we die. May God grant his faith to us all for Jesus’ sake! Amen.
May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
