Dear friends in Christ.
Between my senior year of High School and my first year of college, my family traveled to Estes Park Colorado for a couple weeks of family vacation. However, on the way we stopped at any number of sightseeing places. We stopped at Wall Drug, we drove through the Black Hills, and of course, we stopped at Mt. Rushmore National Park. Now, when I saw Mt. Rushmore for the first time, I couldn’t help but marvel at what I was seeing! For there before me were the faces of four famous presidents expertly carved out of solid rock. Though I had seen the films showing what the workers went through and how they blasted and chiseled the rock away to reveal the faces within, I was astounded by what they were able to accomplish. Even now, after I have seen the monument as many as ten times, I still marvel at what Victor Borgland and his workers were able to accomplish on the side of that hill. But even though what they accomplished there was an amazing feat, it is nothing compared to the salvation, which the Lord has chiseled in to each and every one of our hearts today. In fact, as we study the word of God before us, we will have one more opportunity to marvel at the Lord’s salvation. And as we do this, as we marvel at the Lord’s salvation, we will find that it not only belongs to you and me by faith, but that it also belongs to all who trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior!
Yes, dear friends, as we have gathered to study God’s Word this morning, we cannot help but marvel at the Lord’s salvation because it does indeed belong to each and every one of us through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior! This, in fact, is exactly what the Apostle Paul is assuring us of as he writes in our text today: “‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. (Romans 10:8-10)
Now, when Paul first wrote these words, he wrote them to assure us that salvation belongs to us, not because of anything we have done, but simply through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior! For, as we heard in our Gospel lesson last week, it was Jesus, our Savior, who defeated satan for us, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers! Though satan offered Jesus three incredibly appealing temptations designed to entice him to take the easy way out, Jesus stood his ground, and did not fall. He made his defense in with the Word of God and finally satan was forced to flee. Though satan continued to rear his ugly head, tempting Jesus every chance he got, Jesus continued to win battle after battle against his adversary. He defeated satan in the wilderness. He defeated in Nazareth when the people rejected him and tried to push him off the brow of the hill. He defeated satan as we heard in our Gospel Lesson this morning when the Pharisees tried to scare Jesus off form completing his mission. He defeated satan in Jerusalem as the Pharisees continued to try to trap Jesus and discredit him. He defeated satan in Gethsemane, and he defeated satan once and for all on the cross. For when Jesus went to the cross, he in effect threw satan into a coffin, nailed it shut, and buried him below hundreds of feet of earth. This is why we marvel at the Lord’s Salvation today, because we know that when Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, he not only freed us from our sins, he completely stripped satan of any power he had over us!
What a great comfort it is for us to know that through faith in Jesus Christ, our salvation has been secured! For it is through the message of the Gospel, which we hear proclaimed to us week after week, that faith has been created in our hearts! It is through that faith, which has been created in our hearts, that we have now been justified, that is, declared not guilty before our Lord and God. It is through that message of the Gospel, through which faith has been created in our hearts, that we now live to confess our Savior’s holy Name through our words and actions. In doing this, we show that we are truly marveling at the Lord’s salvation! We are marvel at the fact that this salvation belongs to us not because of anything we have done, but solely through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior! No, we have not earned this salvation because we have lived extremely glorious lives! We have not received it because Martin Luther was such a staunch defender of the faith and many of us have some German heritage in our bloodlines. We did not earned it because we are extremely good looking. It was not offered to us because we are incredibly talented. The Lord hasn’t even awarded it to us because we are living in the valley of the Jolly Green Giant!
No! Rather, we have received the Lord’s salvation as a precious gift through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior! There is nothing more incredible in all the world than knowing that the Lord our God loved us so much that he willingly sacrificed his Son on the cross to free us from all our sins. There is nothing more humbling than the knowledge that the Lord made sure that we heard the message of the Gospel and therefore came to faith in Jesus as Christ our Savior. There is nothing more incredible than the Lord’s salvation, at which we are marveling today! For as we have heard again and again, that salvation now belongs to us through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior, we cannot help but marvel at that incredible salvation! But the most incredible thing about the Lord’s salvation, is the fact that this salvation also belongs to everyone who trusts in him.
Yes, the Lord’s salvation is truly a marvelous thing! For it not only belongs to you and me through faith in Jesus Christ, it also belongs to everyone who trusts in him as his Lord and Savior. This, is exactly what the Apostle Paul is reminding us of as he continues in our text, he writes: “the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:11-13)
What greater comfort could the Lord offer than the comfort he offers in his salvation! For as he tells us, his salvation belongs to each and every person who believes in Jesus Christ as his Savior! This, in fact, is the most marvelous part of God’s salvation! It shows no favoritism and it has no boundaries, because it belongs to every single person who trusts in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Anyone, from the poorest homeless person living on the streets of New York City, to the worst murder on death row can claim salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Anyone, from the most devout Native American to the most extremely radical Muslim believer can also receive God’s salvation. Not by sincerely trusting in their own religion. Not even by relying on what they have done. Rather this salvation comes only through the faith which the Holy Spirit alone can create in a persons’ heart.
Though there are times when we forget this and think that it is just harder for some people to come to faith and be saved than others, we need to remember the power of the Holy Spirit. For if the Holy Spirit was able to soften the granite of our unbelieving hearts and mold them into a monument of the Lord’s salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. He can do the same thing for any other person who hears the Word of God.
This, in fact, is exactly what the Holy Spirit has been doing since the beginning of time, and this is what he is still doing today. For he is the one who is working in the hearts of the Lakota people in Mission, SD and calling them to faith through the Gospel that has been preached to them. He is the one who is at work among the Apache people in East Fork, AZ. He is the one who has called quite a number of Hmong people in St. Paul, MN to faith in Jesus Christ through the message of the Gospel that has been lovingly proclaimed to them. He is the one who has snatched many of the Vietnamese people living in Meridian, ID from the clutches of satan, bringing them under the protection of their Savior, Jesus Christ. In fact, this is the very thing the Holy Spirit has been accomplishing throughout the world. For through the preaching of the Gospel, he has called many Africans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Bulgarians, and Albanians to faith. He has even managed to convert quite a few Jews to the Christian faith as well as a great number of people from the Muslim world. For wherever the Word of God is being preached, there the Holy Spirit is at work, changing hearts and offering salvation to all who come to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Truly the Lord’s Salvation is a marvelous thing! And now, as we sit here today, being reminded that his salvation belongs to each and every person who comes to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, our mission could not be clearer! For now that we have been reminded of the power of the Gospel and the marvelous wonder of the Lord’s Salvation, we cannot help but realize that it is our mission to go out into all the world and preach the Gospel and make disciples of all nations. It is our mission to give our gifts and our offerings not only for the work of this congregation, but so that we can continue to send our offerings to our synod so that they can continue to do their work on our behalf. It is our mission to make every effort to worship the Lord here at church so that our faith might be strengthened and built up in Jesus Christ, so that we are always ready to seize every opportunity the Lord gives us to tell others about Jesus Christ their Savior. It is our mission to go out these doors and invite our friends, neighbors, and even our enemies to come and join us to hear the Gospel so that they to might come to know their Savior. And, even though it might be a little scary, as you already know, it is our mission to bring the Gospel of our Savior to the Hispanic people living in our community as well as any other ethnic groups around us. It is our mission to bring them the Word of our God so that the Holy Spirit can work in their hearts and bring them to faith in Jesus Christ, so that they can marvel with us at the Lord’s amazing Salvation.
What greater thing could there be than countless Christians together, marveling at the Salvation the Lord has won for us! Though this salvation was never carved into the granite face of a mountain like Mt. Rushmore, we know how it was set in our hearts by the working of the Holy Spirit! What a marvelous thing it is to realize that the Lord’s salvation not only belongs to us, but it belongs to all who trust in the Lord, Jesus Christ. For as Scripture has truly taught us: Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be Saved!”
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
