Sermon: Right with God?

A sermon preached at Immanuel Gardens aged-care on Wednesday 9 July 2025.

Have you ever had a strained relationship with someone?

You or they have done or said something, and now the relationship is ... well ... not “right”?

This not “right”–ness means that you might:

• Try to avoid them.

• Look down and pretend they’re not there.

• Your blood might boil while you’re around them.

• They might say something, and you accidentally let out an audible groan.

• You try to fix it, but talking to them just seems to dig the hole deeper.

The relationship between God and humanity is likewise strained, and not “right.”

Things aren’t right between humans and God, between you and God.

See God is a righteous God, he’s a God who is right and who makes all things right.

When we’re not right with God, the church calls this “sin.”

We experience being not right with God in various ways:

• We might try to avoid God.

• We perhaps feel guilt and shame.

• We have an inner turmoil, trying to satisfy or please or find purpose.

• Even our bodies decay and die, as all of creation groans.

How do you experience this being “not right” with God?

When our human relationships are strained, we instinctively try to fix them:

• perhaps we offer an excuse or apology,

• we might buy flowers as a peace offering, or

• perform some act to make things “right” again.

But when our relationship with God is strained, how are we made “right” with Him again?

People try all sorts of different things to get right with their god or gods!

Sometimes it’s conscious; sometimes unconscious.

But ultimately none of these things work.

• Some strive to live a “good” life helping others. They try to please God by doing good things. So often at funerals we hear “Such and such was a good person.” In the 1500’s a young man, named Martin Luther, was caught in a thunderstorm, and promised to become a monk. But no matter how many floors he scrubbed, or prayers he said, the chasm was too wide, too deep to pay God back. He always asked: “Have I done enough?”

• Some might try giving a peace offering to god e.g. money or a gift. As a pastor, I’ve had people ring up the church to offer money, as if they could somehow pay to be right with God.

• Some try praying harder. “If I pray these certain words, if I’m earnest, if I pray in the tongues of angels, surely God will listen, then I’ll be right with him.”

• Sometimes there is an inner need to please others, to gain approval in the eyes of others, to be better than others or the best.

• Others apologize. They think: “If I say I’m sorry and repent, that will get me right.” This might be the start, but the damage is too much for words to fix.

• Some make excuses. “It’s not my fault. I’ve got a tendency for this evil. It’s in my genes. I was born into this. It’s the brokenness around me.” This might all be true, but making excuses doesn’t create right-ness.

• Others simply try to ignore the problem. But the wages of sin — death — catches up with everyone at some point. Everyone dies and will face their maker at some point.

So, despite our best efforts, we remain not “right.”

St Paul writes to the church in Rome that nothing you try will ever get you right with God.

’No one is righteous — not even one.’ (Romans 3:10)

‘For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands.’ (Romans 3:20).

The “law” here just means anything you might say or think or do.

So St Paul is saying there’s no checklist that you can follow, no process, no “Seven steps to being right with God,” no words, no special prayer to pray, no offering to give, no work to accomplish.

There’s nothing you can do.

He’s pretty definitive: ‘No one is right.’

Luther wrestled with the phrase “righteousness of God.”

His wrestling was a catalyst for what we now call the Reformation.

He asked the question:

“If God is a right God, who needs everything right, and we and this world are not right with him, and nothing we can do will make ourselves right, how do we get right with God?!”

The good news, the gospel, that Luther rediscovered during the Reformation period is that God himself makes you right.

God is the one who acts, not you.

God acts through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus is the Christ, the Promised One, the beloved Son, who is right with God.

And here’s the Reformation insight that was rediscovered that changed everything:

God gives you the right-ness of Christ, as a free gift!

As St Paul writes: ‘We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.’ (Romans 3:22).

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or a Gentile, if you were born into a Christian family and heard the good news as a child, or heard the good news later as an adult, or are just hearing it right now.

All are offered right-ness for free by the sacrifice of Jesus.

‘For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.’ (Romans 3:25).

So, the good news is that you are right with God.

There’s no need to avoid God.

No need to feel guilt or shame.

No need to strive to please or gain approval.

No need to appease an angry god.

No need to make excuses.

You are free from all of our useless attempts to make ourselves right.

All because of what Jesus has done for you.

How good is that!

This means that you are free.

Free to worship God.

Free to pray however you want.

Free to serve God.

Free to give offerings to God.

Free to love your neighbour.

Free to receive the right-ness of God again and again e.g. by remembering your baptism, sharing in Holy Communion, hearing someone say “Your sins are forgiven,” etc.

May this free right–ness create a deep peace within you. Amen.