"Stumbling" 5-4-25

Overview

Stumbling on the Walk of Discipleship

A disciple is born out of the waters of baptism—made a new creation, called by God to be his own. But just as a newborn must learn to walk and falls many times in the process, a disciple must learn to walk in faith. There will be stumbles, falls, and spiritually skinned knees along the way. Even the first disciples, who knew they belonged to Christ, stumbled repeatedly; Peter himself was rebuked when Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan." Stumbling is not the exception of the Christian life—it is part of the ongoing tension every disciple lives within.

The Apostle John names this honestly: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us… If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us" 1 John 1:8-10. The disciple is simultaneously saint and sinner—born anew of the Spirit, yet still carrying the old Adam, the flesh. Paul gives voice to this struggle in Romans 7:14-24: "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" Pretending to perfection only deceives us; it never fools God, who sees us laid bare. And when we honestly face our sin, we cannot pick ourselves up. We are stuck on the ground.

That is why Paul's cry ends not in despair but in praise: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Christ also entered creation with two natures—fully God and fully man—but without sin. He was tempted, yet he did not stumble. He walked the road of righteousness we cannot walk, and then he walked the road to Calvary, bearing the weight of our every fall. He has no skinned knees of his own, yet he carries the scars of ours. In his death and resurrection, he lifts us up and sets us before the Father, declaring us righteous because he has borne our stumbling.

This is the good news of 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is what happens in confession and absolution: when we hear "your sins are forgiven," it is not merely a pastor or fellow Christian speaking—it is Christ himself saying, "Up you go." So there is no need to pretend we are something we are not. Stumble honestly, confess freely, and walk on. Christ loves you, has had mercy on you, forgives you, and lifts you up every time you fall.

Transcript

If you would please open your Bibles to the first letter of John, this is in the New Testament. 3s

If you are using a Pue edition of the Bible, it is on page 211 in the New Testament, 9s

where in the first letter of John. 17s

As a child, I fell down a lot. 21s

I fell down a lot. 24s

My mom talks about my year in kindergarten as the year of the perpetually-skinned knees. 25s

Every time one wound in particular would start to heal. 34s

And my mom was so glad it was finally healing. 40s

I would fall. 44s

I would stumble and fall and reopen the wound. 45s

And we'd start all over again, an entire year of skinned knees. 49s

When a baby is born, there are a lot of skills that he or she is not born with. 59s

One of those skills is walking. 64s

A newborn cannot walk, but they grow and they get stronger. 67s

And as they age and learn new skills, they become toddlers and they begin to 73s

learn to walk. 79s

And in the process of learning to walk, there are a lot of stumbles, a lot of falls, 81s

and a lot of skinned knees. 88s

A disciple. 93s

A disciple is born out of the waters of baptism. 94s

We talked about that learned about that last week that through the waters of baptism, 99s

a disciple is born. 103s

A new creation is made. 106s

But just as a newborn baby has to learn as he or she grows, the skills of walking. 110s

A disciple learns how to walk that walk of discipleship, that walk of faith. 116s

And there are a lot of stumbles, a lot of falls, and a lot of spiritually-skinned knees. 124s

The first disciples of Christ are a perfect example of this. 134s

They knew that they were followers. 139s

They knew that they were disciples of Christ and yet they stumbled time after time, after 142s

time. 148s

In fact, Peter is rebuked by Jesus. 149s

When Jesus says, get behind me Satan, that is a disciple who is stumbling. 153s

And that's what we're talking about today. 160s

We are disciples made disciples through the waters of baptism called by God Himself to be his own. 164s

And part of being a disciple is stumbling. 174s

Look with me, please, at our text today at verse 8, where under the inspiration of the Holy 180s

Spirit, John writes, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. 188s

And the truth is not in us, jumping down to verse 10. 194s

If we say that we have not sined, we make him a liar. 198s

And his word is not in us. 202s

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. 206s

And the truth is not in us. 210s

If we say that we have not sined, we make him a liar. 212s

And his word is not in us. 216s

There's a truth in discipleship that we all must understand. 221s

When we are made disciples, we are born new. 227s

We are made new creations. 232s

We are eternally made righteous. 234s

But we still live here and now in the world. 238s

And we still are tempted in the here and the now of the world. 247s

And we struggle. 254s

We struggle with that temptation. 257s

You see as disciples, we have two natures. 262s

We have two natures. 266s

We have, we are simultaneously st. and sinner. 267s

We are ones who are born of the Spirit, st. 271s

And yet we are born as the old Adam, the old Eve. 277s

We're born of the flesh, a sinner. 282s

So as we walk the walk of discipleship, walk the walk of faith, 287s

we are simultaneously saint and sinner, always wrestling with those two 292s

natures that make us who we are. 298s

I think that Paul gets at it so beautifully in his writing to the Romans 303s

in Romans chapter 7. 308s

He describes it. 311s

He says, for we know that the law is spiritual, 312s

but I am of the flesh sold into slavery, 315s

and I understand my own actions. 319s

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 324s

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 329s

But in fact, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 334s

For I know that nothing good dwells within me. 341s

That is in my flesh. 344s

I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 346s

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 352s

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 357s

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, 365s

evil lies close at hand. 370s

For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 372s

but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, 376s

making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 382s

Richard Mann that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death. 387s

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 396s

and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sined, 401s

we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 405s

Notice that the title of this sermon is stumbling, 414s

not stumbled or has stumbled because it's not a thing of the past. 419s

As disciples, the stumbling is something that is ongoing, the restful of the spirit 425s

and the flesh, the restful of the saint and the sinner within us is ongoing, 434s

and continues to be ongoing. We cannot claim no sin. 441s

We cannot claim to be perfect. We can strive in our walks as disciples to not sin. 449s

Indeed, we should strive in our walks as disciples to not sin, 459s

but in our flesh, 466s

or weak. 470s

In our flesh, we're tempted and we stumble and we fall. 473s

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 487s

and the truth is not in us, 492s

deceit what a great scheme of the devil. 497s

deceit is the sin, is the lie that we tell ourselves 503s

that tempts us in our pride to think that we are pretty good, 507s

that we can do it on our own, that when we stumble, we have the ability to pick ourselves 517s

up and be righteous and be good and be right before the Lord. 525s

We can pretend to be perfect. We can pretend perfection. We can pretend 533s

holiness, but we are fooling no one. 542s

We fool no one. We certainly don't fool God. 550s

You see, God sees right through us, sees right into the core of our being, 560s

into our hearts, our souls, we are laid bare before the Lord naked, 565s

nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. 572s

If we say we have no sin, 579s

if we claim perfection in our own being, of our own doing, 582s

we're deceiving ourselves, but we are not fooling God. 588s

We aren't fooling others. 594s

And when we consider our sin, when we consider our deeds 597s

are stumbling before the Lord, we can't fool ourselves either. 605s

You see, in our sin, we stumble. We fall, we fall hard, we skin our knees, 616s

and we can do nothing. To mend the wound, we can do nothing to pick ourselves up 624s

from the ground and to make things better. 633s

When we face the reality of our sin, we cry with Paul, 639s

and we are a little bit more pressured man that I am who will rescue me from this body of death. 644s

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 653s

We were born of the flesh. In our baptisms, we were born again by the spirit giving us two 661s

natures, simultaneously, saint and sinner, natures the spirit and the flesh. 669s

But we are not the only ones with two natures. 680s

Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, 684s

God made man entered into creation, simultaneously with two natures, 688s

though not one of them is the nature of a sinner. 695s

Jesus Christ is simultaneously at one time divine, God and flesh, man. 700s

And as God made man, Jesus did what you and I cannot do for ourselves. 713s

He was tempted yet he did not stumble. He was tempted yet he did not fall. 721s

And yet he walked. He walked the road that you and I are called to walk. 731s

The road of righteousness and along the road of righteousness you and I 743s

skin our knees. We stumble and there's nothing that we can do to help ourselves to get out 750s

of the stumbling or to pick ourselves up from the ground. But Jesus Christ went to the cross. 760s

He walked the road to Calvary and as he did that, he laid down his life for you and for me 769s

he had no stumbling of his own but he bears the weight of our stumbling. 778s

He did not fall ever under the pressures of the flesh and the temptations. 786s

But he bore the punishment for those times that we have fallen. 793s

When we have stumbled in word and indeed by what we've done, by what we've left undone in our thoughts, 800s

by those times that we've stumbled and didn't even know that we were stumbling. 807s

All of this Jesus bore upon himself and in his death and resurrection, 812s

he picks us up from our stumbling. Stands us before the Father and says, 824s

You are righteous because I have lifted you because I have forgiven you. 838s

This person, fully human, fully divine, did not skin his knees yet he bears the scars 851s

of our stumbling. He did not stumble, he did not fall and yet he paid the price. 864s

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 880s

Retured man that I am who will rescue me, who will pick me up from this body of death, 891s

who will pick me up from this stumbling. 899s

Who? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 904s

Look with me, please, and hear the good news of verse nine in our reading today. 911s

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, 917s

he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 924s

It is Jesus Christ's second person of the Holy Trinity's second person of our God, 937s

fully divine, fully man who scoops us up in his mercy in his love stands us before the Father. 946s

And we have this beautiful word from him that says, every time you stumble, 955s

because you are a disciple and you will stumble. 964s

I will pick you up. You confess your stumbling and I will pick you up. 968s

What we experienced at the beginning of this service was confession and the ab solution, 980s

where we came before the Lord confessing those times that we have stumbled, 986s

known and unknown willfully unwellfully, but we confess that we have indeed been stumbling. 990s

Stumbling as we walk, this road of discipleship and what we hear is that beautiful word 1003s

from the mouth of the pastor, your sins are forgiven. 1014s

And it is not the pastor, it is not your brother or your sister who is forgiving you, 1021s

it is Jesus Christ Himself who comes in that word and says, up you go and sets us upright 1026s

before the Father saying, He or she is righteous because I have lifted them before you, 1035s

because I have borne their stumbling. I have their skinned knees for them. 1046s

And we stand righteous before the Lord. Clean knees because Christ has taken our stumbling 1057s

upon Himself. When we stumble in our walk as disciples, we are promised forgiveness. 1069s

There is no use, no point, in pretending that we are something that we are not. 1079s

But as disciples, we can proclaim with certainty and assuredness that we are 1090s

followers of Christ Jesus, that we are righteous before the Father through the Son 1099s

and that we are held upright. Lifted when we stumble because Christ loves you, 1107s

Christ has had mercy on you, Christ forgives you and Christ leads you in the walk of discipleship. 1118s