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Sunday, August 24, 2025

Sermon on August 24

 Trinity 10 

it is written,“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” Romans 9:33

 

This section of Romans starts with a question, a rhetorical question: “What shall we say, then?” Paul has been talking about the differences between Jews and Gentiles. Why are so few Jews believing in Jesus Christ? While others are coming into the faith and into the Christian Church, but the Jews have rejected Christ and his Church. Paul notes that the Jews have a zeal for God. They were religious, devout, righteous in the sight of everyone. But instead of believing in Jesus, they took offense.

        Jesus taught righteousness. That’s a big word that comes up again and again in Romans, meaning, to be right, alright, not wrong, especially with respect to God. We are righteous by faith. There is another couple of words that comes up often in Romans “by faith”. Paul says it a couple times in these verses here before us, especially comparing “by faith” with “by works”. The Jews were pursuing righteousness, by works, by their own merits, saying righteousness is my merit, what I deserve. Righteousness by faith was a stumbling block to their ego.

By faith – that is, what you believe, and what is it we have to believe? Christ saves sinners, He picks up the one who stumbles. He makes right the one who was dead wrong.

In the Gospel reading today, Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were seeking to destroy Jesus, But others were hanging on his words.

That rhetorical question at the start is asked because of this glaring irony. Those who should believe, who should be all about “by faith”, don’t have faith in Jesus, but faith in themselves. They believe in themselves, in their merits, their works and think their good qualities make them righteous.

When a person thinks that all you need is your own self, your own strength, and your own remarkable goodness you come to the Stone laid in Zion and you stumble on it. The Stone was meant to be the foundation. Now it becomes a tripping hazard if you are so preoccupied looking at your own abilities and amazing qualities.

God wants all to be saved. God’s people pray such. Paul says, “my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved”.  The irony is God (who wants all people to be saved) lays down a stumbling block for those who don’t believe. The hear that Jesus, the Son of God, died to redeem sinners, and they are offended at that, “Ach, I’m no sinner. You don’t need to redeem me.”

For all of us sinners who at any time love and trust ourselves above all things, God lays “in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”  In our reading today, those words are in quotation marks. Paul’s quoting from Isaiah. There’s this promise in Isaiah of what God is doing in Zion. Zion is the place of the temple in ancient Jerusalem. It’s the house of God, the throne of His Kingdom. And there God lays a foundation stone, His Holy Son, Jesus sacrificed on the cross, to forgive all unrighteousness. And it’s offensive to those who take offense.

You ever heard it said, “Don’t take offense”? Now of course, there are often times when the sinners you are surrounded with, that you have relationships with, offend you. They offend you by what they say, what they do, what they don’t bother to do. When you take offense, think about what happens in your head, the annoyance, the pain, caused by those who trespassed against you, just repeats on a loop. Proverbs 17:9 – “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” When it’s possible, and it’s almost always possible, cover an offense with love and forgiveness. Don’t keep it playing in your head. Don’t let it be your narrative. Colossians 3:15 “bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you”.

Consider this, you probably don’t have a clue what that so and so is going through. They have burdens on their shoulders, torments in their souls that you don’t understand. They’re busy with their own responsibilities and problems. They just can’t provide you with the care and the service you expect. They are suffering in ways that prevent them from being all things to you.

You ever take offense because so-and-so didn’t treat you like you deserved? They didn’t respect you as they should. They don’t give you what you’ve got coming. Instead they say things that are unfair, even disrespectful to you. And you deserve better because you’re righteous, you’re in the right. And this keeps playing in your head.

Do you ever take offense because so-and- so didn’t treat you like you deserve? When you do, then you can understand: That’s what the Jews of old, and many today, do with Jesus. They say, “He doesn’t treat us like we feel we deserve. He’s not going to give us what we feel we have coming. He doesn’t respect our righteousness.” As soon as you start glorying in your own righteousness, you will hear offensive things from the Lord. He will tell you are a sinner. You are falling short of righteousness by what you think, say and do. You are failing to do what you should do in life. You aren’t believing in Jesus Christ the rock and foundation of life and eternity. The Lord Jesus Christ, dying on the cross, seems offensive. Your self-righteousness will lead you to look away from it saying, I don’t need that. It’s a scandal, an offense.

And He lays before you “in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense”.  This tripping hazard makes a violent action. It’s not like tripping over a stone out of place on your path, the kind you hit on unexpectedly, but can quickly recover from and keep walking, looking around to see if anyone notices your clumsiness. This “stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” will give you a bruising. The fall can break and even kill.

It's kinda comical when people trip and fall, their first instinct is to look around and see if anyone noticed. Before they think about what’s broken or where they might be bleeding, they think “I hope nobody saw what I just did. I hope they don’t laugh at me for being foolish and clumsy.” Embarrassment and shame hurt the mind more than the breaks and bruises hurt the body.

Well, what’s even more shameful is to be standing in the judgement hall of heaven with all people and all angels watching you and Jesus Christ comes to judge the living and the dead and He lays out the charges against you of all your sins and your unbelief.

Then the Lord says this: “whoever believes in him will not be put to shame”.

Your self-made righteousness has to get knocked down, bruised and broken. And then Zion’s stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, which is Jesus,  becomes the foundation of your faith and life and your eternity.

Jesus who died for the shameful, the clumsy, the bruised and broken, takes away your shame. On the last day, He will remove all your shame, all your embarrassment, all your regret, and replace them with glory, righteousness and eternal joys. Amen.