Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Why do people sin? Isn’t it because sinning gives us pleasure? It can feel good. It might be more convenient or easier than doing what is right. It might be more interesting than plain old vanilla. Simply put, people sin because they want to. There is a certain view of the Christian life where this love of ours for sinning doesn’t have to change. According to this view of how we can live as Christians we can continue to live in sin and God’s grace will abound so as to cover over all those sins. The way those sins are taken away is by coming to church. Make sure that you use the means of grace, and you won’t go to hell. So long as you know this and make use of it, you can otherwise live your life just like everybody else. All good lies have truth in them, and this one has more truth than most. It is true that Christians are sinners and will remain sinners this side of the grave. It is true that Christians continually must be forgiven until they die. It is true that the means of grace forgive sins and thereby prevent sinners from going to the hell that they deserve. So, then, what’s wrong? What’s wrong is that this false view of the Christian life has the Christian going in the wrong direction. It has Christians pursuing sin instead of pursuing righteousness. In our Gospel reading today you heard him say, “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law and the prophets. I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them.” The goal is not that we should continue to live in sin, neither is it that we should live like everybody else, and then, at the end, get a free pass. Instead, God’s law should be fulfilled in us. God’s Law is good and holy. Its essence is love. It protects life so that God’s creative activity may thrive. God’s Law protects every part of our life. He wants our souls protected, our physical bodies protected, our spouse protected, our possessions protected, our reputation protected, our spirits and emotions protected. It was the devil who deceived our ancestors into thinking that God’s Law was a drag. Ever since then our natural minds have been darkened so that we cannot believe that God’s Law is as good as it really is. Meanness, despair, oppression, adultery, murder, and so on, are assumed to be the spice of life. Consider all the greatest works of art in literature or movies. At the heart of practically all of them is either murder or adultery. This is not just with our present-day, decayed, and decadent culture. It’s true of the greatest ancient works. In fact it can be traced back all the way to Lamach, a descendant of Cain. It appears that he was the first polygamist. His work of art is recorded by Moses. In his poem he brags to his wives about how he had killed a man for crossing him. So if anybody else starts getting ideas, they better have another thought coming! Ever since the fall into sin we can hardly think of anything higher than standing on the top of the heap, or accumulating for ourselves the greatest amount of pleasure with the least amount of pain. Paul speaks of this ambition and greed as being enslaved to our flesh. Slaves have no choice, and so it is with us. We can’t help it. We don’t have a will of our own. We’re always going to choose what’s best for us. Not being free to choose for one’s self is in the nature of being a slave. That is why Paul speaks of our Old Adam as being enslaved. We are enslaved to our desires. Whatever they say we do. Notice that this is pretty much the opposite of the way that we normally and naturally think about freedom. We think that freedom is having the ability to choose to do whatever we might want. Freedom is the ability to watch whatever we want, eat whatever we want, drink whatever we want, charge whatever we want, say whatever we want, and so on. But what kind of freedom is this, where we are always only doing what are sinful desires dictate to us? Our desires say, “Do this,” and we say, “Coming right up.” If o