Whether We Live or Die, We Are the Lord’s

Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran Church, Pinetop, Arizona

Rev. Michael “Mick” Mathews

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 13, 2026

Sermon:  “Whether We Live or Die, We Are the Lord’s”     Romans 14:1–12

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Two days ago, we marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Almost 3000 people were killed by the terrorists that day, not to mention the many more who have died since then from exposure to the toxins spread by the destruction. I imagine that only the 19 Islamic terrorists knew that that day would be their last on earth. Their demonic religion had convinced them that they would earn a place with God by killing as many people as they could who did not follow their religion. The rest of the people who died on September 11 likely began the day thinking that it was just an ordinary Tuesday – as did most of the people who witnessed the horrible events of that day either in person or on television. Most of the people who died went to work expecting a normal workday in New York or at the Pentagon. Others boarded planes looking forward to reaching their intended destinations. Police officers and firefighters expected another routine day of protecting their fellow citizens, not knowing that their service would cost them their lives that day.

Sudden and tragic deaths happen all the time, just not often on the scale of what happened on 9/11. Just this past week, on Labor Day Monday, a family of 4 people was killed in a head-on vehicle crash on Highway 260 near Heber – a husband and wife and their 2 young children. They didn’t know when they got in the car that day that their lives would be ending. When extended family and friends saw them before that day, they didn’t know that was the last time they would be seeing that family. We don’t know today whether this might be the last Sunday that we see everyone here in church.

This is a truth that we don’t like to think about: Our lives in this world could end at any moment. Car crashes. Violence. Sudden medical emergencies such as heart attacks or strokes. We like to pretend that our lives will just go on as they usually do, but there are no guarantees that life will turn out that way. Death will come to us all sooner or later. But we push away thoughts of our own death because it makes us uncomfortable – maybe even scares us.

But we don’t have to live in fear because of what God promises us in Christ. Listen again to these words that God speaks to us through St. Paul in Romans 14:

7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:7–9)

Whatever happens to us, whether in life or in death, we are the Lord’s. We belong to Him, and He will take care of us. God laid claim to us when we were baptized in His name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He made us His own, and He connected us by baptism to Jesus – connected to His life and to His death and to His resurrection. In baptism, you have already died – died along with Christ. You died to sin along with His death on the cross as He paid for your sins. And you were raised to a new life along with Christ when He rose from the dead. You don’t have to earn a place with God by anything that you do – not by killing unbelievers at the cost of your own life, not by doing enough good to make up for the bad things you have done. In fact, it is impossible for you pay for the debt of your sins. Only Jesus could do it.

In the parable that we heard from Jesus today, Jesus describes what it will be like when we all will have to give an account of ourselves to God at the final judgment. Jesus describes a man who had to settle his account before the king. Jesus says that the man owed the king “ten thousand talents” (Matthew 18:25). The number 10,000 gives us a little clue that this is a lot of money, but it doesn’t hit us in the same way that it would have hit Jesus’ original hearers. You see, one talent was equal to 6,000 days’ wages for a common laborer – that’s almost 16 and a half years if you work 7 days a week with no days off. If you figure that someone working today at the minimum wage of $15 an hour for 8 hours a day makes $120 per day, then one talent would be worth about $720,000. But the man who was brought before the king didn’t owe one talent. He owed 10,000 talents. That’s $7.2 billion dollars! That’s 60 million days of work – or over 164,000 years of working 7 days a week.

We have no idea how one man could rack up that much debt with the king. It’s a ridiculously high amount. So when the man says to the king, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything” (Matthew 18:26), all we can do is laugh. You want the king to wait patiently for more than 164,000 years for you to pay off your debt? Ridiculous! And yet the debt we owe to God for breaking His commandments is even greater. It’s ridiculous for people to think that they can make up for their sins, and yet many do.

In Jesus’s story, the king recognizes the futility of making the man pay off the debt. The king absorbs the cost himself. He wipes the slate clean for the man and lets him go. This is what God does for us with our sins. He has mercy on us, and He forgives us. That means He releases us from having to pay for sins. He takes the cost and the burden of our sins on Himself. God the Father asked His Son to pay off the debt for us, at the cost of His own life. As the Son of God, Jesus’ death is of infinite value, worth far more than 10,000 talents or even 10 million or 10 billion talents. His blood shed on the cross pays for every sin of every sinner who has ever lived or ever will live – and that includes your sin and mine.

That is why we do not need to fear the end of our life in this world, whether it comes today or some later time. Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord who purchased us to be His own at great cost. If we die, we die to the Lord and continue on our way to eternal life with Him. And if we go on living in this world, we live to the Lord (Romans 14:8).

So how do we live to the Lord? We strive to be as generous toward others as God has been generous in forgiving us our sins – even and especially toward those who owe us a great deal because they have sinned against us. In Jesus’ story, the man who had been forgiven the tremendous debt by the king met a fellow servant who owed him a significant debt. He owed 100 denarii – that’s 100 days wages – over 3 months of work – or about $12,000 in today’s money. That’s a significant debt. But it’s nothing in comparison to the amount the king had just forgiven. Jesus tells us the king was rightfully angry when the man who was forgiven such a great debt refused to forgive his fellow servant. In the same way, God will be rightfully angry with us if we receive His forgiveness for all of our sins and yet refuse to forgive other people who sin against us.

But what if they don’t really deserve forgiveness? What if they’re not really sorry for what they have done? Forgive them anyway, and let God sort it out in the end. Look at the example of Joseph and his brothers. Were his brothers truly sorry for what they had done to Joseph, or were they only sorry that Joseph was now in a position to get back at them? The brothers could have gone to Joseph directly and admitted their wrong and asked for forgiveness. Instead, they made up a story that their father Jacob, before he died, had told them to tell Joseph that he wanted him to forgive his brothers. Joseph did forgive them, but it was because he saw that His life had always been in God’s hands. Joseph knew that his brothers intended to do evil to him, but He left that to God to deal with. He saw the good that God had been able to bring out of that evil, and Joseph wanted to continue to spread that good to others.

We ask for God to help us to live for Him in that same way. We ask God to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. God has wiped out the record of the debt of our sins with the blood of Christ. So with God’s help we try to do the same with those who sin against us. We don’t put a limit on the number of times that we forgive – we don’t stop forgiving after seven times, or even after seventy times seven. We forgive as God has forgiven us, living to the Lord in sharing His abundant mercy with those around us for as long as He has us remain in this world and until He takes us to be with Himself.

And the peace of God which passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Genesis 50:15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” 16 So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: 17 ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’” And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Romans 14:1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Romans 14:5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Romans 14:10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,

       “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

                  and every tongue shall confess to God.”

Romans 14:12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Matthew 18:21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

Matthew 18:23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”