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Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

Last week you heard of Jesus eating with the Pharisees at a Pharisee’s house. They were known as the good people in town, the law-abiding citizens, and Jesus was always happy to accept their invitations to associate with them, to dine with them, to talk with them, to teach them, even though their invitations were often traps, and at the end of the day, most of them didn’t believe Jesus’ words or want Him for a Savior. No matter. He came into the world to call them to repentance, so that they might recognize that they were sinners, too, so that they might be saved by faith in Him.

Jesus was also happy to have the well-known, open sinners in His company, including thieving tax collectors and notorious prostitutes, to associate with them, to dine with them, to talk with them, to teach them. His message to the open sinners was essentially the same as His message to the righteous-looking Pharisees. None of you are actually righteous before God. None of your works can make you acceptable to Him. You haven’t been good enough to earn His favor, and you can’t be good enough to earn His favor, because you’re all sinners. And because you’re all sinners, you stand condemned before God’s holy Law. Repent and believe the good news, that I have come to save you from your sins—both the public ones and the private ones, both the ones that the whole country knows about, and the ones that only you and God know about, and even the ones that you don’t know about, but God does. I have come to help you! To offer you a daily clean slate before God, the sure hope of eternal life in heaven, and the beginning of a holy life here on earth! Believe in Me!

And many of them did believe in Jesus. At very least, many of them were drawn to Jesus’ word and kept coming to Him, wanting to hear more. And He never sent away any who came to Him.

When the Pharisees saw Jesus surrounded by these tax collectors and well-known sinners, they grumbled and complained. This Man receives sinners and eats with them. You have to understand why this bothered them so much. The Pharisees had nothing to offer thieving tax collectors and prostitutes and wretched sinners. They believed that the path to salvation was paved with good works and a good life. It was too late for people who had messed up so badly. They didn’t even want such people to be saved. They didn’t believe in a God who would allow such sinners into His house.

So Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

A shepherd has a hundred sheep, one goes missing, so he leaves the 99 in the pasture to go search for the one that was lost. Any shepherd would do this, as they all knew. No shepherd would be content to let a sheep wander off without searching for it.

So also God says through the Prophet Ezekiel that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. God, unlike the Pharisees, does not easily give up on those who wander away from His sheepfold, who turn away from Him to their idols, who indulge their sinful desires, who act wickedly toward their neighbor, who wallow in the mud of their sins. On the contrary, He sent His Word to the holy prophets to call the wicked in Israel to “turn from their ways and live.” He sent His Son into the world to search for sinners and to preach the same word of repentance to them, and more than that, to suffer and die for their sins so that they should be forgiven and saved by faith in Him.

And now He still searches for His lost sheep through the preaching of the Gospel in all the world. And this is the message: Turn from your sins and take refuge in Christ Jesus, who suffered for you. Believe in Him and so be clothed with His perfect righteousness before God. Learn from Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. In Him you will find full and free forgiveness, as He promised long ago through the Prophet Isaiah: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. For Christ’s sake you will find a loving Father in heaven who knows all the evil you have done and still will take you back and make you holy in His sight through faith in Christ.

When the shepherd finds his sheep, he puts it up on his shoulders, carries it home rejoicing, and celebrates. So also God’s chief purpose in sending His Son into the world was not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And when a sinner repents and believes in Christ, God doesn’t grudgingly take him or her into His house. He rejoices. He celebrates. He is thrilled to have the sinner back. And all the holy angels, and all the saints and true members of the Church rejoice together with Him, to the praise of God’s glorious grace.

But the Pharisees weren’t rejoicing with Jesus when the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Him. They wanted to believe that heaven was only for righteous people, like them, who “had no need of repentance.” But Jesus tells them the hard truth: I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. You who think you are just and righteous, you who pretend that you need no repentance, and that God should be happy to have people like you in heaven—you’re the ones who are fooling yourselves. You’re the ones who bring no joy to heaven at all.

The second parable is similar to the first one—the woman who had ten silver coins and lost one. Here Jesus makes it clear that no one is worth more or less than another. Every soul is valuable to God. Everyone is worth saving. Christ shed His blood for everyone, and He has His Gospel preached to everyone, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What Christ has done for sinners is actually much more than the shepherd or the woman in the parables did. The shepherd took time and effort to find the lost sheep, and the woman took time and effort to sweep the house in search of the lost coin. But Christ Jesus took on human flesh, became Man, spent His entirely earthly life serving lost sinners, sacrificed His own life on the cross for lost sinners, and now spends the rest of this earthly age ruling at God’s right hand and sending the light of His Gospel out into the world, searching, sweeping the earth, until He finds another lost soul whom the Holy Spirit will enlighten with His gifts, another lost soul who will turn in faith to Christ and be found.

You see in both parables today how serious God is about the sinner’s salvation. He doesn’t cast anyone away who comes to Him and wants to hear Him. At the same time, He isn’t looking for mere onlookers. It won’t do anyone any good in the end to remain on the fringes of Christ’s kingdom. Christ is searching for participants in His Church, for people who will value Him highly enough to follow Him into His kingdom, to cling to Him above all things. He’s looking for those who will “faithfully conform all their life to the rule of the divine Word, to be diligent in the use of the means of grace, to walk in a way that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to the Triune God, even to death.”

Natalie, Andrew, Vanessa, that is exactly what you are about to confess before this Christian congregation that you are ready to do. You were baptized into Christ, but then wandered away from His Word and Sacrament for a time. Now you have been drawn back to Christ by the word of His Gospel, and He hasn’t sent you away. Instead, His Holy Spirit has worked powerfully in you so that you’re ready to confess Him publicly, with one voice, together with all the members of this congregation. And what the Pharisees said of Christ in derision, you will gladly and thankfully confess for all eternity, together with us: This Man receives sinners and eats with them. More than that, this Man, Christ Jesus, is also true God, who gives His very body and blood for sinners to eat and to drink in the Sacrament of the Altar, a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins that He purchased with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. Heaven rejoices over you today, and so do we. May God’s Holy Spirit preserve us all in daily contrition and repentance, clinging to Christ in faith, until He carries us on His shoulders safely into life everlasting. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

You heard in the Gospel of a great supper to which many were invited. Jesus told that parable while He Himself was having supper, sitting at a table in a Pharisee’s house, surrounded by a bunch of Pharisees who were watching Him carefully, critiquing Him, perhaps even hoping to catch Him in a violation of the Law. Jesus was a novelty to them, and also a threat. Because the main purpose of the Pharisees was to do such a good job at keeping the Law of God that they could earn a place for themselves in the kingdom of God. And their second main purpose was to teach others to do the same, to be like them, so that all those who were good enough and righteous enough could work their way into the Great Supper in the kingdom of God, together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But Jesus got in the way of all that. He taught a different way into God’s kingdom—the very way to which the Old Testament Law itself pointed. He kept insisting that these Pharisees stop pretending that they were more worthy than other people of God’s favor. He told them another parable right before the one you heard in the Gospel, in which He urged them to stop picking the highest place for themselves at these banquets, and more importantly, to humble themselves before God and before men, trusting in God to raise them up out of His own goodness and generosity, without any merit or worthiness on their part.

But humility was not a virtue that the Pharisees esteemed. One of them sitting at the table with Jesus piped up and preached his own little sermon after Jesus told that parable. Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God! The parable of the great supper that you heard today was Jesus’ response to him, pointing out to the Pharisees that God’s dining room was already filling up with people, while the Pharisees sat outside, refusing to enter, waiting for some other feast that was never going to happen.

Let’s look at the parable. A certain man gave a great supper. The man represents God, and the supper stands for the benefit of coming into God’s grace, God’s house, the Holy Church, the kingdom of heaven, which is now open for all nations, for all men to enter through faith in Christ and Holy Baptism.

The man invited many. These are the Old Testament people of Israel. Ever since the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God had been telling the people of Israel about the coming of His Son to be their Redeemer, their Savior. Through the holy prophets, He had been inviting the Israelites to wait expectantly for this good Savior to come and crush the devil’s head. Be ready when Christ comes! Be looking for Him! Listen to Him when He comes! And put your faith in Him!

He sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ This is John the Baptist, and Christ Himself, and the Apostles after Him, who announced the arrival of the kingdom of God in the coming of Christ. Now God has taken on human flesh in order to redeem fallen mankind from sin. Now the Son of Man will lay down His life for sinners. Now all men are called to repent of their sins and believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.

But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’

We often hear of the thousands of people who followed Jesus at various points in His earthly ministry. But there were tens of thousands in Israel, probably hundreds of thousands, who never listened to Him, who never followed Him, who wanted nothing to do with Him. Among those were the majority of the Pharisees, including the ones who were sitting at the table with Jesus as He told this parable. They all had their reasons, their earthly excuses. Too busy. Too much to do. Family matters to attend to.

In the end, it was simply unbelief that kept them away. The Pharisees thought they didn’t need a Savior from sin. Many sinners in Israel were happy enough to go on sinning and not worry about the consequences that might follow in the afterlife. The rich were too busy enjoying their riches. And even most of those who followed Jesus for a while stopped following Him when they realized that, to be a disciple of Jesus means being ready to leave everything else, even your own life, behind. As Jesus says in the verses right after our Gospel: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Few people in Israel thought that Jesus was worth that much. Few people in Israel wanted to attend the Great Supper, if it meant they had to suffer earthly loss.

So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry…Notice the man’s reaction—God’s reaction to Israel’s indifference toward Jesus, which is indifference toward God. Sometimes Jesus pictures God weeping over Israel’s unbelief. That’s a valid picture. But so is this one! God is angered when men—especially His chosen people of Israel—reject His Son, their Savior. So what did He do?

He said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’

These are the tax collectors and public sinners in Israel, and the simple folk, fishermen, women, children. The high and mighty in Israel had turned down the invitation to the Supper, but many of these people were glad to learn that Jesus had come to save them, were glad to follow Him and quick to believe in Him.

And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

This stands for Christ’s command to His apostles to go and teach all nations, to preach the Gospel to every creature, Jews and Gentiles, down through the ages, you and me, anyone and everyone—all are invited, through the preaching ministry, to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus, to be baptized in His name and to gather in His house, the Holy Church, where He feeds us with His Word, with His body, and with His blood, where we “daily obtain nothing but the forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs,” as Luther wrote in the Large Catechism.

For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

God wants all men to be saved. But He wants them to be saved through faith in Christ Jesus, and in no other way. If men refuse that gift, then God’s will is for them to be locked out of His grace and His kingdom forever. There is no such thing as salvation apart from faith in Christ, or worshiping God without worshiping Christ, or praying to God without praying in Jesus’ name. These words from Jesus’ parable are just another way of saying, outside of the Christian Church (or the Church catholic, if you will) there is no salvation.

This parable of Jesus highlights some very important things for us. Above all, it shows us what the price of admission is into God’s kingdom. It’s free, isn’t it? And the invitation is universal. The invitation to the Great Supper went out to rich and poor, to good and bad, to healthy and sick. No one had to do anything or pay anything to earn the invitation or to earn a place at the Supper. The invitation goes out by God’s grace alone, and a person enters by faith alone in Christ Jesus.

In other words, the “price of admission” is Jesus. You have to enter by trusting in God’s grace for the sake of Christ. You can’t enter by trusting in your own works. You can’t enter by refusing to repent of your sins. You can’t enter by trying to bypass Jesus. It has to be through Him that you enter.

What a great gift God has given you, both in sending His Son to die for your sins and in calling you to faith and Holy Baptism, where you now taste and see that the Lord is good! Don’t be discouraged when you see countless people turning down this invitation, not caring about the Word of Christ, even mocking Him and those who come to this Supper. And don’t imagine for a moment that the problem is with the invitation or with how the invitation is being announced. Remember that Jesus Himself once sat at the table with a bunch of people who received the invitation to God’s kingdom directly from His lips and still made excuses why they didn’t want the Supper He was offering, who still longed to enter God’s kingdom in some other way than by faith in Christ. The problem is never with the invitation. It’s always with man’s stubborn unbelief.

It’s a great miracle of God’s Holy Spirit that you or that anyone should believe the Gospel, and it seems like fewer and fewer people do. But until Christ comes again in glory, you can know for sure that there still is room in God’s house, that this Gospel will reach more people along the highways and hedges, and that the Holy Spirit will still work powerfully through it, bringing men to faith in Christ, where and when it pleases Him. Just tell people the truth about God and His Son Jesus Christ. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity

1 John 4:16-21  +  Luke 16:19-31

What happens to the soul when a person dies? Is there a heaven or a hell? And, if so, what are they like? And who goes where? Jesus’ story about the rich man and poor Lazarus gives us some answers to these questions—answers that are also found elsewhere in the Scriptures, but that really paint the picture for us vividly.

Is there a heaven or a hell?  Absolutely! What happens when a person dies? The body, as we already know, is laid in the ground to decay. But the soul—the soul is taken immediately either to heaven or to hell.

What’s heaven like? Jesus describes it as a place of rest and peace and comfort for the soul, which is carried to “Abraham’s bosom.” Picture Abraham embracing Lazarus with a big hug after the hard and painful life Lazarus had just left behind. It’s Abraham whom Jesus mentions from the Old Testament, because God had promised an eternal inheritance and place of rest to Abraham’s seed, to Abraham’s descendants, the children of Israel. So of course heaven is pictured with father Abraham there, receiving his children into his embrace.

What’s hell like? Jesus describes it as a place of fire and torment and despair. And there is no crossing back and forth between heaven and hell. A permanent gulf or chasm separates the two. Once you’re there, in either place, you’re there for good.

Now the even more important question: who goes where? What is it that grants a person access into heavenly rest or that sends a person to hellish torment? And, ultimately, why are you here on this earth in the first place?

Consider, first, what doesn’t get a person into heaven. Riches, wealth. That won’t do it. The rich man in Jesus’ story had all the riches anyone could ever want. He went to hell. Poverty, being poor. That won’t do it, either. Yes, Lazarus was poor. But Abraham was one of the richest men in the land of Canaan during his earthly lifetime. So poverty is no ticket to eternal life. Earthly sickness or suffering? No. Again, Abraham didn’t suffer greatly, as Lazarus did, and he was in heaven. Eating well! Wearing fine clothes! No, the rich man ate well every day, and still went to hell. Genetics? Having the right genes, the right family history? Well, both the rich man and Lazarus were physical descendants of Abraham. But one went to heaven, and the other went to hell.

Good works, then! It must be doing good works that makes the difference. The rich man was evil! Lazarus was good! Well, Jesus tells us of no great evil that the rich man did, nor does He mention a single good thing that Lazarus ever did.

So what’s the answer? It comes toward the end of the story, where the rich man pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus back to the land of the living, to the five brothers of the rich man who were still alive and who, he knew, were on the same path he was on, to end up there in hell. What does father Abraham reveal to the rich man in hell that his brothers on earth need in order to escape the torments of hell and reach the comfort of heaven? Only one thing could possibly help them: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

Now, the rich man didn’t believe Abraham. There must be something else they need, he thought, because he had Moses and the prophets during his lifetime, too, and he didn’t repent. And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ” Hearing Moses and the prophets, that is, what we know as the Old Testament Scriptures, is all that anyone needs to be “persuaded to repent,” in order to escape hell and enter heaven when they die.

And what do those Scriptures teach? For one, they certainly teach the Law, the Ten Commandments, summed up like this: You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And, The man who does all these things shall live by them. And the soul who sins shall die. To hear Moses and the prophets is to hear these commandments and these threats of God, to take them to heart, and then to be very afraid, because there is no one who does not sin, and God threatens eternal death in hell to the one who sins, to the one who fails to love God and his neighbor at all times, with a perfect, unselfish love.

Then there is that other word that is found throughout Moses and the prophets, the word of the Gospel. What does Moses say about Abraham? How was Abraham justified before God so that he was accepted into heaven when he died? Moses writes (and St. Paul repeats it in his Epistle to the Romans): Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham was justified by faith alone, apart from works. And what did the prophets write? They wrote especially about the coming of the Christ, who would be Israel’s Redeemer from sin, who would make atonement for the sins of Israel, even for the sins of the whole world. They wrote about faith in the coming Christ as the only way to live eternally, the only way to escape the just punishment for sins that sinners are condemned by the Law to receive in hell.

Now look back at Jesus’ parable. What do we see in Lazarus and what must we assume about Lazarus? Well, we see no works of love toward his neighbor in Jesus’ story. He wasn’t in a position to do much, except, perhaps, to pray for his neighbor. But since the Law condemned Lazarus with the rest of mankind, he clearly committed his cause to the merciful God. As a true son of Abraham, he believed in God’s promise of salvation, in spite of the difficult life he was forced to lead on earth. He continued to trust in God and to bear his afflictions patiently. That’s trust that comes only from hearing God’s Word. That’s love for God. Lazarus was poor in possessions, but rich in faith, even though the rich man ignored him, even though it appeared that God was ignoring him. But as the angels carried his soul to Abraham’s bosom, the truth was revealed. God hadn’t been ignoring him. God had accepted him as a beloved son through faith, and had been sustaining his faith and preparing to receive him into heavenly glory and peace and rest.

There is great comfort here for Christians who are suffering, whether you’re suffering at the hands of men or are abandoned by men or whether you’re poor or sick, and even when it seems that God has forgotten you, too. Christians suffer here on earth and sometimes look to be the most wretched of men. But the fact remains that God sent His Son to be your Redeemer from sin. He made (or will make!) you His beloved child through Holy Baptism, and after the hardships and injustices of this life are passed, your soul will most certainly be carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, too.

Back to the rich man in the Gospel. The rich man, as a Jew, heard the word of the Law from Moses and the prophets during his earthly life. But he didn’t listen. He didn’t repent. He didn’t think about God or his neighbor or his sins or his need for salvation. He had a fine life on earth without bothering himself with such things. So he also paid no attention to that other word from Moses and the prophets, the word of the Gospel. He had no faith, no trust in God for redemption and for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, maybe the rich man deluded himself during his life, thinking, “I’m an Israelite, a son of Abraham. Of course I love God!” But what did St. John say in our Epistle? If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? The rich man may object, “I didn’t hate Lazarus!” But God doesn’t necessarily define “hate” as having strong negative feelings toward someone. To hate your neighbor is to not love him, to refuse your opportunities to show love to him.

And so we see the rich man showing no love for his neighbor, Lazarus, lying at his gate every day, yearning to be filled by the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Love for God and love for our neighbor go hand in hand, and they both flow from faith in the God who loved us first, when we didn’t deserve to be loved at all. Where there is no faith, there is no love, because love is the product of faith and the testimony of faith.

So examine your heart and your actions today. This Gospel doesn’t warn us about mistreating our neighbor. It warns us about getting caught up in our earthly life, to the point that we take our salvation for granted, to the point that we stop hearing and paying attention to the preaching of God’s Word and neglect His Holy Sacrament, to the point that we lose saving faith in Christ and become apathetic toward our neighbor, which is a symptom of apathy toward God.

You’re not here on this earth to get rich, to live it up, to make money, or to live comfortably and to die at a ripe old age. You’re here to hear Moses and the prophets—the Word of God, to be brought to a knowledge of your sins and your constant need before God, and then to be brought to a knowledge of Christ as your Redeemer from sin, as your refuge from wrath and condemnation, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then, as a believer, to grow in love and service to your neighbor.

And if God allows you to live it up a little bit while you do that, to make some money, to live comfortably and to die at a ripe old age, fine! Thanks be to God! Abraham enjoyed those things on earth. Lazarus didn’t. The important thing is that God loved them both, and they both knew and believed that and put their trust in God their Savior. And after a brief time on earth, both Abraham and Lazarus ended up with the same reward of grace: eternal comfort and peace and rest in the presence of God. The same awaits you, who hear God’s Word, repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus, and “abide in love.” That’s why you’re here on this earth. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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Sermon for the Festival of the Holy Trinity

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

If you grew up (or are growing up) as a Christian, you may not think twice when you hear the word “Trinity.” You know what we mean by that word. It’s so fundamental to the Christian faith. Everything we believe as Christians begins with this simple truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures. There is one God. He is the Creator of all things. He exists eternally. He has no beginning. He was not created. Everything that is not God was created. It has a beginning. It was brought into existence. This God who created all things exists eternally as three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the same Person as the Son. The Son is not the same Person as the Holy Spirit. Each of the three Persons is God. Yet they are not three Gods, but one God. One in essence. One in will. One in purpose. And that purpose, above all, is the salvation of the human race.

One of the key aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity is that we know God the Father only through God the Son. As Jesus said, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” And we only truly know the Son through God the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “He (the Holy Spirit) will testify about Me.” And “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit reveals the Son to us through preaching. So hear now how the Spirit reveals Christ to us in today’s Gospel, and how Christ, in turn, reveals the Father to us.

Nicodemus came to Jesus at night looking for answers. He got some. But he didn’t fully understand them at the time. Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. The signs, the miracles that Jesus was doing did what they were supposed to do. They made it clear to everyone who cared to notice that the things Jesus was teaching were authorized by God and approved by God. The miracles were God’s way of confirming His approval. That’s what Nicodemus meant when he said, “unless God is with him.”

He was right. God was with Jesus. The Apostle Peter would later preach about Jesus: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

God was with Jesus. Notice how the Scriptures sometimes use the word “God” to refer specifically to the Father. God, as in, God the Father, was with Jesus. The Apostle John does the same thing. In chapter 1 of His Gospel, he writes, In the beginning was the Word (that is, the Son of God), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. So the Son of God is also called God. He was with God the Father in the beginning. And God, as in, God the Father, was with Jesus during His earthly life. And it’s also true that God, as in, God the Holy Spirit, was with Jesus, who once applied these words of the prophet Isaiah to Himself: The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, for He has anointed Me. So you see the Trinitarian nature of one of the names given to Jesus in Holy Scripture: Immanuel—God with us.

Nicodemus, of course, didn’t understand all that. He thought Jesus was just a man—a great teacher approved by God, but still just a man. Then Jesus goes on to reveal much more to him.

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Remember, Nicodemus was a Jewish Pharisee. Even more than the rest of the Jews, they put their faith in their birth according to the flesh, their birth according to their human ancestry going back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To them, the Jews were members of the kingdom of God by birth. But even being born as a Jew wasn’t enough for them. It also took obedience to the Law of Moses—human obedience, obedience to the Law, obedience according to the flesh.

Jesus destroys all that with one sentence. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Your first birth, your birth according to the flesh and your obedience according to the flesh, counts for nothing in God’s kingdom. Contrary to popular belief, people are not born into God’s kingdom. Not all people are children of God. Not all people are going to heaven when they die. You have to be born again.

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Nicodemus is still thinking in terms of the flesh. He knows it isn’t physically possible to have a second physical birth. That’s foolish! But this is what the Apostle John said back in chapter 1, He—the Son of God—came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

A new birth—a spiritual birth—is necessary to see the kingdom of God, a birth connected with believing in Jesus, the Son of God.

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Again, it’s not your natural birth, your “blood birth,” that makes you a child of God and an heir of His kingdom. A spiritual birth is required, a birth that takes place by “water and the Spirit,” which we call Holy Baptism, which the Apostle Paul refers to as a “washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

But someone will say, “No, Baptism doesn’t give new birth. Baptism doesn’t save. Only faith saves.” But it’s not an “either/or,” according to Scripture, either Baptism or faith. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Faith—believing in Christ Jesus, true God and true Man—saves and gives new birth. Baptism saves and gives new birth. The Holy Spirit saves and gives new birth. The Word of God saves and gives new birth, as St. Peter also wrote: “You have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” Spirit, water, word, and faith—these all belong together.

Notice what doesn’t go together with these: human works, human obedience, human ancestry. In other words, “the flesh.”

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Human ancestry, obedience, and works are all meaningless before God. What we inherit by birth from our parents, and they from theirs, is not membership in God’s kingdom, but sin and shame, and a nature that is thoroughly corrupt and inclined toward evil. What we earn by our works is condemnation, because they are imperfect and impure. Spiritual rebirth is essential for every human being—a rebirth that takes place as God, through His Word, calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus, true God and true Man, for the forgiveness of sins, and as His Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts. See the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—always working for our salvation!

Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Regeneration (rebirth) into God’s kingdom is spiritual, not physical. You can see a physical birth. You can tell when a person is going to be born and you can trace a person’s ancestry by DNA. But you can’t measure the work of the Spirit that way, just as you can’t see the wind. You can’t see a person being brought to faith. You can’t see the inner rebirth or a person’s conversion from unbeliever to believer. What you can see is the effect of the wind, as it blows the trees—or the dust, in our case. What you can see is a person being baptized for the remission of sins, confessing faith in the Holy Trinity, gathering faithfully with his fellow confessors around Word and Sacrament, and bearing the fruits of the Spirit in his life—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

There’s far more in today’s Gospel than we can cover in one sermon. That’s what next year is for, right? In conclusion today, let me just point you to the last two verses. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

The Son of God, the Word, who was with God in the beginning and who was God, became flesh for one purpose: to be lifted up on the cross—true Man in order to suffer and die in the place of man, true God so that His sacrifice would be worth enough to purchase the forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all men. God the Father gave His Son for this purpose. God the Son willingly came for this purpose and carried it out. God the Holy Spirit fills the world with the preaching of God the Son, brings sinners to faith in Him and seals eternal life to them in Holy Baptism, so that we may be rescued from this world that is perishing and spend eternity with the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is how we know the Holy Trinity, and this is why we gladly confess Him before the world. Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity! Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Gaudete – Advent 3

Malachi 3:1-6  +  1 Corinthians 4:1-5  +  Matthew 11:2-10

Two weeks ago we heard how Advent is a season of waiting, waiting for Christ to come, how waiting for Christ characterizes the Christian life on this earth. The Old Testament saints spent their whole lives waiting for the Christ to come, and generation after generation after generation passed away without seeing His coming.

Imagine the joy for those believers in Israel when the Christ finally came, when God’s ancient promises were finally fulfilled and the Seed of the woman was born. Imagine the joy of John the Baptist, who knew, from his parents, who heard it straight from the angel Gabriel, that he had been given a special role in God’s plan of salvation, to be the messenger who would “prepare the way before the face” of the Messiah, as Jesus also announces about John in our Gospel.

Well, John carried out his role faithfully. He preached strong words of repentance to Israel. To the penitent he cried out, “Come and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.” And he comforted them with the Gospel: the Christ is coming! Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! To the impenitent he cried out, “You brood of vipers!” Repent or watch out! The Christ is coming, all right. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Or as we heard this morning from the prophet Malachi. Then the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple.  But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap.

And then Jesus the Lord did show up on the scene, just as John and Malachi had foretold, but Jesus’ coming may not have been quite what John expected. Where was the “refiner’s fire”? Where was the harsh and abrasive “launderers’ soap” that cleanses away the wicked people from the world? Where was the judgment of the wicked? Where was the punishment of those who refused to repent at John’s preaching? Instead, Jesus used only words. No lightning was called down from heaven against the wicked. (In fact, Jesus once forbade His disciples to do that when they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the cities that rejected Jesus.) No judgment wiped out the ungodly. Just words. Words of judgment and warning, to be sure, against those who would not repent. But no deeds of divine retribution. No tearing down of the rich and the mighty from their seats. No raising up the poor out of their financial poverty. The only deeds Christ did during His entire ministry were acts of healing; acts of temporary providence, like the feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000; and the tireless preaching of the Gospel of salvation from sin and guilt and death, by faith alone in Him.

Hmm. John sat in Herod’s prison waiting for his execution. And Jesus was out there, doing what? Preaching and teaching and healing individuals, but not fixing any of the big problems in the world. John sent his disciples to ask Jesus, Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another? Jesus wasn’t doing what John expected Him to do. I don’t mean to say that John was disappointed in Jesus, or that John was looking for some kind of earthly, social justice from Jesus. Not at all. But it seems that John didn’t fully understand yet that God’s plan of salvation wasn’t going to be fulfilled all at once, even with the coming of the Christ. The Christ didn’t come into the world to execute final judgment on it. God’s plan was bigger and better than that. As Jesus once told His disciples, the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.

And He was saving them. Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Jesus was fulfilling what the Old Testament Scriptures said the Savior would do. He was performing physical, outward healings as a sign of the spiritual, inner, hidden healing He was also doing by the power of the His Word: He opened spiritually blind eyes to see how dark their sin truly was and to see the light of Christ, the Savior from sin. He took those who were spiritually lame and unable to stand before God and walk in the way of righteousness, and He made them able to stand before God by faith in Christ and to walk in newness of life, to walk in righteousness, guided and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus took the spiritual lepers who were contaminated and corrupted by sin and cleansed them by His Word of forgiveness. He took the spiritually deaf, who couldn’t hear truth in God’s Word and opened their ears to hear and believe His Gospel. He took the spiritually dead, who were dead in sins and trespasses, and made them alive by grace, through faith. And He preached good news to the spiritually poor, to the penitent sinners, that God had given them His Son for a Savior, and together with Him, God would freely give them all things.

So what about all the Old Testament promises of the Christ coming and putting an end to suffering for His people and condemning the wicked and destroying death once and for all? That promise will be fulfilled by Jesus, too. But not yet. Not all at once.

First, according to God’s plan and divine decree, comes spiritual salvation, and that plan includes time—time the Gospel to be preached in all the world. God’s plan was for His Son, His Messiah, to suffer at the hands of sinners, to take our guilt upon Himself, to die for His enemies, and by His blood, to reconcile sinners to God—here, in this life, in a spiritual, hidden way. To redeem fallen mankind from the power of sin, death, and the devil. But Christ didn’t come to sweep His people up immediately into heaven or to impose peace on the earth or to get rid of all the wickedness from the earth. His plan included hundreds—even thousands—of years during which the Gospel would be preached, bringing sinners to faith, one by one. And during that time, Christians would have to wait, not in Christ’s glorious kingdom, but in His spiritual kingdom of grace, which means waiting for Christ here on this sinful earth and suffering in humility until He comes again in glory.

The kingdom of Christ remains hidden now, during this age, within the ministry of the Word. He rules behind the scenes. He comes to earth and to the hearts of men with words. He comes with humble words of preaching and teaching, words connected to outward signs of water and bread and wine. He doesn’t come with any “refiner’s fire” but the fire of His Word, or with any “launderers’ soap” except for the abrasive force of His Law as it exposes and condemns our sin, and with the cleansing power of His Gospel as it drives us to Jesus and pronounces forgiveness upon everyone who trusts in Jesus alone.

As Paul said to the Corinthians in today’s Epistle, “We,” that is the apostles and the ministers of the Word, “are stewards of the mysteries of God,” those entrusted with the responsibility of preaching the Word of Christ and administering the sacraments of Christ to the people of Christ. It’s God’s way of dealing with His people during this age, between the first and the second coming of Christ. This is how God punishes sins in the rebellious, through the Word. This is how God forgives sins to the penitent, through the Word. This is how God sustains and strengthens His people to endure hardship and suffering and persecution and death—by means of this ministry of the Word. This is God’s plan for this age.

So Jesus sends word back to John: Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me. What does that mean? It means Jesus may not do all the things one expects Him to do. It means that a person may stumble over Jesus and His plan for this world that includes suffering both for Him and for His Christians. A person may give up on Jesus because he wants earthly peace and comfort and isn’t content with the humble working of Jesus through the ministry of the Word. But blessed is he who does not stumble over Jesus, because He really does know what He’s doing. And He and His Church really will triumph in the end.

Those words of Jesus sustained the faith of John the Baptist and enabled Him to persevere until the end and to face his suffering—and even his executioner—still trusting in Jesus as his Savior, still confessing Christ as the Lord. The word of Jesus will do the same for you. So rejoice in the Lord always, even though His kingdom is hidden from your sight. Rejoice even now as He carries out His mighty plan of salvation in this age through the blessed ministry of the Word. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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Sermon for Populus Sion – Advent 2

Micah 4:1-7  +  Romans 15:4-13  +  Luke 21:25-36

People are always looking for signs from God, aren’t they? A sign, showing them what to do in a given situation, what decision to make. A sign, showing them that God is there, that God is real, that God cares. Or, sometimes, people take tragic events as signs that God doesn’t care, that God isn’t real. The people who seek signs all over the place are usually the same people who ignore the biggest, most impressive signs of all: the cross of Christ, and the word of God, where He reveals Himself and His gracious will to us, where He tells us specifically what signs He has given and why He has given them, and, in some cases, what signs He will give and why He will give them.

Take the rainbow, for example. There’s a sign, given by God, that has been completely coopted and twisted by wicked men into the sign of their support for the depravity that is homosexuality. In reality, the rainbow is a sign, defined by God, that points to His promise never again to destroy the world with a flood, His covenant with all flesh that, While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease. Every time you see a rainbow, it should point you to that promise, like a sign.

Now consider for a moment, what were the signs pointing to Jesus’ first Advent? What were the people of Israel to be watching for, as signs from God that the Christ was soon to come? Well, they were to expect a time of peace in the land of Judea. There would be a forerunner coming soon before the Christ, one who would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. And the people were to be watching King David’s line of descendants carefully, because at the time of the Christ’s coming, there would be no son of David sitting on the throne of Judah, and yet a virgin from David’s line would conceive and bear a Son who would sit on the throne of His father David, and Bethlehem would be His birthplace. Shepherds were given a special sign: a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. All those signs were present at the time of Christ’s birth, though not everyone in Israel, much less everyone in the world, took notice of them.

Just last week we heard of another sign that pointed to Jesus’ coming: the King of Israel riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Today we are told by Jesus—in words that He spoke to His disciples just a day or two after He rode into Jerusalem on that donkey—about some other signs to be watching for, signs that point to Jesus’ second Advent.

Now, when Jesus actually comes at the end of the age, no one will miss it. “Every eye shall see Him.” His coming will be “like lightning that comes from the east and flashes to the west.” He won’t come in secret, and He won’t come little by little, so that you can see Him coming in the distance for days or weeks or months. When He comes, it will be sudden and unexpected, like a thief who breaks into a house in the middle of the night. But for those who listen to Jesus and believe what He says, there will be plenty of signs pointing to His coming.

Jesus speaks of signs in the heavens, in the sun, moon and stars. What are these signs? Are they spectacular events no one has witnessed yet, or are they somewhat common occurrences? If we use Jesus’ other signs as a guide, then they are relatively common occurrences. Just as Jesus predicted that earthquakes, famines, pestilences, wars and rumors of wars would be signs pointing to His coming, and those things have happened repeatedly over the last 2,000 years, so things like solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, shooting “stars,” comets, solar flares and ominous asteroids are all signs—signs that God built into nature, into the creation itself, for a purpose, to lift our eyes up to the heavens and to warn us that the end of this earth is coming. Jesus is coming soon.

Jesus speaks of signs on the earth, signs in the wind, in the water, in the weather, in the climate. Every natural disaster—every storm, really, points to the end of this world and the coming of Christ. And for as much as I think most of the hype about “global warming” and “climate change” is simply false and an evil scheme designed to dominate people and take advantage of their fear rather than to save the planet, there’s no arguing the fact that many people in the world are truly distressed about variations in weather patterns, and honestly afraid of what’s coming on the earth. That fear, that foreboding is one of the signs Jesus predicted.

But most people in the world do not listen to what Jesus said about these things. Most people do not take these signs to heart or view them as signs, so they busy themselves trying to keep the universe from dying, trying to postpone the destruction that’s coming on the world, or they simply go on with life as usual, which Jesus also predicted. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus said plainly what people would be doing right up until the day of His coming: Eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, buying and selling, building and planting. We shouldn’t imagine that the days leading up to Jesus’ second Advent will be so horrendous and “apocalyptic” that everyone will be cowering in fear. No, it won’t be that bad. It won’t be that “unusual” at all.

Some of the other signs Jesus mentions that point to His coming are the abundance of false doctrine and false teachers that will be around in the days before He comes, leading many people astray. And never in the history of the world have so many false teachers been active as are active now, corrupting people’s minds with godless, wicked religions like Islam and modern Judaism, and corrupting the preaching of the Christian faith, too, making it almost unrecognizable in many denominations, turning sound doctrine and historical Christianity into an oddity and making it almost impossible to find on the face of the earth. Surely Jesus is coming soon!

The persecution, targeting and killing of Christians is another sign. Is that happening? “Lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” Is that happening? The spread of the Gospel of Christ into all nations is another sign. Is that happening?

Yes, all the signs are pointing to the imminent arrival of Jesus. The kingdom of God is near. What will you do?

Jesus urges you, Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. People are so afraid of doomsday prophecies and catastrophes and apocalyptic tribulation. What people should be worried about is business as usual. What people should be afraid of is a day-to-day routine, where you go to school, learn a trade, get a job, have a family, have some fun, plan for retirement, enjoy retirement, see the doctor, take your medications, and then get your estate and your burial plot in order. That day-to-day routine should scare the hell out of you. Because those are the “cares of this life” that will weigh your heart down, if you let them, so that Christ and His kingdom become little more than an afterthought. And you will not be prepared for His coming.

It’s not in vain that Jesus earnestly pleads with His disciples, Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. You and I know how easy it is to get weighed down with the cares of this life, whether it’s the day-to-day routine, or Christmas preparations in our homes, or the sin that so easily entangles. Let Jesus’ warnings and signs bring you again to repentance and watchfulness. Let them stir up your faith and also your prayers. And don’t forget the chief signs that Christ has given us here below: the signs of Baptism and Holy Communion, where God indicates to us what His will is for us. He wants us to be washed clean of sin in Holy Baptism and then to trust in Christ constantly, who washed away our sins when we were baptized. And in the Sacrament of the Altar, Christ again gives us a sign and seal of His forgiveness, His very body and blood once given and shed on the cross, and now given to believers to forgive us again and again and to strengthen us for the difficult days ahead until the coming of Christ.

Thus prepared, you have nothing to fear as the signs of Christ’s coming unfold all around you. Let the unbelieving world live in fear and distress. You have been brought into the kingdom of Christ, His Bride, His Holy Church. You know a Father in heaven who is gracious for the sake of Christ and who has promised to guard you and keep you until the end. You know the Savior who will be the Judge on the Last Day, and you already know His verdict for all who trust in Him. While the rest of the world lives in fear, pretending that all the signs don’t actually point to Christ’s coming, you have every reason to rejoice, because as the world falls apart around you, you have made it onto the lifeboat, as it were. Only keep watch, as Jesus told you to do. He didn’t say it in vain. His Spirit will continue to use those words as the lifeline that will keep you safe, trusting in Christ all the way up until He comes. And so, by faith, you will be counted worthy to stand before the Son of Man. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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Sermon for Ad Te Levavi – Advent 1

Jeremiah 33:14-18  +  Romans 13:11-14  +  Matthew 21:1-9

Today we enter the season of Advent, the season of waiting, as the Church waits in hope for the Advent, for the arrival of Jesus. The Church of the Old Testament waited for about 4,000 years in all for His first Advent, ever since God promised Eve in the Garden of Eden that her Seed would come and bruise the head of that ancient serpent. Or, if we count from the time of Abraham, with whom God made that first Testament, then the Old Testament Church waited about 2,000 years for the Heir of the Covenant to come. The Church of the New Testament has been waiting for about 2,000 years on the other side, waiting for Jesus’ second Advent. That’s a lot of time spent waiting, isn’t it?

Oh, it’s not a sit-around-doing-nothing kind of waiting. It’s not a sit-there-on-your-smartphone-looking-for-a-distraction kind of waiting. It’s a go-on-with-your-earthly-life kind of waiting, but always arranging that earthly life with the goal of being prepared to meet Jesus, always with an eye toward the Advent of the King.

Now, in spite of all the time that the Old Testament Church spent waiting for the Messiah to arrive, most of that Church, even most of the believers in the congregation of Israel, weren’t prepared for what Jesus actually came the first time to do. Jerusalem was prepared for the Christ to come on the clouds, with great glory. Jerusalem was prepared for an Advent of Jesus that would usher in an age of peace, and age of safety, an age in which the Christ would take control of this world, get rid of all the lies, all the immorality, all the violence, all the sickness, all the death. Don’t you yearn for that kind of Advent, too?

Here’s the problem with that, and it affects us, too. We get so wrapped up in all the evil going on around us in the world, we’re so eager for Jesus to come and make our life better that we begin to forget about the evil that dwells inside of us, about the real root of all the wickedness that infects our world: sin. And not just the sin of all those murderers and abusers and greedy people out there, but the sin that infects each one us, the sin that separates us from God, the sin for which we, too, deserve God’s wrath and punishment. Your main problem—the problem with which you were born and the problem that has to be solved or you will perish eternally when Christ comes—is your record of sins against the holy God. Many people, assuming themselves to be good people, foolishly long for Christ to come on the clouds with salvation for all the good people of the world and with judgment toward all the bad people. What they will learn with horror when Jesus comes is that there never were any “good people” to begin with. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

What you need is what Jerusalem needed, not for Christ to come immediately on the clouds, but for Christ to come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. What Jerusalem didn’t understand, and what Christians today too often forget, is that there had to be two Advents of the Messiah, two separate arrivals of Emmanuel, one in which He would suffer, another in which He would put an end to suffering for His elect; one in which He would ride into Jerusalem humble, lowly, riding on a donkey, another in which He would come to His waiting Jerusalem riding in on a cloud and with great glory; one in which He would earn salvation for mankind by being beaten, tortured, and crucified, another in which He would forever save His believers out of this dark world and bring them safely into His glorious kingdom; one Advent whose symbol is the cross, another whose symbol is the crown.

You see our Advent paraments? The cross and the crown? Let them remind you throughout this season of the two Advents of Christ, because the Church celebrates them both during this season. Each Advent is critical for our salvation, and each one is meaningless without the other.

If Christ only came in glory to rid the world of wickedness, if He didn’t come to die for our sins, then His coming in glory would mean death and destruction for all of humanity, because no man deserves to enter with Christ into His glorious kingdom. No one loves and honors God as he should. No one loves his neighbor as he should. All have earned God’s wrath and condemnation. Christ had to come as a man—a humble man, like us, subject to God’s holy Law, like us, subject to hunger and thirst, subject to ridicule and rejection, subject to suffering, subject to death. Christ had to come to Jerusalem, humble, riding on a donkey, to suffer and die in our place, to earn a place for us and for all men in His glorious kingdom.

Or, if Christ only came to suffer and die and isn’t coming again in glory, then death wins and this world goes on in its perversion and depravity forever.

Or, if Christ had combined His Advent to suffer and His Advent in glory in one grand event 2,000 years ago, then hardly anyone—and certainly none of us—would enter His glorious kingdom, because the only way Christ’s merits get applied to anyone is through faith in Christ, and the only way anyone is converted to faith is through the preaching of the Gospel. The whole purpose of this New Testament era is for the word of the Gospel to go out into the kingdoms of the world so that the seed of the Gospel may be planted and grow into a bountiful harvest of souls at the second Advent of Christ. You and I are only members of Christ’s Church because His second Advent was separated from the first long enough for you and me to hear the word and be baptized into the New Jerusalem.

It took 2,000 years, from the time of Abraham, for the Church, for Zion, to see her King coming to her in His first Advent, riding down the Mount of Olives and up to the gates of Jerusalem on a donkey, having salvation. It may not have been the kind of salvation Zion expected, but it was exactly what she needed—a King so full of love and grace that He would take on human flesh, live among sinners as a Servant-King, and then let His people abuse Him and hang Him on a cross in order to atone for their sins.

Now, 2,000 years later, we wait for His second Advent in hope, but only because His first Advent gave us the hope of a loving Father in heaven to whom we have now been reconciled by the blood of His Son. The Advent with the cross paved the way for the Advent with the crown. Behold, your King is coming to you, Zechariah prophesied, but this time it won’t be lowly and riding on a donkey. This time it will be with great glory and with long-awaited salvation for His people. His Advent is nearer now than when we first believed. And even though we can’t see Him quite yet, even though He is just beyond the horizon, we know it won’t be long now, and so we join our song to the Church of every age, Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna in the highest! Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Thanksgiving Eve

Deuteronomy 26:1-11  +  Luke 12:13-21

You’ve come to the Lord’s house tonight to give Him thanks, to recognize His goodness to you, to acknowledge Him as the Source and Provider of all you have. That’s the way it should be. Christians should celebrate Thanksgiving differently than the rest of the country. Millions of Americans view Thanksgiving as nothing more than extra vacation days, extra family time, a traditional meal, or, at best, a time to feel grateful to some generic, unknown god who only barely resembles the God of the true Christian religion. Thanksgiving Day is mostly a day filled with idolatry, just like Christmas has become.

But God has made Himself known to you in the person of Jesus Christ, in the word of the Gospel. You’ve come to worship God in the only way He can be worshiped—through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. So worship Him this evening, not only with your prayers and praises, but also by hearing and heeding His word as the Lord Jesus repeats a warning to you in the Gospel. Don’t be a fool! You didn’t build that.

That has become a common slogan in our country by a certain political party and its leader. Whether it’s a home or a business or wealth that’s built up over a lifetime, we are told, “You didn’t build that. That wasn’t your doing. It was only made possible by your fellow countrymen helping you along, every step of the way, and ultimately, the government gets credit for all that you think you built.” Well, that’s not only ridiculous. It’s sacrilegious. The credit for all that you have goes, not to the government, not to your fellow countrymen, not even to you. It all goes to God. Let’s turn to the parable to see what Jesus is talking about.

What a tragedy it was, when that man from the crowd approached Jesus and said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Oh my. The Son of God comes to earth, takes on human flesh, and walks among us for a short moment in human history in order to reconcile sinners with God and hand out the forgiveness of sins and eternal life as a free gift, and all this man has on his mind is the money he thinks his brother is cheating him out of. He’s mad. He’s angry. Maybe Jesus can finally do something useful and be a referee for their family squabble. Maybe Jesus can create some social justice here on earth and get the wealth out of the hands of those evil rich people who are cheating the poor people out of their well-deserved happiness.

“Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” Jesus asked. Jesus was actually angry that someone would look to Him to institute social justice or to enforce income equality. That is not why He came; that is not the Christian Gospel. On the contrary, He came to warn sinners about God’s wrath and condemnation for their sinful fixation on themselves and their rights and their money and their property. Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. And so He tells a parable that strikes at rich and poor alike, because the rich can be corrupted by their possession of wealth, and the poor can be corrupted by their longing for wealth. Greed and selfishness are a human problem, transcending all social classes.

The parable is about a rich man who gets even richer. A superabundant harvest gives him so much extra wealth that he decides to tear down his storage barns and build even bigger ones. He congratulates himself on how rich he has become, and he makes plans with himself to make an early retirement so that he can enjoy all his money. He’s very happy with himself, so happy that no one else gets even a moment of thought or care or recognition: not his neighbor, and certainly not God.

“You fool!” God said. This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided? The rich man reasoned, I built all this. I worked hard and my hard work paid off. So now I’m going to sit back and enjoy the well-deserved fruits of my labors. But what did he forget? He forgot that God brought his ancestors into this land after redeeming them from slavery in Egypt. He forgot that it was God who gave his ancestors the land, God who saw to it that he was born just where and when he was so that he could inherit the land from his ancestors, God who gave him the ability and the skill to work that land, God who made the crops grow, and God who sustained every cell in his body, granting him life and breath until God should see fit to pay out to him the wages of sin, which is death.

What a stark contrast between the rich fool in Jesus’ parable and the commandment of God to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 26, our first lesson this evening. With each and every harvest in the Promised Land of Israel, they were to remember—and confess again publicly—all the things that the rich man in the parable forgot. And they were to worship God with the firstfruits of their harvest as an acknowledgement before God that, I didn’t built that, O Lord. You did. You brought me here. You get the credit for all that I have. And I give you thanks! Because You have rescued me from sin, death, and the devil, without any work on my part. You have brought me into Your house and washed away all my sins and have promised to sustain me through this life into eternal life. Having You for my God, whether I am rich or poor, whether I have plenty or barely enough, I have all that I need. Indeed, I am rich, because You have given me Yourself and have promised me an eternal inheritance at Your side in heaven.

That’s what it means to be “rich toward God,” as Jesus says, or maybe a better translation, “rich in God.” It’s not about how big of an offering you bring to church, and it’s not about how charitable you are toward your neighbor. It’s about not living for money and stuff, but living for God. It’s about finding your contentment, not in money and stuff, but in God—the God who gave His Son into death for your sins, and in addition, richly and daily provides you with clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and yard, wife and children, land, cattle, and all that you have—with all that you need to nourish and support this body and life.

Don’t be a fool. You didn’t build that. You didn’t accumulate any goods or wealth for yourself that God didn’t allow you to accumulate and use for His purposes, and it could all be gone tomorrow anyway. Your life on earth could end tonight. So be rich in God. Trust in Him, and give thanks to the Him, today and every day, and take this opportunity at Thanksgiving time to rededicate yourself to using all the good things God has given you for His honor and glory and for your neighbor’s benefit. Worship God with the things He’s given you, with the things He has built. Worship Him in the only way He can be worshiped—through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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Sermon for Trinity 27

Isaiah 65:17-19  +  1 Thessalonians 5:1-11  +  Matthew 25:1-13

The Gospels that we read at the end of the Church Year are very pointed, aren’t they? Filled with the sternest of warnings, and with the most beautiful, comforting, joyful pictures in all of the Scriptures, in the same reading, in the very same parable, like the one we had before us last week in the parable of the sheep and the goats, and in the one we have before us today in the parable of the ten virgins.

The kingdom of heaven is the Christian Church, the assembly of the baptized on earth and in heaven. Now, in heaven, the Church is pure and spotless. All those who reach the Church in heaven were true believers in Christ here on earth who persevered in the faith until the end. They overcame all the enemies who fought against them during their earthly lives: the devil, the world, and their own flesh, and they can never fall away, never fall back out of the Church. That’s why we call it the “Church Triumphant.” The Church here on earth, in the broad the sense, at least, is a mixed bag, with true believers and false Christians living side by side, all calling themselves Christians. Here on earth Christians can still be attacked and tempted to turn away from the faith of Christ, and true believers can abandon the faith or become lukewarm and indifferent. We call it the Church Militant, because, here on earth, we’re always fighting and battling, not against flesh and blood, but against the devil and against the threat of falling away.

So Christ issues an earnest warning in today’s Gospel, urging His true believers to keep watch, to prepare for His coming, to expect Him at any time, but to be wisely prepared for a lifetime of waiting.

It’s like ten virgins who went out to meet the bridegroom and his bride on their march to the wedding hall. The bridegroom is Christ Jesus, the heavenly Bridegroom who shed His blood for His Bride, the Church, and cleansed her of her sins with baptismal waters. He pledged Himself to this Bride and promised to come back to get her, so that they could be married in a great spiritual marriage and live side by side together in the heavenly Paradise. The Bride in this parable is the Church Triumphant as it will be in heaven when Christ returns.

But He didn’t say when exactly He was coming. In fact, He intentionally hid the day and the hour of His coming and simply called on His people to wait for Him, and to be ready when He does finally come.

So, who are these ten virgins in the parable? They are individual members of the Church Militant. But they don’t represent all people who call themselves Christians.

There are some called “Christians” who rarely set foot in a church. They’re called Christians because their parents told them that’s what they were, maybe even had them baptized as infants. They think they believe in God. But they don’t care about hearing the word of Christ or receiving the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament, and they certainly aren’t concerned about living their lives in preparation for Christ’s coming. Such people are fooling themselves if they think they’ll enter the wedding hall with the Bridegroom, unless they repent before the Last Day.

There are others called “Christians” who teach and adhere to false doctrines that strike at the heart of the Christian faith, from the pope and his works-righteous, idolatrous, Antichristian doctrines; to the archbishop of Canterbury and liberal “Christians” in America who embrace immorality, twist the Scriptures, and deny that Christ alone saves; to the vapid “Evangelical” emptiness of the how-to-have-a-better-life-on-earth theology. They maintain an outward semblance of Christianity while denying its chief Biblical teachings. And in many cases, they also persecute the true Christian faith and its followers. They live their life for this world, and if they are preparing for Christ to come at all, they’re not awaiting the arrival of the real Jesus, but of a false christ of their own making. They are fooling themselves if they think they’ll enter the wedding hall with the Bridegroom, unless they repent before the Last Day

But the ten virgins in Jesus’ parable are all true believers, true Christians who start out eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Bridegroom, eagerly hoping to be included in the Church Triumphant. They’re baptized. They’re believers. They go out with their lamps to wait for Christ.

But some are foolish, and some are wise. They all have the opportunity to get plenty of oil to last the whole night. Five bring along extra oil. But the other five only bring along what’s already in their lamps.

Without pressing the details of the parable too far—because there’s always one main point Jesus is making and not all the details are relevant—the oil is faith, faith that keeps burning, keeps trusting in Jesus and His mercy, keeps looking to Him for all good things, especially the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

But the Scriptures do not teach the Baptist heresy of “once saved, always saved.” The Scriptures do not teach, “once a believer, always a believer.” What the Scriptures teach is that faith, like a flame, needs to be fed. What the Scriptures teach is that faith comes by hearing, and hearing, by the Word of Christ. The ministry of the Word—preaching, teaching, absolution, the Sacrament of the Altar—is the means by which God feeds the faith that God first created.

What the Scriptures also teach is that God has committed Himself to providing all that is necessary for His believers to persevere in faith until the end. He’ll provide His Word and Sacrament, and ministers to administer them. He’ll provide opportunities for prayer and He’ll hear those prayers. He’ll guide and strengthen His people by His Spirit to lead holy lives here on earth. And He’ll help His people to bear up under the cross, to overcome the assaults of Satan and every evil, and to survive all the hardships and suffering that fill this world, all the way up until the day of the Bridegroom’s return.

So what does it look like to be wise in the kingdom of heaven? It looks like the five virgins who were prepared for a whole nighttime—for a whole lifetime—of waiting. The wise Christians use the means of grace as long as they can. They go to church regularly and take advantage of the ministry of the Word as long and as often they can. They learn the Scriptures and study them. They put aside hypocrisy, malice, hatred and bitterness. They fight against the sinful flesh. They live in daily repentance. They pray. They do works of love, according to their own vocations. And they bear the cross with patience. And they teach their children to do the same, although they can’t believe for their children; their children will also have to use the means God has provided for themselves. Their children will also have to prepare for a lifetime of waiting.

The foolish Christians hear Christ’s urgent pleas to prepare and keep watch, but they foolishly don’t listen. They started out well enough. But then they get tired of the uncomfortable Christian life. They get entangled in earthly concerns. They may still go to church, when it’s convenient, but if they miss hearing the preaching of the Word and if they miss the Sacrament for awhile, it really doesn’t bother them anymore; they find no urgency in it. They don’t worry about their sins anymore. Their heart doesn’t long for Christ’s coming anymore. And their faith becomes an empty shell, like an empty oil lamp.

When the Bridegroom comes, those foolish Christians will find out just how foolish they were to squander their time of grace and to allow their faith to flicker and die. They won’t enter heaven with the Church Triumphant. Instead they’ll be locked out forever, with the pagans and with the devil worshipers, with the peaceful Muslims and with the militant ones. Because being a Christian isn’t about following certain traditions or hanging crosses in your house. Being a Christian is a matter of having a living, burning faith in Christ Jesus.

The wise, on the other hand, will finally see the Bridegroom face to face. They will join the wedding procession and become part of the Church Triumphant, and their joy will know no end. Christ will have kept all of His promises, including His promise to come at last to rescue His Church from this dying world. And the faithful will not be disappointed.

Dear Christians, it’s not too late. If you notice that you have started to grow indifferent toward Christ and His Word, if you see that your love for your neighbor has begun to grow cold, if you find that you haven’t been giving much thought at all to the arrival of the Bridegroom, then now is the time to fill your lamps again. Now is the time to receive the absolution, to feed on Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, and to renew your zeal in preparing for eternity.

There are many tools at your disposal. There is plenty of oil yet to be bought. Come to regular services and the special services that are offered throughout the year. The whole season of Advent is especially geared toward helping Christians to be prepared for Christ’s coming. Support the ministry of the Word here with your offerings and with your prayers. Pray often. Come to Bible class. And next week, I’ll be handing out a little booklet with suggested daily Bible readings to get you through the whole Bible. But it will take your own commitment to spend the time at home each day to do it.

The Christian life is not a spectacular, one-time “event.” It’s a slow and steady burn, like the little flame of an oil lamp, marked by a steadfast faith that constantly clings to Christ. Your life on earth, your time of waiting for Christ, may be short, or it may be long. It doesn’t matter. If it’s short, then you will enter the Church Triumphant sooner. If it’s long, then God will provide all the means necessary to keep you safe until He comes. But one of those means is the word of Jesus to you in today’s Gospel: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. So listen to Jesus. Watch, and keep watching. The Bridegroom will come soon enough. And, by watching and using the means God provides, you will be prepared to join the joyful wedding procession into the great heavenly hall. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Trinity 26

Isaiah 40:9-11  +  2 Thessalonians 1:3-10  +  Matthew 25:31-46

One of the most basic teachings of the Bible is that this world is heading for certain and unavoidable destruction, that Christ will come again to this earth, that there will be a Day of Judgment, a day of reckoning for all men. The Son of Man will come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory as Judge. On that day, all the terrorists and jihadists of the world will have to appear before Christ. On that day, all the people of all the countries of Europe (including France and Germany) that have almost entirely abandoned the Christian faith, where hundreds of churches and cathedrals now stand empty—never used anymore—, and where the churches that are used have largely turned Christianity into a mockery of itself—they will have to appear before Christ. On that day, the people of America, who, in their quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, have largely abandoned Him who is the Life, have turned liberty into license, and the pursuit of happiness into the pursuit of selfishness—they will have to appear before Christ.

And you and I along with them. So pay attention to the words of the Judge today, while it is day, before the night comes, before the Court convenes. Now is the time to listen and learn, because the day of reckoning is coming.

The day of reckoning is heralded by all sorts of mini-judgments that come upon the world, like we saw in France on Friday. And every single one of those mini-judgments carries with it God’s intended purpose that the rest of the world should wake up—not just wake up to the threat of Islam or the foolishness of recklessly bringing tens of thousands of foreign refugees into your country, but wake up to the reality of your sin, your idolatry, your rejection of God’s Word, your rejection of God’s Son. These mini-judgments all direct our attention to the much greater, much more devastating Final Judgment. They all cry out with a loud voice, the day of reckoning is coming!

On the day of reckoning, when Christ comes, there will be no standing in line before the pearly gates, waiting for St. Peter’s decision on whether to let people into heaven or not. There will be an immediate and final separation of the sheep and the goats. The sheep will get to go into everlasting life. The goats will be cast into everlasting fire. The judgment itself on that day will be over before it begins, because the judgment takes place here and now, in this life, during this time of grace. All people begin their lives under God’s judgment, with a standing condemnation hanging over their heads because of their sin. But now is the time when God sends out ministers of the Word, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for our sins, to baptize people away from condemnation. Now is the time when the Holy Spirit justifies people by faith in Christ, removing the condemnation that was hanging over their heads and bringing them into the safety of the Holy Christian Church.

So what will the Judge be doing on the day of reckoning, if He won’t be deciding people’s fate? According to today’s Gospel, He’ll be publicly declaring the evidence that supports the Judge’s already-made decision.

First, He addresses the sheep, those on His right, the blessed, the saints, the children of God, the believers in Christ, the justified by faith, the true Christians. Did you notice in the Gospel that Jesus didn’t list a single sin committed by the sheep? Why? Is this some special, tiny group of people who were just that perfect that they never did anything wrong, anything sinful? Not at all! What did David say in the famous Psalm? Not, “Blessed is he who has never sinned.” But, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” The sheep are not sinless; they are counted by God as sinless. Their faith—worked in them by the Holy Spirit during their earthly lifetime—was counted to them for righteousness. They “inherit” the kingdom of God. They don’t earn it. They inherit it, because they have been made children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Faith in the blood of Christ, shed for our sins, makes us worthy to stand before the Judge on the day of reckoning without fear and without guilt.

So what does the Judge say about the sheep? He praises them for all the deeds of kindness they have done for their Christian brothers in their times of need. “You fed Me. You clothed Me. You visited Me.” How so? Because Christ dwells by His Spirit in the body of every believer. What Christian parents do for their children, they do for Christ. What Christian children do for their parents, they do for Christ. What church members do for their pastor and for one another, they do for Christ. At least, that’s how He sees it. Jesus looks for these fruits of faith, these deeds of love of all kinds from those who call themselves Christians. And anyone who is a true Christians, who is justified by faith alone, will have an abundance of these deeds of love to be read out loud on the day of reckoning. Christians are not safe from the judgment because of these works. Instead, because Christians are safe from the judgment through a true and living faith in Christ, they do these works. And God, in His grace, accepts them as tokens and testimonies of the faith He has worked and sustained in their hearts by His Spirit, through the Means of Grace.

But what about the goats on His left? Did you notice in the Gospel that the Judge, in listing the evidence that supported His verdict against them, doesn’t even mention all the atrocities people have committed in the world? He doesn’t even bother listing what we consider the most obvious sins—murder and adultery and crime and greed. “You didn’t feed Me. You didn’t clothe Me. You didn’t visit Me.” All sins of omission. Consider how horrifying this judgment is. Forget about the persecutions and the killings of Christians. For not going out of their way to do good to Christ’s holy people here on earth in their time of need, their eternal condemnation is deserved.

What? Could these unbelieving goats have earned their justification by being nicer to Christians? Not at all. Everything that does not come from faith in Christ is sin, as the Bible clearly teaches, and a man is justified, not by works, but only by faith in Christ. But where there is no faith, there are no truly good works, there is no true love. Unbelievers may think of themselves as good and righteous people, but they will all be confronted on the day of reckoning with the harsh reality: from God’s perspective they did no good thing for Him, because they did not believe in Him, and therefore, they did no good thing for His people, either.

The result for the goats will be everlasting fire and condemnation. How tragic! Because that was not God’s original intention for anyone. Jesus says that the everlasting fire of hell was prepared, not for men, but “for the devil and his angels.” God’s intention from the beginning of time was to save the entire human race through faith in Christ, even as He gave Christ into death as the payment for the sins of the whole world. He calls all men by the Gospel to turn from their sins and to believe in Christ. Here we are again today, gathered together around the Word of Christ, humbly seeking refuge under the cross. The whole city is invited to come and hear the Gospel and receive the forgiveness of their sins so that they are prepared for the day of reckoning. Where are they? Why are we so few? Why are solid, orthodox, Gospel-preaching churches almost empty around the world?

Christ gives us the answer in John chapter 3. “Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

So what do we do? We keep preaching and hearing the Gospel. We keep living in daily repentance and humility before God. We keep doing the works of love that are fitting for saints. We keep praying that God would grant repentance to those who still live in the darkness of unbelief. And we eagerly await the day of reckoning, because Christ has told us ahead of time what a blessed day it will be for those who are found trusting in Him.

The biggest threat facing this country and this world is not “climate change,” as some people strangely claim. It’s not poverty, not bankruptcy, not even militant Islam. The biggest threat facing this world is the day of reckoning. Christ is coming. He is coming soon. Listen to Him now, and you will be safe on that glorious and dreadful day. Amen.

Source: Sermons