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An invitation for weary children to rest

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Sermon for the Festival of St. Matthias

Acts 1:15-26  +  Matthew 11:25-30

Our Scripture readings this evening are the readings for the festival of St. Matthias, which occurred two days ago. Matthias is only mentioned once in Holy Scripture, and yet he was a disciple of Jesus from the very beginning, unmentioned and unnamed, standing in the background of Jesus’ earthly ministry. After the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven, but before the Day of Pentecost, His remaining eleven apostles concluded that they were meant to fill the vacancy among the Twelve left by Judas Iscariot when he betrayed the Lord and then hanged himself. In order for such a man to be a true eyewitness to the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus, he had to have accompanied the apostles from the beginning, “from the baptism of John to that day when Jesus was taken up from us” (Acts 1:22). Barsabas and Matthias were the two qualified men who were nominated, and Matthias was the one chosen by lot to be added to the number of the Eleven, after which little is known for certain about his life and ministry.

Now, the choosing of Matthias to be counted among the Twelve Apostles is a little strange. After all, Jesus appeared on and off to His disciples for 40 days after His resurrection. And yet, Jesus never handpicked Matthias to replace Judas. On the other hand, He did handpick the apostle Paul some time later, and we know from the New Testament what a vital role Paul played in the founding of the Christian Church, leading us to conclude that maybe Matthias wasn’t Jesus’ own choice for rounding out the Twelve foundational Apostles. But his selection for the office of the apostolic ministry was still entirely valid. He was still called by God through the Church to be a minister, to preach and teach and administer the Sacraments. In fact, the manner of his calling sets the pattern for the calling of all future ministers in this New Testament era. The Church, both ministers and laymen, gather. They pray to God to reveal, through their choice, whom He is sending into the ministry. And then, whether by lot or by vote, a man is selected.

As I said, we don’t know anything about Matthias except for what is said about him in Acts 1, but since we know that he was with Jesus from the beginning, it’s altogether possible that he was one of the 70 (or 72, as some manuscripts have it) who was sent out by Jesus ahead of Him, to preach and prepare the way for Jesus. Those 70 performed many miracles, including casting out demons, and when they returned from their mission, they told Jesus in amazement, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name. And Jesus replied, I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Although Jesus wasn’t with them on their mission, He was still watching them. He was with them through His Holy Spirit, through whom He was watching—and participating in—all they did in His name. And He not only saw Satan falling as the disciples cast out the demons. What else did He see? He saw the same things He had seen already in His own ministry. He saw most people, especially the wise, the smart, the religious leaders, rejecting His message. But He also saw simple people, and little children, even, believing it. And so, it was in that context that He spoke the first words you heard tonight from Matthew 11. He prayed and said, I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and have revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.

The wise and well-educated religious leaders thought they knew God so well. They would have fit right in in our modern world, where people pretend to be religious, even Christian, while they intentionally ignore what God actually teaches in His Word about right and wrong, sin and grace, and faith in Christ being the only path to salvation. But because people think they know God so well, they don’t like it when Jesus steps in and tells them something that clashes with their “knowledge” and their version of morality. And because they don’t want to listen to Jesus, God chooses to hide the truth from them, to hide Himself from them, because God only invites people to know Him by knowing Jesus.

Little children, on the other hand, have no problem with the illogical, supernatural things that Jesus says. He says, “I am the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” and a little child doesn’t say, “How can that be?” or “That’s not fair!” A little child says, “You’re amazing, Jesus! Tell us about God, Your Father!” Jesus says, “I will die on the cross to pay for your sins and then rise from the dead.” And a little child doesn’t stop to think about how impossible that is. She just says, “Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross for me and rising again.” Jesus says, “The water of baptism will wash your sins away and bring you into my family,” and a little child has no counterargument, no argument at all. He just watches Jesus do what He says He’ll do. And that child who simply takes Jesus at His Word knows God a thousand times better than the smartest theologian, the greatest Bible scholar, or the most devout religions people who question, deny, or ignore, Jesus’ Word, because God hides Himself from the wise and learned, but invites little children to know Him through Jesus. As He says in the next verses, All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

That’s great news for the little children here today. Jesus says in Matthew 18, I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So it’s not about how old you are. Even the 80+-yr-olds here today can be little children when it comes to Jesus, little children who sit at His feet and listen to His Word and trust in the things He says. So if, like a little child, you look to the Word of Christ and know Jesus to be the One sent from God the Father to be your Savior, if You trust in Him to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then join Jesus in praising God for inviting little children like you to know him.

Jesus makes the invitation even more specific in the following verses: “Come to Me,” He says, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” This is one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible, and I’m sure many of you knew them by heart before you came to church this evening. “Come to Me,” Jesus called out, but you notice, he didn’t invite everyone. He invited only the weary and burdened people to come to Him and rest with Him. The tired people! But not people who are tired because they stayed out too late last night or worked long hours at their job. He’s inviting people who have weary and burdened souls.

Who are they? They’re people who are exhausted from living each day in rebellion against their Creator. Exhausted from carrying around years’ worth of guilt and regret. Exhausted from trying to be good enough for God to accept them and love them. Exhausted from fighting against a sinful nature that, no matter how hard they try, they cannot get rid of, and from living in a world so full of wickedness. It’s these people, all of them, whom Jesus invites to Himself and says, Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Now why would Jesus offer these tired, weary, burdened souls a yoke to put on? Because He has a sense of irony. A yoke is normally put over the neck of a farm animal. It’s a symbol of hard work, working underneath someone else’s rule. Every religion in the world offers you their “yoke,” teaching you how to be a good enough person to be accepted by God, which, in today’s world, often means being so good that you would accept and tolerate things that the Bible calls evil. No, they say, to be good enough for God, you have to be a better person than Jesus was! You have to be more accepting, more “loving,” more tolerant, less “judgmental.” But their “yoke” is worthless. It’s fake, but it’s still a heavy, burdensome thing. And it produces only death.

Jesus’ yoke, on the other hand, offers, not work, but rest, because Jesus took up that yoke of God’s Law upon Himself, and like a work-horse, ploughed the whole field of God’s commandments for us. Jesus’ yoke is the Gospel, and to take His yoke upon you is nothing else than to recognize Him as Your Savior and as Your King, to trust in Him as the One who has saved you from the burden of sin, death and hell, to believe the good news that He has done God’s work in your place, the good news given to weary and burdened souls that you don’t have to do one single thing to earn eternal life. You can rest in Jesus, and in what Jesus did for you.

You can rest, knowing that God has already punished your sin on the cross of Christ. You can rest, because Jesus is gentle and humble in heart and doesn’t want you to go through life wondering whether or not you’ll be in heaven when you die, but resting in the knowledge that heaven is God’s gift to you through faith in Jesus. You can rest, because, as you struggle every day against the devil, and the world, and your sinful flesh, God knows your struggle, and God knows how to defend you, how to strengthen you, and how to rescue you in due time. These are the things that make His yoke easy and His burden light.

So don’t turn down this invitation today, the invitation to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He Has sent, to know Him and to enjoy the rest He invites you to have with Him. Be a little child. Hear the Savior’s invitation, and accept it with joy! Amen.

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Overcoming the obstacles to the growth of God’s Word

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Sermon for Sexagesima

2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

Today’s Gospel is about the power of the Word of God. But it’s also about the condition of the heart of the one who hears the Word of God. Jesus compares the word that is preached to a seed, and the hearts of those who hear to various kinds of soil.

The Word of God, like a seed, always carries inside it the energy, and the ability, and the tendency to grow. For a normal plant or a tree, healthy growth looks like the seed being embedded in the soil, sending down more and more roots, so that the plant gets the moisture and the stability it needs. As the roots go down, or even before, a stalk begins to spring upward, putting out leaves to catch the sun’s rays, which is converted into more energy. It gets taller and bigger until, when it’s mature, it produces flowers, and then fruit that ripens until it’s finally ready to be picked. But the conditions matter, don’t they? The seed may be healthy, and the dirt itself may be the right kind of dirt. But if the conditions are poor, the seed may not sprout at all, or, even if it does, it won’t mature and produce the desired fruit.

What does growing look like for the seed that is God’s Word? Well, ideally, under healthy conditions, the Word of God is preached, accusing everyone of being a sinner, who hasn’t loved and worshiped God as he ought, who hasn’t loved his neighbor as he ought, who stands under God’s eternal condemnation and will be judged by God on the Last Day and sentenced not only to death but to eternal death in hell. This preaching hits home with the hearer. It strikes fear and dread into his heart. He realizes that, it’s true, God is real, and he hasn’t given God the honor He is owed. He deserves this threatened punishment and God’s righteous wrath.

But the seed of the word of God contains more than this. It contains a message of hope for the poor sinner, a message that centers on Jesus Christ, whom God the Father sent into the world to redeem sinners. It’s a promise that God holds out to the world, inviting all men everywhere to look to Christ Jesus for salvation. The sinner draws hope from that promise. He looks to Christ in faith, confident that God will keep His promise, that his sins will be forgiven, that he will be accepted by God because of Jesus and will escape eternal death, and just like that, the seed has sprouted!

But the word of God is not done. It contains more. It teaches the newly sprouted plant, the new believer, to come to the water of Holy Baptism, to stay close to the preaching of the Word and to the Lord’s Supper, which are, together, like the life-giving water that a plant needs. It teaches the believer to grow in the grace and knowledge of God, never to be content with knowing just the basics of the Christian faith. It teaches the believer that he must daily take up his cross and follow Jesus, being willing to suffer for the name of Christ, and bearing up under suffering with the patience and strength that God will give. It teaches the believer to live each day in contrition and repentance, to set his heart, each day, on leading a holy life, completely devoted to God, and to keeping His commandments. And it offers the continual comfort and strength necessary to do this, not just once, but until the believer has grown to full maturity, in faith and love, and has, with God’s help, weathered every storm, and has, by God’s power, produced a lifetime of good works.

That, dear friends, is the Christian life, start to finish. It’s not flashy. It’s not necessarily exciting. It’s like a plant growing in a field. It’s a slow and steady process. But, at the end of the process, what is produced is something wonderful, something beautiful, something astounding.

In today’s parable, Jesus describes how that process is often disrupted. He gives three examples of the disruption. There’s seed that falls along a dirt road. The seed is good, and the dirt itself is fine. But the conditions aren’t right for a seed to grow there. The soil is far too compacted, too trampled upon (or driven over, in a modern setting), so the seed would just sit there on top and would eventually be either crushed or snatched away by the birds. This is what happens very often when the Word of God is preached. Instead of listening to and pondering the message, people tune it out, think about other things, or immediately reject whatever is said because it challenges what they currently believe. It happens out there in the world. It can happen right here during the sermon. The hearers hear but don’t really listen.

Then there’s seed that falls on rocky soil. There are some softer spots on top. The seed can germinate and begin to grow quickly, but it doesn’t get very far, because the rocks keep the roots from going downward and outward, so there’s not enough moisture to keep the process going. The hot sun soon overpowers the growing plant, and it withers and dies. This is what happens very often when the Word of God is preached. A person believes, and is excited about the Gospel, but there’s no deepening of the roots, no ongoing watering with Word and Sacrament, no struggle to resist temptation or to bear the cross. And so faith dies. It happens all the time.

Then there’s seed that falls among thorns or weeds. The soil itself may be fine. The seed itself is potent as ever. But a plant that has to compete with weeds almost always loses, because part of the curse of this sinful world is that the weeds grow faster than the good plants, they’re hardier than the good plants, and they end up choking the good plant, stealing its moisture, blocking its sunlight, tangling up the roots and the leaves of the good plant, until its growth is stunted, so that it never reaches maturity or puts forth edible fruit. This is what happens very often when the Word of God is preached. A person begins life as a Christian, grows for a while, goes to church for a while, but then the cares, riches, pleasures, and concerns of this life take over. God and His Word become less and less important as other things become more and more important, and so they don’t finish the process of the Christian life, meaning, they don’t finish life as Christians. What makes this disruption of the Christian life so insidious is that it’s sometimes a slow process that goes unnoticed until it’s too late, until the person is left with nothing but an outer husk of faith, without its saving power.

But, finally, sometimes, the seed falls on good soil—those who hear the Word with a good and noble heart, keep it, and bear fruit with patience. In them, the process of germination and growth and bearing of fruit is allowed to continue, until it’s finished, until it’s time for the harvest, and the farmer and his family, and the whole village that he feeds with his crops, rejoice together in what that tiny seed has now become.

Now the question that really matters: What kind of soil are you? Or, maybe a better question, where are you in this process? What are the conditions like around you? You’ve all heard the Word of God. You’ve all confessed your faith in the Lord Jesus and your commitment to follow Him, to follow His teachings, so His Word has penetrated into your hearts. But do you still hear His Word sometimes without really listening, without pondering what you hear? It can happen. Are you continually deepening the roots of your faith through regularly hearing and learning God’s Word, so that you’re ready to face temptation and persecution when they come? Are you watching out for those annoying cares and riches and pleasures of this life that threaten to creep up on you and choke the faith God has given you, that threaten to keep you from doing all the good works God created for you to do, to keep you from finishing your lives as Christians? Are you hearing the Word with a good and noble heart? Will you hold onto it, and bear fruit with patience?

No one can fully answer all those questions until all the obstacles and disruptions have been overcome, until you reach the end of your life with your faith still intact and with the harvest of works God is seeking from the seed He has sown in you. But the questions, like the parable itself, are there to help you, to guide you, so that you don’t take the Word of God for granted when it’s preached, because, if you’re prepared for the conditions that you know can come along and adversely affect your faith, and disrupt your growth in the Christian life, then you’ll guard against those conditions. You’ll recommit yourself to hearing God’s Word fruitfully and to putting it into practice. And you’ll remember that you must keep doing this, slowly and steadily hearing and growing, hearing and growing, throughout your whole life. But God Himself will see to the growth. The power for you to grow is not in you but in the seed, where it’s always been. It’s in the powerful Word of God, which is like the rain and snow that come down from heaven and water the earth, making it bud and flourish. Such is My Word, God says, that goes out from my mouth; it will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish that which I purpose, and will succeed in the thing for which I sent it. May God’s Word always find, and create, in you a good and noble heart. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Amen.

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You have to know God to work in His vineyard

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Sermon for Midweek of Septuagesima

Acts 17:22-34

On Sunday we considered the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where those who were hired last, toward the end of the day, had spent the whole day—their whole lives—outside of God’s kingdom, but were invited in, nonetheless, and given the same reward as those who had started working early in the morning. This evening’s lesson from Acts 17 gives us a glimpse of the recruitment process for the late-in-the-day hired workers.

The Apostle Paul goes out to “hire” workers for God’s vineyard, that is, to preach the Word of God to them and to call them to repentance and faith in Christ. And what he sees at first, as he walks around the famous city of Athens disgusts him. In the verses before our text begins, Paul’s spirit is provoked—he’s appalled by all the idols he sees throughout the city. Athens had beautiful sculptures and ornate statues and temples for all their many gods, based on a mythology that went back hundreds, maybe thousands of years: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Athena, and an endless list of minor deities and demigods. They had put such time and effort and human ingenuity into the sculptures and statues that represented these gods. They had created an elaborate system of worship. They had invented dozens of belief systems and religious philosophies. They were so proud of their piety, of how religious they were.

They were proud, but Paul was appalled and disgusted, as every Christian should be. Because none of the Greek gods were real, none of their beliefs were true, just as all the gods and beliefs of all the nations, from the Saxons and Vikings in the North to the Africans in the South to the early settlers of the American continents in the West, were all unreal and untrue. It was all manmade. It was all wrong. It was all worthless, and, worse, an abomination to the true God.

But Paul doesn’t address the Athenians with disgust or with any sort of pride. He addresses them with respect, you might say, with sincerity, and with hope—hope that, once they were told the truth, they would abandon their longstanding false religion. He addressed them with trust that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was powerful to break through centuries worth of devotion and zeal and a mountain of pride, to bring these Greek idolaters to repentance and faith in the one true God, who can only be worshiped if He is known, who can only be worshiped in one way, through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The Athenians invited Paul to speak after hearing bits and pieces of his message in the marketplace. So he addressed them: Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you. It’s not okay to worship God as an unknown, without truly knowing Him. It isn’t God-pleasing. It isn’t helpful. Paul would not have been better off leaving the Greeks in ignorance, any more than the early settlers of the Americas would have been better off left in ignorance to worship their own gods. Those who don’t know the true God will perish in their ignorance, outside of the Lord’s vineyard, unless their ignorance is corrected.

The reality is that, even after almost 2,000 years of the Christian Gospel going out into the world, most people, even here in our own country, still don’t know the true God. Many have given up on the concept of “God” entirely, becoming fools, because, as the Psalm says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Many reject Christianity and worship idols. But perhaps the biggest problem in the world today is just how many people think they’re worshiping the God of Christianity when, in fact, He remains an unknown God to them.

I’ve talked with many people who think they’re believers, who think they worship the God of the Bible, but in their own way, according to their own personal beliefs, disengaged from His Church. We were just watching a TV show last night where a “Christian” minister joyfully proclaimed to a troubled soul that, “No, God won’t punish you for living together outside of marriage! You have nothing to worry about there!” What a relief that was for the troubled soul! But what a soul-destroying lie it was! No, many people who use the name of God, and of Jesus Christ Himself, don’t actually know Him at all.

So Paul began to reveal the true God to the Athenians. I’ll summarize his points: God is the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t need anything from man, not our sacrifices, not our devotion, not our rituals. He gives life and breath to all. From one blood, from one man and one woman, Adam and Eve, He made all the people and all the nations on earth. He determined where and when they should live. He wants to be sought and found. He isn’t far from us. “We are His offspring,” that is, we came from Him in the first place, and we owe Him everything. He cannot be or be contained in man’s artwork. God “overlooked” these times of ignorance, that is, He didn’t wipe out all the idolatrous nations of the earth, but allowed them to live out their lives on earth and even still provided sunshine and harvest for them.

But now, Paul says, God commands all men everywhere to repent. He has set a Judgment Day for all men, and Jesus Christ, appointed by God, risen from the dead, will be the Judge.

It’s really important to see how Paul preached to these people who didn’t know God. Not, “It’s okay that you were worshiping false gods!” Not, “You’re all good people, and God accepts you just as you are!” But, “God commands all men everywhere to repent.” It’s vital that people hear the truth in today’s world, too. If they were living separated from God’s holy Christian Church, not paying attention to God’s commandments, not hearing His Word, not sorry for their sins, not trusting in the Lord Jesus for forgiveness, not determined to live as saints, according to God’s commandments, then they must hear that, no matter what notions they had about “believing in God,” they weren’t believing in the true God. And God commands them to repent, which includes acknowledging their sins, looking to Christ for forgiveness, being baptized if they weren’t already, becoming engaged with His Church, hearing His Word, and determining to lead holy lives from now on.

Many of the Athenians stopped listening when Paul mentioned a man being raised from the dead. That was just too much for them. But against all odds, contrary to all human reason and possibility, some believed. They believed because the Gospel is a message filled with power, the power of God’s own Almighty Holy Spirit. So don’t worry that the message of repentance, the message of the cross, or the message of the empty tomb, is hard to accept in today’s world. It was always hard to accept, impossible to accept. But the Holy Spirit worked through it then, and will keep working through it until the end of the world, bringing late-comers into the Lord’s vineyard, a few here, a few there, until the end of the day—the Day of Judgment—when we will see the Lord Jesus in whom we have believed coming to judge the world and to give out the promised reward to all who worked for Him in His vineyard. May we be among them! Amen.

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God’s kingdom is not a meritocracy

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Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

Even before Jesus went to the cross, He foresaw a challenge in His Church going forward, a sinful tendency, common to all men, that sometimes showed itself even among His chosen apostles, and would be a recurring problem in His Church, because the members of the Church of Christ are still sinful people. Always have been, always will be, until we’re finally rescued from this sinful world. Jesus tells the parable in today’s Gospel in order to get ahead of the problem, as it were.

The problem would initially center on the Jewish Christian Church as it started to incorporate more and more Gentiles into the Church—non-Jews, who hadn’t grown up under the Law of Moses, as all the Jewish believers had, people who had engaged in every form of idolatry and wickedness for their whole lives. It was really not very different from the problem of the Jewish tax collectors and sinners who had spent much of their lives living very poorly under the Law of Moses, not doing many of the things they were supposed to do under the Law. And it’s a problem that still comes up repeatedly in the Church today. The problem, or the question, is, Is God’s kingdom a meritocracy?

What is a meritocracy? It’s a word that gets tossed around quite a bit these days. It’s what many people rightly want for our country. It means you get ahead, you get rewarded, by merit, by what you’ve earned, by how qualified you are, not by any other factor. The most deserving get the job, or the scholarship, or the prize. Your pay scale should reflect how hard you work, how many hours you work, how good you are at your job, without considering any other factors, like race or gender. Everyone gets treated equally, based on their performance alone. That’s the definition of fairness—in the affairs of the world.

But God’s kingdom is not of this world, and it doesn’t work like the kingdoms of the world. It’s not a meritocracy. There is fairness in it, a certain kind of equality, but it’s a God-centered fairness instead of a man-centered fairness. In other words, it’s a fairness that’s not based on man’s performance or man’s qualifications, but on God’s free choice to give an equal reward to all who are in His kingdom—His “vineyard,” as Jesus describes it in today’s Gospel.

And what is the reward? Forgiveness of all sins. A clean slate that stays clean as long as you’re in the vineyard. Adoption into God’s family. Rescue from this dying world. Eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace with God in Paradise. That’s the promised reward, the “denarius” that’s promised at the end of the day.

And who gets it? All who are “hired” to work in the vineyard, everyone who comes into God’s kingdom, which, again, is His holy Christian Church. How does a person come into it? By hearing God’s call to repent of our sins, and by hearing God’s gracious invitation to come into His kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ, which includes the renouncing of sin and the determination to lead a godly life, a holy life, according to God’s commandments.

So, everyone in the kingdom gets the same reward, no matter what their ancestry is? Yes. No matter the color of their skin? Yes. No matter how long they’ve been a member of the Church? Yes. No matter how wickedly they lived before they came into the Church? Yes.

“But, that’s not fair, not fair to the Jews who spent their whole lives trying to meticulously obey the Law of Moses, not fair to those who have worked hard to lead a holy life, who have dutifully avoided sin, who have suffered much for the name of Christ!” Of course it’s fair! Didn’t God tell you, when He invited you into His kingdom, what the reward would be? Of course He told you! Will He fail to give you that reward? Of course He won’t! You’ll receive exactly what God promised. And so will the one who was only in the kingdom for one hour, for a much shorter stretch of his life than you. God, in His wisdom, God in His generosity, has decided to apply His Son’s sacrifice equally to everyone who is baptized into His Church family, to all who continue to live in repentance and faith.

And, see, that’s why God can give equally to everyone. Because the basis for the reward is not your work at all. It’s the work—the righteous life and the innocent death—of Jesus Christ that earned the reward for everyone, so that all who are attached to Jesus by faith receive everything that He earned.

And that’s also why it’s a terrible, dangerous thing to start thinking that you deserve eternal life, even a little bit, because of all the good you’ve done in your life, or because of how long you’ve been a member of the Church. Equally terrible and dangerous is the notion that creeps into a person’s thinking that he deserves a better reward than what God has promised, something more than just His forgiveness and adoption and eternal life and Paradise. “No, all Christians get that. You’ve worked longer and harder than most. You’ve been such a good person! You deserve extra credit!”

No, no. If you ever find yourself starting to think that way, wake up! Remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard! Remember how annoyed the owner was with the first workers, who grumbled that they were receiving the same as the rest, even though they had worked harder and longer. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me on a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I give you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?

The early Christian Jews began falling into this sin. They had worked so hard to keep the Law of Moses, being circumcised, eating the right foods, following the right rituals. They were brought into God’s kingdom from infancy. Then the Gospel goes out to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles don’t even need to be circumcised? Don’t need to eat Kosher? Don’t need to follow any of the rituals of the Mosaic Law? It’s not fair! So some of them tried to insist for a time that the Gentiles did need to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses. But God, through Peter, and Paul, and James of Jerusalem, through this parable that Jesus Himself had taught, made it clear that He wanted to give the Gentiles the same reward He gave to the Jews, without requiring them to go back and do more work under the ceremonial Law. And, in the end, the Christian Jews did welcome the Gentiles, and they became one Church under the New Testament of Christ.

On the other hand, Paul, in the Epistle you heard today, would later write to the Corinthian Christians, most of whom were Gentiles, that they shouldn’t become haughty, either, as they watched many of the Jews rejecting the Gospel and being rejected by God because of it. Because just as many of the Jews perished at the time of Moses when they fell away from the faith, so the Gentiles, too, would perish, if they didn’t remain humble and steadfast in the faith.

So, in God’s vineyard, in God’s kingdom, no one gets to boast or take pride in his work. No one ought to look back fondly or proudly at his own works, or compare his works with those of another, except to recognize on a daily basis that our own works, even the good ones, are tainted with sin, and, therefore, they do not make us the least bit deserving of God’s grace, or of the reward He has promised to believers. We are all directed away from our own merit, to the immeasurable grace of God, who prepared this vineyard for us to work in, and who brings each one into it when and where He wills.

Once you’re in it, be diligent at the work God gives you. Hear His Word faithfully, regularly. And don’t just hear it, but ponder it, and learn it. Receive His Sacraments. Live as the saints God has called you to be, avoiding what is evil and pursuing what is good and right. As Paul wrote in the Epistle, run this race of the Christian life in such a way as to win the prize!

But always remember, at the same time, that, unlike a race, you don’t win the prize because of how fast you ran. You don’t win the prize because you earned it or “merited” it. You win the prize in the end because of your connection to Christ Jesus, who has merited every prize and every conceivable good gift for you, that He might share His merit with you, and give you every reason not to eye God’s grace and generosity with disgust but with eternal gratefulness and appreciation, knowing that you have been freely given a place in God’s kingdom, not by your merit, but by God’s grace alone. Treasure God’s free grace! Live in it! And toil away in God’s kingdom, not to gain God’s favor, but because, in Christ Jesus, you already have it. Amen.

Source: Sermons

We preach a Gospel of light

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Sermon for midweek of Transfiguration

Matthew 11:25-27  +  2 Corinthians 4:5-6

This week of the Transfiguration, we’re still focused on the glory of Christ that is real, but that is hidden from the world. It’s hidden from our eyes, too, so that we can’t see it. But our joy as Christians is that God the Holy Spirit has revealed Christ’s glory to us, so that we believe it is real, so that we see it with the eyes of faith. He has enlightened us with the Gospel so that we believe that Jesus is true God and true Man, and also believe in Jesus, the God-Man, as the One who speaks the truth to us and saves us from wrath and condemnation by the power of His blood shed on the cross.

Tonight, with Jesus and with the Apostle Paul, we have to take a step back and simply say a prayer of thanks to God for giving us this light, and by light I mean knowledge, and by knowledge, I mean both the knowledge of Christ and the confidence that goes with it, which we call faith. And not just to us here, but to all true Christians who hear the preaching of the Gospel and believe in Christ Jesus as a result. Because that faith-knowledge is and always has been hidden from most—hidden, as Jesus says, from the wise and the prudent. Hidden, or “veiled,” as St. Paul writes just a few verses before the ones you heard tonight, veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

It’s not that we have some secret knowledge that we’re unwilling to share with “certain people,” like the lodges or the secret societies of the world claim to have. No, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, our preaching is like a bright light, unmistakable, not hidden at all. And we don’t shine that light on ourselves. We do not preach ourselves, Paul says. Ministers—true ministers of Christ—don’t highlight their own accomplishments. No, Paul writes, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord. We preach about Christ Jesus plainly and openly—that He is the Lord, the Son of God and the same God proclaimed in the Old Testament who came into the world and took on human flesh to take away the sin that we have done.

Our sin is exposed by a different kind of light, the light of God’s holy Law, that is, His commandments, which tell us what is right and wrong in His sight, commanding us to do the right and avoid the wrong, but also accusing us of doing just the opposite in many cases. Now, whatever the details are of your disobedience to God’s commandments, the Law reveals that you are sinful, and, therefore, unable to escape from the Law’s just condemnation. You’ve earned God’s wrath for yourself, and a place in hell. All people have. That’s what the Law preaches.

But the light of the Gospel is also revealed through preaching. It shines forth from a God who is good and merciful, who gave His Son to be punished for the evil you have done. The light of the Gospel shines from Christ, who is good and merciful, and who bore your sins in His body. The light of the Gospel lights up the mercy of God in the face of Christ and shows you where to find the mercy and the forgiveness that you so desperately need: in the ministry of the Word of Christ and the Sacraments of Christ. God the Holy Spirit is active in the preaching of the Gospel, shining the light of Christ Jesus out into this room, where He is being preached, out into the world wherever His Gospel is preached, and penetrating the darkness of men’s hearts with that light, just as He once penetrated the darkness of the universe with His command, “Let there be light!” So He has shone in our hearts, Paul says about himself and his fellow ministers, that we, in turn, might shine forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Not everyone sees it. To them the Gospel is veiled. Their minds are blinded by Satan, the god of this age. They don’t believe in this merciful God. They pretend that Jesus doesn’t even exist, or they twist the real Jesus into someone else, someone who “gets us,” as the ad campaign falsely portrays him, instead of portraying Him rightly, as the God who died for our sins and rose again, and calls us to repentance, that we may sin no more.

So what should we do? Is it a matter of saying just the right words in order to convince them, in order to lift the veil from their hearts and to cure the blindness of their minds? Not at all. Jesus and His apostles spoke all the right words. The Gospel shone forth brightly from their mouths. And most still didn’t believe.

What we do, all that we’ve been given to do, is, we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. Ministers preach Him, and you laymen speak openly about Him and show by how you speak and how you live that Jesus is, indeed, your Lord. And God the Holy Spirit will enlighten whom He will enlighten. Through His Spirit, Jesus, the Son of God, will reveal the Father to whom He wills to reveal Him, as He said in the Gospel. As for you, to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed the light of Christ so that you believe in Him and confess Him, rejoice in God’s gracious election, and in God’s mercy to you, that you should hear the Gospel rightly preached and have the Sacraments rightly administered, and that you should believe the voice of the Gospel and see the light of the Gospel unveiled. And we ministers will continue to preach Christ Jesus the Lord, even as you Christians continue to live in the world as children of God, as children of light, and as the very lights that God has strategically placed into this dark world, that Christ may be honored, that the faithful may be preserved, and that your neighbor may be helped, and even eternally saved. Amen.

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A brief vision of life after death

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Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord

2 Peter 1:16-21  +  Matthew 17:1-9

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

Only six days had passed since Jesus had spoken those words to His disciples, and they were still ringing in His disciples’ ears as Peter, James, and John—some of those who were standing there when Jesus spoke those words—accompanied Jesus up onto the mountain of Transfiguration. And before Jesus spoke those words about the death—and the life!—that awaited His disciples, He had begun to tell them about the death, and the life, that awaited Him in the near future—death on a cross, followed by resurrection on the third day. They didn’t understand yet what Jesus meant about dying on a cross, or rising from the dead, and so the image of taking up their own crosses must have been especially confusing. Why did Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, have to suffer and die? Why did they? And what is this about finding one’s life after losing one’s life for Jesus’ sake? All these questions were buzzing in the disciples’ heads, but rather than explaining everything in detail at this point, Jesus decided that what they needed to see—and what we would need to hear about—was a brief vision of life after death.

Only three of the twelve disciples were allowed to see it. That was enough. They didn’t all need to see Christ’s glory and the life that Moses and Elijah were now living. Peter, who would become a prominent leader in the Church; James, who would be the first apostle to be martyred; and John, who would be the last living apostle to oversee the founding of the Church. Jesus determined that it would be especially helpful for these three to witness the transfiguration, which Peter himself would later write about in his second Epistle, as you heard this morning.

What did they see? Jesus was transfigured before them: his face shone like the sun, and his clothing became white like the light. They saw the Son of Man “coming in His glory,” even though this visible glory wouldn’t last. It would soon be hidden from sight again until Jesus’ coming at the end of the age. But for a moment, they saw Him as He really is. They saw Him as we will see Him after this life, the glorious, almighty Son of God.

What else did they see? They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Him. Somehow (we don’t know how) they were enabled to recognize these two Old Testament prophets. A saint who had died, and a saint who had never died but had been transported to heaven alive. Key figures among the OT prophets. Why these two? Jesus could have appeared with Adam and Eve, or with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead He chose Moses and Elijah, both of whom bore the cross Jesus had told His disciples about six days earlier. Moses bore the cross, trudging through the desert for 40 years, putting up with the Israelites’ complaining the whole time. And then he died without being able to enter the Promised Land himself, a wholly sacrificial ministry. Elijah bore the cross, too, being hated and persecuted by most in Israel, including its wicked king and queen. He began to despair. He wanted to be done with it, done with the ministry, done with this earthly life. But God comforted him, sustained him, and finally took him into glory in a chariot of fire. Both Moses and Elijah bore the cross, served God faithfully, gave up their earthly life (that is, earthly comfort, personal gain, selfish pursuits), and now—now, look! They’re doing just fine! They’re here talking with Jesus in glory. They know Him already, because they’ve been with Him in glory since the moment they left this earth. They gave up their earthly life, and yet they’re still very much alive.

Peter, James, and John were stunned, afraid, confused. Peter offered to set up three tents, for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. It was a foolish thought, but it shows how much they wanted this vision to last, how eager they were to remain up here on the mountain in that glorious state. But, no. Moses and Elijah had already stayed long enough here on earth. They have a far, far better place to live in now. They’re only here to talk with Jesus for a moment, because Jesus still has to finish the path they already finished. He has work to do at the bottom of the mountain, a cross to bear, a death to die. And so do Peter, James, and John. The glory comes after the cross, not before.

What did they see next? A bright cloud, the same kind of cloud the Israelites in the Old Testament saw on many occasions. They called it, “The glory of the Lord.” It’s how God communicated visibly that He was present in their midst. The Almighty Father of heaven and earth was there with them, with His Son, the ultimate, visible, stamp of approval on Jesus by the Father—a stamp of approval, not only on Jesus Himself but on everything Jesus had said, and would say.

The Father spoke from the cloud, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Hear him! Listen to Him! That includes every word that comes out of His mouth. It includes the word calling sinners to repentance, and the word calling the penitent to come to Him for healing and forgiveness, and the word about His impending death, and the word about His resurrection, and the word about the necessity for those who would follow Jesus to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him, the call to abandon our earthly life and the invitation to find our true life with God, and with Jesus, His beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased. Yes, you must lose your life in order to gain a far better life. You must let go of your earthly life in order to gain the heavenly one. That’s what Jesus says. So, Hear Him, Peter, James, and John! And know that there is life after death.

And then it was over. The cloud disappeared. Moses and Elijah disappeared. Jesus was back to looking like just a man again. And Jesus told these three disciples not to tell anyone about the vision until after He rose from the dead. This vision wasn’t meant for all the apostles, to get them through the coming months. It wasn’t even much of a help to these three, because they still didn’t understand that Jesus was literally going to suffer and die and rise again. But after the resurrection, when the Holy Spirit brought all these things to their minds, then this other-worldly experience on the mountain would come back to them, and it would all make sense. And it would constantly serve to remind them of what they had seen and heard. It would prepare them to follow Jesus to the cross, and to take up their own cross, because they had seen a glimpse of the life that awaits on the other side.

Jesus gave three disciples this vision. But God the Holy Spirit almost never does anything for our faith by things that we can see. He uses His Word to bolster our faith. He uses His Word to give us the strength to face the cross, to hold on very loosely to our earthly life so that we’re ready to let it go, if need be, in order to follow Jesus. So the Word of God that you’re hearing today is just as good as being there with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, and even better, because the Word of God is even more dependable than your sight. As Peter wrote in today’s Epistle, Yes, we have the prophetic word as something entirely sure, and you do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. You don’t need the light of Jesus’ glorious face right now. You need the light of His Word. And you have it! So, as Peter says, pay attention to it! You may not understand the road ahead of you any more than Peter, James, and John understood the road ahead of them. But you have been given this brief vision of life after death, the life that awaits all of you who remain faithful, who daily bear your cross as you trust in the One who bore His own cross in order to atone for your sins. By His cross, He has reconciled you with God. By His cross, He has shown you the way to glory, the way to eternal life with all the saints, the way to life after death. Hear Him! And follow Him! Amen.

Source: Sermons

Focused faith for sinking saints

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Sermon for Midweek of Epiphany 4

Matthew 14:22-33

This evening we pick up Sunday’s theme of miracles on the water. In that Gospel, we saw Jesus calming a storm at sea. In this evening’s reading, He does something similar, but only after performing two other miracles. Your Bible probably has a heading for this reading like, “Jesus walks on the water.” And yet, for as amazing as that was, the greater miracle was the second one, the fact that Peter walks on the water, at least for a few steps, before he begins to sink. The message in this Gospel is very similar to Sunday’s message. Even the winds and the sea obey Him. But this text is here to teach us an even more important lesson than that. God the Holy Spirit gave us this text to teach us how to stay afloat when the winds of life are at hurricane force and the waves of doubt threaten to sweep us away. Jesus knew long ago that his people here on earth would face one crisis after another on our journey toward heaven. He knew how quickly faith can turn into doubt as a result, how easily his saints can begin to sink. So He engineered this miracle, this walking on water event, and made sure you and I would hear about it so that our faith may always stay afloat. Here in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers A Focused Faith for a Sinking Saint.

It had been a very long day. Jesus had healed many, had taught the multitudes, had provided food for 5,000 people using just five loaves of bread and two fish. At the end of the day, He made His disciples get in a boat and go ahead of Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and they spent most of the night rowing, but the boat was tossed by the waves because the wind was against it. Then, in the hours just before dawn, they looked back over the waters and saw what they could only figure was a ghost, because it was walking toward them on top of the water. They were afraid, but Jesus called out to them, Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.

Peter wanted to make sure he wasn’t just hearing things. “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.” “Come,” Jesus said. So Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. It’s one thing for the All-powerful Son of God to defy gravity, but it’s another thing when a simple human being does it. And notice where the power was. Peter didn’t just hop out of the boat as soon as he saw Jesus walking toward him. He didn’t just believe he could defy gravity. He very wisely waited for Jesus’ command, for Jesus’ Word telling him he could come out and walk on the water, and then he had something to put his faith in.

That’s an important lesson about faith, as we also heard on Sunday. Real faith is always based on a specific word or promise of God. If God hasn’t said it, you have no right or reason to believe it. That would be an empty faith, a self-created faith with no power in it. But if God has said it, you can bet your life on it, even if it defies all logic, even if it defies the laws of gravity.

Peter was doing well for a while. His faith was focused on Jesus’ power, and on Jesus’ command to him, which gave him the power to walk on the water. A focused faith, a Word-based faith, will stay afloat. But when faith loses its focus, it sinks. When Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and began to sink. Peter looked at the wind, and faith took backseat to his logic. “The wind is so strong! How can I possibly stand against it? How can I possibly stay on top of the water? Oh, look. Now I’m sinking. It’s getting worse. I’m going to drown!”

Peter took his eyes off Jesus. He looked away. But the problem wasn’t with his eyes. Jesus’ power wasn’t attached to Peter’s eyes, but to his heart, and Peter’s heart looked away. It looked away and focused on the problem, on the crisis of wind and waves. That’s the definition of doubt: to stop trusting in what Jesus says, and to start trusting in something or someone else. In this case, Peter stopped trusting in Jesus’ word and started trusting his own senses and his own experience with wind and waves and gravity. That’s a formula for a sinking saint.

Crises are bound to come into every believer’s life. There’s a right way and a wrong way to handle them, and God used this extraordinary event on the Sea of Galilee to show you the wrong way: Take your eyes off Jesus. Look at the problem, focus on the problem, see the wind and the waves as bigger than Jesus, more powerful than Jesus, more real than Jesus’ Word. Turn the volume down on Jesus’ Word, and turn up the volume on the wind. And that’s when you start sinking down, further and further.

That almost happened to the writer of Psalm 73, part of which we sang this evening. He looked around and saw the righteous—including himself!—suffering in this world. Meanwhile, he saw the wicked prospering all around him, and it didn’t make sense. As for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. The Psalmist was slipping, sinking down, too, when he took his focus off of God’s Word and looked at his suffering, and at the prosperity of those who don’t believe in God. But God corrected his vision and refocused his faith, just as He did for Peter on the sea.

Peter, when he began to sink, looked away from the wind, back to Jesus to save him. “Lord, save me!” he cried out. He may have doubted Jesus’ word enabling him to walk on the water, but Peter didn’t doubt Jesus’ ability and willingness to save him from going all the way under.

And Jesus did save him, in more ways than one. Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him. He didn’t let Peter drown. He didn’t make him splash around in the water for a while, gasping for air until he had learned his lesson. Immediately, He saved His sinking saint.

And then he refocused Peter’s faith. “You of little faith,” He said, “why did you doubt?”  “Don’t you know by now, Peter, that if I say something, it will always be the truth? That if I promise something, it will always come to pass? Don’t you know that My Word is more reliable than the laws of physics themselves?”

On Sunday, we attributed this kind of doubt among believers to our sinful flesh. What specific promise of Jesus gets obscured in your heart when your flesh gets the better of you? That He really is working all things together for your good? That He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear? That He promises to provide all you need, so that you can seek first His kingdom and His righteousness? That He will be there on the other side of death to receive you into His heavenly kingdom?

The Holy Spirit had all of us in mind when He inspired this event to be recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. It all happened for a reason, to teach us how easily our faith can lose its focus on Jesus and start to sink, so that we know what to do when we do start to sink, to refocus on Jesus and His Word and call upon Him to save us, and, with the Lord’s help, so that maybe we can weather some of these storms without sinking at all! So that we can say, with the Psalmist, Whom have I in heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail. But God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever. Amen.

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Even the winds and the sea obey Him

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Sermon for Epiphany 4

Romans 13:8-10  +  Matthew 8:23-27

We spend much of the Epiphany season focusing on Jesus’ almighty power, whereby He revealed His divinity during His earthly ministry: power to transform earthly elements, like water, into something else, like fine wine; power to heal diseases with nothing more than a word. Today’s Gospel reveals a third kind of power: power over the forces of nature. As His disciples realized with awe, “Even the winds and the sea obey Him!” And if that’s true, then it has some very real-life implications, both for those who don’t believe in Him, and for those who do.

Let’s set the stage for our short Gospel reading, which is in the same chapter as last week’s reading about the healing of the leper and the centurion’s servant. It’s still early in Jesus’ ministry, and He’s just spent the entire day teaching the multitudes with a series of parables. After a long day of preaching, Jesus is tired, and, as Mark and Luke tell us, He was the one who instigated this boat trip across the lake, saying, “Let’s cross over to the other side.”

What follows is a very short and simple story. Let’s take a moment and review it. Jesus lay down on a pillow in the back of the boat and fell asleep. Meanwhile, a great storm suddenly arose, and the waves started crashing into the boat and filling it up with water. The disciples panic, even though they’re experienced fishermen, and they go to Jesus, who’s just lying there asleep, and they wake Him up with their urgent plea, “Lord, save us! We’re perishing!” That’s how Matthew relates it. Mark puts it another way: “Teacher, don’t You care that we’re perishing?”

So Jesus got up and said to them, Why are you so fearful, O you of little faith? “Fearful” can also be translated, “timid” or even “cowardly.” Why are you so timid? Why are you so cowardly, O you of little faith? And then He told the winds and the sea, “Quiet! Be still” And the winds and the sea immediately obeyed Him and became completely calm, as if someone had simply turned off a switch for the storm. And then all three Evangelists tell us how the disciples responded: What kind of man can this be? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!

On the one hand, we can understand their question. Every miracle Jesus did was amazing, but when the storm is raging loudly all around you, when it seems like your very life is about to be snuffed out by the billowing waves, it’s a whole new level of amazing to watch a man stand up, speak two words into the air (two words in Greek), and watch the waves disappear and see the clouds evaporate before your very eyes, and suddenly the boat that was rocking back and forth and crashing into the water is still, and calm, and quiet. Who can do such a thing? Only almighty God.

On the other hand, the disciples had already seen a lot of miracles by this time. They had even witnessed Jesus raising a man from the dead. One of them had already confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel. But in the face of the storm, afraid they were about to die, everything they knew and believed about Jesus was banished from their thoughts. It’s as if they had “turned off” the switch to their faith.

Is it so different with us? Most of you have confessed Jesus as both Lord and Christ for your entire lives. Many of you have confessed Luther’s Small Catechism since your childhood years, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.” You know this Bible story in which Jesus spoke to the winds and the sea and they obeyed Him. And yet, when trouble comes, it’s as if you say to yourself, “I’m going to set all that aside for now and put it out of my mind, because I have a crisis to deal with. I have a problem to solve. God can’t help me. I’m going to just turn off my faith for a while.” If Jesus’ own disciples did it, while He was with them in the boat, it’s no great surprise that you and I do it, too.

Their faith, in the moment of trouble, in the moment of crisis, shrank to the point of imperceptibility. “You of little faith,” Jesus said to them. And His question reaches across the millennia to us as well: “Why are you so fearful? Why are you so timid? Why are you so cowardly?” Don’t you know the One in whom you have believed? Don’t you know that Jesus commands, not only the winds and the sea, but the entire world, the entire universe? And the universe obeys Him! If that’s true, and you say you believe it to be true, why on earth would you be timid or cowardly in the face of trouble?

Now, we should be clear about what it is we’re supposed to believe. Let’s take Jesus’ disciples first, on this voyage across the Sea of Galilee. What did they have to believe in? What special reason did they have not to be timid or fearful during that particular voyage? Well, they had Jesus’ own words, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” Clearly implied in Jesus’ words was the fact that they would actually reach the other side of the lake. What else did they have? They had Jesus’ word to them all that He would make them “fishers of men,” preachers of His Gospel. But they hadn’t begun their ministry yet. So those men actually had Jesus’ assurance ahead of time that they wouldn’t perish at sea. And for that reason, even in the midst of the storm, they should have had faith that they would not, in fact, perish, as they wrongly believed they would.

You and I have no word of God like that to cling to. We have God’s promise to deliver us in the day of trouble, to “deliver us from evil,” as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, but we also have His word that teaches us, throughout the Scriptures, not to understand that “deliverance” as a guarantee of bodily safety in every situation. In that terrible plane crash on Wednesday night, and in the other terrible plane crash on Friday, no one was given any promise from God that He would bring those flights safely to their landing. And if God hasn’t promised something, we have no right and no reason to believe it. Whereas, if He has promised something, we have no right or reason to doubt it!

So why do we? People who don’t believe in the true God (the God of Bible) at all, who don’t accept His Word as true in the first place, don’t believe God’s promises because they can’t. They’re still dead in their trespasses and sins, still hostile to God with every fiber of their being, still under God’s sentence of eternal condemnation. They blasphemously blame God for every tragedy, for every bad thing that happens in the world. They don’t trust in their heavenly Father because He isn’t—yet—their Father. He hasn’t yet given them the right to become children of God, because they haven’t yet received the Son of God in faith. To them, God doesn’t say, “You should trust Me to take care of you in times of trouble.” To them, God says, “Repent of your idolatry and turn to Me, the true God, and to My Son Jesus Christ, that I may heal you of your wickedness and bring you to life!”

But for those who do believe in the true God, who have come to know that He is good, who have repented of their sinfulness, who have been baptized in His name, who have been made children of God and heirs of eternal life, like Jesus’ disciples in the boat with Him in our Gospel, like all of us here today, why is it so easy for us to “turn off” our faith in the midst of a storm, in a moment of crisis?

You know why. It’s part of the weakness, part of the frailty of our sinful nature. The Christian usually rules over his or her Old Self, usually keeps it in check as we walk according to the New Man, the new, spiritual person God created in us when He brought us to faith in the Lord Jesus. According to the New Man, we trust in God to care for us, to do what’s right, to deliver us in the way that He knows is best, whether it’s keeping us physically safe from danger, which He often does, or whether it’s allowing troubles to come into our life while preventing those same troubles from doing any real damage to our souls. But the devil takes advantage of troubles and crises. He uses them to get the attention of our sinful flesh, like a red cape being waved in front of a bull. And in those moments, the flesh sometimes gets the better of us. It shouldn’t, but it does.

And so the Holy Spirit holds this Gospel before our eyes today, to fortify your New Man, to build you up, to make you see again how foolish it is to forget that even the winds and the sea obey the One whom you call Lord, the one who calls you a beloved member of His own body. Even the winds and the sea obey Him. And so does everything else, down to the very molecules that make up the world around you. So you have no reason to be cowardly in the face of danger. You have no reason to be timid or fearful. The next time you find yourself in danger, in trouble, in crisis, your flesh may cause you to forget about the power of the Lord Jesus for a moment. But let today’s Gospel serve to shorten the amount of time between panic and a return to trust. “Call upon Me,” God says, “in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” Amen.

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The certainty of faith

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Sermon for Midweek of Epiphany 3

Hebrews 11:1-16

We were shown two shining examples of faith in Sunday’s Gospel of the healing of the leper and of the centurion’s servant. Do you remember the qualities of their faith that we highlighted? Humble, bold, matter-of-fact trust in Jesus’ goodness and in His authority over human bodies. The centurion’s faith seemed to have come out of nowhere, and yet it was so great that Jesus praised it. This evening we continue that focus on faith with the “faith chapter” of the Bible, Hebrews 11, where the author gives us a working definition of faith, as well as a litany of believers in the Old Testament who exhibited such faith.

What is faith? Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, that definition works for any kind of faith. You can be assured in your heart that your team is going to win the Super Bowl, because that’s what you hope for, and you hope for it so strongly that you’re convinced it’s going to happen. It has to happen! That’s a kind of faith. But no matter how sure you are, you may still be wrong. You may be assured that a person you trust in will keep his or her promise to you. And you may be right! But you may also be wrong.

Biblical faith, on the other hand, can never be wrong, because it’s always based on a word or promise of God, who can never fail, who can never change, and who can never lie. You heard such a word and promise of God in the first lesson this evening from Jeremiah 33, where God promised the people of Jerusalem, who were already being besieged by the Babylonians and who had already seen their city destroyed, that He would heal their land, rebuild it and restore it, and forgive them for their sins against Him. There wasn’t a single outward indication that such a thing could ever happen, as the Babylonians prepared to haul them off into captivity. But God promised it, and so faith had something to cling to.

Hebrews 11 gives us many examples of faith, this assurance of things hoped for, this conviction of things not seen—not seen, but spoken by God, either as something that He had already done when they weren’t there to see it, or, in most cases, as something He would do, although they did not yet see it.

Take the creation of the world, for example. No human being was there to see it. Even Adam and Eve could only take God’s word for how they and the world got there. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith we believe the words of the Psalm we sang earlier this evening: By the Word of the LORD the heavens were made; and all the host of them by the Spirit of his mouth. Unbelievers have come up with their own explanation of the origin of the universe, and they, too, have to take it by faith, because they weren’t there to see it. But when the question is whether to believe the fallible science of fallible men or the infallible word of the infallible God, faith will always take the side of God and His Word.

God’s word had proved reliable to Adam and Eve, and so Abel, although He didn’t interact directly with God as his parents had before the fall into sin, gladly and willingly offered to God, by faith, a better sacrifice than his brother Cain offered, trusting not only in the fact that God existed, but that God was good and worthy of his worship, whereas Cain lacked such faith. And through his faith, though he died, Abel still speaks. In other words, the example of Abel urges us to trust in God, as he did, and urges us to believe that even if we lose our life on this earth as he did, God is still worth trusting in, because He has something even in greater in store for us after we die.

Then we’re given the example of Enoch, the 7th generation from Adam. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. How do we know that faith had anything to do with it? The next verses are important: Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. In other words, faith holds that God is good, that God is merciful, and that God is worthy of our worship. Abel’s faith teaches us that God is worthy of our worship, even if we die for it. While Enoch’s faith teaches us that, for those who believe in God, there is a way to escape death.

Noah comes next. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. God told Noah that a cataclysmic flood was coming. There were no outward signs of it, not even rain clouds gathering in the sky. But because God said it, Noah believed it and acted on it and was considered righteous by God, not because he was sinless, but because he believed in God’s promise to save him and his family.

Abraham’s faith is our next example. God told him to move his whole family to an unknown, unseen land, where God promised to bless him and take care of him. Isn’t it remarkable that Abraham simply took God at His word and did it? How could he do that? How could he willingly become a foreigner in the land of the Canaanites, giving up his permanent residence for a life of moving his tent from here to there, for the rest of his life, living in a land that would never be his? As it says, He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith he looked beyond this world, beyond this life, to the permanent life with God in heaven. Now, there is zero evidence for such a place, for such a life. But faith itself serves as the evidence, concluding that, because God has promised it, it must be true.

Sarah is the final example given in the verses before us. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. It wasn’t faith that gave Sarah the ability to conceive in her old age and sterility. It was faith in God’s promise that connected her to God’s ability to carry out His promise.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but, having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They desired a better country, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

These examples of faith are recorded for us in Holy Scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the book of Hebrews, to show us what true faith looks like, how it behaves, and how it enables a person to do remarkable things, even things that defy human reason, not because of how wonderful faith is, but because of how reliable and dependable God’s word and promises are.

So when God says that Jesus truly took your sins to the cross, died for them, and rose again, even though you weren’t there, even though you won’t find any scientific evidence to prove it, you should believe it. And when God says that the waters of Baptism washed you clean of sin in His sight and made you His beloved child, you should believe it, even though it appears to be just water. When Jesus says that bread and wine are His body and blood, you should simply believe that, too. And when He says that He reigns over all things for your good, that your loved ones who died in the faith are alive with Him, and that you will be, too, after you die, accept it by faith, not because you can prove it, or because you can see it, but because God says so. Seek God with that kind of faith—the faith of the leper, of the centurion, of the Old Testament saints, and, for that matter, which is the faith of a little child—and one day, in the next life, in the city that God is preparing for you, you will see with your eyes that your faith in God’s word was never in vain. Amen.

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The authority of Christ and the power of His Word

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Sermon for Epiphany 3

Romans 12:6-16  +  Matthew 8:1-13

What do we learn about Jesus in today’s Gospel? Let’s consider His two encounters, with the leper and with the centurion, and see what the Holy Spirit has to teach us.

Jesus has just finished preaching the famous Sermon on the Mount. He’s coming down from the mountain, and as He’s coming down, a man is waiting for Him there, a man suffering from leprosy.

I think you know what leprosy was, but just in case, let me explain it briefly. Leprosy was a skin disease, one that the Law of Moses specifically addressed. If someone in Israel was found to have leprosy and was officially diagnosed with it by the priests, according to the descriptions given in the Law of Moses, that person had to live apart from the rest of Israel. According to the Law, they were to be considered perpetually unclean, ceremonially contaminated, until such time as their skin cleared up, and the priest certified their healing, and they performed the rituals prescribed by the Law to be declared “clean” again. Leprosy was not a spiritual problem. It was a physical, social, and ceremonial problem. But God used that particular outward uncleanness in some to reveal the spiritual uncleanness and contamination that’s present in all.

Well, this man with leprosy has heard the word about Jesus, how good and kind He is, that He has been preaching the good news of God’s promise to restore sinners through faith alone in Christ Jesus, and that He has been healing people’s diseases, one after another. And now the leprous man has, incredibly, become convinced that, Jesus has the power to cleanse him of his leprosy. And, just as incredibly, he believes so strongly in Jesus’ compassion and mercy that He is willing to approach Jesus, which was a bold move for a leper, because it was forbidden for an unclean leper to approach a clean person. Not only that, but he is completely humble before Jesus, not demanding, not even asking to be healed, but leaving the matter entirely up to Jesus. Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.

And Jesus was willing. I am willing. Be cleansed! He spoke a word, and the man’s leprosy disappeared. But before healing him, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. That seems like a small thing. But there’s something to it that we should note. Normally, if a person who was ceremonially clean touched a person or a thing that was unclean, the clean person became unclean for a time. The Jews tried very hard to avoid becoming unclean, because it kept them away from the temple and the worship of God. But ceremonial uncleanness was only there in the first place to teach the people of Israel that you have to be sinless and holy in order to approach God, according to the Law, and it was impossible for anyone to remain clean, because it was impossible for them—for any of us—to be sinless, according to the Law. So Jesus, the Holy One, the sinless One, cannot be made unclean. Instead, when Jesus, the sinless One, comes into contact with an unclean person, that person becomes clean in God’s sight! That’s what the Gospel is all about.

We need to remember that, just as the physical uncleanness of leprosy pointed to the spiritual uncleanness of sin, so Jesus’ willingness and ability to cleanse outward uncleanness is really intended to reveal His willingness and ability to make us clean on the inside, through the forgiveness of our sins, through our “contact” with Him, which happens by Baptism and by faith. So learn from this account of the healing of the leper. Learn to approach God through Jesus, to approach Him humbly but boldly, acknowledging your sins and your sinfulness and your need for His healing, and then trusting in Him to make you clean before God. He is willing! And He will do it. And if you’re clean before God through the forgiveness of sins, then you can worship Him rightly. Then you can trust in His promises to help you through all the troubles of this life, because His willingness to help never goes away.

In the second part of our Gospel, we see Jesus’ interaction with the Roman centurion, where we see Jesus perform another healing miracle. But this time, He doesn’t do it by touching the sick man. He does it from afar. Because Jesus’ healing isn’t a matter of proximity. It’s a matter of authority.

The centurion came to Jesus, asking Him to heal his servant, who was suffering terribly. And immediately Jesus, knowing the centurion’s faith, says, “I’ll come and heal him!” Notice how different this is from another time, when a Jewish nobleman came to Jesus and begged Him to come heal his son. On that occasion, Jesus, knowing the nobleman’s weak faith, refused to go, in spite of the nobleman begging Him repeatedly. In that case, Jesus wanted to stretch the nobleman’s faith, so that he would be content with only a word from Jesus, with a healing from afar. And, eventually, the Jewish nobleman got to that point and believed the word Jesus spoke.

But in this case, the Roman centurion’s faith is already right where it needs to be. It doesn’t need any stretching or testing. Jesus offers to go to his house and heal his servant, and this time, it’s the centurion who “refuses.” He says, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. Just like the man with leprosy, the centurion shows great humility before Jesus. But unlike the leper, the centurion has many fewer earthly reasons to be humble! The leper was sick and seen by everyone as lowly and despised. But a Roman officer was a man with power, prestige, a man who was used to giving orders and being obeyed. The Romans generally considered themselves far superior to the Jewish people. But not in this case. The centurion doesn’t consider himself worthy to have the Lord Jesus enter his house. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

Then he goes on to explain why he believes this. As a military officer, the centurion understands very well how authority works. The one with greater authority gives commands to those who are under him, and they must obey. They have no choice. Once a commander has given a command to those under him, he doesn’t have to go and do the job himself. He speaks, and what he has spoken is done, because he speaks with authority.

It’s absolutely incredible that a Roman army officer, stationed in the land of Israel, would just matter-of-factly believe that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, had such authority over humanity that He could simply give a command to a sick body, anywhere on earth, to be healed, and have that command obeyed. But he does believe it. And he acts on his faith. Incredible!

Even Jesus thought it was incredible. It says that He “marveled” and said to those who followed, “Truly I tell you, I have not found such great faith, no, not even in Israel.” Now, if the Lord Jesus, who has all knowledge at His disposal, marvels at something, then you and I should certainly also marvel at it. How could a centurion have such a solid faith in Jesus? That’s the power of God’s Word. It was God’s Word about Jesus that the centurion had heard and that had broken through all his inborn skepticism and hostility to God to turn the centurion into a marvelous believer in the authority of Jesus, who looked like just an ordinary man, but whom the centurion recognized to be the Commander in Chief of all things.

Note the contrast here between the unquestioning faith of the Roman centurion and most of the Jews whom Jesus encountered during His ministry. The Holy Spirit wants us to see that contrast. He wants us to see that, it’s not necessarily the people you would expect who end up coming to faith in Jesus and clinging to His Word. Often those who should have a strong faith—lifelong Christians, religious leaders, pastors, theologians, those who have no excuse for doubting God or His Word—are the very ones who doubt it the most. While children, or grown-ups with a childlike, simple faith, are the ones who so readily say, “I believe it, because God says so.” That’s the faith that Jesus praises here in the Gospel.

And He informs His Jewish followers, even now, early on in His ministry, that their place in heaven wasn’t secure just because of who their ancestors were or because they belonged to the “right” race. No, He says, I tell you that many will come from the East and the West and will sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. A place in heaven, a place in God’s favor, isn’t achieved by being a member of the right race, or by being born into a religion. It’s given as a gift to those who believe in the Lord Jesus.

We see in today’s Gospel, God is working, even now, to create a faith in you like the faith of the leper, like the faith of the centurion, a faith that seeks deliverance from no other but Christ, a faith that demands nothing, and knows that it deserves nothing, but that is bold to seek help from the Lord Jesus, no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, and to trust in His power, in His authority, and in His willingness to help, because God the Father has actually given Him all authority in heaven and on earth. And He wants to use that authority, above all, to speak to you the word of cleansing, that is, the word of forgiveness, and eventually, the word that will heal all your ills and raise your body from the dead, and bring you safely and forever into the presence of the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the saints in the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

Source: Sermons