The most important election of your life

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Sermon for Trinity 20

Ephesians 5:15-21  +  Matthew 22:1-14

We turn our thoughts today to the election—the most important election of your life, or of anyone’s life. But in this election, my vote means nothing. Your vote means nothing. It’s only God’s vote, God’s choice that matters. And, as we’ll see in the end, God’s choice has nothing to do with how good or bad the candidates are. It has to do with something else.

The Bible teaches that God elected certain people, that is, “chose” certain people to spend eternity with Him in His heavenly kingdom. This election took place “before the foundations of the earth were laid,” that is, in eternity. And it took place, not at any voting convenience center, but in God’s own counsel and plan. Knowing full well that mankind would rebel against Him, turn against Him, and disqualify themselves for eternal life in God’s kingdom, God made a plan of salvation that’s sometimes referred to as “election” or “predestination.”

But how do we look into this secret election that took place in God’s counsel before the foundations of the earth were laid? Jesus teaches us that very simply in today’s Gospel. He teaches us to start, not at the beginning, but at the end, which is very different, by the way, from the way that John Calvin and the Reformed approach it. Their whole theology begins with God’s election in eternity, and most of their false teachings flow from that mistake. No, we need to begin where Jesus begins, at the end of things. We are to look at the wedding banquet in the parable, at the end of the parable, and we are to notice who the guests are who are there in the end. That’s where Jesus points us with His concluding words, for many are called, but few are chosen. Few are elected by God.

Who are the ones at the wedding banquet at the end of the story? They’re the ones who have been called or invited by the king’s messengers, the ones who accepted the invitation and were brought into the wedding hall, and the ones who are still wearing the wedding garment when the King steps in. Those are the chosen ones, the ones chosen by God to spend eternity at the heavenly wedding banquet that He is hosting for His beloved Son, who laid down His life for His bride, the Holy Christian Church, and is soon to be joined to her in an eternal marriage.

With that in mind—who the chosen-ones are—let’s walk through the parable and see how those guests ended up there.

Now, Matthew 22 takes us into Holy Week—the Tuesday of Holy Week, as far as we can tell. Jesus is telling this parable to the Jews, some of whom were about to kill Him, in three days’ time. He says, The kingdom of heaven is like a king who arranged a wedding banquet for his son. This “arranging” of a wedding banquet is what took place in eternity. God saw that the human race would fall into sin, so He planned to save fallen mankind. That plan revolved around the Son of God, who would take on our human flesh, be born as a man, live righteously in man’s place, suffer and die for our sins. That was the price of atonement. That was the price of our reconciliation with God. And Jesus Christ, the Son of the King, has successfully paid it.

And he sent his servants to call to the wedding those who had been invited. God sent His prophets in the Old Testament to invite the Jews to take part in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. He told them about it ahead of time, and then, when Jesus was born, God began to tell the Jews that it was time to come in. As John the Baptist preached, and as Jesus Himself preached, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand! Repent and believe the Gospel!” In other words, “Come to the wedding!”

But they were unwilling to come. Some of the Jews believed in Jesus and came into His Church, to be sure. The chosen remnant of the Jews believed the Gospel. But the vast majority didn’t come—not because God didn’t truly invite them, not because it wasn’t intended for them, not because Jesus didn’t die for them, but simply because “they were unwilling.”

Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See! I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding!”’ But they disregarded it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.

See how God, through His prophets, pleads with the people of Israel whom He has invited, whom He has called to the Holy Christian Church. Look at what I’ve done! Look at what I’ve prepared! I’ve sent My only-begotten Son to you. The Son of God has become the Son of Man, all for you, not because you deserved it, but because I want you to spend eternity with Me in My kingdom. So come to Him! Come into His Church! Come! Come! Come!

Does it sound like the King wanted these invited guests to come? Does it sound like God wanted the Jews to come into His Holy Christian Church? Of course it does! Because of course He did! Their ultimate exclusion from God’s election wasn’t because He didn’t want them in His house. Wasn’t because He failed to give His Son into death for their sins, wasn’t because He failed to invite them. It’s because, when they were invited, they didn’t want to come. And so they not only found better things to do. Some of them went so far as to kill the prophets, including John the Baptist, including the Son of God Himself, including many of the apostles whom He continued to send to the Jews, for a time.

But that time eventually ran out. Now, when the king heard about it, he was angry. And he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. What a terrible foreshadowing this was of the eventual destruction of Jerusalem, when the Romans came in and burned up the city of the people who had not only initially turned down God’s invitation into Christ’s Church, who had not only killed the Christ, but who had stubbornly continued to turn down the invitation even after they had killed the Christ, just as it remains to this day. Which is why you shouldn’t let anyone deceive you, telling you that the modern Jewish state is the chosen people of God. The very idea that God’s chosen people could stubbornly reject God’s beloved Son Jesus as their Savior from sin and death is not only absurd. It’s demonic.

But that wasn’t the end of God’s plan of salvation. Not by a long shot. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Let’s pause again for a moment and remember why they weren’t worthy. It had nothing to do with their sinfulness, with how decent or indecent they were. The unworthiness of the Jews was in their declining of God’s free invitation to seek and to find His acceptance in Christ Jesus.

Therefore go into the streets and invite to the wedding whomever you find. So those servants went out into the streets and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the banquet tables were filled with guests. God’s plan of salvation (His plan of election) included the going out of the Gospel invitation into all the world, to invite anyone and everyone, Jews and Gentiles, bad and good, to the wedding banquet in the Holy Christian Church. Jesus told His apostles, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Proclaim God’s promise to forgive and to accept everyone through His beloved Son, through faith in Jesus Christ. And, as you know, people from every nation, tribe, language, and people have believed, have been baptized, and have entered the Holy Christian Church.

But not everyone who is outwardly a member of the Christian Church is a member inwardly. Not everyone who has been baptized remains a believer throughout their life. And that’s the sad reality Jesus depicts for us at the end of the parable. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who was not wearing a wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

When God performs the final accounting on the Day of Judgment, He will not just look at which people are holding membership in a Christian Church on earth. He will be looking for faith in the heart, for genuine trust in the Lord Jesus and in His atoning sacrifice for our sins—for the faith by which a person is clothed with Christ Jesus, as with a robe of righteousness. That is the wedding garment that the guest in Jesus’ parable failed to wear.

Where God doesn’t find such a garment, such a living faith, it will be no better for that unbeliever inside the Church than it will be for any of the unbelievers outside of the Church. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.

So who, again, are the chosen? They’re the ones who have been called or invited by the king’s messengers, the ones who accepted the invitation and were brought into the wedding hall, and are still wearing the wedding garment when the King steps in. These are the ones whom God foresaw and foreknew in eternity, the ones whom He elected to inherit eternal life. But the decree itself of election included all the steps that were needed along the way. It included God’s intention of saving the whole human race. It included the sending of Jesus to pay for the sins of all. It included the going out of the Gospel invitation, and the work of God’s own Spirit to work faith in people’s hearts through the preaching of His Word. It included the justification in time of all who believe. It included the Spirit’s ongoing sanctifying work in the hearts and lives of believers. It included God’s continued care for the saints in His Church through the ministry of Word and Sacrament throughout this earthly life. And it included God’s commitment to give strength, comfort, and help to His children throughout this life, so that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ Jesus. All of that was included in God’s decree of election.

So you can see why this is truly the most important election of your life, far more important than any earthly election. And it already took place, long before anyone was born. What you can do now, to “make your calling and election sure,” is to see to it that you do not decline God’s invitation into the Church of His beloved Son. If you haven’t been baptized, if you haven’t entered into the fellowship of God’s holy Church, don’t put it off. Now is the time. If you have done those things, then wearing that wedding garment of faith is your daily task. And having put on faith, put on love as well, living as those who are rehearsing for the King’s entrance into the banquet hall, not as those who are rehearsing for hell. Many are called, but few are chosen. Few are elected. If you heed God’s call and use the help He has promised, you will be counted among the blessed few. Amen.

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The Messiah and the Church He will build

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 19

Isaiah 61:1-11

It was a Saturday, relatively early in Jesus’ ministry. He was back in His hometown of Nazareth, and, as He usually did, He went to the synagogue. And this time He stood up to read, and they gave Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. Whether or not He asked for that book we don’t know, but He did intentionally open that book to the words you heard this evening from Isaiah 61 and read, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” Then He closed the book and began the most important sermon the people of Nazareth had ever heard, saying: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” At first the people were impressed, but as Jesus’ words sank in and they realized what He was claiming, they turned against Him and tried to kill Him. They turned against Him, not only because He was claiming to be the promised Messiah, but because He revealed to them the awful truth that most of Israel was not going to have a part in God’s kingdom. No, Isaiah’s prophecy was to be understood, not about the nation of Israel, but about the new Church of the New Testament era. His prophecy in this chapter covers the whole New Testament, starting with Jesus’ ministry and culminating in the new and perfect life that awaits us on the other side of Judgment Day. And only those who believe the good tidings of the Messiah will be included in the kingdom of God.

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me.” Jesus says in another place that the Father had given Him the Spirit without measure, had given Him the fullness of the Holy Spirit to dwell in Him as a Man. That’s all demonstrated for us in Jesus’ Baptism where the Spirit rested upon Jesus and the Father spoke from heaven, This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

Because the LORD has anointed Me. And there’s that word “anointed,” which is where the word “Messiah” and “Christ” come from. By saying that these words were fulfilled in their hearing, Jesus was claiming as directly as anywhere in Scripture, “I am the Messiah. I am the Christ.” Not that He was literally anointed with the Old Testament anointing oil, as the prophets, priests, and kings were. He wasn’t. But He was “anointed” in a spiritual way, sent directly by God the Father to carry out His saving purpose for mankind, to speak the words of God, to act on God’s behalf, to offer Himself up as the sacrifice of atonement for mankind’s sins, to gather a Church to Himself, and to reign over God’s people forever. All of that was included in the Messiah’s mission.

To preach good tidings to the poor. “The poor” in this prophecy are those who recognize their spiritual poverty, their inability to reach God by offering Him their own righteousness. And the good tidings are not the good tidings of wealth or economic improvement, but the good news of another way to reach God, a free way, a way that actually works, the way of being justified through faith in the Anointed One.

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted. For all the physical healings Jesus performed during His ministry, it was the healing of the sad and broken hearts that was His primary task. Hearts that had been broken by their own sins, by the sins of others, by the terrible consequences of sin in this life, and, ultimately, by the reality of death, receive healing from Jesus, comfort in the fact that He came to conquer sin and death and to give eternal life to all who believe.

To proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. Again, Jesus never broke anyone out of a physical prison. This was the proclamation of liberty and freedom to those who had been bound by sin and by the power of the devil.

To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD. That was Jesus’ mission, to proclaim that now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. As we talked about on Sunday, the terms of God’s pardon, of God’s acceptance, are finally within reach. The Messiah Himself will pay the atonement price with His own blood, and the only remaining “term” of the pardon is to seek it from the Anointed One whom the Father had sent. And when Jesus makes that promise, the Holy Spirit is there, working to persuade sinners to believe it and to receive it.

And the day of vengeance of our God. This isn’t vengeance upon all men. It’s His vengeance on all the enemies of God’s people, and on all who continue to remain enemies of God, refusing the pardon that Jesus offers.

To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty in place of ashes, The oil of joy in place of mourning, The garment of praise in place of the spirit of heaviness. Again, the comfort is for those who mourn, not for those who boast. The beauty is for those who were sitting in the ashes of repentance. The oil of joy is for those who had been crying tears of sorrow over sin. The garment of praise is for those whose spirit had formerly been heavy with depression and despair.

That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” Christ came to make His people flourish and thrive, like trees, to give them life in the kingdom of His Father. That life is planted there by the Lord God Himself, so the glory and the praise for it belong to God alone. As the Psalm says, Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name be glory and praise.

And they shall rebuild the old ruins, They shall raise up the former desolations, And they shall repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations. Now, if these words began to be fulfilled in the hearing of those in Nazareth, then this prophecy isn’t about rebuilding Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. It isn’t about rebuilding Jerusalem or the land of Israel at all. It’s about the New Testament Church, which is from the remnants of Old Testament Israel, from Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus, the Anointed One.

Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, And the sons of the foreigner Shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. Again, it’s Gentiles coming into the Church of Israel and expanding it throughout this New Testament period.

But you shall be named the priests of the LORD, They shall call you the servants of our God. This is exactly what Peter wrote to the New Testament Christians, But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, And in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting joy shall be theirs.

“Their land” has now become the heavenly territories, the mansions that Jesus is even now preparing for His Church, as the Church of Christ finally overcomes all her enemies and receives the heavenly reward, while the enemies of God, who were rich and powerful in this life, are left with nothing.

“For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering; I will direct their work in truth, And will make with them an everlasting covenant. Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, And their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed.”

On this earth it was the unbelieving Gentiles who were famous, “men of renown,” as it says in Genesis 6. The true people of God have no power in the world. We’re small. We’re unknown, in many cases. We’re insignificant. And we have to be content with that in this life. But that will all change after Judgment Day, when the people of God finally enter into their glory.

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its bud, As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

While the Church is pictured here basking in the glory of everlasting life, we don’t have to wait till then to rejoice in the Lord and to be joyful in our God. Because already in Holy Baptism He has clothed us with the garments of salvation and with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Already now we bear the name of the Triune God and have been made heirs of the heavenly lands. The people of Nazareth scoffed at Jesus when He offered them all this, but you have humbled yourselves before God. You have believed in His proclamation of pardon and peace and comfort. And so you belong to the Anointed One. Remember that, and rejoice in it, no matter how bad things get this side of Judgment Day. Because on the other side, you know what glory awaits. Amen.

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The authority to forgive sins on earth

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Sermon for Trinity 19

Ephesians 4:22-28  +  Matthew 9:1-8

It’s a wonderful story we have before us in today’s Gospel about the healing of the paralytic. It’s especially memorable when we pull in some details from Mark’s Gospel, who explains that the paralytic was brought to Jesus in a very special way, by being lowered down by his four friends through an opening they had made in the roof, because the house where Jesus was preaching was so crowded with people that they couldn’t make a path to carry the stretcher through on foot. The faith of the five men was clearly on display as they went to such lengths to reach Jesus, because they believed that He could and would have mercy on the man who was paralyzed. And He did! But not, at first, in the way that everyone was expecting.

This healing account teaches us the lesson that was behind all of Jesus’ healing miracles: the lesson that Jesus, the Son of Man, was speaking and acting on God’s own authority, in everything He said, in everything He did. Jesus represented God the Father, not only because He was the Son of God, but because He had come into the world as a Man to be the perfect Mediator between God and man, with all the authority to speak and to act on God’s behalf. And the specific authority He displays in today’s Gospel is the authority to forgive sins—sins that had been committed against God, sins that would otherwise keep a person out of the kingdom of heaven, sins that would otherwise condemn a person to hell. It’s that authority to forgive sins that we want to focus on this morning.

The paralytic was successfully lowered down through the roof until his bed was lying on the floor right in front of Jesus. Matthew writes, When he saw their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.” No one was expecting those to be the first words out of Jesus’ mouth. Clearly the paralytic has come to receive physical healing from Jesus. But Jesus, the great physician of the soul, has diagnosed a deeper problem, a need to know if God was angry with him—a question that often troubles people who suffer from a chronic disease or illness. “Is God angry with me because of my sins? Is God punishing me with this illness or with this trouble that won’t go away?” Jesus sees the man’s doubts, as well as his faith that Jesus will help him. So God the Father speaks through His Son, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.”

And, behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man blasphemes.” Mark and Luke add the rest of what they were thinking: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” You see, it is blasphemy, insulting God!, to pretend to speak for God without permission, without authority from God to speak for Him or to act on God’s behalf. The sins Jesus forgave at that moment weren’t sins that the man had committed against Jesus Himself, as if the man had made fun of Jesus or had slapped Jesus across the face. Anyone can forgive the sins committed against him or her, because, in that case, the one doing the forgiving is the one who was originally offended, and forgiveness means that you’re no longer holding that offense against the offender. Your relationship is healed. Forgiveness means that the one who has been offended is no longer angry over the offense, no longer angry at the offender.

But what Jesus did was something else. He didn’t forgive the man for offenses committed against Him, the Man Jesus. He forgave the man for all the offenses he had ever committed against God. And the scribes were right—only God Himself can forgive the sins committed against God. Only God can unlock the prisoner’s shackles and set him free death and eternal condemnation—unless God has authorized someone to forgive sins on His behalf.

And that’s exactly what God has done.

God the Father sent His Son into the world with the full authority to act on His behalf, to forgive sins in some cases, where the terms of the pardon (set by God) are met, and to withhold forgiveness in other cases, where the terms of the pardon are not met.

Now, what are the terms God has set for His pardon (for His forgiveness)? Well, first, atonement needs to be made for the sins committed against God. That lesson was driven home for the people of Israel through all the sacrifices for sin that God’s Law demanded. Atonement has to be made. Forgiveness has a price. In this case, the price of forgiveness is blood, that is, death—the death of God’s only-begotten, beloved Son. That is the price required for paying the sin-debt every sinner owes to God. And it has been paid, once for all, by Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. And because God is eternal, not bound to the progression of time, as we are, the future sacrifice of Jesus, from the perspective of the paralytic in today’s Gospel, was just as valid for his forgiveness as the past sacrifice of Jesus, from our perspective, is for us. So that term has already been met; Jesus’ atonement is available for anyone and everyone to use in order to satisfy the terms of God’s pardon.

The other term of God’s pardon is that it can only be given out to the one who seeks it from Jesus Himself. Anyone seeking God’s forgiveness in some other way, in some other place, for some other reason, cannot have it, just as anyone who doesn’t seek God’s forgiveness at all, because he’s happy holding onto his sins, cannot have God’s forgiveness. But to the one who seeks His forgiveness through Jesus, God the Father speaks through the mouth of Jesus Christ, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you!” And it’s not blasphemy at all, because Jesus has the permission and the authority to speak and to act on His Father’s behalf. As He said after His resurrection, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”

He goes on to prove that authority to those who accuse Him of blasphemy in today’s Gospel: Is it easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And the paralytic was immediately healed, with power only God can give, proving that Jesus, the Son of Man had authority from God to forgive sins.

The text before us is actually a perfect example of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 5: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them. Now, reconciling the world to Himself doesn’t mean reconciling or forgiving the sins of everyone in the world—or everyone in the room. That’s not what Jesus did in today’s Gospel. But one by one, as the word about Christ brought people to faith, He reconciled them to God through faith. He forgave them their sins, according to the terms of the pardon set by His Father: that atonement had to be made, and that God’s forgiveness has to be sought from Jesus and from nowhere else.

But then St. Paul goes on in 2 Corinthians, and God has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Just as God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, forgiving sins to those who sought forgiveness from Him and through Him, so the Lord Jesus, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, has appointed ministers, who are His divine ambassadors to call sinners—in His name!—to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, and to forgive the penitent and believing in His name.

So Jesus said to His apostles, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And again after His resurrection, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. And still there are many people today who call themselves Christians who hear a pastor pronouncing the absolution and cry out, “Blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins! I don’t need any man’s forgiveness! I’ll just go directly to God!” Well, good luck with that! I wonder how they hope to approach God, or where they hope to find Him! The truth is, it is God who has given this authority to men, to deal with sinners and to forgive sinners in His name. It’s an authority that Christ has delegated to His Church, which calls men to wield the authority of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, according to God’s command and according to those same terms of forgiveness that God Himself has established. They are to forgive sinners on the basis of Christ’s atonement, when the sinner seeks forgiveness from Christ, through the ministry that Christ has established on earth.

Now, that forgiveness may be given through the spoken absolution alone, as we do at the beginning of our services. There you hear, both in the confession of sins, and in the words I speak after the confession of sins, those same “terms of pardon” referenced, the atonement of Jesus as the basis for forgiveness, and the seeking of forgiveness from and for the sake of Jesus, which is what “believing in Jesus” means. You also hear in that absolution the very same words that Jesus spoke to the paralytic: “Your sins are forgiven you.” And you even hear the reference to the fact that Jesus has given me, “as a called and ordained minister of the Christian Church,” the authority to pronounce forgiveness in His name. That same forgiveness is also given in Holy Baptism, as Peter urged the crowds in Jerusalem to be baptized in the name of Jesus “for the forgiveness of” their sins. And it’s also given in Holy Communion, where Jesus has given this sacramental meal to us Christians to eat and to drink His body and His blood, which were given and shed for us “for the forgiveness of sins.” All done by the authority of Him to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given, who has authorized ministers to forgive sins in His name.

And that makes the absolution certain. That makes it something you can rely on, something you can believe in, something that your faith can stand on. “God’s authorized minister has examined me and has found that the terms of God’s pardon have been met. Atonement has been made for my sins. And I am, right now, seeking God’s forgiveness from Jesus and for His sake alone. God’s minister has, therefore, absolved me of my sins, with the full authority of God. So I know for certain that God is no longer angry with me, but that He has welcomed me into His kingdom and will give me eternal life. The forgiveness I have received through God’s authorized minister—in Baptism, in the absolution, and in the Lord’s Supper—is God’s own forgiveness, because God has given to men the authority to forgive sins.” Rejoice in that authority! Take great comfort in it! And, having put on the New Man through faith in God’s promise of forgiveness, live as the new person—the forgiven person!—God has created you to be! Amen.

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Some deliverance now, perfect deliverance in its time

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 18

Isaiah 60:13-22 (ESV)

There was a lot of Law in the first part of Isaiah 59, which we heard last week. The second half of that chapter we heard way back on the First Day of Lent, and after all the Law of the first part, we heard in that second half of the chapter God’s gracious promise to send the Redeemer to Zion, to save those who were crushed by the Law. We heard the first part of Isaiah chapter 60 even earlier, at the beginning of this year, on Epiphany, where God foretold the great expansion of Israel—of the people of God—to include the Gentiles together with the Jews in the Holy Christian Church.

Remember, all three parts of these last 27 chapters of Isaiah revolve around the three themes: (1) Earthly deliverance for Israel from captivity in Babylon for the sake of the coming Messiah, (2) spiritual deliverance for Israel through the work of the coming Messiah, and the expansion of Israel to include the Gentiles, during the New Testament era, and (3) final deliverance for the new, expanded people of Israel at the Messiah’s second coming, in the new heavens and the new earth. Those three themes are found in each of the three sections of 9 chapters, but each 9-chapter section focuses on one of those themes. These last 9 chapters focus on the final deliverance. And just as there is a progression from earthly deliverance to spiritual and then heavenly deliverance, so there is a progressive shift away from the earthly nation of Israel in these chapters to the spiritual Israel of the Holy Christian Church.

And so we pick up the prophecy this evening in the second half of chapter 60, where the Lord uses picture-language to describe that spiritual Israel (the Holy Christian Church), partially during this New Testament era and partially after this world ends, with one era sort of blending into the next.

The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious.

The “glory of Lebanon” was their trees. Lebanon was famous for the quality and abundance of wood for construction projects. Here the Lord promises that His sanctuary, His temple would be rebuilt with the help of foreign nations. That happened literally for Israel after their return from captivity. It’s happening spiritually right now as the Christian Church continues to be built throughout the world. And it will happen perfectly in the heavenly sanctuary above.

The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

Again, that happened literally only to a small degree for the nation of Israel. It’s happening now spiritually as former persecutors of the Church repent and become members of it. And it will happen perfectly at the Last Day, when every enemy of Jesus and of His beloved Church will bow down before Him in shame and recognize that He has loved us, His dear Christians.

Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age. You shall suck the milk of nations; you shall nurse at the breast of kings; and you shall know that I, the LORD, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

The nation of Israel was literally restored, and some degree of majesty was seen there again, and they received some help from foreign rulers (that’s what it means to “suck the milk of nations and to nurse at the breast of kings”). But the focus of these verses has shifted to the New Testament Church. Not that the Church appears majestic in this world. And yet the Gospel has successfully gone out to every corner of the earth, bringing sinners to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. And, at many times over these past 2,000 years, the Church has been nurtured and protected by the kings of the earth, just as the Lord promises here in this chapter. Notice, it’s not about the Church taking over the kingdoms of the world. It’s about God using the governments of the earth, whether good or bad, whether full of Christians or full of pagans, to preserve His people throughout this New Testament era, until Christ comes again, usually through laws like we have here in the United States, laws that protect Christians’ ability to assemble peaceably and to speak freely, and to practice our religion in the world. St. John pictures this preservation in Revelation, where the Church is pictured as a woman who is fleeing from the dragon (the Devil), fleeing into the wilderness of this earth, where she will be cared for during this New Testament age.

But that’s not a guarantee that the governments of the world will always protect and preserve the Church. On the contrary, human governments are more often portrayed in Scripture as hostile to the Gospel. Still, what Isaiah promises in this chapter has certainly been fulfilled over and over throughout history, and we should give thanks to God for such providence.

Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.

And here the Lord transitions from the Church in the world to the Church as it will be in heaven. Everything we have here will be replaced with something far better. Gold in place of bronze. Silver in place of iron. Iron in place of wood. Peace and righteousness in place of toil and injustice. Safety in place of violence. Salvation in place of destruction and death. Praise in place of groaning and sighing.

The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

These beautiful words are quoted almost verbatim in the book of Revelation as John sees behind the curtain of death, as he sees what life will be like for believers in heaven. And notice how God-focused this vision of heaven is. It’s not about having fun with your favorite pastime or hanging out with your friends or loved ones. The focus, the focus of eternal life will be the LORD God—the same LORD God who loved us and gave His Son into death for our sins, so that we could be with Him forever.

Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation;

Heaven is called “the home of righteousness,” because, finally, we will all be righteous, not just by imputation, not just by God counting us righteous for Christ’s sake, through faith. But, finally, all citizens of heaven will have sloughed off this sinful flesh, with its taint of corruption and self-centeredness. No longer will we covet. No longer will anyone stumble or fall. Heaven will be our home forever, to the glory of the God who redeemed us, and worked in us all these years by His Holy Spirit, to finally transform us completely into image of God in which man was first created.

I am the LORD; in its time I will hasten it.

“In its time,” God says. Not in our time, when we want our final deliverance to come. In “its” time, at the right time, as decided by our God, whose wisdom and knowledge are beyond our understanding. The Lord knows just when He should come to put an end to the sorrows of this life. And when the right time comes, He won’t delay any longer. He will “hasten it.” Behold, I am coming soon, says the Lord. Let this promise draw your gaze heavenward, to the time of the final deliverance of God’s people. Put your trust in your Father’s perfect timing, and that faith will lessen the harshness of this world’s evil. Amen.

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Powerful spirit-allies against our spirit-enemies

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Sermon for the Festival of Michael & All Angels

Revelation 12:7-12  +  Matthew 18:1-11

The Church’s commemoration of Michael and all angels on September 29th goes back a long, long time, to the 5th century AD. We continue to celebrate this festival, because it’s useful to have a day when we Christians can come together to hear what God teaches us about the angels and to give thanks to God for their indispensable service.

Today’s Gospel was chosen for this day long ago, because of that little phrase that Jesus adds at the end of the text about the angels. He’s sternly warning His hearers not to dare to harm or to offend or to despise a little child who believes in Him, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. Now, that verse doesn’t teach us a whole lot about the angels. But it does teach us that little children who believe in Jesus (and that also includes adults who have the same humble, simple, child-like faith in Jesus that the little children have) have angels of their own, angels assigned to them, who stand before God the Father, ready to guard and protect His dear children. There’s some incentive there, isn’t there?, first, to be very careful how you treat and even how you think of these little children, and, second, to be careful to maintain a humble, simple, child-like faith in Jesus, so that you, too, may always have the help of the guardian angels.

Let’s go back a little bit. The word “angel” means “messenger.” In the beginning, when God created all things visible and invisible, He created the invisible hosts or armies of spirit-creatures—sinless creatures, with a mind and a will, but without flesh and blood. We learn in Scripture that they worship God continually, with humility and with reverence. We also learn that these creatures were created to spend much of their existence serving the Lord God by ministering to human beings. Most of them were glad to comply, but some of them, led by a high-ranking angel who is later called Satan or the Devil, chose to rebel against the Lord God, for reasons that aren’t clearly revealed to us, although pride is mentioned as the devil’s sin. Those angels were cast out of heaven, removed from their ranks in God’s heavenly armies, and Satan was allowed to tempt our mother Eve in the Garden of Eden. And after she and Adam fell into sin, the unholy angels, whom we usually refer to as unclean spirits or demons, were given some freedom to deceive and to torment human beings on earth.

Meanwhile, the armies of holy angels kept their place in heaven and are sent by God to do many things that God simply doesn’t want us to know about. But some things He has told us. The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear the Lord, and he delivers them…The Lord shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Or as the writer to the Hebrews writes, Are not all angels ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? They keep watch over God’s children (both young and old). They provide protection in ways that we can’t even imagine.

Now, angels appeared on and off to God’s people throughout the Old Testament times, and also in New Testament times. Some of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament tell some fantastical stories about angels, where several angels are named, but if we stick with the canonical Scriptures, we know the names of only two angels. Gabriel, whose name means “mighty one of God,” appeared to the prophet Daniel, and, later, to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, and then to the virgin Mary, announcing that she would be the mother of the Son of God. And then there is Michael, after whom today’s festival is named.

Michael’s name is a question: “Who is like God?” He shows up, at least, by name, only four times in the Bible. The first time was back in the book of Daniel, chapter 10. An unnamed angel was speaking to Daniel in a vision, and he tells Daniel that he was delayed in coming by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia.” The word “prince” seems to refer to a high-ranking angelic authority, except this one was an evil one who opposed the angel sent by God. So we’d call him a high-ranking demon. But Michael came to help this angel. The angel calls Michael “one of the chief princes.” Another word for a “chief prince” would be an “archangel,” so this verse seems to indicate that there are a number of archangels, of whom Michael is one. Later in that same chapter, the angel refers to Michael as “your prince,” and in chapter 12, he’s called, “the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people.” So Michael is the archangel whom God placed in charge of protecting, either the Old Testament people of Israel in particular, or all the people of God in general. From the little we’re told by Daniel, we conclude that there are both angels and demons in charge of various regions of the world, with many angels at the command of each commander, and that there are battles going on in the spiritual realm that we cannot see.

What was the battle that John described in today’s Epistle, Revelation 12? Given the vision that comes right before, which seems to describe the devil’s failed attempt to defeat Jesus during His earthly ministry, it seems that this vision is meant to teach us about the spiritual victory that took place in Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, including also the victory of the Gospel going out into the world to bring people to faith in Jesus. Whether or not there was an actual battle at that time in the spiritual realm between angels and demons isn’t clear, because Revelation is a prophetic vision. What is clear is that, because of Christ’s death on the cross, and because He now stands at the right hand of God as our Mediator, and because His Gospel has gone out and brought many sinners to faith, the devil, the great accuser of mankind, no longer has a case to make in heaven against those who believe in the Lord Christ. The devil has been “cast out of heaven,” in that sense.

But that means that he and his angels have been cast down to the earth, to persecute and trouble us here during this little while until Christ returns for Judgment Day. As John heard the voice in heaven say, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. And so it’s fitting today, as we consider the holy angels, that we take a moment to consider their unholy counterparts and the ways they threaten mankind.

There are some who think that it was demons who married human women back before the days of Noah, having hybrid children with them who were supernatural giants. But that idea is contrary to what the Scriptures tell us, because spirits can’t produce children, since they have no DNA to pass on. But we are told that demons were behind much of the idolatry that took place in the Old Testament. They were involved in sorcery and witchcraft. They took possession of people’s bodies at the time of Jesus and for a while thereafter. And even today they seem to be able to afflict individuals in strange and supernatural ways.

But, understand, their primary tool is deception, because they’re in league with the devil, who is called the father of lies. So even as they afflict people, they employ deception to mislead those whom they are afflicting. They may be behind some of the stories about apparitions or ghosts as they deceive people into thinking they’re the soul of a lost loved one. They may be behind some of the stories about aliens, and about supernatural creatures that roam the earth, always deceiving people about their true nature. They are likely also behind the supposed apparitions of Mary and of other saints, always deceiving people into looking away from Christ and obsessing over the supernatural occurrences themselves.

Aside from afflicting or appearing to individuals, the unclean spirits are secretly influencing the governments of the world, and the beliefs of society, and especially the beliefs within the Christian Church itself. St. Paul writes that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Those doctrines of demons have thoroughly infiltrated the outward Christian Church and are taught and believed by millions. As for the societies of the world, if it seems like some of the things people are believing and promoting in the world are unthinkably insane and unspeakably wicked, you can be almost sure that demons are behind it, lying and deceiving, influencing and tempting both the leaders and their followers. But be careful, because, as masters of deception, they can also be behind some of the responses to the madness!

Thankfully, the Lord has given us plenty of armor and a powerful weapon against the unclean spirits. Paul talks about it in Ephesians 6: Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

So use that armor that God has provided. Trust in the Lord Jesus, risen from the dead, in His victory over the devil, and in His promise that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Know God’s Word, which is dependably true, so that no demon can deceive you with falsehoods. Rely on God’s promise in Holy Baptism, where He placed His almighty name upon you, which no demon can defeat. Rely on God’s promise in Holy Communion, where the very body and blood that already defeated the devil are placed into your bodies. Pray always. And, as Peter writes, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, being steadfast in the faith…Resist the devil, James says, and he will flee from you.

And remember that, in the face of all these powerful, wicked, deceptive spirit-enemies who wreak havoc on the world and on the Church, you have even more powerful allies in the spirit-realm, Michael and his angels, whom your Father in heaven will graciously continue to send to the aid of all who call upon the name of the Lord, to encamp around those who fear Him. So rejoice in them, give thanks to God for them, and take heart, because, although the world is filled with demons and their allies among the sons of men, Those who are with us are more than those who are with them, and with the help of God’s holy angels, our final victory is certain. Amen.

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Recognizing the hopelessness of your situation is the first step

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 17

Isaiah 59:1-11

There are two fundamental teachings of the Bible, that run throughout the entire Bible. We’re studying this right now in our online study of the book of Romans (which we’ll probably end up doing here in person, too, at some point). In fact, in the book of Romans, St. Paul quotes one of the verses we have before us this evening in Isaiah 59 in order to highlight those two teachings. We refer to them as the Law and the Gospel. The Law is the teaching that runs throughout the Scriptures that presents God’s righteous requirement that man must be righteous, as God is righteous, in order to be acceptable to God. It’s the natural path, the default path, that all men start out on. But the message of Scripture is that this path necessarily leads to death for all who walk it. If we are to be acceptable to God, if we are to be saved from sin, death, and the devil, we have to walk the path of the Gospel.

The path of the Gospel, as we constantly present it, is the path of recognizing our sins, recognizing that we are failures on the path of the Law, recognizing that no one is righteous enough to be acceptable to God, and mourning over it. Then it’s hearing the good news, that God the Father has given His Son Jesus Christ into death for your sins, has given Him as a free gift, and that He will cover, with His own righteousness, all who run to Him in faith, that all who believe in Christ Jesus are forgiven and will have everlasting life.

Much time is spent in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, in convincing the people of Israel that the path of the Law is futile, because they kept on stubbornly trying to walk it, in defiance of God’s Word, in defiance of God’s mercy. Defiance, not because keeping the Law is against God’s will, but because they refused to acknowledge their sins and their need to be saved by God’s mercy instead of by their own attempts at Law-keeping.

That’s why we have a very direct, very stern preaching of the Law again in Isaiah chapter 59. Let’s walk through it briefly. And remember, as we do, that it’s directed to those who are secure in their sins, to those who keep avoiding the path of the Gospel, because they are determined to be saved by the Law instead.

Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.

In other words, God says to them, you’re suffering now, and you will suffer more, not because I’m unable to save you, or unable to hear your cries for salvation. No, you are suffering, and will suffer much more, because you have sinned against Me and refuse to repent. You have sinned against Me and yet you still think that you deserve My help, that you have earned My favor on the path of the Law. So, as long as you keep trying to approach Me on the path of the Law, the Law will continue to reveal your sins, and, therefore, you will not receive My help.

For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity.

What exactly were the Israelites doing? They were mistreating their neighbors with their hands and with their tongues. Some were guilty of actual murder. Others, of supporting the murderers. Others, of simply looking the other way. God could speak the same condemnation on our country, and on all the nations of the world, as some people murder little babies in abortion, while others support them in such murder, while others simply look the other way. Wars, violence, bloodshed take place everywhere. But iniquity takes many, many forms, not just violence. It’s every moment lived without concern for God, without concern for His Word, without concern for one’s neighbor. Lips speak lies, tongues mutter perversity, and hearts are bitter, and loveless, and cold.

No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; He who eats of their eggs dies, And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out. Their webs will not become garments, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And the act of violence is in their hands.

Now, calling for justice and pleading for truth were especially relevant in Old Testament Israel, as the whole nation of Israel was the visible Church of God, and God’s covenant with them governed their society as a whole. So when injustice took place in Israel, when the government failed to condemn the guilty and failed to uphold the case of the innocent, it was the responsibility of all the citizens of Israel to seek justice for their neighbor and to speak up for what was true. Some schemed to take advantage of their neighbor, some took bribes to let the wicked get away with it, and some just grew lazy and indifferent to the injustice happening all around them. “As long as I’m doing ok, I’m not going to get involved.” And God looked at it all and said, “You’re all guilty before Me, all of you who practice these things!”

He goes on: Their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; Wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, And there is no justice in their ways; They have made themselves crooked paths; Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

These are the verses that Paul cites in Romans chapter 3. And here we have to take note that Paul applies these words, not just to the openly wicked and evil criminals in the world, but to all people everywhere. Not that all people are guilty of every possible sin, not that all people are going around literally shedding innocent blood, but all people participate in these kinds of sins. If God were to judge us by His holy, righteous Law, the Law would find sins in every human being. All who are judged by the Law will be found guilty.

Therefore, Isaiah says, justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness! We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places. We all growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We look for justice, but there is none; For salvation, but it is far from us.

We don’t behave justly, and, therefore, we don’t get justice from God—at least, not the kind we want. Because, the truth is, when God punishes sinners, that is justice. When God condemns the unrighteous, that is righteousness. But that doesn’t help the sinner. There’s no salvation on the path of the Law, because all are lawbreakers. There’s no light for us to walk by, if we have to come up with our own source of light. We can’t save ourselves. Period.

That Law-message is a hard message to hear, but sinners need to hear it until they finally break, until they finally acknowledge their sins, until they finally stop trying to get God to accept them based on their works.

But when we do acknowledge that God is speaking the truth, when we do acknowledge that we can’t save ourselves, when we finally recognize the hopelessness of our situation, that’s when God comes running to us with the Gospel, which doesn’t make its way into our short 11 verses this evening but which is the theme of the whole Bible. “Look, you sinners! Since you stand condemned if you stand under the Law, come out from under it! See, I offer you another way, another path to walk. I give My Son on your behalf, to be the sacrifice of atonement, to be your Mediator, to be your Savior and Redeemer. Repent of your wickedness and approach Me through Him, and I will hear you. Approach Me through Him, and I will give you justice, righteousness, peace, salvation, and eternal life.” This is the way of grace. This is the way of faith, the way of the Gospel. And it’s the way that works.

Recognizing the hopelessness of your situation is the first step to salvation, which is why the Law of God is always needed this side of heaven. But God holds out new hope in the Gospel. Hear it and believe it, and then spend the rest of your life as a thank-offering to the God who gives you hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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The ugliness of thinking highly of yourself

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Sermon for Trinity 17

Ephesians 4:1-6  +  Luke 14:1-11

There’s plenty of ugliness in the world, as you know. We’re confronted with it every day, whenever people are involved. That’s not to say there’s no beauty in the world, or that everything everyone does is always ugly. But there is an ugliness that infects all men, including Christians, no matter how well it may sometimes be hidden. It’s an out-in-the-open ugliness we encounter in today’s Gospel, in both parts of the Gospel, an ugliness that Jesus exposes and tries very patiently to correct. It’s the ugliness of thinking highly of yourself.

Now, you know that the Pharisees were Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day who were famous for thinking highly of themselves. So it really comes as no surprise that that ugliness came out again while Jesus was attending a Sabbath supper at the home of a Pharisee, with other Pharisees and experts in the law also in attendance. Luke tells us that they were “watching Jesus closely,” not to learn from Him, but to see where they could catch Him in a sin in order to cancel Him, if at all possible, because, by this time, Jesus had gathered many disciples, and had shamed the Pharisees on several occasions for their sinful behavior and their false teachings.

There was a man there at the supper who suffered from dropsy, a painful swelling in the arms or legs, which was often a sign of heart failure. Jesus had miraculously healed many diseases before this. And some of those healings had taken place on the Sabbath Day, the day of rest. And each time Jesus had healed on the Sabbath Day, the Pharisees and other Jews had gotten very angry, both at Him and at those who dared to be healed by Him on the day when they were all supposed to be resting. In chapter 13 of Luke’s Gospel, right before the chapter of today’s Gospel, the ruler of a synagogue (the “head of a Jewish church”!) had yelled at a woman who had been suffering for 18 years, because she dared to be healed by Jesus on a Sabbath day.

So rather than wait for their accusation, Jesus decided to ask them first: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Actually, it was. The commandment prohibited doing “work” on the Sabbath day. But what kind of work was meant? If you read the Old Testament, even Isaiah 58, which we just considered together this past Wednesday, it’s clear that the kind of work that was prohibited on the Sabbath Day was work that was done for a person’s own benefit, working your job, your farm, your kitchen, your yard, etc. Good works to help a person’s neighbor—even good works to help a needy animal!—were never prohibited. Not by God, at least. And the Jews all took care of their animals on the Sabbath Day.

But, for some reason, the experts in the Law remained silent. They remained silent, because they knew they couldn’t cite a single passage from Scripture to prove that healing someone was a violation of God’s commandment. While Jesus, on the other hand, could cite plenty of passages that showed that God wanted certain works to be done on that day, for honoring God and for serving the one in need. So they couldn’t say it was unlawful, and yet, in the ugliness of their pride, they refused to say it was lawful.

So Jesus healed the man and let him go. But He still wanted an answer from the experts in the Law. So He asked again, Which of you, if your ox or donkey fell into a pit, would not immediately pull it out on the Sabbath day? They all would! Anyone would! They’d help an animal on the Sabbath Day, but they wouldn’t approve of their own flesh and blood being helped. Why? Because they took pride in their resting on the Sabbath Day. What’s more, they took pride in being the Sabbath police, condemning others for not being as obedient as they were. And, to top it all off, they couldn’t stand having Jesus expose the ugliness of their pride. They claimed to be defending God’s law, but did they really care what God wanted? No. Did they care at all about what was good for their neighbor, for their fellow Israelite? No. If they had cared about what God wanted, they would have searched the Scriptures, where they would have found that love for God and love for neighbor were front and center, would have found that God’s commandments exposed their pride and condemned them for it, would have found that they needed atonement to be made for their pride, that their only hope did not lie in how well they rested on the Sabbath, but in the mercy of God toward ugly, prideful sinners like them.

There’s more ugliness in the second part of the Gospel, more prideful behavior on the part of the guests at that Sabbath supper. Luke says that Jesus noticed how the guests, as they arrived, all chose the places of highest honor, the tables reserved for the most important guests. Now, it wasn’t a great crime to do that at a Sabbath supper. But it could be embarrassing, as Jesus will point out, and, more importantly, He sees in that behavior an example, a pattern of how those same people behaved toward God, because they didn’t only think highly of themselves compared to the other guests. They thought highly of themselves before God Himself. And that’s both ugly, and deadly.

So He tells the parable, not of a Sabbath supper, but a of a wedding banquet, as the kingdom of heaven is often portrayed. When you are invited by someone to a wedding, do not sit down in the place of highest honor. Otherwise, if someone more honorable than you has been invited by him, the one who invited you both may come and say to you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then, with shame, you will proceed to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that, when the one who invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher!’ Then you will have honor in front of all those who are sitting at the table with you.

That’s good advice for attending a wedding banquet, isn’t it? If you just assume that you’re the most important person there, you run the risk of being shamed when the host of the banquet comes and kicks you out of the place of honor. But Jesus isn’t interested in earthly wedding banquet behavior. He’s interested in saving people from sin, death, and the devil, and He knows the danger of thinking highly of oneself when it comes to God.

God invites everyone to come into His kingdom. But how you come in is incredibly important. If you approach God as someone who thinks he deserves recognition, who has worked hard and earned a place in heaven and whom God is lucky to have by His side, if you approach God on your own terms, with your own beliefs, doing what you think is right (regardless of what He has to say about it in His Word), that’s like making a beeline for that place of highest honor. But if you do that, you’re doomed, because the Host of the heavenly feast will come in and see you sitting there, all proud of yourself, and He will tell you to get up and give your place to someone else. And when Jesus says in His parable that you’ll have to go down to the lowest place, what He means is, you won’t have a place in God’s presence at all. You’ll be ushered out of His kingdom into eternal darkness.

On the other hand, if you approach God, as He has invited you to do, as someone who thinks he deserves nothing from Him, who recognizes that he has no righteousness of His own to offer God, who has earned only wrath and punishment from the just and holy God, who only looks to God for the mercy and favor He has promised to poor sinners for the sake of Jesus Christ, who died for you so that you might be accepted by His heavenly Father, if you approach God on His terms, listening to His Word and believing in His Son Jesus Christ, that’s like choosing the lowest place at the banquet. And if you do that, you’re saved, because the Host of the heavenly feast will come in and see you sitting there, where Jesus told you sit, and He will tell you to get up and go to a higher place, to the place of a son or a daughter of God, to a place of eternal life.

Jesus summarizes the whole thing with a saying that’s often repeated in the Scriptures: For whoever exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. To exalt yourself is the way of the Law. It’s to think highly of yourself, as if you deserved something from God. But the Law exposes, not our worthiness, but our sin. As Paul writes to the Romans, by the Law is the knowledge of sin. When you approach God by way of the Law, as the Pharisees and experts of the law often did, your hidden ugliness is exposed every single time. So don’t exalt yourself! Don’t think highly of yourself! Don’t start to think that you’ve earned heaven by your obedience! That is the way of death. Instead, follow the way of the Gospel. The way of the Gospel is to think nothing of yourself, but to think everything of God and His promise to save you through faith in His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to save you out of mercy, to save you and adopt you and preserve you as His child throughout this life, until you reach the heavenly wedding banquet.

If you’ve been thinking highly of yourself and you didn’t see it before as a problem, then it’s good to have the ugliness of that thinking exposed, as Jesus does in today’s Gospel. Or, if you’re already well aware of that sinful attitude of your flesh and have been struggling against it, it’s still good to have it exposed. Because the Christian life requires a continual humbling of ourselves before God. But that self-humbling, which includes faith in Christ Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer, is always accompanied by the tremendous promise that God Himself will exalt you and lift you up on high. And that self-humbling before God will also result in humility before men, as Paul says in the Epistle, I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above you all, and through you all, and in you all. Amen.

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The Law fast vs. the Gospel fast

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 16

Isaiah 58:1-14

What does the Bible teach about fasting? There are some references to it. Fasting involved going without food for a certain period of time, denying oneself the pleasures of the flesh in order to pray, to focus on the unseen God. It was an act of humility before God. In the New Testament, Jesus’ 40-day fast at the beginning of His ministry is famous. Many of the Jews fasted, but Jesus’ own disciples didn’t fast. Because Jesus was with them. They didn’t need to focus on the unseen God, because, for a few short years, God was seen by them in the Person of Jesus. After His ascension, believers did fast sometimes, by their own choice, not by God’s command.

In the Old Testament there was only one day of the year on which God commanded all the Israelites to fast. That was the Day of Atonement. It was a 24-hour fast, and a Sabbath rest on top of it, no matter what day of the week it fell on. They were commanded to “afflict themselves” or to “humble themselves” on that day, and to do no work at all, a special Sabbath Day, because on that day atonement would be made for their sins, as God Himself had provided it through the ministry of the priests. They were to devote that entire day to paying attention to the atonement God was providing for all their sins. Once a year.

But people often took it upon themselves to fast on other days, which wasn’t wrong, which could be useful. But in tonight’s reading, Isaiah highlights what was wrong with Israel’s fasting. It was a Law fast, not a Gospel fast.

God speaks, first of all, to the prophet Isaiah, commanding him to expose the sins of the people of Israel.

“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.

Then God tells Isaiah which sins, in particular, to expose. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.

So they were seeking God, seeking the Lord, pretending to worship Him, expecting help from Him and acceptance from Him, even though they were willfully disregarding His Law. They thought they could draw near to God, without repenting of their sins.

Isn’t that just like the people in today’s world? They don’t have any regard for God’s Word recorded in Holy Scripture. They don’t do what He says. They break His commandments one after the other, with zero repentance, with no intention of listening to Him in the future. And yet many of the same people still pretend to seek the Lord, pretend to worship Him, pretend that He will help them and accept them and bring them into heaven, “just as they are.” But, no, it doesn’t work that way.

Isaiah records the people of Israel complaining to God. ‘Why have we fasted, and you do not see it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no notice of it?’ Many in Israel, probably some of the prominent leaders of Israel, wanted to get some help from God. So they chose to fast. They chose to humble themselves. And God didn’t applaud. He didn’t pat them on the back and say, “Good job! Good job! Thank you so much for not eating for a few hours. It means so much to Me! Of course I’ll help you now!”

No, and God tells them why He wasn’t pleased. Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. They were fasting, all right. They were not eating for a day. But how did they spend their time while they were “humbling themselves”? Still seeking their own pleasure in other ways besides eating. Still mistreating their workers. Still quarrelling and fighting and breaking God’s commandments left and right. And still, they thought that their little act of self-sacrifice and self-denial would earn them God’s favor.

Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

No, God says. What does He care if a person doesn’t eat for a while, and walks around all bent over and sitting in ashes? With the attitude of, “Oh, look at how humble I am. God will have to help me now!” No, He says, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

In other words, if you want to do something to please God, if you want to take a day to gain His favor, then it’s not not eating that would please Him. It would be the keeping of His commandments. It would be doing away with all wickedness, not mistreating your neighbor, including your worker or your spouse or your children. It would be taking the food that you would have eaten for yourself and giving it to those who have nothing to eat in the first place.

The Lord goes on: If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

Get rid of the “yoke” from your midst. That is, the things you do to burden other people, to make their life difficult, to make your life easier. Get rid of the pointing finger, blaming and demeaning others. Get rid of speaking wickedly about your neighbor. And devote yourself to helping those who need your help. That would earn the Lord’s favor!

The Lord goes on: “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

God tells Israel, do you want to get My attention? Don’t do it with impenitent fasting. Do it by honoring Me, which means honoring My Word, which means honoring My Commandment to rest on the Sabbath Day. Honor Me on that day, not only by not working, but also by not complaining about how I’m forcing you to rest, by, instead, giving thanks to Me for giving you this day of rest, and for all the things I’ve given you. Honor My word. Honor My commandments by obeying them, from the heart, with love for Me, your God and your Savior. Then you will be blessed! Not by hating Me in your heart, not by ignoring My commandments, not by going without food for a little while, which I never commanded you to do in the first place.

What’s the real problem this chapter of Isaiah exposes among the Israelites, and among people still today? They were trying to earn God’s favor with their own self-chosen work of fasting, even while ignoring all the works God had commanded them to do in His holy Law, even while living lives that dishonored the very God whom they wished to appease. That is why I called it above “Law fasting.” And it’s worse than useless. It’s an offense to God.

But “Gospel fasting” is different. The right way to approach God is through the true humility of repentance, recognizing our sins, against God and against our neighbor, and giving them up instead of living in them intentionally. Then, it’s through the atonement made by the Lord Jesus, who paid for our sins on the cross. The “Gospel fast” is to pause and reflect on Christ’s sacrifice, to stop trying to earn God’s favor by your works, and, instead, to seek His favor through Christ crucified, through whom God has promised mercy and acceptance and the forgiveness of sins, for free. Finally, the “Gospel fast,” if you want to call it that, is to live each day, not for yourself, but for Him who died for you and rose again. It’s to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him, to endure affliction patiently, to pray for one another, to live each day honoring God’s Word instead of honoring yourself, doing what you can to help those in need instead of obsessing about your own needs and desires. This “Gospel fast” won’t put a scowl on your face, but a smile. Because it’s the easy yoke, it’s the light burden that Christ offers to all who come to Him. God is pleased with it, and it ends in glory and eternal life.

This is the kind of fast you should practice all the time, the God-pleasing Gospel fast, whether or not you choose to go without food for a while. Amen.

Source: Sermons

The hope of a Christian funeral

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Sermon for Trinity 16

Ephesians 3:13-21  +  Luke 7:11-17

Do you remember how St. Paul described God at the end of today’s Epistle? He described Him as the One who is able to do far, far more than we can ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us. We have just a small example of that beyond-our-imagination power in today’s Gospel. With a word, Jesus raised a man from the dead. And He’ll do the same for you, one day, on an even grander scale. The funeral procession we encounter in today’s Gospel is the only funeral procession we encounter anywhere in the Gospels, which makes it, I think, a wonderful opportunity for us all to prepare for our own funerals ahead of time, and for the funerals of our loved ones. Every time we ponder the raising of the young man of Nain, we’re reminded of the hope of a Christian funeral.

King Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes, To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A funeral—the death of a loved one—is certainly a time to weep, for believers and unbelievers alike. Death, in some cases, may bring to an end a long life of pain and suffering, making it somewhat of a relief, but that still doesn’t make it a time to laugh. It’s still a time to weep. How much more so when death takes a young man in the prime of his life. How much more so when death takes the only son of a mother. And how much more so still when that mother is already a widow. Such was the funeral procession in today’s Gospel as it slowly moved through the city gates of Nain, heading toward the grave where the dead man would be buried, a mournful procession with plenty of weeping.

It was no accident that Jesus, and a large crowd of followers, was approaching the city just at that moment. This is the one and only time when this city is mentioned in Scripture. As far as we know, Jesus had never gone there before and never went there after. But God Himself worked out the timing of these events, even as He is always working out the timing of all things so that His good purposes for His Church may be accomplished.

Luke tells us that, When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her. We need to pay attention to that. The Lord Jesus’ reaction to death is God the Father’s reaction to death as well. Yes, He is the one who first threatened our first parents, Adam and Eve, with death if they chose to go against Him. And God is the One who has been justly following through on that threat for some 6,000 years now. But He doesn’t do it gleefully, or indifferently. Nor is He indifferent to the pain and sorrow people suffer when death takes a loved one from them. He sees our sorrow, as He saw the widow’s sorrow, and He has compassion.

Someone may be tempted to ask, well, then why doesn’t God make it stop? And the answer is that He did, and He will.

God, temporarily, made death stop for the young man in our Gospel. He approached the widow and said to her, “Weep no more.” He wasn’t denying that she had a reason to weep or rebuking her for crying. He was simply informing her that there was no longer going to be a reason for it. He came and touched the coffin, and those who were carrying it stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and he gave him to his mother, allowing that man to live out the rest of a “normal” earthly life with his widow mother, until he died again.

God doesn’t make death stop very often. It remains as His curse on our sinful race, and really, on the creation itself. It remains, lamentably, a “fact of life” in the story of this world, along with the toil and suffering that come before it. This is what our first parents brought upon themselves and upon their children when they chose to go against the God of goodness and life. And we, their children, are participants in their sin. We know better than to blame God for the suffering and death that befall us. We don’t expect God to remove suffering from this life or to stop death in its tracks. It’s going to continue for a little while longer.

But we take great comfort in the fact that, on a few momentous occasions, the Son of God was able, and willing, to step in and put a stop to death, as He did in today’s Gospel. With the power of His almighty Word, the Lord of life healed the young man’s body and returned its soul to it unharmed, lightening the burden of the widow mother, turning her sorrow into joy, and amazing both sets of crowds, those already following Him and those in the funeral procession.

This account gives us just a small glimpse of the power of Jesus—power which He displayed to an ever greater extent in His own resurrection from the dead, power which He has promised to use to accomplish something similar for us. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says this: For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will…. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

So first, Jesus talks about raising people to life even before their bodies die. He speaks to the spiritually dead, which is how we all begin life when we’re born into the world, and through His word, He calls people to believe and thus raises them to spiritual life. That means that, for believers, even when your body dies, you don’t die. You have already crossed over from death to life. This resurrection is even more important than the resurrection of a dead body, because this resurrection that happens through faith in Jesus is what determines where you spend eternity. This resurrection to spiritual life is what makes you a child of God. It means your sins are forgiven, you’re clothed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness, you’re made to share in the life of Christ. Not even death can take that away from a person.

And that’s the hope of a Christian funeral, that our loved one who died in the faith has not evaporated into nothingness, is not suffering in hell, but lives on, not in our hearts, not in our minds, but in the presence of God.

The rest of the hope of a Christian funeral is that the bodily death that we see there will also be fixed by Jesus, permanently stopped and even reversed at the last day. That hour is coming, closer and closer with each day that passes. Then we’ll hear the grand “Weep no more!” because there will be no more reason to weep, over anything. Then our bodies will not only be raised, but changed, perfected, and glorified. That will truly be the time to laugh, and the time to dance.

For now, there is still a time to weep and time to mourn. God doesn’t discourage that. He simply says, through the apostle Paul, that we should not sorrow as those who have no hope. Because we do have hope. The sure and certain hope of a continuing life now, and of the resurrection of the dead soon.

This is the Christian’s hope, at a Christian funeral. And it is a hope for Christians only. While we surely want all people to become Christians and to remain Christians so that this hope also applies to them, just as God Himself wants all men to be saved, we know that not all people will believe in the Lord. Many will stubbornly cling to sin. Many will seek salvation elsewhere than in Christ Jesus, the Lord of life. We can’t force others to believe, but there are some things we can do. You can remain devoted to hearing the Word of Christ and receiving His Sacraments. You can encourage one another to remain faithful until death. You can speak the truth in love to the people in your life who aren’t believers in Jesus. You can show the world by how you live that you do believe in the Lord Jesus. And you can leave behind for your family, for your loved ones, and for your church, the kind of steadfast confession that leaves no one with any doubt: This man, this woman died in the faith. This man, this woman died as a Christian. And that is a sure and solid reason to hope! Amen.

Source: Sermons

Trust in your Father, who cares for you

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Sermon for Trinity 15

Galatians 5:25-6:10  +  Matthew 6:24-34

It’s “do not worry” Sunday again. It almost seems a shame, doesn’t it?, that “do not worry” Sunday only comes around once a year. You probably need it more often than that. But, of course, every Sunday, every sermon, essentially comes with the message of “do not worry,” because every Sunday, every sermon, every preaching of God’s Word points you away from the things that cause you worry toward the Lord God, urging you to trust in the Lord Jesus, to hope in Him, to have faith in Him. And faith, fully formed, drives out all worry and fear, because the One in whom we trust reigns over all the things that cause us worry.

But that doesn’t mean that believers don’t stray into worry and anxiety at times. We do! Which is why Jesus had to speak the words of today’s Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount, and which is also why the Holy Spirit, in His wisdom, saw to it that these words would be recorded for us in Holy Scripture and preached repeatedly in the Church for two thousand years, because He’s well aware of our weaknesses, and of our tendency to worry about things.

Jesus begins in our Gospel with the thing that’s behind many of our worries: Mammon. Money. Earthly wealth and possessions. No one can serve two lords. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. When you order your life around making money and acquiring possessions, you effectively push God to the side. You push Him out of your life. Oh, you may not mean to do that. You may think you can keep God around in the background for emergencies while you continue to make your life decisions based on pursuing wealth. You may think you can keep God tucked away in your pocket to pull Him out once in a while for an occasional prayer or request, while you spend most of your time relying mainly on yourself and on your ability to run things, or to fix things. But it doesn’t work that way, according to Jesus. If you allow concerns about money to order your life, then you are serving it as your lord. If you insist on managing everything by yourself, running everything, trying to fix everything by your own careful planning and prudent actions, then you’re serving yourself as your lord. On the other hand, if you order your life around serving God, hearing His Word and putting it into practice, living each day with the intention of worshiping the true God with your whole self, placing your life into His good and capable hands, then you won’t end up serving Mammon, or trusting in Mammon, or in yourself. You’ll be serving God and trusting in God. Your heart can belong to Him or to something else, but not to both.

Then Jesus goes on to persuade us with gentle and friendly words to serve God instead of Mammon. And here it’s important to remember who He’s talking to. He’s talking to church members who know God, not to atheists who deny Him or unbelievers who don’t acknowledge Him. The Sermon on the Mount was preached to people who knew the true God, the God of Old Testament Israel, but who wanted, who needed to know Him better and who had come to Jesus for that very reason. That’s why He can speak to them about God as their Father in heaven. They knew this God as He had revealed Himself in the Old Testament, as He had created and ordered the world, as He had guided and guarded the patriarchs and the people of Israel. You know this God, too. Most of all, you know God the Father, who sent God the Son to redeem you from sin, death, and the devil, and who still sends God the Holy Spirit to teach you and to guide you. In fact, you know Him even better than the people who originally heard these words from Jesus, because you know the Father through the suffering and death of His Son. So you know just how much He cares about you.

Since you know that, act on what you know. And that applies, first and foremost, to the attitudes of your heart. Therefore I say to you, stop worrying about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? The unbelievers of the world wouldn’t agree with Jesus. They would say that our body and life has to be the first and primary concern. If your body doesn’t have the necessary nourishment, if you have no clothes to wear, what can you accomplish in life? Therefore, it should be your first and primary concern to ensure you have food and clothing, and not just enough for today, but for tomorrow and for the future. That’s where the world would have you focus your attention. This also applies to elections, by the way. If you want a good earthly life, then you have to be focused on getting the right people elected! Pour yourself into the fight!

But Jesus says, no, life is more than that. That can’t be the primary focus of your life. Because, if you serve God, if He is your Lord, it doesn’t need to be.

Look at the birds of the air! They do not sow, nor do they reap, nor do they gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not toil, nor do they spin. And yet I tell you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. Therefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today stands and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

God has left a witness in nature, a witness of His care and concern for His creation, in how He cares for and provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. But Jesus takes that general truth written into nature and applies it in a special way to those whom the heavenly Father has called His children. If God cares for the birds that were never made in His image, if God provides beauty for the grass of the field that grows for a few days and then is gone forever, shouldn’t you conclude that He cares more and will provide far better things for those whom He has created to be with Him forever, for those upon whom He has placed His name—the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Yes, you should conclude that!

And you should also admit something else. Which of you by worrying can add one foot to his stature? Or “one hour to his life”? All right. Let’s hear it. Which of you? Worrying, fretting, being anxious about providing for some need that you have—does it get you any closer to actually providing what you need? You know it doesn’t. And so Jesus, in a loving but direct way, tells you, “Stop it. Don’t do it.”

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or, ‘What shall we drink?’ or, ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles chase after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Why should you quiet your anxious thoughts? Why should you stop going over and over in your head how you’re going to provide for yourself? Not only because it doesn’t do any good, but because it’s what the Gentiles do. Now, the Gentiles are literally just the non-Jewish nations, and in that sense, we’re all Gentiles here. But Jesus is referring to the Gentiles as those who don’t know God, who have no faith in Him. So it makes perfect sense that they spend their time thinking anxiously about how to provide for themselves for this life.

But you have a heavenly Father who knows that you have earthly needs, bodily needs. You have a heavenly Father who gave His own Son into death for your sins. Why should you be like the Gentiles who think they have to be in control of everything, and figure out everything for themselves, who think that the present and the future depend on them and their worrying and planning and executing?

No, instead, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Seek first. Before anything else, turn your thoughts to seeking God, and His kingdom, and His righteousness. You have already sought the righteousness of God by believing in Christ Jesus to blot out your sins and to make you righteous before God. Now seek the righteousness of God by being concerned with His kingdom. Seek the kingdom of God by hearing and pondering His Word. Seek the kingdom of God by going about the daily tasks He’s given you in your vocations. Seek to be the light of the world that God has called you to be. Seek to lead holy lives that bring glory to the name of your heavenly Father. And do this “first,” before giving a single thought to where your food or clothing or other necessities are going to come from. When you do that, you’ll find that all those things are added to you by God, according to your needs, according to His wisdom and merciful care. You couldn’t add a single hour to your life by your worrying. But when you concern yourself first with the kingdom of God and His righteousness, He Himself will do the adding of the things that you need.

So, Jesus concludes, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. It is enough for each day to have its own trouble. Tomorrow isn’t in your hands. It’s in God’s hands. So turn your attention to what He has given you to do today, not to worry about today, but to do today. Seek His kingdom. Seek His righteousness. Trust in Him. And, as Peter writes in his first epistle, cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Amen.

Source: Sermons