The Purpose Behind Grace

 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God.  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD."

Sermon for the Sunday after Epiphany                              1/12/25

 

The Purpose Behind Grace

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

In some ways Epiphany is a big thing - and in others, it is just another day, and really nothing special, except that we mark it as special.  We gather here for worship, so that we may thank God for the revelation of His grace and glory in Jesus Christ. So, really nothing other than what we do every Sunday. Epiphany also known as "Theophany" in the Eastern Churches and is a Christian feast day commemorating the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the wedding at Cana.

In Western Christianity, the feast commemorates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, and thus Jesus Christ's manifestation [or epiphany] to the Gentiles.  It is often referred to as "the Gentile Christmas."  Our text for our mediation today explains something that will be useful for those who seek to serve God - the purpose behind Grace.  And that is our theme.

Grace is one of those mysteries of God.  He tells us about it, but He doesn't explain it in great detail.  Why has God chosen me?  Why has God chosen You?  We cannot unravel that.  It is the nature of God's grace that He chooses us for His reasons, and not for any that we can identify.  He did not choose us for our rank in this world.  He did not choose us for our talents or our gifts.  They are all, in point of fact, gifts from Him.  Paul points this truth out in our opening verse of our text tonight, "there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble".  There was nothing in us that caused God to choose us in particular.  It was all in Him.  That is part of what we mean by "Grace".

In fact, God chose us because we are nothing special.  "but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised."  Far from deserving something, or being the best of humanity, we are the losers - sort of.  God chose us for what we are not.  We are not the great, the wise, the trusted, the clever ones, the ones with superior talents.  He chose us to be His own at least in part so that no one would boast before God.  The reason that we cannot name the cause of our being chosen is so that we must humbly recognize that our faith and our rank as His chosen people would clearly be on account of nothing special in us or about us.

God want us to know that He chose us, and not the other way around.  He wants us to be seen as incapable of accomplishing what God works through us, so that on some level, men would have to recognize that the Church is the work of God and not the result of the talents of those who make up its membership.  All of this was to nullify the pride of man, and teach us true humility.

Now that doesn't mean that there are no talented people in the church.  God gifts each of us with the talents we need to accomplish our part in His great work.  Some of us He gives wisdom.  Some of us He gives courage.  Some of us He gives worldly success – although you will note that they are few in number, and even they are generally not seen as the truly wise or courageous, or successful of this world.  In part, our lack of recognition is tied to the fact that we are part of something so un-appreciated and un-respectable as the Christian Church.  The other part is that God chose those as His own who have no identifiable reason to be chosen by God.

Haven't you ever heard the challenge, "Why should you be right and the rest of the world be wrong?"  Why should you know what is true when the wise men of the ages, and of different nations and religions, are all false?  The concept that there is an absolute truth has always challenged man's ego.  Each man always wants to think he has captured the truth, and that he is right.  Just listen to call-in shows on Radio or T.V. and you will hear that tone of expectation that others will finally see that they are right!  It is particularly hard for man today.  One of the foundational ideas of post-modern, post-Christian thought is that there is no absolute truth which is true for everyone.  The only heresy in our culture is to claim to have hold of that which is undeniably and universally true.

And why you?  And why me?  We aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.  We aren't the clearest thinkers.  We are not recognized as experts in truth or morality or how anything ought to be.  Why should our little congregation stand?  How dare we be so brazen and bold as to think we can be something – or do anything – when those who know everything clearly do not agree with us?

It is that sort of question which underlines the purpose of God's grace.  Of course, His purpose is our salvation, but He tells us that His purpose is also that we don't get a big head about being ‘the chosen ones', as ancient Israel did, and that no one will look at us and say, "Why, of course God chose them.  It's obvious that they would be the ones chosen."  No, the world will look at us and say, "If their God is true and wise, He would have chosen me - He would have chosen us!"

The problem of grace – "Why some and not others?" – has plagued both believer and unbeliever alike since the time of Christ.  Many false starts at answering the question have given rise to various denominations and theologies that seek to answer the question on the basis of something in us.  —  God chose us because we are good people.  God chose us because He saw that we were the ones that would ultimately believe.  Or, God didn't choose any of us, He opened the way for everyone and left the decision up to us - decision theology.  Or, God saves those who are wise enough to find Him, or decent enough to do good works.

But He chose me when I was two months and five days old.  He named me His child and claimed me for salvation at my baptism.  Many of you were also chosen as infants.  Some of you came to faith through God's holy Word later in life, but it was still by His choosing and His work in calling you by the Gospel and enlightening you with His gifts.

Don't tell me it was because I grew up in a Christian home.  I have brothers and sisters - and they all grew up in the same home, went to the same churches, were instructed by the same pastors as I was.  But they are not all believers.  Not every child I have trained to confirmation has kept their promise and stood steadfast in the faith and resisted all temptations to turn away, even to the point of dying for the faith.  Some didn't last the summer after their confirmation.  Some have turned away and become enemies of the faith.  No, I made it up to today, and you have come this far, by the grace of God and nothing more.

Paul writes, "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."  It is by His doing - so that it cannot be denied that it is by His doing, and NOT because of who we are, or what we are capable of, or what we have done to remain steadfast and faithful.

You did not die on the cross.  Nor would it have served anything but your demise to have done so.  You did not earn eternal life.  Jesus did.  He came, and He lived with utter purity so that even those of dubious worth, such as me, could be rescued from our sins, forgiven, "purchased and won from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil.  Not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death."

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast."  God chose you to save you, and He chose you to show the world that it was His grace and not your worth, or your effort, or your talent, so that men could see Him behind the scenes - so to speak.

He pulled you all together to be a congregation.  He called me from Missouri to be your pastor.  He brought you to this congregation at different times and through different methods, and by different routes.  He prepared some of us for this, and others He just invited in.  But it is His doing, as we are His people.

Now Jesus is our wisdom.  He makes sense to us, while the wise men of the world call our faith "myth" or "superstition" and our redemption - the Vicarious Atonement - "barbaric".  Jesus is our righteousness.  He took our sin.  He left us with His perfect righteousness as our own, so that we stand as "beloved," and "well-pleasing" before God in Him.  He is our sanctification.  We don't get better and better - leastwise so as you might notice.  We continue to sin, but Christ is working in us that which is pleasing to God and that which builds His church, just as Paul once wrote, "For me to live is Christ".  And, just as Paul says in our text, Jesus is our redemption.  He bought us back from sin and death at the price of His own suffering, and "His innocent suffering and death", as the Catechism says it.

So that when we boast of being Christian, and when we boast of being Lutheran, and when we take pride in being confessional and faithful, we can only praise God and boast of His goodness, grace, and love.  ". . . just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" His glory is saving us, those who don't deserve it, because of His goodness and grace.  His purpose in saving us, is particularly to make that glory - His grace - abundantly clear and evident - to us, and to the world around us.

So let us celebrate Epiphany with thanksgiving for His grace, and pray that God will continue to bless us and hold us in His grace and love.  Let us pray for His blessing on our congregation, that it may shine brightly with His grace, and let us live this coming year in such as way, as much as it depends on us, that we live deliberately and knowingly in His grace and fulfill the purpose behind grace! 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Do Not Be Surprised

 1 Peter 4:12-19

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.  If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.  By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God.  For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?  Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas                       1/05/25

Do Not Be Surprised

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Many people think that their religion ought to be insulated from the attacks of others.  That is part of the American dream.  We dreamed, as a nation, of the freedom of religion, where you could be any religion you wanted and practice any faith freely, and no one could or would do anything about it.  You are free!

That is a dream.  It has never been quite true.  Sadly, there are also many who would use precisely that freedom to destroy that freedom for others – such as those who practice Islam - although they are not unique in this regard.  The right to practice whatever religion you wish is a goal, but it is not one we are likely to actually achieve, because some people will use that liberty as a tool to attack others and to undermine our liberties.  Besides, the devil does not want us to practice our religion, freely or otherwise, and his agents, which is pretty much the whole world, will work to make sure that it cannot happen.  Jesus promised us that while He walked among us, so we should not be surprised.  And that is the theme of our sermon this morning: Do Not Be Surprised.

Jesus promised that if we faithfully followed Him, the world would hate us and we would be persecuted.  World history has demonstrated the accuracy of that prophecy.  Christians in every age, and in every corner of the world have been hated and persecuted, even to the point of their deaths, for their faith. Even here, in America, it is considered narrow-minded and rude, not to mention hopelessly backward, to stand firmly on one's faith and not go along with the socially approved ecumenical spirit of our times.  Anything may be Christian, in the opinion of our culture, and anything is okay, except, of course, standing firm on the faith once delivered to the saints, and refusing to recognize the validity and worth of the random thoughts of others on the topic of religion.  If you stand firm in the true Christian faith you are ridiculed, mocked, verbally assaulted now and again, and sometimes physically assaulted even here in the United States.  In other places in the world, people are dying for simply calling themselves "Christian".  One may assume, with an anti-Christian progressivism dominating our culture, that things will only get worse for those who faithfully confess Christ.

Peter says, do not be surprised!  He was talking about "the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing."  That was the persecution of the earliest Christians.  They, too, had thought that if they were God's chosen and favorites, that life ought to be good, and the pains and troubles of life ought to flee from them, and blessings should be the order of the day.  That is how the human mind works – patronage and favoritism and that sort of thing, which we see so commonly in politics.  After all, what good is position and favor if it doesn't work out to feather your bed, so to speak?

Well, things didn't work out the way they thought that they should.  They had persecution, and poverty, and pains.  They could not make sense of it, just like you cannot make sense of some of the things that happen in your life.  Peter was reminding them that being the child of God in the devil's kingdom was not going to be easy, or fun, necessarily.

Our nation has a different way of persecuting the truth, and the faithful of God.  We don't face physical violence so much as we face ridicule and disapproval and dismissal, and the sort of attack that says you should not be so narrow-minded and you should not hold yourself and your religion up as something special.  We face the disdain of others, and the dismissal of our values and our confidence and our truths.  Everyone knows that you cannot be right and all those others wrong.  Everyone knows that to hold too tightly to your truths and your values is radical, and fundamentalistic, and terroristic and, well, just wrong!  Our culture is prepared to embrace a deliberate and, well, a publicly identified lie as true, but if you stand on your religion as true and theirs as in error, well, that is judgmental and discriminatory and unacceptable - and can be legally actionable.

Our persecution is peer pressure, to which we are all trained to be sensitive.  And we all hate pain.  So, we just naturally tend to bend away from suffering.  I know that I do!  But when it comes to suffering on account of your faith, you should not be surprised.  You should rather expect it.

That doesn't mean that you will enjoy it.  You won't.  Pain hurts.  Ridicule is difficult to bear.  The unexpected attack for nothing in particular that seems worthy of attack is hard to handle.  But when it happens, we are to learn to say, "Ahhh!  Here it is.  I knew this was going to happen at some point."

There are things you can do, of course, to make people attack you.  Doing bad things, for example.  That is why Peter writes, "By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God."  Christians are not always above crimes, or bad behavior.  They should be, but they are not.  There is no glory and no benefit in suffering that you bring on yourself by evil conduct or stupidity.  But if you are hated, spoken evil of, attacked, or dealt with poorly on account of being a Christian or making a faithful and clear confession, there is no shame in that, only glory - and you should give the glory to God!

There were times in the history of the church where people deliberately sought out pain and trouble, believing it was a mark of blessing and a good thing to be a Christian who suffers.  The monks in the monasteries would deny themselves food, beat themselves, torture themselves, believing it was a holy thing to do.  That was wrong.  It is not a good thing to suffer.  Suffering is only a good thing if the suffering is occasioned by your clear and faithful identification with Christ and with the Gospel.  Early in the history of the church, some believers would attack Roman Soldiers in order to be martyred.  They were thinking that suffering and death as a Christian was blessed - without any notice of its cause.  Peter says, don't let it happen to you on account of your bad behavior.  It is only filled with glory if it comes as an attack on Christ in you.

And it will, if you stand firm in your faith, and confess Christ.  Family members will tell you to get off your high horse.  Friends will tell you to keep your religion to yourself - and will distance themselves from you if you don't.  Employers may tell you that your faith - and it symbols - are not welcome around the work-place.  People will find things to criticize and nit-pick on you because you are supposed to be something special, they say, better, without any flaws, real or imagined.  It may be that bigger things will happen among us as persecution in time – we cannot tell.  One thing we do know, our faith is not welcome out in the world, and not really even among many others who style themselves as "Christian."

But when this sort of thing happens, even though it hurts and irritates, count yourself blessed.  First, it means that someone can see that you are really a Christian.  That is a good thing.

Second, imagine how it will be for those who do not believe, when they face the wrath of God, if being a faithful child of God, and one of His favorite people, can be so irritating and painful here and now.  Peter wrote: "For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?" Imagine how disquieting and uncomfortable it will be to have never stood up for Christ, and have never confessed Him.  If this suffering in this present age is part of heaven, what must the agony of hell really be?

"Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right."  The answer in any suffering is prayer, and entrusting yourself to God.  He has promised to keep you and not permit you to have to endure more than you are able.  So you do what is right.  You do what God lays before you to do. If it brings pain or persecution, what of it?

How can you do that?  By remembering what Jesus did and endured for you.  You do it by keeping the love of God for you before your eyes.  You do it by constant prayer, faithful attention to His Word, regular participation in the fellowship of the saints, by eating and drinking of this holy meal, set before you for your forgiveness and strengthening.

Jesus died for you, and your sins have been forgiven.  We remember as life becomes difficult, particularly when it becomes difficult on account of your faith, that God loves you, and nothing is for nothing.  God will bless you for your troubles, and He will return the pain and difficulty given to you upon the heads of those who cause such trouble.  They may not be able to connect the dots right away, but their troubles are part and parcel of the troubles they cause the children of God, and if we suffer as God's elect now, what will it be for them on that great and terrible day?

So, let us be clear.  When your faith and your confession brings ridicule or any other pain on you from the world around you, do not be surprised.  It is likely to happen, and Jesus predicted it.  Don't do anything to bring it on yourself.  It will find you of its own accord.  Remember that this is part of the plan of God, and remember that they will ultimately bear the fruits of their evil, unless they repent.  Remembering the pain of ridicule and persecution, we should be eager to spare our attackers the pains they are bringing on themselves by bringing them the good news of Christ and forgiveness.  And finally, when trouble and pain does come, pray, and entrust your soul to God, and just keep on doing what you know you should, what God has given you to do.  He will tell you when it is time to stop.

And do not be surprised – it is to be expected when you are God's child living in the devil's kingdom.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

In the Fullness of Time

 Galatians 4:1-7

Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.  So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.  But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"  Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas                                              12/29/25

In the Fullness of Time

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Have you ever tried to explain something and found that you couldn't because the words just didn't seem adequate?   Usually, the words are adequate, we simply don't know how to use them effectively, or we want to describe something worth a short story in a sentence or two.  Frankly, that is the temptation this morning.  Our theme is "In the Fulness of Time."  I am tempted to give you part of the meaning of that phrase in brief, so we can get on to other parts of the sermon.  It is a temptation I will try to resist, because in the phrase, "in the fulness of time", lies so many wonderful details.

‘The "fulness" of time' is one of those antique sayings we just don't use any more.  I think the devil keeps mankind marching forward linguistically, so that we lose the wonder of the Gospel in the confusion of language and words.  After all, what does it mean that time was full?  How do you fill time?  Well, I guess we talk about time being filled, "She filled her time with knitting and sewing and other hand-work."  We also talk about empty time - those empty hours that fill the lyrics of so many broken-hearted ballads, for example.  But that isn't what ‘the fulness of time' refers to yet.

The fulness of time suggests that things happened at just the right time.  God had prepared the world and constrained conditions so that it was just right - a world ready to hear the message of Jesus, the Gospel of forgiveness and salvation and resurrection to everlasting life.  Culturally, it appears that all of the major themes of the Christian faith were echoed in some way in another religion - except the theme of grace.  Resurrection was part of one, the Greeks and Romans were accustomed to god taking on human form – and having children.  The redemption theme played out in some religions, although in significantly different ways - no other religion had a god dying for their redemption.  The closest to that idea was Prometheus, who brought fire to man from the gods, and was tortured at length for his misdeed, according to Greek mythology.

The time was just right, as well, because men struggled with the meaninglessness of life.  The old religions, with many deities, were falling out of favor with most people.  They believed that there was a God, maybe many of them, but they did not believe the old stories of Zeus, or Jupiter, and company.  Many had begun to see life as pointless suffering with no purpose, and death was the bitter end.  The people wore shame and regret – and a sense of doom – like an overcoat.  The time was right to hear the message of hope, of life, of divine favor, or God-given purpose for their existence.  God had primed the world by means of man's own evil, short-sightedness and spiritual emptiness.  It was just the right time.

It was the right time – everything was ready – even geo-politically.  The Roman Empire had brought relative peace, of a rough sort, to the world, the Pax Romana.  The whole inhabited earth - well, at least the majority of men, spoke one language – Greek, Koine Greek, to be precise.  It was the language of the government, and it was the language of commerce, much like English is today.  Travel was fairly safe and relatively easy.   There were good roads most everywhere, and shipping was more or less relieved of piracy for a time.  The stage was set for the spread of the Gospel as we know it spread in the early church.  God even used the most powerful man in the world - Caesar Augustus, to compel His chosen Virgin Mary to travel to Bethlehem so that the prophecy of the place of the birth of His Messiah would be fulfilled.  It was just the right time.  But that isn't exactly what the fulness of time means either, exactly.

What it means, precisely, is that the time had come appointed by God for all these things.  It wasn't that conditions were right, although they were, and God had guided events to that end.  It wasn't the spiritual poverty of man at that particular point in time, although it was truly deep.  It was that God had appointed a specific day and time for the Incarnation and the birth of His Son, and that day had come.  The day of the crucifixion was specifically appointed too, as was the day of the Ascension - and is the day of the return of Christ to judge the world and bring us home, and destroy this creation and create a new heaven and a new earth.  The fulness of time simply means that the day had come that God had chosen before the foundation of the world.

We look at things from a peculiar perspective.  We often think of prophecy as something that has to be done, and then the prophecy is fulfilled.  But what if it is that God looked at the future, which is future for man, but all of time is present before God, and simply described what had happened in prophetic language, and revealed it to those living before the evens occurred.  Then fulfilling prophecy would be like fulfilling history.  Before God, it has already happened.  Our perspective is like watch a movie.  Nothing can happen, and nothing will happen in the movie that wasn't recorded and prepared before we picked up the DVD.  We view it as unfolding, but we know that it is unfolded and complete from the perspective of the studio that produced it.  Our view of time is like watching a movie that we have never seen before, but the Maker of the movie of time has released certain details of the movie in advance, like a movie trailer.

So, in the fulness of time, that is, when the day had come which God had chosen from before creation, God sent forth His Son.  The analogy of a movie breaks down, of course, because God did not compel every detail, nor script all human conduct.  He exercised divine influence and guided events and nations so that everything was just right when the appointed day arrived, but man freely walked through history.  God only reported on what He had witnessed in the unfolding of time - all of which is equally present to Him in eternity.  Your life is not entirely determined - you have to live it to make it happen - but God knows.

Anyhow, God sent His Son, Jesus.  He was born of a woman in order to be human.  He had to be born of a woman to be born under the burden of the Law - a burden you and I and all humanity has refused to carry faithfully.  Jesus had to be responsible to keep the law or else, just like us, so that when He did, He could earn rightfully the reward of righteousness and pure holiness.  He kept the Law without sin and earned eternal life.  It is His by right.  Then He could trade and take what we have earned, and what is our by right and divine justice: death and hell.  He could trade with us because He is human, and He could take the place of the whole lot of us because He is true God.  By His death, He redeemed us - those who were under the law.

"To Redeem" means to buy back.  His death purchased us from sin by fulfilling God's law and eternal decree against sin for us, in our favor, and on our behalf.  Now He owns us.  That is part of the source of the "slave" language of the Bible.  We are wholly owned, and therefore "bond-slaves".  Jesus can do with us what He wishes - after all, we are now property.  And Jesus wishes to set us free from sin and death.  He has determined that everyone who hears about what He has done and trusts Him to forgive them their sins, and raise them from the dead, and bring them to eternal life with Him shall receive exactly that.  If they take Him at His Word, He makes them part of the family – which Paul describes in the phrase, "that we might receive the adoption as sons".

Unbelief simply continues the offense of sin - it calls God a liar, and chooses something less that the wonders that God would pour out on them.  Consequently, the one that rejects God in unbelief also refuses the redemption of Christ and demands that God deal with him or her according to their own righteousness and reward them according to their just desserts.  And so He does.  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that does not believe shall be condemned.

But for us, the ones who believe, we possess as a gift all that Jesus won for us - forgiveness, life, and salvation.  We share in that adoption, sealed to us in our Baptism, and so, now we are Sons of God.  Among the many blessings that come with this adoption is to have within us the Spirit of His Son.  We call that "the Holy Spirit", of course.  Because Jesus had redeemed us, and God has claimed us as His sons by adopting us, He sends His Holy Spirit to us, to dwell within us, and teach us to call God "Father".  He has to teach us, because we would not dare to call God "our Father" on our own, if we took it seriously.  I mean, look at the trouble it caused Jesus.

The Spirit cries, "Abba, Father".   "Abba" is Aramaic for the child's familiar and affectionate name for his or her Father - like "Papa", or "Daddy".  The Spirit teaches us to call God "Dad", and to rest our hopes and confidence in Him and His love for us and His good will toward us, just like a child will toward a patient and loving father.  Some people do not have fathers like this, and so their ability to treasure this relationship is injured in some way, but it is the way things ought to be - loving, affectionate, safe, warm, and good.  It is this relationship with the heavenly Father that gives us confidence in every situation, even the darkest hours.  No matter what it may seem, we are in His arms, and under His protection for everlasting life and peace and health.

Remember Jesus bought us, and so we are wholly owned, and should be called slaves, and servants.  But Paul tells us that because of the love of God, you are no longer a slave, but a son.  It has not always been so.  Before Jesus, God gave the Law to keep men and guide them, but now, since Jesus, we have the Gospel.  We are no longer to allow ourselves to be ruled by the elemental things of this world.  We serve God freely and willingly, not according to some set of rules.  We do not allow men - whomever they may pretend to be - to put us into boxes and limit our freedom in Christ.  We do not allow them to cause us to fear.  We are God's own sons.  He has claimed us and adopted us, and this world, which is His, belongs also to us.

And we are heirs of God.  We stand to inherit everything.  Now, the world and everything in it belongs to us - but is not given to our direct control.  We have not yet inherited.  We are not free to do anything we wish with our inheritance, yet.  But it is still ours, and we can do anything that our heavenly Father would have us do with it.  And one day, called the Day of the Lord, we shall receive the inheritance.  We shall rise from our graves, if we have died, and shall receive everlasting life and health and peace and joy - and we shall finally be free of the infection of sin in our flesh, and our desires and thoughts will be completely holy and righteous, and we shall be pleased to be so.

Today, we are heirs.  We know its is ours, but only at the appointed time - in the fulness of time, if you will.  The fact that everything has gone according to plan so far should comfort us when life tries to frighten us.  God has it planned.  The day may seem to be delaying - "tarrying" is the King James word for it, but it coming.  It is set for a specific and special day, and it will not fail.  And knowing that Christmas came at the fulness of time - on just the right day - the day appointed - shores up our confidence that the Day of the Lord, our day of inheritance, will not be late.  It is coming, as Christ came, in the fulness of time.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

God Has Spoken to us

 Hebrews 1:1-6

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.  When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.  For to which of the angels did He ever say, "THOU ART MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN THEE"?  And again, "I WILL BE A FATHER TO HIM AND HE SHALL BE A SON TO ME"?  And when He again brings the first-born into the world, He says, "AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM."

Sermon for Christmas                                                              12/25/25

God Has Spoken to Us

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Talk to me.  You've heard people say that before.  Talk to me.  And if you do, how would you do it?  Silly question, right?  You would use words.  That is how we talk.  Well, Jesus is the Word of God.  That is from the Gospel of John.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."  And then verse 14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

This Christmas morning our epistle lesson tells us that God has spoken to us – and He has spoken to us in the person of His Word – His Son Jesus Christ.  Our Christmas message – the one that give us such joy on this morning is that God has spoken to us!

Hebrews is the most intellectual of the epistles.  There are parts of Hebrews that, frankly, baffle us.  Even the simplest parts require careful reading and careful thought.  But this epistle, of the opening verses of the entire epistle to the Hebrews is pretty simple.  It tells us that Jesus is God's communication to us.

God has always been talking to man.  He walked personally and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden.  After they had sinned, they could not bear His presence.  They were too frightened.  So God began dealing through intermediaries with us.  He sent prophets.  He spoke to them in visions, usually, or dreams.  He communicated with them without actually talking out loud.  Moses seems to be the last one that God talked out loud to.  After that, it was in visions and dreams and such – or he sent an angel.  He always stayed in touch, giving guidance and revealing more about Himself through His prophets.

In Jesus, we have God returning to direct communication.  That is what we celebrate in our Christmas celebration.  God was in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is God, the Second Person of the Trinity.  Christmas is the festival of the Incarnation.  Isaiah 7:14, which prophesies the Virgin Birth, also prophesies that the name of the child will be Immanuel.  The meaning of the prophecy is not that He will have that name, but that He will be God, with us – among us.  Jesus fulfilled that Word of God by putting on human nature and human flesh and blood in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and being born at just the right time – Scripture calls it "the fulness of time," and Luke says "the days were accomplished that she should be delivered."

The manger in Bethlehem is precious to us because God was born there.  He was not born according to His divinity, but according to His human nature – but God was born as a man there.  And having taken on human flesh and blood, God spoke directly to us.  There was no "middle man".  There is no mediator, except the man God chose to be, Jesus Christ.  So, at Christmas, we celebrate the truth that God has spoken to us!

Jesus often said that the words He spoke were not His, but that they had been given to Him by His heavenly Father.  Jesus wanted us to know that God was speaking to us in Him.  He always pointed back to God as He taught.  God was speaking to us and teaching us in Jesus, and He took great care to let us know precisely what it was that He was doing.  He knew that men would disbelieve and deny Him and His Word in time, but He wanted to be as clear as possible so that those who would believe would have utter certainty and clear evidence that God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ.  That is why every sermon I preach has a text, and often quotes Scripture.  When the Word is spoken faithfully, God is still speaking to us through Jesus.

But that isn't all that the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews meant to say.  He meant that Jesus was God's communication.  Who Jesus was, and what Jesus did, and the fact that He was here to do it, is as significant as the Words He spoke – and it says as much or more than Jesus did with His mouth.  God spoke to us by sending His Son.

Jesus spoke of the love of God for us.  Of course He preached about it, but just the fact of the Incarnation spoke to us about how far God would go – how deep His love is for us.  Think of the manger scene.  Could you imagine having your child in a barn, and using a hayrack for a crib?  Would you send your daughter or daughter-in-Law to give birth in filthy conditions on a cold night in an open-air stable like that?  Yet God chose to be born there for us.  He chose a teen-aged girl and a humble and poor carpenter as parents.  He chose to be born on a trip, in a stable where the young parents were housed for the night because the town was so crowded.  We celebrate Christmas every year without pausing very often to consider the absurdity of it, or what fantastic love it was that required God to humble Himself to become human, and then a poor human in a poor nation at a time and place in history so crude and violent and backwards.  The simple fact that Jesus is who He is reveals God speaking of His great love for us.  God has spoken to us!

And why did God do this?  It was our sins.  Because of our sin, we deserve to die.  We come from polluted stock and we behave as though we never knew God.  We hate, we covet, we lust, we gossip.  Many times we act as though God will not take care of us.  We behave as though God were less important than our next outing, our next purchase.  Even we, who know God and His goodness many times will behave as though we did not, or that we simply do not believe or care.

God did the Bethlehem thing for us.  He did it to save us from our own sins.  He was born in a stable so that He could die on a cross in our place, and redeem us from His own justice.  He had to keep His own bargains – He had to punish sin with death.  He had to be just and fair and righteous.  And yet He desired to save us.  Jesus coming, and His attention to fulfilling every prophecy – right down to the virgin mother and the place of His birth – speaks to us of the desire of God to save us.  There was no way to rescue us from the just consequences of sin, except to take them on Himself.  So Jesus was born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those that were under the law.  He, who had no sin of His own, became sin for us – took our sin upon Himself – that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him and through Him and on account of Him.  That is how much God wanted to save us – God has spoken to us!

Jesus Christ –  the fact of His birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension – spoke of God's plans for us beyond the grave.  Now I know that all of what we are looking at is not Christmas.  But we cannot celebrate Christmas two thousand years after Christ's life and pretend that the manger and the shepherds are all that there is about the holiday.  Jesus demonstrated what God has in store for us.  He told us plainly that He would come again for us.  He told us that because He lives, we too shall live, and because He rose from the grave, we too shall rise from our graves.

And we celebrate that truth as much as any, in Christmas celebrations.  The birth and life and death of Jesus speak to us about God's plans for us which go far beyond the short time we spend here in this world. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.  And when the time comes, and God raises us from the grave, then death will be defeated, and we will cry out with all the children of God, Death is swallowed up in victory!  O death where is your sting?  O Grave where is your victory!  And we will share in and delight in that reunion with all those who have gone before us, whom we miss so today – parents, grandparents, children, and spouses.  We will be there and we will do that and we will delight in God with all of our being – and Jesus, His existence and His life is God telling us all of these things.   God has spoken to us!

  And that is what we celebrate today.    God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.  When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high

Jesus tells us many things – but He reveals even more.  He is God, and He reveals God to us – His love, His nature, His compassion, His power, and His will.  And what is the will of God for us?

And you know that because God has spoken to us through the person of His Son.  And that is what we celebrate in Christmas – and it is truly merry!  So let us sing and laugh and feast and celebrate with all our might.  God has spoken to us and the first word He said was a little baby, born in Bethlehem, sung about by angels, and worshiped by shepherds.  

A merry and a blessed Christmas to you all!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

According to His Mercy

 Titus 3:4-7

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 

Sermon for the Christmas Eve                                                           12/24/25

According to His Mercy

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Let me begin by wishing you all a very merry and blessed Christmas!  We celebrate Peace on earth, goodwill to men.  We celebrate "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord."  We celebrate Immanuel.  Which means "God with us": God come among men as a man, to live with us and for us, and to die in our place to redeem us.  Our text looks at the celebration without staring into the manger tonight.  It is the Epistle lesson appointed for the Second Christmas day, December 26th, actually.  I chose it because we almost never hear it, and it is one of my favorite Bible passages, and we don't usually celebrate the Second Christmas Day in the modern Church.  I took our  sermon theme from the passage, which reminds us that our Christmas - as well as our Easter and our salvation, is according to His mercy.

Paul writes, "when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us".  The first thing Paul mentions here, in this letter to Titus, his student whom he left behind in Crete to pastor the congregation there, is the kindness of God.  God is not often viewed by man as kind.  He is usually viewed with fear and suspicion.  But God had planned our salvation, and when Jesus came, the goodwill of God towards us, His desire to save us became evident in Jesus.  The "love for mankind" mentioned here is the Greek word "philanthropy".  The love for mankind shown here is greater than our modern understanding of "philanthropy", simply sharing some wealth with those in need - although that is one way to look at the Gospel.  This Philanthropy is true love of friendship from God toward man.  Nothing shows that love of friendship better than what Jesus did: for,  "A greater love has no man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends."

When that kindness and friendship made itself evident, God our Savior saved us.  He didn't send a servant, or a stand-in.  He loved us so much He came to do the job Himself.  After all, they say if you want the job done right, do it yourself.  So God saved us, which raises the question: what is He saving us from?  The answer:  Ourselves – and our sins and the justice due to us for rejecting Him and life and choosing death and pleasure or personal agendas of the moment over all the good He would give to us.

That is what Adam and Eve did in the garden.  They chose themselves, their will and their agendas and their moment of pleasure over the will of God and the plans for blessings and life from God.  Of course, they did not fully recognize that this was what they were doing.  They were deceived.  They were rebellious, and they were willing to be deceived, and they were not of a mind to allow God to make their choices for them, and so they sinned.

We are the same.  Our culture is a huge demonstration that we individually serve ourselves first, and everything and anything else second.  As we cast personal liberty aside for womb to the tomb government providing for us, we show that same haste to do what seems advantageous without ever considering the reality of it or the cost - those unintended consequences.  It demonstrates that we choose without considering the cost - and yet the cost must be paid, even if we do not know what the price is which we have accepted by our decisions.  Crime in the streets, welfare abuse run amok, Islamic terrorism, inflation, HIV and STD's epidemic in our nation, child abuse and sexual deviancy becoming mainstream – these problems are not the fault of the Republicans, or the Democrats - the Liberals or the conservatives.  They are our fault.  We - the whole nation of us - have made bad decisions, permitted the impermissible, and allowed ourselves to be deceived by those with other agendas because we want to promote, pamper, or pleasure ourselves first, and we do not always weigh the cost of those values, and the decisions we make pursuing them, honestly.  We do not read the price-tags.   And in our personal lives, we have each reflected this thing called "sin" in various ways to one degree or another by equally short-sighted and self-serving choices.  That is what He saved us from - Ourselves, and our sin.

He saved us.  That is the hard part to keep clear.  Paul emphasizes that fundamental part of the Gospel by stressing that it was, quote, "Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness."  Somehow men and women - even in the Church - can look at the Manger in Bethlehem, the Incarnation, the entire Passion of our Lord, the Cross and everything Christ has done, and still try to make our salvation about us and our behavior, or our decisions, or our prayers.  But it is not us - He saved us.  Salvation began to rain down upon us in real time when Mary laid the infant Jesus in the Manger.

It was, "according to His mercy".  It is that "kindness of God" thing again.  The word we usually use is "grace", you know, God's choices for God's own reasons, with no particular factor being found in us at all.  He saved us because He wanted to - theologians say it is because of who He is, and that may be true, but the Bible says it is because He wanted to - because of His great love for us - a love which we clearly do not deserve and have not earned.  So, He saved us.

"[B]y the washing of regeneration".  Notice how the entire work of Christ is simply rolled up into the words, "He saved us".  The cross is not explicitly mentioned, nor the tomb, or the resurrection - not even the manger scene.  It all folds up into the one thing - God's great love which caused Him to save us.  But, while the work was accomplished back then, it is attached to individuals one by one.  It is there and purchased and won and free, and yet we cannot grasp it or choose it.  We must be chosen and it must be applied to us - poured out on us and stuck to us somehow - that is how He saved each of us, once He had purchased that salvation for us.  He poured it out on us, "by the washing of regeneration".

We were born again - regenerated - by Baptism - by the washing of regeneration.  That is the purpose and power of Baptism.  It is the washing that puts us to death with Jesus on the cross and raises us to new life in His resurrection on Easter.  That is precisely what Paul describes in Romans, chapter 6. And every bit of it is according to His mercy.

Of course, as Luther said in the Catechism, "It is not the water indeed that does this, but the Word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such Word of God in the water."  We were born again by the power of the Word, which is the power of the Holy Spirit - which Paul tells us in our text is the power at work here in our salvation.  He calls Baptism a "washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit."  We are renewed - made new again - by the Holy Spirit by this ‘sacramental' washing.

And this Holy Spirit is poured out on us richly - abundantly - through Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Our Lord pours out His Holy Spirit in this Baptism.  We don't receive just the bare minimum, either.  We receive richly - I like that word - we receive the Holy Spirit in abundance.  We have all that we need, and more, to be the people of God and to accomplish the things God has planned for us to accomplish.

He does have things for us to accomplish you know.  He told us that they were there - although He doesn't tell us specifically what they are for each one of us.  Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9 are favorites to quote: "By grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not on the basis of works, so that no one should boast."  But verse 10 is just as true, just as much the Word of God, and just as important, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."  God has planned things for us to accomplish, and placed the specific things in the paths of each of us to discover in life - and then do.  This is also part of the work of the Holy Spirit who is poured out on us - that we find and accomplish the works of God's choosing, set in our paths by His planning.

But these works do not save us.  They are the works that we do as the children of God and because we are the children of God.  They are according to His mercy, as well.  Our Christmas Epistle reminds us that  we are justified by grace - which means it is a gift.  Our works, even as Christians, are often impure and done for sinful motives, but we are justified - declared holy and righteous and deserving of God's love and of eternal life - because of Jesus Christ: His holiness, His suffering and death on our behalf, and His resurrection, which proclaims the sufficiency of the payment to satisfy the justice of God on our behalf.  Because of Him, we are declared righteous and holy and fit for glory with Him.  It is the gift, given for no other reason than the grace of God - His choice for His reasons.  Because we do not deserve it, and cannot explain why us and not another, we simply rejoice and thank God.  That is part of the celebration of Christmas - Peace on earth, goodwill to men!

By this grace, we are made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  That is how Paul put it, by inspiration.  Heirs inherit.  We stand to inherit the hope of eternal life.  It is called a hope because we do not experience it fully today, and so we look eagerly forward to the full possession and realization of the hope - but it is ours.  We are the heirs.  Our names are in the will.  Your sins are forgiven, and you have the promise of resurrection from your graves and eternal life.

And that all began, at least as far as men and women could observe it on earth, at Bethlehem.  There, on the night we celebrate tonight, the impossible actually happened - robbing the word "impossible" of its meaning.  A virgin girl gave birth.  She gave birth to a son - scientifically impossible.  She gave birth to a child that was fully human, and yet fully divine, impossible by human logic.  God was busy breaking the rules - but they are only the rules of human reason and understanding.  They were not the laws of God, and so breaking them was not sin, but according to His mercy.

So, Mary gave birth and angels sang.  She gave birth and shepherds gathered to worship.  She gave birth to Jesus and changed the world forever, because when she gave birth, the kindness of God our Savior, and His love for mankind appeared – and when it did, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  This is a trustworthy statement.

Merry Christmas.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Caretakers of Revelations

 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.  In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.  But to me it is a very small thing that I should be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself.  For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord.  Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God.

Sermon for 3rd Sunday in Advent                                                       12/15/24

Caretakers of Revelations

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This Sunday is Messenger Sunday.  Liturgically, it is the pink candle Sunday in Advent, known officially as Gaudete or "Joy" Sunday, because the Introit begins "Rejoice in the Lord always", and Latin for "rejoice" is "gaudete".  I called it Messenger Sunday because all of our Scriptures address the idea of the Messenger.  The Old Testament lesson is the prophecy of Isaiah about the message of comfort, peace, and forgiveness.  The Gospel is Jesus speaking about John, and telling everyone that John was the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy - and how he was more than a mere prophet.  He was the forerunner of the Messiah, the Voice spoken of by Isaiah.

Our Epistle lesson is also about the messenger, but this time it is about the messenger that God sends to you, your pastor – and it speaks about judging, too.  Our sermon theme, this morning, is "Caretakers of Revelations".

Let me read you my own translation of the text, which, I hope, is a little clearer than the standard reading:  Let a man look upon us like this: as servants of Christ and caretakers of the mysteries of God, what is more, caretakers who are expected to be found faithful.  Now, it is absolutely insignificant, in my opinion, that I should be evaluated by you, or by any human standard.  I do not even evaluate myself.  Mind you, I am conscious of nothing against myself, but that does not vindicate me; the One who evaluates me is the Lord.  Therefore, don't you go judging things before the right time, that is, before the Lord comes, who also will shine light on the things hidden in the darkness, and will reveal intentions of the heart; and then, the commendation of each will come to him from God.

The first thing I would alert you to, is that there are parts of this passage which are easy to misunderstand.  You need to be careful and focused when you read the Bible to make sure you don't miss a transition or a segue into a new topic.   It is easy to miss a change in direction in this lesson, for example.  The text begins by talking about the Apostles and teachers – which by extension would be about pastors.  Near the end of these few short verses, however, the focus of the passage shifts to you, the ones who hear the message, and to your conduct with the instruction not to judge.  If you aren't paying attention, though, it could be mistakenly thought that St. Paul was telling the Corinthians not to judge him or his preaching.  But that is not the message.

The message about judging is about judging, period.  Therefore, don't you go judging things before the right time, that is, before the Lord comes, who also will shine light on the things hidden in the darkness, and will reveal intentions of the heart; and then, the commendation of each will come to him from God.  Paul would never tell them not to judge doctrine.  They are to be careful, listen only to the truth, reject the false and fractious, and test the spirits.  He is not even telling them not to call sin a ‘sin'.  Of course, they are to judge sin as sinful, and correct and encourage one another.  The kind of judging that Paul is opposing here is the sort that relies on human intuition, rumor, or personal preference.
Such judging is the sort of thing we do when we judge the motives of another person's heart.  "You did that just to irritate me!"  Or, "you intended to hurt me."  Sometimes it seems that people behave in one way or another just to get our goat, but the truth be known, they probably were totally self-absorbed, and did not consider anyone else at all.  Even though their conduct was obnoxious, it had no real evil intent behind it.  People engaging in unpleasant behavior often may have had no awareness that it was – or could be – obnoxious.  Declaring the intentions of another person to be evil, unless they actually told you they had evil intentions, is the sort judging forbidden here.

Paul simply used the discussion of God as judge to launch off into a brief exhortation against usurping God's prerogatives, and presuming to judge another.  We tend to do that.  You do it when you allow the actions of another to irritate you toward them.  Inconvenience is frustrating, but the person being "inconvenient" toward us is not necessarily our enemy or adversary – at least not deliberately.  St. Paul encourages us to wait, and let God reveal the truth and the hidden agendas and the secret motives of the heart – and then He will judge, and we won't need to, and His judgment will resolve the problem.  Until then, Christian love demands that we bear up with the failings and weaknesses of others, and forgive one another, and put the best construction on everything.

Open and public sins we can point at and say, "That is sin!"  We can condemn it and call for repentance from the perpetrator.  False doctrine must be identified, and we must call it what it is, and avoid it.  Behavior we don't appreciate, but about which there is no Biblical command, we cannot judge or condemn.  We can chafe, and we can wish it were different, but we cannot judge what God has not judged.  We cannot rightly condemn someone just because they irritate us.  We need to be patient, long-suffering, and forgiving, and wait until the right time, the time when the Lord comes in judgment.  This is particularly true when dealing with the actions of the members of the family of God, fellow-believers, the Church.

The part of the text I want to focus on, is the part about the messengers - the caretakers of revelations.  The pastor is to be the caretaker.  The message - the "mysteries of God" - is not his.  He is the manager, the steward, the caretaker of these things.  He is responsible to God, because the mysteries he is the care-taker for are God's mysteries.  The faithful pastor is not permitted to adjust the message, or do with the Sacraments whatever he pleases.  He must speak what he is given to speak, and faithfully administer the Sacraments he is given to administer in accord with their institution.

Admittedly, that is not what we always see happening.  Some decide that administering the Sacraments in accord with their institution is too limiting or too unfriendly to visitors.  Sometimes the Scriptures say things that are not politically correct by the world's standards today, and some pastors simply don't want to offend anyone, or don't want to look old-fashioned and overly religious (they, of course, call it "being superstitious").  In such cases, since the message is God's, the messenger ought to be faithful to the message he was given and to the Giver of the message, and allow the audience of the message to hear what God's Word actually says and deal with it as they will.

The requirement which is chief and most important for the pastor is that he be found faithful.  Your opinion of the character of the man or the message is not the one that counts.  His opinion of himself is not all that important.  Only God's judgment is truly significant.

That doesn't mean that you cannot or should not judge his doctrine.  You are responsible for yourself.  You need to make sure that you do not sit and listen to that which is not faithful.  But the pastor is responsible to teach the truth, even when those listening don't want to hear it.  He is not responsible to you, he is responsible for you.  He is responsible to God.

The Old Testament prophets were good examples of faithful caretakers of revelations.  They often died as a consequence of being faithful, and saying what it was that God gave them to say rather than adjusting the message for the pleasure of their audience.  Paul himself gave us an example of the same spirit of faithfulness.  He was stoned, beaten, arrested, tried, and finally executed for preaching Christ and the Gospel.

One could comprehend the reaction to Paul, and to the others who faithfully served their stewardship of the mysteries of God, if they had been doing something violent, or threatening, or even insulting.  But they weren't.  They were preaching the Gospel.  You may think that it was the Law part that people objected to, but it is not.  You can tell people how evil they are all day long.  They will agree, and sometimes even find the experience pleasurable.  It is the Gospel that fires them up.

Tell someone that their sins are forgiven.  Explain the love of God for them, that He died in their place, for them, that He freely gives them forgiveness and eternal life and salvation, and they get angry.  Go figure.

The natural tendency of man is to take the good news of the Gospel and twist it into something else.  People change who God is – not His reality, of course, but in their thoughts about Him.  They want a God who is less than the true God, easier to understand, or easier to manipulate.  They change how the gospel works – which means that they invariably end up with something that is no Gospel at all, according to St. Paul.  Some want to earn heaven by their works, some want universalism – where everyone gets to go to heaven, some want no limits set on human behavior and some want heaven to be incredibly difficult to enter, except, of course, for them.  I guess that is part of human nature, which is sinful.

But the Gospel is what it is, just as God is who He is.  You have to take God as He is for who He is, or leave Him behind.  You must believe the Gospel, and receive forgiveness and eternal life as a gift, or forget about it.  You need to acknowledge who you are, a sinner, and that you deserve none of it, or you will get what you deserve, and not what Jesus has purchased and won for you on the cross, and in the grave, and by rising again from the dead.

It is that Gospel, along with the wonderful gifts of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are the mysteries of God.  They are mysteries only because we could not know them unless they were revealed.  That is why a caretaker must be faithful.  Human reason will not figure it out or reason its way to the truth.  Our reason will always miss.  Our sinful reasoning prefers the error to the truth even, many times, when we are told the truth.  If we had to start from the position of knowing only the lie, and figure it out from there on our own, we would be lost - so it is required in this case that the caretakers be found faithful.

"Stewards of the Mysteries of God" is the ordinary way to hear this described - but stewards are caretakers - and revelations are what these mysteries are - - thing revealed to us by God.  So I thought that it might help you keep this message in mind if we called these messengers Caretakers of Revelations.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
(Let the people say Amen)

Abounding in Hope

 Romans 15:4-13

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.  Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Wherefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.  For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy; as it is written, "THEREFORE I WILL GIVE PRAISE TO THEE AMONG THE GENTILES, AND I WILL SING TO THY NAME."  And again he says, "REJOICE, O GENTILES, WITH HIS PEOPLE."  And again, "PRAISE THE LORD ALL YOU GENTILES, AND LET ALL THE PEOPLES PRAISE HIM."  And again Isaiah says, "THERE SHALL COME THE ROOT OF JESSE, AND HE WHO ARISES TO RULE OVER THE GENTILES, IN HIM SHALL THE GENTILES HOPE."  

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sermon for 2nd Sunday in Advent                                                       12/08/24

Abounding In Hope

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

What a marvelous prayer!  How many of you are filled with joy this morning?  How many of you are filled with peace?  That is the prayer of Paul in our Epistle lesson this morning.

But where are we supposed to get all this joy?  Where is that peace supposed to be coming from?  Notice, if you will, that we are not just to have joy, but all joy is to fill us, and peace!  The goal is that we abound in hope - not just have a hope, or hope a little, but that we abound in hope.

I imagine that now and again you may be less than abounding in hope.  Some of you probably wrestle with a shortage of joy now and again – and peace may be a little hard to come by here and there.  We live in threatening times.  The Christian faith is under assault from within the church and without.  Peace seems to be slipping away by the conscious choice of our leaders, and security is a difficult thing to find.

The precise combination of our conditions may be unique to our age, but thematically they are very similar to the world that the Apostle lived in and the temptations to fear and despair were the same for the early Christians, perhaps even more pointed!  Paul nonetheless addresses these words of joy and peace and hope to them, and to us.  Our theme this morning is, "Abounding In Hope."

Yes, we live in threatening times, alright.  It is actually difficult to find a time in history when the times and conditions were not threatening.  That should not surprise us.  Our Gospel lesson this morning promises us the deterioration of things around us, and the gnawing fear of what is coming on the face of the earth.  "And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken."  One thing the ancients did not have to deal with was the new media - the 24 – 7 news media drumming the theme of despair and corruption at us, inviting us to fear and hopelessness.  They had no media at all, just gossip and a world gripped in poverty that did not seem to change by generations.

Still, nothing is really out of order – it is just not the way we would prefer it.  We want people to love us.  We want our enemies to stumble and fall at every turn.  We want success and prosperity to grace our lives with constant attention.  We want health and comfort and pleasure to dog our steps.  It is a dream of heaven on earth – and it is not a dream that will ever be realized in this lifetime.  Heaven is heaven.  To expect or desire that life here will be heaven on earth is to long for freedom from Christ.

But we are the body of Christ.  That is the import of the middle verses of our epistle lesson.  Listen: "Wherefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.  For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy; as it is written, ‘THEREFORE I WILL GIVE PRAISE TO THEE AMONG THE GENTILES, AND I WILL SING TO THY NAME.'  And again he says, ‘REJOICE, O GENTILES, WITH HIS PEOPLE.'  And again, ‘PRAISE THE LORD ALL YOU GENTILES, AND LET ALL THE PEOPLES PRAISE HIM.'  And again Isaiah says, ‘THERE SHALL COME THE ROOT OF JESSE, AND HE WHO ARISES TO RULE OVER THE GENTILES, IN HIM SHALL THE GENTILES HOPE.'"

The problem facing the Church in those days, aside from persecution, was that the predominantly Jewish Christian Church was becoming increasingly Gentile.  Jews, on the one hand, were simply accustomed to thinking of themselves as separate from and superior to the Gentiles.  The Gentiles, on the other hand, were accustomed to distrust of and hatred for the Jews.  Suddenly they were being united in this thing called "The Way of Life", what we now call the Christian Church, and they were struggling with that new reality.  Paul writes about how this was always the plan of God - so that the Jews would realize that it was as it should be, and the Gentiles would understand that God had always had them in mind and that they were equal partners with the Jews in the body of Christ.  For this reason, Paul writes, (that's "Wherefore") accept one another, just as Christ has accepted us to the glory of God.  He then tells them that Christ fulfilled the promises of welcoming in the Gentiles in order to confirm the promises given to the Jews.  Exclude either Jewish or Gentile converts from the Church, and you have rejected Christ, and the Gospel, and salvation, and forgiveness, and everything.

Our problem today is not the Gentile incursion into the Church – or the fact that some are converted from Judaism.  Our problem is more like the dangers and troubles of life which we face contradict our hopes and expectations.  We are Americans.  We are used to success and victory and abundance.  While we should praise and thank God for all of that, we often don't.  We kind of think that we have done it ourselves and that it is just the natural way of things.  Oh, sure, we give the Almighty an occasional nod of recognition.  We say that we know it is all from His hand, but we go on to live and act as though something is out of order if our lives don't follow our own dreams and desires.  Even though Burger King invites you to "have it your way", faith in Jesus Christ requires that we have it His way.

His way is the way of humility and suffering.  He humbled Himself to become one of us, and, even more, to become obedient to the will of the Father even to the point of a shameful and ignominious death on the cross.  His innocent death worked life and salvation for us.  He paid and we are forgiven.  Our salvation is always "in connection with Christ".  But if we are connected with Him in truth, we will be required to walk the path that He walked – the path of being humbled, and enduring trouble, pain, and hardship obediently.  Obediently means that we expect it, because it has been promised, and that we find in our circumstances the fulfilling of the promise of God, rather than the strange and unchristian notion that something is wrong and God has abandoned us.

"For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."  The prophecies of Scripture about how we will also suffer are not meant to discourage or depress us.  They are meant to help us understand and believe that when things are going badly, in our estimation, nothing unexpected is happening from the divine perspective.  God knows.  He has warned us about these things so that we might find perseverance through the Word of God and be encouraged in our faith.  The lack of perseverance and the sorrow and fear which many times threatens to rob us of the encouragement of our faith is the temptation to reject Christ and His way.  It is unbelief if we allow it to stand unchallenged in our hearts and minds.  God's Word and His promises must reign in us and we must deal in faith with the troubles that surround us, whatever they may be.

God's Word is written for our instruction, that is, to teach us how to look at the things of life.  Prophecies tells us what God wants us to know to expect, and the accounts of the Old Testament people are to show us how to respond to the troubles of life (or not to respond, sometimes) and how faithful God is in rescuing and helping us.  Scripture shows us that good times are not necessarily good for us.  Constant abundance makes us carnally secure.  We lose a sense of dependence on God.  America has that problem as a national disease.  The wealthier we got, the fewer were those who called upon the name of the Lord as a percentage of the whole.  The more secure we felt in life, the less it seemed that we prayed or listened to the meaning of the Word of God, and so the less we trusted it or thought about how it is reliable and true.  

Just look at how many church bodies have begun ‘fixing' the Bible; its authors don't understand modern sexuality, they misjudge homosexuality, they misunderstand true justice, Suddenly – or not so suddenly – the focus of the religion of so many ceases to be truth and salvation and begins to be social or economic equality.  Now, the church that has heard the Bible say, "Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God", believes that it has the divine right to judge the authorities and criticize the government, and foment rebellion and revolution.  In far too many churches that call themselves "Christian", the truth, which Jesus says will set us free, is disparaged, and unfaithful, so-called "ecumenical" activities and principles are elevated to the status of the center of our confession and being.

So worldly wealth and peace and outward security do not always serve us well.  They seduce us and put to sleep in the face of our very real enemies - i.e., false doctrine, and the hatred of the world around us.  Hard times and threatening circumstances remind us to pray, and cause us to turn again to the Word of God wherein God tells us that humility and suffering lie in the path of the faithful.  He doesn't tell us these things to frighten us or depress us, but so that when we face troubles, we can say, "Ah!  This is just what God said we could expect."  And so we are encouraged by God's Word, that nothing out of order is happening, and strengthened through the Word to persevere in faith and holy conduct.  Seeing and experiencing the faithfulness of God, and the utter truth of His Word brings us to glorify God the Father together (that is, "with one voice") for His truth and faithfulness – and for our salvation!

All of this praise and encouragement is not our responsibility to work up in ourselves.  Of course, when you feel the urge to praise God, feel joy, or be encouraged, you should never resist it, but God knows our flesh.  He intends that He Himself will fill you with the joy and peace and praise and hope.  Remember the final verse of our text which I quoted at the beginning of the sermon:  "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

We know from the Word that the Holy Spirit works in us by means of the Word of God.  It is not by merely intellectual recognition of the truth of the Scripture or its prophecies that we will respond in perseverance, encouragement, hope, joy, and peace.  Those things will happen, but not as a consequence of our intellectual perception of God's truths – nor are they left to us to work up in ourselves.  The hope and joy and peace will be worked by God - through the power of the Holy Spirit.  So let go - - and let God.  Cast all your cares upon Him.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean upon your own understanding.  Just listen to God, and take Him at His Word - words of promise - and He will give you the joy and the peace - and He will cause you to rest secure, finding comfort in the knowledge and faith that God is aware, and guiding events in your life, that you, too, may be abounding in hope.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Faith Alone: Old Testament Faith

 Genesis 3:15

"And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Sermon for the First Wednesday in Advent                                      12/04/24

Faith Alone: Old Testament Faith

Reformation Advent Truths

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

People often make the mistake of thinking that the Reformation was only about Lutheranism – or Protestantism, if those people came from a non-Lutheran background.  The tendency is to connect the truths of the Reformation with the sixteenth century and after.  The truth is, however, that the Reformation truths which were championed by Martin Luther and his followers were simply the Christian faith . . . all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Viewed from the perspective of the great Reformation principles, the entire Scriptures unfold the same fundamental truths that Luther laid out in his theology.  This advent, I hope to focus on those truths and show you that these are things that God's people have always and everywhere believed, when they are faithful.  Although these sermons will begin with a Scripture, they are going to be more topical than textual.  For example, our sermon tonight is about the principle of faith alone, as illustrated by the Old Testament faith.  Our "text" from Genesis is simply one example of that faith.  So, our theme of the season is "Reformation Advent Truths", and tonight our theme is "Faith Alone: Old Testament Faith".

The passage from Genesis 3 illustrates the principle of faith in the Old Testament.  In it, God promises to Adam and Eve the Gospel promise: the promise of a Savior from sin and death.  We know that they understood this promise and believed it, even though they misidentified the Messiah, because Eve named her first Son Cain, meaning, "I have gotten a man, the Lord".  The thing is, God did not give them any proof of this promise, just the promise itself.  It called for faith, and they believed.  There was no statement about "If you believe," just the promise.  The promise was their comfort and their hope.  And they believed.

It was the same sort of thing with Noah.  God told him to build the ark because there was going to be a flood.  I don't know how God communicated with Noah.  I am sure He has ways of making one clear that it is God talking, and that He means business, but having no experience with direct conversation, except for my part in prayer, I cannot imagine what it was like for Noah.  But Noah believed.  He believed so strongly that he built the boat.  It was actually built by faith alone.

Noah may well have had very little more than we do, when we hear God speak to us.  He "heard", whatever that process involved, but once God had spoken, Noah had to take God at His Word and trust in Him to do what He said He was going to do, as unheard of as it was.  Remember, it never rained in the pre-flood world in the manner in which it does today.  Noah was trusting God to do something totally unique in the absence of any evidence that such a thing could happen, let alone ever had.  He had to walk by faith - alone.  Fortunately, he did.

Abraham was facing the same dilemma.  God spoke, and made promises, and Abraham had to walk by faith.  The Bible tells us "Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."  A man who had not fathered a child by his seventy-fifth year was asked to believe he would have a child, and a great and uncountable nation of people would flow from him and his progeny.  He was promised a piece of land he would never personally own.  He was told that through him all of the world would be blessed.  Then God told him to leave home and family and just trust God to bless him and make him prosperous and a father of nations.  And Abraham believed.  He believed so strongly that though while he had been a childless man his name, Abram, meant "exalted father," at the Word of God he accepted the new name which meant "the father of nations".

Moses returned to Egypt trusting God and led a nation of slaves out from the most powerful nation on earth at that time.  Joshua led the attack on Jericho by marching with the men of war around the city once a day for six days, and on the seventh day marching around it seven times, then blowing the horns, and then shouting.  That was what God promised would take down the walls of this well-fortified city.  It sounds silly and highly unlikely to have any chance of working – but Joshua believed, and obeyed, and as a consequence, the walls of the city fell flat.  It was by faith alone.

And a shepherd boy became a great king – by faith.  And prophets did wonderful things through faith, trusting God to do what He promised He would.  Elijah battled the prophets of Baal with sacrifices and proclaimed the start of a drought and the end of it three years later by faith.  Elisha cured leprosy, provided for the widow of Zarephath, and even raised a dead boy back to life through faith.  The nation Israel waited, often in unfaithfulness but always with some who remained faithful, for God to accomplish the sending of the Savior.  Under Zechariah, the people of Israel returned from their captivity in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem by faith.  All of these great things happened by faith alone.  The people who participated in them had to take God at His Word, and trust Him to do what He had promised.

Even the birth narratives of the New Testament are examples of the Old Testament faith.  When Zachariah faced Gabriel, it was before Christ was born.  There was no New Testament faith to be had.  His Old Testament faith taught him to walk by faith alone, and when he spoke the prophetic words of the Benedictus, following the birth of John, he could only speak those words by faith.  Even Mary was believing the ancient promises of a Messiah when she humbly accepted the visitation of the Lord as spoken by Gabriel to her.  It was the Old Testament faith, grounded firmly in faith alone, and not in human behavior or particularly auspicious conditions surrounding her, that caused her to believe that what the angel spoke could possibly be true – and to face the obvious risks in the culture in which she lived and in her own personal situation.  It was faith alone.

God has always dealt with His people in the light of faith.  Adam and Eve had a problem taking God at His Word and trusting Him.  Their sin was fundamentally unbelief.  From that moment on, God has dealt with His people with promises and has looked for faith, and counted faith – and not personal conduct primarily – for righteousness.  The circumstances changed repeatedly throughout history, but the fundamental truth of Faith Alone has remained unaltered.

It was unaltered, but largely forgotten by the time Luther came along.  He brought back into the light the principle of salvation by faith alone.  Your sins are forgiven through faith, when you hear of Christ's death and resurrection on your behalf, and believe it is true and trust God that it applies to you personally, and actually expect God to do all that He has promised to do.  We stand with the same equipment that the men and women of God have possessed all through history – God's Word and promise, and faith which trusts such Word of God.

Typically, the first Wednesday in Advent carries the theme, "He was promised".  Our theme was different, but the faith of the Old Testament people was in that promise of God.  They looked for the Savior for somewhere near four thousand years, learning more about what God was going to do with each prophecy.  We look back our two thousand years to see what God did, and to hear his clear promise of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation through Jesus Christ – all of which we take hold of by faith alone or not at all.  Although our time and place in history is different, and unique in its own ways, it is still the same as the Old Testament faith, grounded in what we now call a Reformation principle or a Reformation truth – Faith Alone.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)