Sunday, March 17, 2024

What Are You Hearing?

 John 8:46-47

"Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God."

Sermon for Judica Sunday                                                                  03/17/24

What Are You Hearing?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Let me present you with a conundrum, this morning.  One truth that we have observed is that how you look at something will determine what you see, what is reality for you.  A second truth is that reality shapes your perceptions, that is, what is around you and happens to you determines, to a large extent, what you observe or how you observe it.  The conundrum, or puzzle, is this:  which truth is most persuasive in your life?

First, we observe that who you are and what your prejudices and values are can shape what you perceive.  A situation may be seen as a failure, or an opportunity.  A helping hand may be perceived as a kind thing, or as condescension, as a ‘leg-up' or as an attempt to weaken and disable someone.  How often does it happen that something you think of as good is described by someone else as a bad thing?  It happens frequently in political debate.  This power of perception to change reality for you is at least partially responsible for the animosity of the radical Muslims for America.  They perceive our freedom as an evil thing, a fundamentally immoral condition that must be eradicated.  Clearly, how you look at things changes the reality of what they are for you, and how they function in your life.

The same example of Islam also demonstrates how reality shapes your perceptions.  It is his poverty and his commitment to a certain kind of Islamic thought that causes a Muslim to think of liberty as dangerous.  Other examples might include the seemingly bizarre attitudes of the "woke" crowd, or how a woman might perceive certain things differently than a man simply because she is a woman, or how the reality that something has never been accomplished before causes people to perceive it to be impossible , or beyond their reach.  I often use the example of Roger Bannister, the first man ever to run a recorded mile in less than four minutes.  It was May 6th, 1954.  He ran the mile in just six tenths of a second less than four minutes, but he was the first man to accomplish it in well over a century of people trying.  His record nevertheless was broken in less than three months, and the current record is three minutes forty-three point thirteen seconds, set in 1999.  Until Roger Bannister did it, everyone thought it was impossible, and once he did it, they all knew they could, and they did.

Our text is another example of the conundrum.  It is also a deeper mystery which amazes us, and gives us cause to praise God, totally disallows decision theology, and finally asks us to ask ourselves the question that is our theme this morning, "What do you hear?"

"He who is of God hears the words of God."  Here is the conundrum presented.  Who you are, the reality, shapes what you can perceive - the Word of God.  Everyone who was listening to Jesus was hearing the same words, weren't they?  Yet they were not all believing what Jesus said - in other words, they were not perceiving what they heard to be the Word of God, nor "hearing" it in the sense that they believed it and understood the truth of His words.  Jesus said that the reason they could not perceive that it was the Word of God was the reality of who they were - or, more precisely, who they were not.  They were not "of God."

Before our text, in John, chapter 8, Jesus preached that unless they came to know Him and trust in Him they would die in their sins.  He explained that He was the Savior, the Messiah who was prophesied.  Then He said, "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  It was that passage which caused them to rebel.  They said [they] were Abraham's children and that they had never been enslaved!  How dare He say such a thing!

Jesus explained that He was talking about sin, and being a slave to sin.  He told them that He knew the evil in their hearts, their desire to kill Him, and that they were doing the will of their father - meaning Satan.  They challenged Jesus and He responded with the truth of who He was and who they were, and finally came to the words which form our text.  And Jesus explained that because they did not believe in God, or know Him, they could not believe what Jesus said, either.  Their reality, as unbelievers, and therefore servants of the devil, made it impossible for them to understand correctly or believe the Word of God.  Their reality informed their perception, and their perception changed the nature of the reality of what they were hearing from the precious and life-giving Word of God, to something confusing and obnoxious, and unbelievable.

First, let me show you how this answers the false doctrine of decision theology so decisively.  No one who is not "of God" can hear, that is properly understand or believe, the Word of God - as Jesus demonstrates in our Gospel this morning and teaches in clear words.  So, obviously, no unbeliever can hear, properly understand, or believe the Word of God, either the law or the Gospel.  So how would anyone find the wisdom to choose to be a Christian, and "decide for Christ," when they cannot understand the Gospel or believe it because they cannot "hear" the Word of God until they are "of God"?  Decision theology calls God a liar, which is what Jesus was talking about when He asked them which of them convicts Him of sin, and why don't they believe His words - which obviously the Arminian (the ones who believe that being and becoming a Christian is accomplished by an exercise of their free wills) is also doing.  They deny Christ's honesty and truth by claiming to be able to decide for Christ.

Anyhow, the question the text raises for you is "what are you hearing?"  

When God's Word is preached, what do you hear?  "He that is of God hears the words of God."  As it was back then, so today, it is often difficult to listen to, and sometimes is not inviting to believe.

We are happy to hear good things, which is why every television evangelist rips the promises of God out of their context and waves them about to impress the crowd.  They tell the people what they want to hear, instead of telling them the truth.  When they hear the truth, they violently reject it.  Oddly, people generally don't mind the law so much as the Gospel.  The promises of God are disconnected from the context in which they are spoken, and severed from the context of faith and salvation, and made to sound like God wants everyone to be rich, or God is going to make everyone eternally blessed, without regard to their life, or their relationship to Him.

The people who preach these things do not hear the Word of God, and so they preach the doctrines of demons, designed to lead the flock before them astray.  The crowd that listens, and raises their hands in a fit of "spiritual ecstasy" at these distortions of God's Word are denied the truth, and find their satisfaction in the false teachings of their preachers, to their destruction.

You, however, know better.  You have heard the truth.  Sometimes the Law is hard to listen to – but it is the Word of God.  The Jews that Jesus spoke to could not listen to the law either.  They wanted a law they could keep.  They wanted the honor and respect of being the chosen people and the children of Abraham, and they would reject anything, including the Gospel, that denied them the respect and glory they felt that they deserved.  We sometimes find the law too demanding, and discover that it does not fit into our lives here in Minnesota.  It asks - no, . . . it demands too much from us.  It seems to want our time and our money and then, we are supposed to feel all guilty and ashamed - and that is simply not comfortable with us.

But the truth is that you spend your money on yourselves far more freely than you spend it on the Word of God.  You take your time, and your trips and your family get-togethers and your entertainments far more seriously - and sometimes more frequently, than you take worship, or fellowship with the saints around Word and Sacrament.  Your time and your energy are focused on yourselves much more religiously than on your faith, or on the work which God has set before you as an individual member of His body, or before the body of Christ to which you belong, right here.  And when I say those sorts of things, it makes you mad - or at least really uncomfortable.  So, when that happens, what are you hearing?  Are you hearing the Word of God?  How is your reality shaping your perceptions?  How are your perceptions shaping your reality around you?

You should feel guilty, and ashamed at times.  You should be prodded by the Law into self-examination.  And you will find sin.  I know that you will because when I hear the same words that I preach to you, I am accused, and I must wrestle with my own sins and selfishness, and the coldness of my devotions and prayers.

But I also hear the Gospel.  I hear it because I preach it.  Jesus knew what a ‘rotter' I am, and how I could not turn away from my sins because I am a slave of sin in my flesh.  So He redeemed me - and He redeemed you.  He traded His holiness and righteousness for your sins and mine and took the judgment of God against us on His shoulders, bore the sentence of the wrath of God against us on the cross.  "He was wounded for our transgressions.  He was bruised for our iniquities.  The whipping that wins peace for us was laid upon His back, and with His stripes, we are healed."  "He was made sin for us, He who knew no sin of His own, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!"  His death on the cross was ours, taken for us.  And we have been given His righteousness and holiness and the love of God which He has merited, and the everlasting life which He has earned is now ours by His gift!

Are you a sinner?  Not in Him!  Should you feel guilty and ashamed?  NO!  Not if you believe that in Jesus Christ you are cleansed, redeemed, forgiven, and beloved of God.  He has declared you "Not guilty!"  "‘Come now, and let us reason together,' Says the LORD, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.'" Those words are the Gospel - God's Word.  What are you hearing?

The Gospel is forgiveness and life - but only for sinners.  People who cannot hear the Law, that Word of God, cannot hear the Gospel rightly either.  They hear the words, they just don't receive them as God's Words.  And why is that?  "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them," – if it may be said about you that you cannot find your comfort in Christ – "because you are not of God."

You should never feel really pleased about who you are apart from Christ, or how you handle things on your own wisdom and power.  You should find that peace only in Jesus Christ, who has reconciled you with the Father, and redeemed you from your sins, and counts you as perfectly holy, with His own righteousness.  The things of daily life, they will always be something short of right and good.  Our sinful flesh will see to that.  It doesn't mean we don't try to be good, it means we know the truth.  We try, and we fall short of perfection.  But our hope is built on Jesus Christ, and His perfect righteousness, and His atoning, propitiatory, redemptive death on our behalf.  And His resurrection, of course, where the Heavenly Father proclaims that this sacrifice for sin was sufficient and paid the price of our corruption completely by raising Jesus from the dead.

What are you hearing?  It is life, and peace, and forgiveness, and joy.  It is the Word of God, and it meant for your ears, and your hearts, and your consciences.  To doubt either the law or the gospel is to call Jesus a liar, and I know that none of you would want to do that.  Jesus said, in our Gospel this morning, "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death."

So, what are you hearing?

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

Sunday, March 10, 2024

More Than You will Ever Need

 John 6:1-15


After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).  And a great multitude was following Him, because they were seeing the signs which He was performing on those who were sick.  And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.  Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.  Jesus therefore lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to Him, said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?"  And this He was saying to test him; for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.  Philip answered Him, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little."

One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?"  Jesus said, "Have the people sit down."  Now there was much grass in the place.  So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

Jesus therefore took the loaves; and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted.  And when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost."  And so they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten.  When therefore the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world."  Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Sermon for Laetare Sunday                                    03/10/24

More Than You Will Ever Need

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One of the challenges for Christians at this time in history is understanding what we can trust in God for, and how much we dare to trust in Him.  That has always been a challenge, I suppose, but, in our day and age, we are farther removed from the magical and mystical and miraculous.  We have centuries of "modern" men telling us that the miraculous is not possible and cannot touch our lives.  Even when people talk earnestly about trusting God they usually are speaking about something seemingly ephemeral and distant, like salvation.  Many times, we tend to make that shift in meaning in our own minds too.  If it isn't immediately tangible, we tend to place it in the category of "not quite real".

Our Gospel lesson stands as a testimony against such thinking.  The Apostle John means to tell us what we can trust God for, and how much we can trust God.  He shows us that even the disciples originally had trouble imagining just how far we can trust God.  The lesson here is that we can trust God for everything He has promised – which is everything we need.  Add to that thought that we can trust Him absolutely – as long as we are trusting in Him and not merely treating Him as our concierge.   When you trust in God, our text illustrates for us that you will have more than you will ever need.  And that is our theme this morning.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus was healing the sick - and we might presume teaching, as well.  A great crowd was following Him, thousands of people.  Some probably wanted to be healed, or have a family member healed.  Some probably came to see Jesus do miracles.  Others followed Him to hear Him teach, and believed that He was someone worth listening to.  

John mentions that it was the season of the Passover, not so much to tell us what time of year it was, but to connect the events of this account to the Passover theologically.  Passover was, as you know, the great rescue by God from slavery in Egypt.  He rescued His people with signs and miracles and great power.  God brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness and provided for them - for forty years.  God fed His people with Manna - and He demonstrated Himself to the nation, Israel, as their God, the One in whom they could trust.  He made a covenant with them in the wilderness, and it all began with the Passover.  And it is this connection with caring for the people, and feeding them miraculously, and showing Himself to be their God and giving evidence that they could trust Him and depend on Him, that probably warranted mentioning that "the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand."

So, Jesus feeds the entire crowd, much to everyone's amazement, starting out with just five loaves and two fish.  The loaves were probably about the size of an eight inch tortilla, and about an inch or so thick.  John gives us no information on the size of the fish, but I am guessing that the young boy was not carrying a pair of twenty-pound carp or eighty-pound catfish with him.  Even if he had been, they would have been woefully insufficient to feed the roughly five thousand people who were fed that day.

Jesus began with less food than it probably would have taken to satisfy the Twelve disciples.  And when they were all done and everyone in the crowd was satisfied, the disciple gathered up the leftover pieces - the ones big enough to bother saving, and they ended up with twelve full baskets of bread pieces.  The baskets were likely somewhere between the size of a five quart ice-cream pail and a five gallon bucket, according to the Greek word used to name them, but the point is that when everyone had eaten all that they wanted, and were satisfied, they had several times more in left-overs than what they had when they started in the first place.

The people there were so impressed by what Jesus did, which makes sense, that they decided to seize Jesus and force Him to be their king.   They knew a good thing when they saw it, and they reacted to free food the same way we do - get it while the getting's good.  Jesus perceived that they were planning this action, and He slipped away without them noticing, and went up on the mountain alone to pray.

Now that we have rehearsed the details, we have to ask ourselves, what does this tell us?  I imagine the answer depends on how much you want to see.  Jesus was facing an insurmountable task.  He was going to feed five thousand people with little or no food.  The situation was huge and the resources for it were extremely limited, and yet Jesus accomplished it.  He fed those five thousand people and He had more left over - many times more - than He had when He started.

In the light of this lesson, What needs or troubles can we imagine that Jesus cannot handle for us?  

What tasks are we facing that we feel we lack the resources to accomplish?  

How much of our doing what Jesus gives us to do actually depends on us?

These are the sorts of questions you should ask yourself.  It would probably be helpful if you were honest with yourselves when you answered, too.  The trouble we often have is that we don't really expect Jesus to really help.  Not in things like real food or immediate, physical needs.  We don't want to start things until we have a sense that we can succeed.  We don't really expect divine intervention at any point.  And so, when we finish, and have succeeded, we feel like we accomplished it.  We church-types often piously say that this is the thing that the Lord has made, all the while still thinking that we actually did it.

One truth is that we tend not to start anything - even as a congregation - we don't think we can finish.  It isn't that we don't think we should do it, it is just that we want to be confident we have the resources to do it before we begin.  Well, according to this Gospel from John, with Jesus, we have the resources.  We have more than you will ever need.  If Jesus give us the task, He will see it through to completion.

Does that mean that we don't count the cost, or plan, or try to be wise about what we do and how we do it?  No.  We have to think, and Jesus calls on us to act - you know, do the things that need to be done.  We are to do what we believe we have been given to do, and approach it with confidence that Jesus will bring us through to success, if what we are doing is what He wants done.  In our Gospel, the disciples were asked to prepare the people for food.  Jesus said, "Have the people sit down."   They did not have food, nor did they know how they would feed all those people - but they did what Jesus gave them to do, and Jesus accomplished what appeared impossible just before He did it.

This miracle is not the only time Jesus did the impossible.  It is not even the most impressive time.  The most impressive example of doing the impossible is when He rescued us from our own sins.  The verdict of God from the very beginning was that when one sinned, that individual would die.  "The soul that sins, it shall die."  That was the judgment of God.  Sin, to put it simply, earned death - and that death was more than just physical.  It included eternal torment and suffering.  That was what God wanted to rescue us from.  His nature, however, would not allow Him to just ignore our sins and pretend that they had not happened, however.  That would have made God unjust and an accessory to our sins.  He had to punish them, and punish them with death, as He stipulated originally.  But His goal was to preserve us alive and rescue us from our condemnation.

He did that by sending Jesus.  He sent the Second Person of the Trinity, true God and yet, not the Father.  He was made incarnate - that is He took on flesh and blood, and became a true man as Mary heard the Word of God with faith and bowed her head and said, "Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord, Let it happen to me just as you have said it would."  With that, Mary became pregnant, conceiving in her womb the child who would be born nine months later and be named "Savior", or literally "God is Salvation" - Jesus.

Jesus kept the Law which man refused to keep.  He lived without sin, just as He required of Adam and Eve and all of their children.  They did not obey, but Jesus did.  He obeyed God, as Scripture puts it, even to the point of death on a cross.  Having fulfilled all righteousness, He deliberately gave up what He had earned and now deserved - life without end in the favor of God the Father - and took in exchange our guilt, our shame, and our condemnation, and our death.  

Every step of the way He endured the taunting and tempting of the devil, and resisted.  During the hours just before His execution, when a word would have set Him free He kept silent.  When silence would have served Him, He spoke.  Everything He said was true, but it was also spoken with the full consciousness that it would ignite their anger and cause them to continue to march Him to the cross.

He died deliberately for us.  Because He is God He is of greater value than all of us combined, so His one death redeemed us all.  Because He has taken our death, He now has the right to give to us the life eternal which He has earned.  And He pours that treasure out upon all people everywhere, without consideration of their worthiness or holiness.  He has appointed faith as the means by which we receive and hang onto this treasure of grace.  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

Further, He knows that we are, by nature, not able to trust Him or love Him by virtue of our own corruption in sin, so He sends His Holy Spirit out through the preaching of His Word to work faith in the hearts of those that hear the good news of this Gospel.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  Now, all who hear have the Holy Spirit at work in them.  Many reject that work, and deny God's goodness, grace, and mercy.  They are those represented in the parable of the sower by soil of the hard-trodden path upon which the seed falls, and the birds of the air eat the seed up.  They had the treasure delivered to them, but they rejected it for something or someone else.  But anyone that believes, which is accomplished only by the very work of the Holy Spirit within them, has life everlasting, and resurrection from their graves to come, and God is with them even now, day by day.

The feeding of the five thousand reminds us that we can trust God in Jesus Christ in all things, and that He will provide abundantly.  That provision isn't just for in the sky, bye and bye.  He provides for us now, each according to His good plan for our service for Him.  He provides food and clothing and the needs of this life, and lots of our wants as well.  He feeds us with His holy body and precious blood in this Sacrament, to strengthen us, and to cleanse us, and to teach us to trust in Him and in His love for us individually, personally.

He also cares for us in our day to day pressures, desires, passions, and temptations.  He does not always give us what we desire, and surely not always what we expect, any more than those five thousand who were fed followed Jesus expecting a meal out there in the wilderness.  He provides what we need, and then some, so that we may accomplish what He has planned for us.

So, let us look to the future and work while it is still day, as we say in that old prayer, before that night comes when no man can work.  Let us do what we believe the Lord would have us do with faith and confidence, trusting that we will have more than you will ever need.

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

Thursday, March 07, 2024

The Servant – From Forgotten to Remembered

 Isaiah 49:8-18

Thus says the LORD, "In a favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped You; And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people, To restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages; Saying to those who are bound, 'Go forth,' To those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves.' Along the roads they will feed, And their pasture will be on all bare heights.  "They will not hunger or thirst, Neither will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And will guide them to springs of water.  "And I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up.  "Behold, these shall come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim."  Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, And will have compassion on His afflicted.

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me."  "Can a woman forget her nursing child, And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.  Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.  Your builders hurry; Your destroyers and devastators Will depart from you.  Lift up your eyes and look around; All of them gather together, they come to you. As I live," declares the LORD, "You shall surely put on all of them as jewels, and bind them on as a bride.

Sermon for Lenten Wednesday #4                                               03/06/24

The Servant of Isaiah
The Servant – From Forgotten to Remembered

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Servant text for tonight depicts the whole Gospel for us once again in the person of the Servant.  The servant is called "Zion" at one point in our text, and several Gospel allusions dot the prophecy before us tonight.  Tonight we will look at the Gospel, and our Servant of the Lord, under the theme, "The Servant – From Forgotten to Remembered".

The prophecy is filled with images we have come to associate with the Gospel, for example, "the day of salvation", the covenant given to us in the person of Jesus, the springs of water, Jesus called it "living water . . . a well of water springing up to eternal life", mountains being brought down to become a road and valleys being lifted up, being inscribed on the palm of His hands, and the bride.

All of these images are familiar in both the Old and the New Testaments.  Because the Gospel is the victory of Christ, which He has already won, it is easy to pass right by the pain and trouble of our Lord in getting there.  Our prophecy tonight reminds us of what it must have been like for the Servant of the Lord.  Isaiah gives voice to the Servant, But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me."  We know that this speaks about Jesus because we remember His cry from the cross, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?"

This is the sorrow that filled the heart of our Lord as He bore the wrath of God against our sins.  He was alone, and although He is God, the Son was utterly alone, abandoned by the Father and the Holy Spirit in His agonies on our behalf.  Surely He felt forgotten.  He must have known, somewhere deep inside of Him, that God would not abandon Him, and yet He had to bear our human nature, too.  He had to bear that sense of being alone, forsaken and forgotten, which, for one Person of the Trinity, forever One with the Father and the Holy Spirit, must have been exquisite torment.  And He was alone, for He was facing the wrath of God over sin, and enduring our penalty in our place.

But He was not forgotten, and He had not forgotten His Father.  When His task was complete, and He had finished all that He had come to do, He commended His soul into the Father's hands, and died a truly human death.  He died the same sort of death every man, woman, and child must one day face - the separation of body and soul.  And the resurrection proves that He was not forgotten, but remembered.  Isaiah describes it in this prophecy in these words, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you."

The questions are rhetorical.  Of course a woman who is nursing her child ordinarily cannot forget the child, and mothers are notorious for their patience and compassion when it comes to their children.  Sometimes they are too patient and compassionate.  Yet God says that even a mother is more likely to forget her child, sitting in her lap and nursing, than God the Father is to forget His Son, and He will be more compassionate than a tender-hearted mother.

Here, next, is where the prophecy becomes difficult.  The prophet swings from talking about the Servant to talking about the people of God, and he makes that change quickly and without any segue.   Sometimes the same words seem to be spoken about both the servant and the people of God.  That is because the Servant is the one-man representative of the entire people of God.  He is Israel, and He is Zion!  And yet, so are we.  When Isaiah writes, Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me, I cannot help but think of the marks of the nails in the palms of Christ.  We have truly been inscribed on the palms of His hands.  The walls which the prophet describes as standing continually before Him are the walls of Zion, the city of God, and the temple of God, which is to say, us.  Peter says it explicitly in His first epistle, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  We are that temple, and we are that Zion, and just as the Servant cannot be forgotten by the Father, so we too are indelibly etched on His hands and never to be forgotten.

The Servant, once forgotten and forsaken, is remembered, and we are remembered with Him.  It is that which makes this the day of salvation in which our Lord has helped us, as Isaiah spoke.  The Servant has made us the people who will neither hunger or thirst, as Jesus illustrated by His feeding of the five thousand on one occasion and the four thousand on another.  He makes all His mountains a road, as Isaiah describes it, because He does not bring things down to our level, but raises us up to His level by the gifts of grace and by bringing us at last into His glory in eternity.  Out of the bitterness of being forsaken and forgotten, He has brought us into the glorious light of His glory.

Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, o mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, and will have compassion on His afflicted.  The compassion of the Lord rescues us from the death we have earned by our sin.  He comforts us with the promise of resurrection from our graves and life everlasting.  We are the ones spoken of by Isaiah, Say to those who are bound, 'Go forth,' To those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves.' Along the roads they will feed, And their pasture will be on all bare heights..  "They will not hunger or thirst, Neither will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And will guide them to springs of water."  The bondage is the bondage of the funeral attire.  It was familiar to the ancient Israelites because they would bind their dead with cloths before burial.  We read about those bindings in the account of the raising of Lazarus, and in the burial of Jesus.  The darkness from which the prophets says we are to be released is the darkness of the tomb.  The blessedness he then describes is the blessedness of paradise, beyond death and sorrow and all of the difficulties of this life, beyond hunger or thirst, beyond scorching heat so familiar to those who lived in the arid middle east..

The final note from this prophecy of Isaiah is where Isaiah writes,  As I live," declares the LORD, "You shall surely put on all of them as jewels, and bind them on as a bride." Here he is speaking of those who gather to worship Him.  The image is not identical to the one we are accustomed to, but it strongly suggests the New Testament image, patterned after much in the Old Testament, of the Church as the Bride of Christ.

Our theme is, "The Servant – From Forgotten to Remembered".  We have made the transition with the Servant.  He was forgotten so that we might be remembered.  Now He has remembered us, and the promise set before us tonight is that we will go forth in joy with Him for eternity.  All of our hope and confidence rests upon the Servant, spoken of in Isaiah, and made flesh in Jesus Christ our Lord.

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

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Christus Victor

 Luke 11:14-28

And He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb; and it came about that when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.  But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons."  And others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls.  And if Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.  And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges.  But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder.  He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.

"When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.'  And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first."

And it came about while He said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."  But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it."

Sermon for Oculi Sunday                                                                  03/03/24

Christus Victor

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Sometimes following Jesus – even just believing in Jesus – is a difficult thing.  He says things that don't mesh with our world-view.  He does things that are unexpected.  Oh, we expect the things He does in the Bible, because the Bible has been there all of our lives and so it may seem to make sense to us.  What God was doing back then didn't make sense to everyone back then, any more than the things that God is doing today - or putting us through - make sense to us today, at times.  Even when it did make sense, it wasn't what they wanted to hear or wanted to see and so they chafed against it and rebelled against it.  Jesus called them on it, and explained the truth to them so that we would see it today.  

Our theme this morning is "Christus Victor", which means "Christ the Victor" or "Christ is the Victor".   I chose those words because of Jesus' words in our text, "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters."  Let us consider the words of Jesus today and see what it means in our lives day-to-day that Christ is the Victor.

Our Gospel opens with Jesus casting out a demon.  You would think that would be a good thing, wouldn't you?  His adversaries found fault with Him anyhow.  They said that He was in league with the devil, and that was how He was casting out demons.  They were cooperating with Him.  The truth of the matter was that everyone who saw it was impressed. They were flabbergasted! The text says that "the crowds marveled."  They all knew that such a thing came from God - but to the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes of the Temple, it was an awful blow.  This Jesus was just getting out of hand.  How do you compete with a man who can do the things Jesus could do?  And it was so clearly from God that they felt compelled to try to diminish Jesus' authority and stature with the people before they lost all influence with the people themselves.

So they made up the "in league with the devil" thing.  They didn't think it through, they just said what they thought would hurt Jesus in the eyes of the people.  Others of their number were demanding that Jesus do something really impressive, something clearly ‘a sign from heaven' to prove Himself to them.  It was just like politics today: say anything, however absurd, and keep saying stuff until something sticks!  Think about it – He was doing things only God can do, and He was so clearly God's man that the religious leaders felt the only way to diminish Him in the eyes of the people was to pretend that either He was in league with Satan or that He had done nothing special, and so they needed proof before they could believe what was painfully obvious to them in the first place.  Makes sense, eh?

Jesus responded by pointing out their flawed thinking - if the devil is working against himself, how could he possibly succeed?  Then He confronted them with the question of why they accused only Him of being in league with the devil.  When others did these sorts of things – or tried to, the critics never challenged them.  But, as we say today, ‘what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.'  If Jesus was in league with Satan [they even used the spooky sounding name Beelzebul (or Beelzebub) for the devil - the Lord of the Flies, or the God of the Demons.  They were working on the creep-em-out factor.  Jesus responded by asking, who are the others in league with, you know the ones of which you approve - and the ones everyone else believes are good, godly men?  Consequently, Jesus said, they shall be your judges.

Then He made the point out loud that His adversaries wanted to avoid the people making in their own heads - if Jesus was doing this by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has come among them - that is, the Savior is here.  Their plot to discredit Jesus backfired, and opened the door for Jesus to make explicit what had been only implicit before.  Jesus was the Victor there.

We are often tempted to do something very much like those adversaries of Jesus did.  If we don't like the direction the Lord is leading us, we try to cast it into terms that favor our preferences and deny the leading of the Lord.  I am talking about times when, where God seems to be taking us is going to take too much of our time, or too much of our attention, or too much of our energy, or too much of our money.  You know, when being the kind of Christian that Jesus talks about, and the Apostles taught us about, is not compatible with our modern individualism.  It is the sort of situation in which our rights and our liberties stand at odds to the sort of commitment that faithfulness to Christ seems to demand.  We want to believe that lukewarm Christianity is better than no Christianity at all - in open denial of what Jesus said in Revelation 3:16, in the letter to the church at Laodicea, "'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth."

Our vacations and our family visits and our other ditherings seem to be challenged by the concept of faithfulness to Christ and His people.  Our hobbies and our toys and our entertainments seem to be threatened by the demands of genuine Christian faith and commitment.  When we feel that tug of conscience, we want to make the preacher back up a little and lighten up - sort of like the Pharisees wanted Jesus to back off and shrink in the estimation of the people.

Jesus answered them with a couple of parables: the Parable of the Strong Man Guarding His Home, and the Parable of the Unclean Spirit.  These are different answers than you might expect in the heat of conflict.  Jesus tells a parable on the devil - Satan is the strong man who guards his house until a stronger man than he comes and takes everything away.  Jesus is the stronger man.  Consequently, those who try to prop up the devil, even inadvertently, are working against Jesus.  The only way to work with Jesus is to be deliberately and clearly on His side.  Neutrality, lukewarm-ness, and just not being involved, all serve the devil - He who is not with me is against me - and He who does not gather with me scatters.

Then Jesus describes First Century Israel as the house of the unclean spirit that has been driven out.  He was driven out by the coming of Jesus Himself.  But when Jesus has gone, the devil will return, and since Israel rejects Jesus, the last state is worse than the first, and the evil of the last state is far deeper than the first.  That worsened condition is described as the first spirit bringing seven more spirits, more foul than himself, to live with him.  And look at Israel, the people.  They no longer hope for the Messiah.  They actively oppose Him.  They were once at least the people of the covenant before Jesus came, even if they failed to keep it, and they once had the Word and the prophets.  

Today they are empty, and the religion of the covenant is now pagan and idolatrous, because their Savior - their God - has come, and they rejected Him.  They chose the familiar, and the personally preferable to the true and the saving.

He who is not with me is against me' is Jesus' way of saying Solo Christo - in Christ alone - to the Jews of His day.  If we are not pulling on the oars with Him, we are dragging the anchor.  If we are not working together with one another faithfully in the church, we stand guilty of working against Jesus Himself.

One of the women there that day was so impressed with the wisdom and truth of what Jesus said that she cried out, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."  She meant to praise Him for His wisdom and holiness - good things, but Jesus answered her, and answered those who had been made to feel foolish by His response.  He indicated that the really significant thing was not how impressed they might be with Him, but how they dealt with God's Word.  He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it."  The true blessedness is in believing the Word of God both with your mind and with your life - not just thinking it is true, but living as though it is true.

That Word says that your sins are forgiven.  Jesus took the wrath of God against you and your sins and suffered on the cross what you have earned including death itself.  He died that you might live.  He bore your sins that you might be forgiven and live in holiness before Him.  Believe that Word!  What a wonderful gift - and what a wonderful Gospel.  Believe it with your mind and believe it with your actions.

Do we dare to behave like the Pharisees were behaving, as though this wondrous good news is not so special as it seems?  Can it be that faithfulness and holiness can take a back seat in the life of a true believer to the pleasures and priorities of modern American life, with all its wealth and possibilities?  Jesus and His obvious God-connections were getting in the way of the plans and priorities of the leaders of the Temple religion, and, although they saw the truth, they thought that they could cool it down and re-prioritize things safely.

Faith in Christ and true faithfulness will call us to changing our behaviors, re-aligning our priorities, doing things first which we would rather leave for later.  You probably feel the tug-of-war in yourself between what you kind-sorta think you ought to be doing as a faithful child of God, and member of this body here (or at your home church), on the one hand, and the tug to enjoy what is yours, take the time for yourself, do what is every American's right to do, and call Christ unreasonable for suggesting (even though it is your own mind doing all the talking) that you live sacrificially as a deliberate Christian rather than self-indulgently as one who has every right to own, to do, or to go as you please.

Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.  The strong man in your life has been destroyed, and Jesus has taken his place - by taking your place on the cross.  He has set you free - from sin, and from the slavery to yourself and your flesh - to serve Him.  "Sin shall not be master over you, for you are no longer under law, but under grace."
So, what should you do?

I'm not going to tell you.  I cannot.  

Believe the Word of God, of course.  Walk in faith.  Live every moment in the presence of God, and in the light of His love for you and the marvelous gift of your forgiveness and salvation. 


 And remember the principle, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver."  That applies to your time.  It applies to your morals.  It applies to your energy.  It applies to your talents.  It applies to your entertainments, and it applies, finally, also to your money.  

You have the Word of God, now how you respond, by the power of God within you, is up to you.  Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.  And here, too Christ is victor!

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

Monday, February 26, 2024

Persistent Faith

 Matthew 15:21-28

And Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.  And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."  But He did not answer her a word.  And His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, "Send her away, for she is shouting out after us."

But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"

And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."  Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.

Sermon for Reminiscere Sunday                                           02/25/24

Persistent Faith


My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Gospel, this morning, is a wonderful account of a woman in prayer, and, in the words of Jesus, expressing a profound faith.  It is sort of like situations that we find ourselves in at times.  Our situations are not always as extreme as this woman's, and our results are not always as much the way we desire them to be as this woman's results were, but she can serve us as a lesson, illustrating the way prayer works, and demonstrating how faith works as well.  This woman had a persistent faith.  And that is our theme, this morning; Persistent Faith.

The narrative is simple and clear.  Jesus is walking with his disciples, minding His own business.  He seems to be trying to avoid just the sort of attention that this woman gives Him.  I say "seems to be" because I suspect Jesus knew she was there and what would happen if He withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon on that particular day.  Jesus was walking through Gentile territory, where it might be reasonable to think that people would not pester Him - since they were not Jews and not looking for the day of the coming of the Messiah.  That would appear to be part of His thinking, although He might have known where this woman was, and sought out her opportunity for her.  In any case, as He is walking, this Canaanite woman comes out to meet Him on His way, crying out after Him about her daughter.  

And Jesus ignores her.  Wow.  Is that a familiar feeling?  We pray and pray and hear nothing, and see nothing happening, and wonder if God is going to intervene in our situation on our behalf.

The woman seems undeterred.  She continues to follow Jesus and cry out to Him.  She confesses faith in Him by calling out to Him as the ‘Son of David', a Messianic title.  She acknowledges Him for who He is, Lord and Savior, the promised One of God.  His disciples, on the other hand only notice that she is continuing her caterwauling and ask Jesus to send her away and give them some peace.  Apparently, this goes on for a while, as Matthew notes that she continues to call out after them, and Matthew says the disciples "kept asking Him" to send her away.

Finally, Jesus speaks to the woman.  He tells her that He "was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  These were words of dismissal and rejection.  I have no business with you, is what it meant.  Worse than getting no answer at all, she seems to meet an affirmative rejection.  She doesn't seem to take notice of that.  What she notices is that He is paying attention to her, and talking with her, even if it is just to tell her to go away.  She seems encouraged by this and renews her plea, "Lord, help me!"

Then Jesus tells her that it is not right to take the bread from the children and throw it to the dogs.  He tells her that He is not there for her, and that it is not right to take what is meant for the children of Israel and give it to Gentiles like her.  He even ends up calling the woman a "dog".  The woman takes it all in stride.  She doesn't even try to argue.  She takes what Jesus says to her and uses it as part of her prayer - saying that if she is a dog, well, even dogs get to lick up the crumbs that fall from their master's table.  She keeps pushing for her need, asking again for he blessing she seeks.  Nothing turns her aside, not rejection, not insults, not being ignored.  She believes that Jesus is able and ultimately wiling to help her, so she continues to pray.

Finally she receives what she asked for.  Jesus speaks admiringly about her faith - "You have great faith, woman!"  We don't know what she knew, or specifically what she believed, but we can see how tenacious it was, how faithfully she believed, and nothing could turn her away!  Responding to her faith, and to her request, Jesus gave her what she wanted, "be it done for you as you wish."  And her daughter was healed at that very moment.

The woman confronted a test of faith, and she passed.  She was clearly not merely a curiosity seeker, or someone who was giving Jesus a try as a last resort, "just in case".  She knew Jesus could help her, and she was confident that He would, even when it seemed otherwise.  So kept praying persistently.

Jesus did not answer her because she bugged Him, or to get her off His back, or even because she was so persistent -He answered her prayer because she trusted in Him to do so.


We also face times when we want or need something, and so we pray.  We should pray like this woman - persistently and believing.  We have far more reason to know Jesus and to trust Him than this poor woman had.  You know who Jesus is, and what He is like, and what He can do, and what His will is like toward you.  So, you should be able to pray  – and pray with confidence, and expect an answer, and pray with persistence until you have what you pray for, or clearly see that it is not going to be the way you want it because God knows a better way or a better answer.

You should never doubt the will of God toward you, sinking to the feeling that God doesn't want to bless you.  I often do not know what to pray for because I want something, but I am not certain that having what I want is the best thing for me or anyone else - and I am uncertain as to what the will of God is, so I pray, but I pray that His will be done.  And I pray that prayer until I see the answer.

But there are times in life that we need or want something so strongly that we want to push God's hands, as it were.  In those cases, although we want to pray, "Thy will be done", we have a strong interest in seeing a particular resolution to the situation.  In such cases, we need to be like this woman, asking God for our outcome, and accepting that although it may not work out the way we want it, we will follow after God and pester Him with out prayers and ask Him until we see the answer, and plead our case before the throne of heaven with persistence - because it pleases God when we do.  He is pleased when we trust in Him and in His good will toward us and we boldly come before Him to pray and plead and seek our relief.  He has commanded that we do so, and He has promised to hear us and answer us.  The Old Testament says, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me."  In the New Testament, Jesus says, "Whatever you ask the Father in My name, believing, He will give it to you."

But be prepared.  You may face a test of faith, too.  God doesn't always answer as quickly as we would like, not does His answer always come the way we expect.  God will let you hang out there for a while, and the old evil foe will be glad to make you frustrated and depressed about the length of time you plead your cause and hear no answer.  Sometimes God is testing you, to see if you trust Him, or if you are just taking a chance that you might get "lucky" and get something out of the prayer.  And, by the way, He already knows the answer, just as Jesus knew the woman would be there, and would jump all of the hurdles because she had such great faith.  Her predicament and her prayers were done, and recorded, for us, and for our learning.

How can you know what the will of God is?  In specific requests, you cannot.  But you do know what His will is toward you.  You know His love, and how deeply He is committed to your welfare.  You can see it on the cross.  The pain and the death of Jesus Christ are the testimony to how far God is willing to go for you.  He became one of us to rescue you.  As Paul observes in Romans 8, if He has gone this far, what can you imagine that He will withhold from you now?  "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?"

The woman in the account had obviously heard about Jesus, but she had not seen much.  She took the word about Jesus to heart and believed - undoubtedly believing because she had heard the Old Testament promises.  You have heard the Old Testament promises, and have seen the New Testament fulfillment - and you have been baptized and have eaten of the Holy Supper.  How much more you have than the woman had.

God will not perform like a trained animal, nor will He do ‘wish fulfillment' like some mail-order catalogue company or Amazon Prime.  He will always be God.  But you know who God is, and what His will toward you is.  And what is the will of God toward you?

So let us face the test of faith, and meet it with persistent faith.  That means we want to act as though the things we say we believe are true - and that we actually believe them.  We cannot give up, or decide that God doesn't want to be good to us any longer.  Doing either of those things means that you are no longer a Christian.  Whether we are praying, or witnessing, or just living out what we confess, we can be faithful.  The things we confess are true, and marvelous, and we can and we must dare to live as though they are true, if we want to be found faithful.

So, trust God when you weigh your moral decisions.  Trust God when you plan your stewardship.  Trust God when you plan you weekly, or your daily schedule.  Trust God when you pray.

And trust God as we worship.  Come and eat and drink and be forgiven and strengthened and equipped for life here, and prepared for everlasting life there.  Consider the Canaanite woman, and her persistent faith, and face your own challenges similarly with a persistent faith.  You can trust God.  Just look at the cross, and you can see how far He will go for you – how far He has already gone!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

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

Thursday, February 22, 2024

The Servant Suffers for Sin

 Isaiah 42:18-25

Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see.  Who is blind but My servant, Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send?  Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me, Or so blind as the servant of the LORD?  You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears.  The LORD was pleased for His righteousness' sake To make the law great and glorious.  But this is a people plundered and despoiled; All of them are trapped in caves, Or are hidden away in prisons; They have become a prey with none to deliver them, And a spoil, with none to say, "Give them back!"  Who among you will give ear to this? Who will give heed and listen hereafter?  Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunderers?  Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, And in whose ways they were not willing to walk, And whose law they did not obey?  So He poured out on him the heat of His anger And the fierceness of battle; And it set him aflame all around, Yet he did not recognize it; And it burned him, but he paid no attention.

Sermon for Lenten Wednesday #2                                           02/21/24

The Servant of Isaiah


The Servant Suffers for Sin


My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The song was called "Everything is Beautiful".  The line from the song is,  "There are none so blind as he who will not see."  The line of the song sounds as if it could have been about the Servant of the Lord.  The difference is that the Prophet is speaking about a sort of blindness of the Servant of the Lord that both leads to and flows from forgiveness.  Our theme this evening is "The Servant Suffers for Sin".

Oddly enough, being blind and deaf is not entirely a bad thing in our text.  It is an unfortunate condition, even spiritually, but God promises wonderful things for the blind and deaf.  Just before our text, Isaiah says that God will rescue the blind and make the darkness light for them.  He promises and then says that He will not fail to do these things for them.  Then our text begins with the invitation – and command – that the deaf hear and the blind see!  These prophecies are why Jesus healed the blind and the deaf.  He wasn't just being a nice guy, He was identifying Himself as the Servant who was going to bear our sins and suffer such awful things.

But the promise in our text was not merely about physical sight and hearing.  Isaiah says, about the people Israel, "You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears." This is a spiritual issue.  The people of Israel have seen and heard the Word of God and yet they act as if they had not.  They do not seem to recognize the promises nor do they trust God in spite of all that He has done for them and spoken to them.  They are spiritually blind and deaf.  Even the threats of disaster have fallen on deaf ears, as they say.  The troubles which God has inflicted on them to awaken them to the danger of their situation does not make them see or understand.

Then comes the Servant of God in the prophecy.  He comes to take their weaknesses and failures and sins, and so He is blind and deaf too.   It is not the same deafness, for the Servant knows God and trusts in Him.  But that is the nature of His blindness.  Who is blind but My servant, Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send?  Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me, Or so blind as the servant of the LORD?  The Servant is at peace with God, and trusts in God, even while He is carrying the guilt of the nation and the sins of the whole world before God, and even though He will receive from the hands of God the punishment due those sins.

Still, the Servant trusts God and is at peace with God as though He does not know what is coming.  It is the mirror image of the blindness of the people. They do not see or hear the love of God or His goodness, and the Servant acts as though He does not see the wrath of God about to fall on Him.  The blindness of the people leads them into greater sin while the blindness of the Servant leads Him into even more glorious righteousness.  The LORD was pleased for His righteousness' sake To make the law great and glorious.  Those words speak about the righteousness of Christ, perfect righteousness, which keeps the whole law.  That holiness lifts up the Law and makes it glorious!  It is in the face of that perfect holiness that the Servant will die, bearing sins that were not His own.

He died for us because we could not rescue ourselves.  But this is a people plundered and despoiled; All of them are trapped in caves, Or are hidden away in prisons; They have become a prey with none to deliver them, And a spoil, with none to say, "Give them back!"  We had no hope in and of ourselves, there was no way for us to redeem or rescue ourselves.  That is what Isaiah is saying here.  We all stood guilty before the Lord, "Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunderers?  Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, And in whose ways they were not willing to walk, And whose law they did not obey?"  Because of our stubborn blindness and deafness we stood justly condemned before the bar of divine justice.  God Himself is our adversary at law.

But the Servant stepped in, blind to the wrath of God and deaf to the warnings of danger.  It was on His own Servant that the Lord poured out His wrath over sin.  So He poured out on him the heat of His anger And the fierceness of battle; And it set him aflame all around, Yet he did not recognize it; And it burned him, but he paid no attention.  The sinless Servant suffered for sinful man.  He endured the wrath of God and agonies of hell to be the One who rescues.  He has become the One who delivers the helpless people and the One to demand that they be given back to the loving care of God the Father, and the One to stop God's people from being prey for the wicked.

Who is so blind that He is at peace with the Lord?  It is the Servant of the Lord.  Jesus had absolute peace with His Father, trusting Him implicitly and explicitly, and doing so in the face of what He knew lay ahead of Him.  He faced God's wrath over against our sins, and still trusted in God and walked faithfully before Him all the days of His life and even on the cross.  That is the blindness of the Servant – the willful blindness of One who sees clearly but refuses to turn either to the left or to the right.  He trusts God and loves God and walks deliberately and unflinchingly into the suffering appointed for Sin.  There are none so blind as He who will not see.  Who is so blind . . . as the servant of the LORD?

 
The Servant of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, suffered just as Isaiah said He would for our sin and rebellion.  We consider that glorious, willful blindness on our behalf this Lenten Wednesday.  Isaiah asks, "Who among you will give ear to this? Who will give heed and listen hereafter?"  We answer, we will!  After all, faith comes by hearing.  The story of ancient Israel was the story of a people who would not hear, who were deaf to God by choice.  That deafness had to be answered by another deafness – the sort that refused to be turned away from God by anything.  And because our Lord was that Servant, He did not listen to the fears or allow Himself to be frightened from His task by what He saw or suffered, and the Servant of God suffered for our sins that we might be saved.  God grant that you hear and believe and give thanks today.

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

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Temptation

 Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.  And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."  But He answered and said, "It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"

Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU'; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'"  Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory; and he said to Him, "All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"  Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

Sermon for Invocavit Sunday                                 02/18/24

Temptation

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

 Our Gospel this morning is probably familiar.  It is the account of the temptation of Jesus by the devil just after His baptism.  These temptations echo in some ways the temptation of Eve.   Jesus was recapitulating the testing of mankind, taking a second run at it if you will, only Jesus didn't fail.  He faced the same sorts of temptations as Adam and Eve, only His were far more dramatic and urgent – and He resisted.  When Jesus resisted the temptations of the devil that day, He passed the test that Eve, and Adam, had failed.  He resisted precisely the temptations that mankind had failed, only tailored just for Him.  And they were far more pressing upon Jesus than upon Eve.  This was part of what He needed to do to earn the perfect righteousness that brings us salvation.

On this day in the life of Jesus, you should notice that the playing field is not quite level.  On the one hand, Jesus is God.  That gives Him an advantage.  On the other hand, He is living in humility, clothed in human flesh and blood and human nature, not accessing all of the powers and prerogatives of God.  That gives the devil an advantage.  Jesus has just spent forty days and forty nights without food.  Matthew highlights the disadvantage to Jesus in saying, seemingly without any real need to, that Jesus was now hungry.  Matthew says it, however, so that we don't get some fancy philosophical notion that Jesus was immune to hunger, and that this wasn't a real test.

Of course, the playing field of temptation is never really level.  You should learn that here and now, if you didn't understand it before.  Everything was pretty much stacked in favor of the devil, when he confronted Jesus.  Things are pretty much that way when he tempts us too.  He cannot grow tired, while we can and do.  He knows our every weakness, while we rarely understand them ourselves.  He is perfectly deceitful, and we are not always expecting to be deceived.  He has tremendous power, particularly among sinners, and we simply do not, particularly when it comes to opposing him.  That is why this lesson is so important for us.  We need to learn from Jesus about the best way to deal with temptation.

The first temptation that Jesus faced was the temptation of food – physical need.  Eve faced it too, when the devil said, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"  He was challenging the goodness of God and the confidence she had in God's providence.  She answered, and in her answer she added to the command of God, suggesting that maybe she thought God was a little unjust, or extreme, or something.

And what was the answer of Jesus?  His answer was the Word of God.  

It is interesting to note that Jesus never went on offense.  I imagine that He could have, but we cannot, and so He did not.  He showed us how to handle temptation when we are tempted.  He did everything He did as One of us.  Instead of claiming power, He claimed the fortress of God's Word.  Jesus expressed His confidence in God:   "It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'" He resisted the temptation to doubt God's provision.  When Eve sinned, she failed that test.  Genesis tells us that one of the reasons that she took fruit from the tree was that the fruit was good to eat.

The second temptation of Jesus listed in Matthew was the one in which the devil took Jesus to a high pinnacle of the temple and tempted Him to jump down, quoting Scriptures and saying, It is written.  You might say, Jesus was being tempted with bad exegesis.  The devil took the Word of God right out of Jesus' hands and used it to tempt Him.  He set before Him an impossible situation, and then said, "Don't you trust God?  Here is His Word saying that He will catch you and take care of you and protect you!"  The temptation came once again with the "If you are the Son of God," clause.  It was as much as saying, "Surely God will do all of this for you, since you are His Son!"  The temptation was to doubt God's Word, and so put God to the test, to see if He would keep His promise.  It was dressed up to look like faith, and it sounded like a legitimate promise, but neither was true.

We face disbelief in God's Word disguised as bad exegesis all of the time.  Nearly every debate about doctrine with another confession is a debate about a misunderstanding of the Word.  Some swear that alcohol is forbidden, so they cannot see using it in church, as we do in communion.  Some cannot comprehend how a child can believe, so they reject baptism for infants.  Some demand that we worship on the Old Testament Sabbath, some insist on the need for keeping the Law, some think that the Jewish people are the chosen people and the true Israel of God, no matter what.  Every one of them marshals Scripture to their cause.  They all have their passages.  And they are all wrong.  They apply half-verses and half-truths just as Satan did, that day against Jesus.

Eve faced the same temptation, when the Devil said,  "You surely shall not die!  For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  The devil was tempting her to doubt the Word and promise of God.  God had spoken the truth about sin and death, and His will, expressed in the single rule they had been given, was not meant to restrict her or deny her anything, but to protect her.  The devil invited her to doubt God's Word about the result of sin - and God's goodness and honesty as well.  Eve doubted God.  Jesus trusted God, and refused to be pushed into a test which would actually show that he did not trust God's Word, but trusted His own judgment more.  Jesus answered with the Word of God – sound doctrine.  He answered a temptation clothed in a Bible quotation with the Scripture which answered the real temptation, "On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

Finally, the devil stopped hiding and simply offered Jesus the easy way.  He knew what Jesus had come to do.  He knew that Jesus could see the cross and all the pain and torment.  He knew that Jesus had years of difficult work ahead, and he offered Jesus the easy route.  Just bow down to me, worship me once, and I will let you off the hook.  You can have the whole kit and kaboodle.  Genuflect to me and recognize me as your superior, worship me as your God and I will spare you the cross and give you the whole creation as your prize.

Like every temptation, it was filled with lies.  In the first place, the world does not belong to Satan.  It is not his to give.  The price that Jesus was going to pay for our redemption was not paid to the devil.  It was paid to satisfy the justice of God.  If Jesus had given in to the temptation, He would have become just like us, only more so.  That would have been Satan's victory over God and our absolute ruin.  There would have been no glory to give to Jesus, nor would the devil have given it, if there had been.  He is a liar, and the father of it, as Jesus once pointed out.

Eve faced the same temptation.  The devil told her that the fruit would make her just like God.  This was a good thing that Eve expected God could give her.  The devil wanted her to doubt God's goodness, and take matters into her own hand, and grasp the supposed good for herself, rather than wait for God to give her every good thing.  – and she yielded to the temptation.  Genesis tells us that one of the reasons she ate of the fruit was that it was desirable to make one wise.  She became like God only in so far as she suddenly understood both good and evil.  She understood good (having once been holy) and evil (having become evil).  God understood both without ever becoming evil, so she wasn't much like God.

Jesus answered with the Word.  "It is written, YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY."  He answered with the Word of God, and faith. The thing that Eve forgot, which Jesus kept in mind, was that God is first, and we come second. That is the only position that a Christian can take. It does not matter what the stakes are, or what is offered, or how appealing it may be made to appear.  When one trusts God and places Him in the proper place in our lives and consideration, then we wait on God, and we accept from God what He gives to us with thanksgiving and faith.  We are called to be faithful, and we must first be faithful to God. If we fail in that, there is no faithfulness left for us.

We face similar temptations.  First is the temptation of physical need – or physical desire.  Many times we are not able clearly to distinguish between the two.  We just know what we want or need, and it seems more important – more urgent – to us to meet that need or fill that desire than anything else.  The temptation is always to take care of Number One first.  We cannot let some theology, some bit of religious stuff – we cannot let some mere rule stand in the way of our need.  That is how the temptation often presents itself.

Like Jesus we want to answer this first temptation with the Word of God and place God first, trusting Him in all our needs.  We want to take Him at His Word that He will not forsake us, that He will always provide – as Jesus said, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

The second temptation was the temptation to doubt God's Word.  Funny thing is that it doesn't usually look like a temptation to doubt the Word of God.  Jesus' temptation looked like a challenge to Him as to whether He really trusted God.  The faithful and sincere thing seemed to be to jump off the temple and trust God to do what He had said that He would do.  But that would have been a species of unbelief.  That would have proven that Jesus didn't trust God, because He would have foolishly put God to the test for nothing more than proof.  Faith is not seeing, not having the proof in front of it, but still trusting.

We get tempted in this way by false doctrine.  We are often challenged directly: Do you mean to tell me that I could go out and kill someone and still go to heaven?   Or, How could a loving God send anyone to hell?  What difference does it make which church I belong to, as long as I believe in Jesus?  These are some of the question we hear commonly.  This is only a small sampling of the questions we face.  These sorts of questions all do what Satan did on that mountain – they presume to challenge our faith with a supposed truth, but actually they challenge us to doubt God's Word and act or speak on the basis of false doctrine and confused interpretations of Scripture which place God at odds with Himself.

Let me show you what I mean.  Do you mean to tell me that I could go out and kill someone and still go to heaven?  This question sounds so good, but it challenges us to doubt the grace of God, and the Gospel He proclaims, as though it is our behavior that wins eternal life for us.  The answer is, ‘Yes, you could.  But the more interesting question is, would you?' If you have murder in your heart, are you likely to be a true believer?  

How could a loving God send anyone to hell?  This question places God's love in competition with His justice as though He could only be one or the other.  The Bible says God is just and loving.  

What difference does it make which church I belong to, as long as I believe in Jesus?  The best answer to this question is to ask, What difference does it make?  Then we really need to get into the question of what differences there are between different denominations, and the differences in what we believe about Jesus and who this Jesus is – things which are by no means the same necessarily from one church body to another.  

The temptation is to ignore God's Word for the sake of feelings.  To do that is to doubt the truth of God's Word, and count something or someone as more important than God.  Jesus answered with faith, and clear doctrine – you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.  We need to put the truth first, and trust God's Word no matter what.

The third temptation Jesus faced is common in our lives today.  We face this temptation each and every time we are offered the faster way, the easier way, the more effective way than what God invites or commands us to do.  Jesus said, you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only!  We need to remember whose church this is, and why we are really here, and how Christ's church works.  We are here to receive His blessings – forgiveness, won for us on the cross, the Holy Spirit to create faith in us and keep us supplied with faith, and strength, and wisdom, and courage, and faithfulness to live each day as His people, a light in a very dark and evil world.  We worship God by being faithful, and trusting God to grant us the increase.  We can even win by losing — if we remain faithful.

We can trust God, after all.  We serve Him not by what we do, so much, as by trusting Him.  Jesus once said to the Pharisees, Learn what this means, I desire compassion not sacrifice.  And His will, summarized in the First Commandment is that we hold Him first in all things, and trust in Him alone, and love Him more than life itself.  And love for God is a love that is seen in love for one another.  This is the same will as what we see on the cross, where He died for your sins so that you might be forgiven and come to know Him as He is, gracious and merciful, full of love and compassion, and desiring your salvation first and last.

When we confront temptations, we can have no better pattern than that which Jesus provided.  Keep your mind firmly fixed on Jesus, and everything else will sort itself out.

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