No Longer Strangers

 Ephesians 2:13-22 

13) But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14) For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15) by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16) and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. 17) And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; 18) for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19) So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, 20) having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21) in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; 22) in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity                                      6/29/25

No Longer Strangers

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our epistle lesson this morning is nestled in the context of the early Christian church's sharp division between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.  In the verses just before our text, Saint Paul is writing about the distinction between the "Circumcision" as he calls the Jews And the "Uncircumcision" as he refers to the Gentiles in the Church.  He describes the Gentiles as "Separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." 

Paul then begins to describe the power of Christ's death and resurrection.  Now, He says, in Christ Jesus you who were formerly far off had been brought near by the blood of Christ for He Himself is our Peace. The Jews in the Gentiles had been traditionally enemies of a sort, religiously, even when not politically.  They were separated by the laws of the Jews what Paul called "the law of Commandments contained in Ordinances."  Jewish Law kept the Jews at a distance requiring their separation from Gentiles. The death of Jesus Christ ended that. Verse 19 of our text says quote "You are no longer strangers and aliens."   

Our theme this morning is, "No Longer Strangers."  

We are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God.  For the Gentiles in the early Christian church that was a striking message of inclusion in something they had been kept out of throughout the history of Israel.  For us it is a description of the Christian church. It tells us what Christ has accomplished for us. We are no longer strangers and aliens from the grace and love of God, separated by the law of works and sin and guilt.  We are now fellow citizens with the Saints.  That means everybody in Heaven is our brother or sister.  And every single member of the Christian Church on earth is also our brother and sister.   

The big problem we face on Earth with that declaration is that we cannot see who is and who is not a Christian and therefore a true member of the Christian church. We can look at the doctrines taught by the various churches and cults in our world and identify by Scripture what is and what is not faithful, what is and what is not true, what is and what is not Christian.  So we cannot go about saying that this individual or that individual is or is not Christian.  We hope all our fellow Lutherans are Christians, at least our faithful MO Synod Lutherans.  But we know that's not even true.  Some who call themselves Christians do not trust in God.  Some who call themselves Christians and faithful Lutherans have no hope in the grace of God, but rather in their own works. So we treat those who call themselves Christian as Christian, until they definitively prove that they are not. And when we wrestle with the idea of proving themselves definitively not Christians, we have to consider our own sins, our own shortcomings, our own bad opinions and bad actions. If we are still Christians in the light of our sins, and I believe we are, then they might be also.  

We need to work together to maintain our fellowship. And that fellowship is primarily around Word and Sacrament.  If we make the mistake of judging good times good feelings and that bonhomie of social fellowship to be Fellowship of the Christian Church, we err. True fellowship happens at the altar.  Receiving the Lord's Supper here is a confession.  When you receive the Lord's Supper you receive the forgiveness of sins. You received that with Christ's true Body and blood.   

But receiving the Lord's Supper standing shoulder to shoulder is also a confession, a confession of our faith as to what we receive, and a confession about the people we receive it with. We confess by our reception that this church is the Christian church that here we receive the truth of Christ body and blood, and that we stand together united in faith – which is to say united in our doctrine. 

 When you go to another church of a different faith and concession – that is to say, of a different doctrine – if you should, mindlessly, step forward and receive the Lord's Supper at that church you actually join that church. You become a member there by your communion. You tell the world that here, wherever here is, the truth is taught and all Christians should be gathered about that altar.  If it is another Missouri Synod Lutheran Church you may justify yourself by saying they confess the same confession that we confess. And that's true. But even then you should be careful to listen to how and what the pastor preaches. If he begins to speak strange ideas if he talks about faith and feelings being important elements to your salvation, then he is leading you astray.  A false confession pouring out of the pulpit of even a Missouri Synod Church should warn you against reception of the Lord's Supper, lest you connect yourself to a false confession.  

Even more significant would be receiving at a non-Lutheran Church. When you stand before that altar with those who confess that confession, you join that church and confess the faith they confess whether you know what it is or not. That's how powerful the confession of the Lord's Supper is.  It is the powerful nature of that confession upon which I base my comments about those who have departed from our number and now attend another church regularly.  When they receive the Lord's Supper at another altar regularly – not on a vacation, not out of town to visit mom or Grandchild, but when they regularly receive Holy Communion from another church, even another congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, their participation in the Lord's Supper makes them a member of that congregation, for good or for ill. Withholding themselves over time from our communion also marks them as having withdrawn from our fellowship.  

Our text tells us that we are no longer strangers, but fellow citizens with the Saints founded upon the Apostles doctrine with Jesus Christ as our Cornerstone, being built up into a household of faith, a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling of God in the spirit.  We should never allow ourselves to be strangers to the altar, strangers to the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is the blood of Jesus Christ which makes us family And brings us forgiveness and salvation. Every Sunday should be a time of fellowship together with our family in Christ around the Word and Sacrament.  After all, in Jesus Christ we are No Longer Strangers. 

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

(Let the people say Amen)

How to Love God

 1 John 4:16-21

And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.  God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  We love, because He first loved us.  If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity                                      6/22/25

How to Love God

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The bookstore shelves are filled with volumes about how to be a good husband or how to be a good wife, or what true love is all about.  You wouldn't think we would need help with that, since we all feel that love – or nearly all of us.  The problem people have with finding the love of their lives, and then keeping the love of their lives satisfied in that state of being loved, is that we have been taught false doctrine by our culture and our public media.  This isn't religious false doctrine, but it is false doctrine none-the-less.  We oftentimes don't know what real love is.

Some people fancy that their hormonal response to another human body is love.  That is correctly identified as "lust", and while it can be entertaining for a while, it does not last for long - at least as the response to that particular body.  Young people frequently, and older ones occasionally, confuse infatuation with love.  Infatuation is delightful for a time, but it, too, fades over time.  True love is, at its weakest, a deep affection, which when it is coupled with the will to serve the welfare of the beloved, is the sort of love that can last life-long.  But even then, it takes deliberate work, thought, planning, and action.  It is not necessarily romantic at every moment.  It is not necessarily fun or even pleasurable at every moment.  Those characteristics surface now and again, and for some of us, frequently, but the dependance on the continual sense of romance or pure delight in love is fostered only by our enjoyment of those nice feelings, and the false doctrine of our society that says that love is supposed to be that way. 

Now, all of that is about love for a fellow human being, particularly one of the opposite sex.  And still, people get that all confused.  Our text, this morning, speaks of loving God, which is an entirely different sort of thing.  It is no wonder that people get confused about how to go about that sort of loving.  Our text points us in the right direction to understanding how to love God, and so that is our theme today, How to Love God.

First of all, the love of which John writes is agape – the spiritual, self-sacrificing sort of love, such as God has for us.  It is not the love of friendship.  God is not our friend in the sense of being our "buddy".  His love may be likened to the love of friendship because His will toward us is faithfully good, but philia – friendship love – is notoriously fickle. 

The love which are to we have for God is also not the erotic sort.  God loves us, but talking about God as a lover is often more confusing than helpful.  I have to admit that God uses the image of a lover in Scripture, as in the Song of Solomon, but it seems to best suited to illustrate the intensity of the love which God has for us, and which we might have for Him, not so much the quality of it.  Erotic love is most commonly not about the one we love as much as about our response - our love and our joy or pleasure, and so it is self-absorbed.  God's love for us is not self-absorbed, but focused on us, and He would have us love Him for Him, not for what we can get out of Him.

The best illustration, and the primary fact of the love of God for us is Christ Jesus.  His love is what brought Him to become one of us.  His love for the Father, and His love for us.  John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world . . .".  He saw our need from eternity, planned our salvation, which required of Him accomplishing what is, by human reason, impossible.  He became man - fully human, and yet also true God.  Many theologians will say that God cannot be contained in finite human flesh, it is impossible, and yet God says, Colossians 2:9, "For in Him dwells the fulness of the Deity in bodily form."  He kept the whole law and will of God without exception or sin.  He took the burden of our guilt and sin and died in our place, paying the penalty for our sins.  God, who cannot die, found a way to die for us.

He saw our need, He planned our rescue, and He put that plan into action at great personal cost.  That is agape love.  That is the love with which we are to love God.  The one hitch in this plan, however, is that God needs nothing from us, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things."  God doesn't want us just feeling warmly about Him.  He doesn't want us feeling sexy about Him.  He wants us to love Him with the same sort of love with which He loves us.  He tells us that our love for Him flows out of His love for us – We love because He first loved us!

The secret of how to love God is by loving those God has given you to love – those He has placed around you to love by seeing their needs, planning for their rescue and welfare, and then putting that plan into action, even if it costs you something.  Even if it costs you everything.  Our love for our neighbor is also motivated and powered by God's love for us.  We love those who have no claim on us because God loved those who had no rightful claim against Him – us, sinners, now forgiven by God, and rescued for eternal life.

This love comes from being loved ourselves.  It isn't the product of fear, or terror, as so many of the sacrifices of old toward the false gods of the idols were.  We don't kill our children, or our livestock, to show God our love - or to assuage His anger, as pagans in the past did.  

In ancient Israel, they offered their flocks and cattle and grain in sacrifices as part of their faith, demonstrating their trust in God to supply their needs in a world that often lived on the razor's edge of disaster and need.  Even then, the true power of their sacrifices came from the one sacrifice of His Son, promised but not yet accomplished, as they showed their faith and love for God by obedience and by spending their substance on worship.

We don't worship God, in our modern world, from the same precipice of daily need as the ancients did.  We are abundantly rich in that regard!  The sacrificial system for forgiveness of sins has been done away with by Jesus' death on our behalf.  The resurrection proclaims the love of God and the fulness of forgiveness and salvation to us.  The truth of it is witnessed to us by the Word, and supplied for us in the holy Sacrament, as we receive His true body and blood for our forgiveness and spiritual refreshment.  Our acts of love, and our spending of our substance on the welfare of one another - and our other neighbors - is our sacrificial giving to God, just as in the ancient days, demonstrating our belief in His love for us, and our trust in His guidance and provision for our needs.

John tells us in our text how that love effects us.  It gives us confidence in life and in the face of death, comforting us.  We say that God loves us.  Do we believe it?  Can we trust that love?

We say that God will provide.  Do we trust Him?  Could it be that our surplus is how God would provide for others, working His love through us?

We confess that in Jesus Christ we have everything we need.  Luther confessed it.  I preach it.  Do you confess it?  If you do, how does that confession work out in your life?  

If you do not confess it, why not?

We say we love God.  God says, love Me in those I give you to love.  Serve Me by serving those I place around you in need.  Give to Me by giving to those in need around you, starting at home, and in the congregation, and working out from there.  This giving is not supposed to be just money either.  That is what stewardship is about - managing all that God has given you wisely, for His purposes and not merely your own.  That it comes from a heart of love for God is what we express in our stewardship principle, stated in the words of 2 Corinthians 9:7, "God loves a cheerful giver".

That this love for the neighbor is how we love God is pointed to by John in our text,   If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.   

Of course, God views love and hate in far more black and white terms than we like to look at it.  Either you love, or you hate.  Indifference is hate according to the standard of God's Word.  But in this text, I think God is talking about hatred in terms we understand.  If we cannot love those we can see, who are real and tangible and right there before us, but actually hate them and are hostile to them - we then are not able to actually love God, whom we cannot see or touch or hear according to His natural voice.  Our brothers, fellow saints and members of the body of Christ right here with us, are our first field of service and love to be given to God.  If we cannot love them, we cannot really love God either.

We kind of see that in the religious cons we see in the world.  On religious TV, we see them taking, begging, crying, hustling - but we don't see them serving, helping, or giving.  They want to reach out and touch us, but the part of us they want to touch I keep in my back pocket, ordinarily.  And they are willing to falsify the Word of God and teach false doctrine to do it, to manipulate me and you.  If my money is worth more to them than the Word of God and truth (and remember, Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life") they prove the saying of John, * * they say they love God, but hate their brother - by teaching him something of a counterfeit gospel, and in doing so, they really hate God, too.

Now, I know that this teaching isn't going to make me or you popular.  John reminds us also that we are as Jesus was in this world.  He was welcomed for what they could get out of Him, but despised for who He was, and hated for His holiness.  The world looks at us the same way.  Give them your money, or your time and effort, and they will love you.  Give them the Gospel, and they will tell you to keep your religion to yourself - and, as is happening in our public media with increasing frequency, they will malign you and call you and extremist and say that your religion is the cause of war and division and hatred and intolerance.  Because as He is, so also are we in this world.

As uncomfortable as that is, it should comfort you by demonstrating for you the truth of the Word of God, and by reminding you that you belong to Him, because Jesus said they would hate you if you were His.  The comfort is not, of course, due to the hatred of the world.  It is due to the love of God and the salvation which He has poured out on us.  The hatred of the world just confirms that we are recognizably part of the body of Christ.  The other thing that would confirm our participation in Christ is the love for God which we see in the Lord's Supper.

So, how do you love God?  By taking Him at His Word, and trusting Him to keep you, and to save you, and by loving Him by loving those He has given you to love.  This love is an act as much of the will as of the emotions.  Only those moved by the Holy Spirit, can do it willingly. That is how to love God.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

How to Face the End

 1 Peter 4:7-11

The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.  Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.  Be hospitable to one another without complaint.  As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon for Exaudi Sunday                                                   6/01/25

How to Face the End

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our topic this morning is how to live by faith.  That is how Christians live.  Some who call themselves Christians do not live by faith – they live out their unbelief, and call it Christian living.  Christians live by what they believe, more or less consistently.  No one does it perfectly, but it is part of believing in Christ and trusting the Word of God that we measure reality around us by the Word of God first, and our sense impressions second, and that we make our choices in life with the Gospel in mind, and placing our hopes and trust in God and in our redemption and forgiveness.  Again, no one on earth does this perfectly, but it is part of the life of a Christian to be consciously living in the light of the truths God has revealed to us.

One of the truths that God has revealed to us is that we are living in the final days of this creation.  Peter tells us in the first words of the verse of our text that "the end of all things is at hand."  Many English translations translate this phrase to mean that the end is coming soon, or is nearby.  Peter actually used a word that Jesus frequently used about the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus said "The kingdom of God is at hand," He meant that it was there already, among the people, with Him, by virtue of His presence.  So, when I read Peter saying that "the end of all things is at hand", I read Peter saying that it is already here, and we are involved in the end.  And if they were involved back then, how much more are we?  Our sermon theme this morning, then, is "How to Face the End".

Peter wrote probably 1,970-some years ago.  If they were caught up in the end of all things that long ago, we would figure it should be over by now!  Some have jumped to the conclusion that Peter didn't know what he was talking about, or that his ‘eschatological expectations' were misinformed and in error.  In other words, Peter was wrong.  The end was not near – and they were surely not wrapped up in the very end times.

If Peter was wrong, then so are we, if we take Peter seriously.  But Peter was writing by inspiration, according to our faith, and so he could not be wrong.   We must be living in the very end of time.  The end of all things is very near, and we are, in fact, living in the midst of them.  Think about it.  What is the Last Day, according to Scriptures?  It is Judgment Day.  But Judgment Day was the day that God judged and punished our sins, and condemned us to hell for our rebellion.  And that day was Good Friday.  That was the day sentence was pronounced and the wrath of God was poured out on our sins.

Only we didn't bear it.  Jesus did.  He was the One on whom the wrath was poured, the sentence pronounced.  He took our sins – He became sin for us who knew no sin of His own, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.  He was punished and died in awful agony.  Because He is true God, His suffering was not limited to that six hours on the cross – as awful as that six hours was – but as God lives outside of time and in eternity, Jesus suffered in eternity for our sins, as well.

Since the Day of Judgment has passed, we are living in the very midst of the end of all things.  That final day, which everyone kind of thinks of as "Judgment Day" is the day that the judgment of God is made public.  On that Day, the Day of the Resurrection of All Flesh, God will proclaim to all of mankind  – and, indeed, all of creation  – just exactly who are His children and who are His enemies.   I dare say, there will be some surprises – but everyone will recognize by God's power that the Judgment of God is right.  And we who believe will finally witness with joy and great glory the end of all things of this creation completed.  

But we are in the middle of that end of all things even now, although nothing seems to have changed.  The truth is that the change is like melting butter in your microwave.  Have you ever watched it?  It sits there, seemingly unaffected by the microwaves for most of the time you are ‘nuking' it.  Then, all of a sudden, it just collapses into a puddle of melted butter.  The end of all things is like that, in some sense.

First of all, things have changed.  Everything has changed!  We live in the midst of the changing, so we don't notice as it changes.

Secondly, it is not the things around that are supposed to change at this particular moment in history.  We are supposed to change.  God makes it happen by His Word preached, and by the Holy Spirit at work through the Word.  He changes us – and then He exhorts us to recognize that change and to deliberately live it out and live in the light of what it means for all of creation.  In other words, Peter is giving us direction as to how to face the end.

Peter writes, "therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.  Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.  Be hospitable to one another without complaint."

Since we are living in the midst of the end of all things, we should live deliberately, fully aware of that truth, and we should be living like we know what is real and what is not, what is important and what is not.  We should not be blinded by the world's values or agendas, but we should be of sound judgment.  We are asked to live out the reality of the end of all things by facing the truth that these thing are about to end, and we can only use them as temporary and highly disposable things.  Our treasures are not treasures – they are cheap baubles, soon to cease to exist altogether.  Our wealth is a deceit of the world, good only for using in the passing world for God's purposes.  Our time is a phantom.  We think we have years of it ahead, but we only have now.  Our concern is rightly what needs to be done now?

And if you knew that you were to die tonight – no doubts, and no questions asked – what would you do?  If this was your last day on earth – because there was going to be no earth – Where would you begin?  I hope to think that it would be with prayer.  Partying and having a good time would surely take a back seat to humbling yourself before God, asking God to forgive you, asking God to guide you, asking God to bless and save all of those around you.  Peter tells you to face the truth, the sobering reality that we are in the midst of the end of all things, so that you will keep your wits about you, face the reality of the situation, and pray.

If you knew that it was the end for everyone else, you would desperately try to rescue your loved ones.  You might reach out for your friends.  I hope you would want to gather with God's people here and encourage one another as we awaited welcoming our Lord.  Well, that very reasonable behavior is what Peter encourages in our text.  We don't panic, as all of the ‘end-of-the-world', doomsday movies predict everyone would do.  We know what is happening, and what is coming, and how we are going to deal with it, survive it, and come out on the other end.  We have no reason for panic.

But we do have reason to prepare, and encourage one another as we see the end approach, and use the time remaining to give it one last great effort to accomplish what God has given us to do, love one another and share the good news of the hope of salvation within us with those who are also facing the end, however unknowingly.

Again, Peter writes, "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins."  That is the exhortation both because of the human nature's trouble with holding on to love, and because we all need it.  Anger and hatred are so natural and easy.  But we are commanded to "love one another".  Love teaches us to forgive, just as you put up with things from your family that you would never tolerate in a stranger.  If you love someone, you are patient, kind, forgiving.  Surely you would not let some irritation of the moment be the cause of the destruction of someone you love.  You would forgive them, and help them.

God encourages us, through Peter, to "keep fervent in our love for one another".  "Keep fervent", Peter says, "because love covers a multitude of sins."  It covers my sins, when for the sake of love, you overlook my casual weaknesses and occasional blunders and forgive me, when you think I need forgiveness.  It works just like how the love of Jesus Christ covers your sins.  He counts you as holy and perfect, in spite of your many obvious imperfections, and without regard for the sins you commit daily.

Then, part of that sound judgment includes this "hospitality" Peter speaks about, "Be hospitable to one another without complaint."  In the ancient world, hospitality meant more than simply "making nice" with someone.  When someone came into your home, or under your hospitality, their comfort, their well-being, even their protection from evil befalling them became your duty.  That is why Lot offered His daughters to the men of Sodom rather than allow them to disgrace or abuse the angelic visitors.  As much as he loved his daughters, he could not allow those under his hospitality to suffer shame or worse.

We are to "be hospitable to one another without complaint".  We are to take one another in, shelter one another, protect one another.  We are family, and the world out there, however it may appear at the moment, is the servant of our mortal enemy.  We need one another to watch our backs in these last and dangerous days.

And because it is almost the end of time, Peter exhorts us to do what God gives us to do by His power – and to do everything we do as though we are doing it for God and as though time were running out very quickly.  "As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

Our goal is that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.  He has purchased us at a tremendous price.  He has sought us out and called each one of us by name.  He has made us to be His people, and forgiven us all of our sins.  We are His glory, and we show that glory forth when we live as His people, talk as His people, pray as His people, and love as His people – that is, when we love as He loved us.  These things are all part of that sound judgment and sober spirit  Peter mentioned at first.  We live as those who know that the end is not just near, but happening around us.

What God gives you – time, talents, gifts and abilities, or wealth – He gives you for the purpose of serving your neighbor in these last and perilous days.  Serving one another, and serving those who are our neighbors, is how we serve God.  We speak His truth as though it was the very Word of God entrusted to us - because it is!  We serve one another as though that was the purpose for our strength and our talents - because it is!  We use what God has entrusted to us as stewards of God's things, God's talents – "Talent on loan from God," as Rush Limbaugh used to say – not as though our talents and our wealth were things we have created in and of ourselves for our personal enrichment and influence, but as though it were something entrusted to us to earn a profit for our Master - because it is!  We are made Christ's people by God and gifted with all that we have and all that we can do to serve God by helping one another make it to the finish line, to be faithful into death so that we may receive that crown of life and to give God the profit of souls won by hearing the good news of His love and grace and salvation. 

There is an urgency about all of this because "the end of all things is at hand".  We are living as the world is ending.  What we leave undone will be unfinished when it over.  If we believe God's Word, we cannot live otherwise than to live in the light of this truth.  This text is all about living the life appointed for Christ's people - in other words, it is about how to face the end.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Follow the Shepherd

1 Peter 2:21-25

For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.  For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

Sermon for Misericordias Domini                                                       5/04/25

Follow the Shepherd

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The life of a Christian is easily described.  Doing it is a challenge that confronts us every day, but it can be described in very few words; Follow the Shepherd.  Sometimes this is presented in a light and airy way that makes it sound pleasant and admirable.  There are things about following Christ that are delightful, but not everything.  Much of what it takes to follow the Shepherd is painful, undesired, unpleasant and objectionable.  That is the part Jesus spoke of when He said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."  We refer to it as "bearing the cross".  That is the part that Peter focuses on in our Epistle lesson this morning.  Our theme is, "Follow the Shepherd."

Our Epistle seems to start in mid-thought.  "For you have been called for this purpose," It doesn't specify what "this purpose" is.  We are to get that information from the context.  The context before the Epistle begins is that when you do what is right and suffer for it, you are to endure this suffering patiently, for this finds favor with God.  The context immediately following is the phrase, "since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps".  It would appear, therefore, that the purpose for which you have been called is to bear the cross, and suffer - even innocently - and to bear such suffering with patient endurance.

That is the example of the Shepherd.  Peter even details some of what the example teaches us: "WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously".  This is how and where we are to follow the Shepherd.  We, too, are to be holy, be honest, and never curse or cuss or complain, but simply trust God, trusting that He is still with us, still guiding us, and that things are happening in accord with His good and gracious will.

To be honest, most of us are willing to suffer for Christ, but it has to be like in the movies - grand and glorious and inspiring.  This nitty-gritty, day-to-day stuff that we face in our lives is all wrong.  Give us the big stuff, where it is crystal clear that it is glorious suffering for a great and glorious end.  I want to hear the background music!  I want it to make sense to me and the world around me to see it and gush at my devotion and courage.  This un-glorious and boring doing without, having nagging troubles, struggling with budgets and rude people around me is no fun.  The crosses that God appoints for me are not inspiring or majestic – they are just painful and so ordinary seeming.  My suffering is not the stuff people sing about or write really interesting stories about.  It is just being ignored, doing without, and pain without really good press-coverage.

Most people are willing to suffer in theory and in imagination.  It is only the suffering of real life and the day-to-day grind that we find objectionable.  But that is the sort of cross we are called upon to bear – the real ones that strike our budgets, take our precious spare time, and niggle at us constantly.  The truth is that the glorious suffering of the heroes of the faith was not all that glorious for them.  The luster of glory that descends on them comes from time and space between us and them.  For them, it was the pain of the moment, and the ache that was happening right then.  There was nothing of glory or fame or pleasure about it while they endured it.  That stuff came later, in the eyes of others who recognized what it was that these heroes had done, and why they had endured.

The cross of Christ was not all majestic and glorious to endure.  It was pain and nails and sweat and humiliation and burning agony inside and out.  Then it was death.  That is what the price was for your salvation.  By His stripes you are healed!  Your sins have been forgiven for Christ's sake.  Now He has been made Shepherd of your soul.  Now we are called to follow the Shepherd.

Luther described it like this:  Therefore St. Peter says: "To this you have been called." To what? To suffer wrong, as Christ did. It is as if he were saying: "If you want to follow Christ, you dare not argue and complain much when you are wronged; but you must suffer it and be forgiving, since Christ suffered everything without any guilt on His part. He did not appeal to justice when He stood before the judge. Therefore you must tread justice underfoot and say: ‘Thank God, I have been called to suffer injustice. For why should I complain when my Lord did not complain?' "

"Furthermore, He surely had the power and the right to avenge Himself. Yet He permitted Himself to be reviled, scorned, blasphemed, and even killed; and He never opened His mouth. Why, then, should you, too, not suffer this, since you are nothing but sin? You should praise and thank God for being worthy of becoming like Christ. You should not murmur or be impatient when you are wronged, since the Lord neither reviled nor threatened but even prayed for His enemies.

"So you might say: "Do you mean to say that I should justify those who wrong me and say: ‘They have done well?' " Answer: No. But you should say: "I will suffer this very willingly, even though I have not deserved it and you are doing me an injustice. I will suffer it for my Lord's sake. He also suffered injustice for me." You should leave the matter to God, just as Christ leaves it to His heavenly Father. God is a just Judge. He will reward it richly." 

I hope you noticed that Luther points out that we are to endure what is unfair and what we do not deserve with patience.  We don't do it because it is right for others to abuse us, or because it makes us holy, somehow.  We endure it with patience and forgiveness for two reasons.  First we endure it patiently because Christ gave us the example.  If He suffered, so can we - and to the degree we do suffer unjustly, we can mark it as a sign of Christ's favor - or that He is clearly seen in us, for the world to hate and attack.

The second reason we endure such "outrages and affronts" - as Luther might describe them - with patience and forgiveness is because we know God, and we trust Him.  We know that He is with us, and knows what we are suffering.  He will keep us and bring us through everything.  And He knows who is abusing us and will deal with them with perfect justice.  That is what Peter meant when he wrote that Jesus kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.  Just trust God, and He will take care of it.

[A]nd He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.    When we suffer, we need to and we want to keep in mind the blessed outcome of the sufferings of Jesus.  His sufferings, which are far worse than ours will be, bought us life and immortality and eternal glory.  By His wounds you were healed.  While we endure the troubles of life and cross which may come to us, we may be tempted to think of them as just pain, just trouble, just sorrow.  But we want to remember that we are the Lord's and it is because He went through these pains first that we can know that He understands, and He has compassion, and He will bless us and guide us and protect us and bring us through.

Whether we sense it or not, it is God's revealed truth.  For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.  Now we have a Shepherd.  He leads us faithfully and for our blessing.  And the path through which He leads is difficult and often painful, and usually frightening or depressing to us - unless we keep the Shepherd in sight and trust Him to lead us.  He is both Shepherd AND Guardian of our souls.  We are always in His care.

I have often quoted ‘The Weaver' to you, about how God has a pattern for our lives.  On the reverse side of that tract is a poem that our text puts me in mind of today.  It is called "He Maketh No Mistake".  I will close the sermon today by quoting that poem for you.

My Father's way may twist and turn, 

My heart may throb and ache,

But in my soul I'm glad I know, 

He maketh no mistake.

My cherished plans may go astray,

My hopes may fade away,

But still I'll trust my Lord to lead

For He doth know the way.

Though night be dark and it may seem

That day will never break;

I'll pin my faith, my all on Him,

He maketh no mistake.

There's so much now I cannot see,

My eyesight's far too dim;

But come what may I'll simply trust

And leave it all to Him.

For by and by the mist will lift

and plain it all He'll make.

Through all the way, though dark to me,

He made not one mistake.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The On-Going Celebration

1 John 5:4-12

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world-- our faith.  And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood.  And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.  For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness concerning His Son.  The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son.  And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  

He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Sermon for Quasimodogeniti Sunday                                             04/27/25

The On-Going Celebration

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Last Sunday was Easter.  Today is Quasimodogeniti Sunday – the Sunday following Easter, the Introit of which begins, "Like newborn babies, long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word."  "Like newborn babies" in Latin is Quasimodogeniti.  You probably think of Easter and all of that as old hat.  We have been there many times before.  But the name of this day in the church-year challenges us to think about it as something new – or of ourselves as something new: like newborn babies!  It is like someone new to the whole joy of the Gospel that we want to celebrate our salvation.

Since it is the Sunday after Easter, it makes sense to ask what we celebrate on Quasimodogeniti?  The answer may surprise you, and maybe not. On the Sunday after Easter we celebrate  .  .  .  Easter.  And next Sunday, do you know what we will celebrate?  Easter!  And every Sunday, we celebrate Easter.  In fact, we worship on Sundays because Jesus rose from the grave on a Sunday.  Each Sunday morning is an Easter celebration!  Since Easter is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is the heart of the Christian faith, we shouldn't even allow ourselves to limit our Easter joy to Sundays, but should be like newborn babies, and celebrating about the Gospel and Jesus Christ all of the time.  Our celebration should be, as our sermon theme says, The On-Going Celebration.

And so, what is it that we celebrate at Easter?  Is it that Jesus rose from the dead?  Yes  -  -  -  and no.  We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but not the simple fact that someone came to life again after being dead.  We celebrate the meaning of that resurrection.  We celebrate the victory of that resurrection, in which we share.  John writes in our epistle lesson this morning, For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.  And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

He is writing about the victory, but not in the way we usually hear it – or think about it.  Whatever is born of God overcomes the world.  We would think he was speaking of Jesus – and he is, but more than just Jesus, he is writing about us.  We are born of God by the Word and our faith is born of God through the Word.  So John writes,  and this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.  Our victory is over sin and death and hell, .  .  .  And the world of unbelief around us.  Our victory is over the prince of this world and all of his evil schemes.  And it is a victory that was won on the cross.

That is why John says that the victory has overcome the world – not can or will or does, but has.  Jesus has already won the victory, and we share in it by grace through faith.  That is our victory, and it is given to us.  Jesus won it on the cross and we have it as a gift through faith.  It is not faith that wins, but Christ, and He has chosen to share His victory through faith, giving forgiveness, life, and salvation to all those who believe.  That is the meaning of the words of our text, And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

It is a total victory.  It is the victory of forgiveness.  Our sins are no longer held to our account, and the justice of God has been satisfied for us by Jesus Christ.  It is, therefore, the victory over the devil, whose plot against us began in the garden of Eden.  His work, aimed at our destruction, has been thwarted.

It is also the victory over the ways and the works of the world.  Luther wrote about this victory in his triumphant reformation hymn, A Mighty Fortress: "and take they our life, Goods, fame, child, and wife; Let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won!  The Kingdom our remaineth!"  Ours in the victory.  This world and its pains and sorrows are but for time, then is eternal rejoicing.  That is our victory.  And it is that victory that is heralded and proclaimed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And it is a victory grounded in the truth.  In this portion of this epistle, John is refuting the heretics who tried to say that Jesus the man was not Christ, the Son of God.  He who overcomes is the one grounded in the truth – in the sound doctrine that Jesus the man is also the Son of God.

The heretics tried to say that Jesus was adopted by God at His baptism, and that the "divine Christ" departed from Jesus before the sufferings and the cross.  They believed, as many do today, that God could not have been in Jesus.  The finite is not capable of containing or even touching the infinite.   They also believed that God could not suffer, so they removed God from Jesus in their teachings.  That is what this next section of our text is about – the three witnesses to the truth of the deity of Jesus Christ – that He is true man and true God.  This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood.  And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.  For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

The witness of the water is the baptism of Jesus, where the Father spoke from heaven and the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove and rested upon Him.  The witness of the blood is the cross, where Jesus bled and died for our sins.  These two bear witness at both ends of the ministry of Jesus that He is the Son of God – as does the Holy Spirit, God Himself bearing witness – both in the baptism of Jesus and now, through the Word by bringing faith into our hearts.  Here is the truth of our victory, witnessed by these witnesses appointed by the Father.

These words speak about the importance of sound doctrine, for it is the truth of God.  If we lack the truth, we are without God and we do not have the victory.  If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness concerning His Son.  The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son.  And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 

And here John tells us that to deny the truth which He has revealed is to call God a liar.  You call God a liar by unbelief, and you call God a liar by false belief.  The truth is this Gospel, and any unbelief or false teaching about or in connection with this Gospel is to reject God, reject His truth, and call God a liar.  We believe men – we ought to believe God.  If our neighbor tells us that it is good for us to take vitamin C, we take vitamin C.  If our doctor says we need a medicine or some therapy, we pursue it.  We accept their witness.  Similarly, When God tells us that He has taken our sins away, punished them completely in Jesus and is giving us resurrection to life and everlasting salvation, we should accept His witness.

We should be eager to believe this witness, because the message is that God has given us eternal life through Jesus Christ.  The message is not rules or condemnation, but forgiveness, and an end to death, . . . and life and peace and joy!  He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. 

 

And what does John mean when he speaks about having the Son?  He means faith.  He means to point us to knowing about Jesus and to knowing who He is and to believing it and to trusting in Him.  The Adoptionists of the time of the Apostle John – the followers of a man named Cerinthus – denied that Jesus was the Son of God, and therefore they did not have the Son.  They believed in a Jesus of some sort.  And they believed in something like the Gospel, but it wasn't the Gospel.  They had turned the truth into a lie and demanded that God have them on their terms, rather than they having or knowing God on His terms.  But to know the truth of God about Jesus and the cross and life is to have the Son, and to have the Son is to possess everlasting life.  

To deny the truth is to not have the Son.  Men deny that truth today by denying that it is a gift -- suggesting or saying outright that we must earn it or be worthy of it before we can have it.  Or they make Jesus just part of the story, and tell you to shape up and measure up before you take comfort in God.  Or some want to deny that it is true or all real and makes any sense or any difference today.  They claim that the Bible was about those people back then – a book of superstitions and fables not unlike the Harry Potter books, or the Koran, or the I Ching.  They say that it does not speak to us in today's modern world.  We have grown up and no longer need that kind of faerie-tale nonsense, they say.

But we still have the same old troubles.   We still sin and know it is sin.   We still die.  We still need the salvation that Jesus has provided.  We still need to be redeemed, rescued and forgiven.  And we still need to know the truth, and the truth of our text this morning is that to trust God's promises in connection with Jesus is to have the Son.  And to have to have the Son is to have life eternal.  And it is that eternal life that we celebrate on Easter, and on this Sunday, and on every Sunday.  It is the sum and substance of the Christian hope.  

The everlasting life is the result of forgiveness of sins.  And the forgiveness of sins is the proclamation of the resurrection, and the result of the crucifixion and the resurrection.  

Forgiveness is wonderful.  That it is already purchased and won and does not need our merit or activation is good news.  That it means that death is not the last word, and that we will live in a world much better than this in unending bliss and glory is our Easter joy – which should be the joy of the Christian faith at all times – not just Sundays.  So we share in the On-Going Celebration.  It isn't just for one day of the year, or one day of the week, but for every day and every moment.  It is our strength in the face of every temptation and the source of our steadfastness and endurance in the rigors of every hardship and our peace and our patience in the grip of every anxiety and our comfort and our cheer in the teeth of every sorrow.

The On-going Celebration is not just for once a year, and not even just for Sundays.  Easter is our joy and our hope – and our certainty moment by moment as the children of God; for we have the witness, and we have the Son, and we have been born of God – so we have the victory over sin and death and hell.  

So, who cares if it is the week after Easter?  We are still celebrating the good news of salvation and life and peace with God.  

Today can't be just the Sunday after Easter because the celebration is not limited to that day, or even to Sundays, for the Christian, it is the on-going celebration of faith and hope and life and love in Jesus Christ.  Like the energizer bunny, it just keeps on going.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The New Celebration

1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Your boasting is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?  Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened.  For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Sermon for Easter Sunday                                                                                                                    4/11/04

The New Celebration

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Hallelujah!

Although the celebration of Easter as a special holiday is ancient to us, if the Apostle Paul were to have encountered it, it would have been a new celebration.  The earliest Christians did not have a special Easter holiday.  They did celebrate Easter, but it was not a holiday.  It was every day.  They worshiped on Sundays, instead of the Jewish Sabbath, on Saturday, because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday.  Every Sunday worship service was, to them, an Easter celebration.

Easter was much more than a holiday to the earliest believers.  It was their entire faith.  They lived in the afterglow of Easter.  They had no battles between Lutherans and Catholics to consider.  They had no family traditions, at least not at first.  They worshiped in the heart of the excitement of the resurrection.  Death was close and intimate in their world.  Life was hard and often dull.  The gods of their society were capricious and silly, and all authority tended to be dictatorial -- at home, in their temples, and from their government.  The sudden reality of love and freedom from God and of the resurrection and glory to come was worth dying for, and so it was worth living for.  So Easter was their entire faith.

We celebrate Easter as a holiday because it is not our entire faith.  It should be, but we have grown content and complacent.  We keep death at arm's reach with hospitals, nursing homes, and funeral parlors.  We only occasionally stare into its face, and usually it is wearing make-up.

Our faith too often is about feeling good.  Our faith is about nervous tension and relative (not real) economic changes.  Only occasionally do we think much about dying, and only now and then do we ponder the resurrection.  Forgiveness is a self-esteem thing, not a spiritual power.  So naturally, Easter is a holiday -- a ‘set aside' for once a year.

But our comfort with this life and our satisfaction with ourselves and how we live is what St. Paul refers to in our text as boasting.  Just prior to our text, Paul was writing about immorality that existed among the Corinthians.  A man had taken his father's wife.  We don't know if his father had died, but it seems unlikely, or she would be called his father's widow.  She was not the man's mother, but probably a second wife - perhaps one of many, or perhaps the second wife after his father had been widowed.

What that man did is called "incest".  If his father and his wife were divorced, such a thing was still totally out of bounds, even among the pagans.  The Corinthian Christians, however, had tolerated this immorality without excommunicating the evildoer.  Paul accused them of arrogance, in their patience with sin, and commanded them to reject such a man.

Then He said, "Your boasting is not good."  Our comfort with our lives, and our contentment with our own immorality is such boasting.  Patience with divorce and adultery and fornication and homosexuality and such is pagan and worldly, not godly or Christian.  Open-mindedness with the rampant immorality of our television shows and movies is ‘boasting'.  Approval of false teaching in the church, and in our society -- like praising the show Touched by an Angel, even though it contradicts Scripture at almost every single turn -- is such boasting.  The boast is that we are so strong, that we can endure such evil among us and not be turned.  We are so righteous that what God vehemently condemns, we can patiently approve.

"Your boasting is not good".  The reality is that "just a little leaven leavens the whole lump".  Proverbs said it too, "bad company corrupts good morals."  If we wink at sin and tolerate sin and patiently endure sin, we will become twisted by sin again and lost.  "Clean out the old leaven", Paul says.  Don't give sin a foothold among you.

But then Paul says something strange -- he says that we are unleavened already!  We are unleavened because Christ is our Passover -- the feast of the unleavened bread -- and He is not just the feast, He is the lamb, sacrificed to remove our guilt and shame.  We have been unleavened by the forgiveness of sins, purchased and won for us by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross.  That is what we celebrated on Good Friday.

Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.  Paul is inviting us to a new celebration.  He is inviting us to celebrate not just a holiday, but life set free from sin.  And we don't just celebrate it by having a special service once a year, or with the traditional ham dinner at home.  We celebrate this feast with a life of purity and truth!

The feast he is talking about is not a meal, it is life itself in the presence of God for the sake of Jesus Christ.  Jesus referred to eternal salvation and heaven as the wedding feast, but life here in this world, lived by faith in Jesus Christ, is also part of that feast.

Paul says, "Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."  The old leaven is the old evils of life without Christ.  They have been set aside by God on the cross.  The resurrection of Jesus from the grave is God's unmistakable method of telling us that our sins have truly been forgiven.  The leaven of malice and wickedness and deceit has been purged from us.  Now we are invited to the new celebration without malice or any evil intentions.  We are invited to the new celebration without wickedness of any sort.  We are invited to celebrate with sincerity and truth.

We are invited to celebrate the new celebration of living a new life in Christ.  That life is a life of honest worship.  Not just singing hymns in a church, but living our lives in the knowledge of the resurrection and the sincere expectation that we shall rise too.  Such worship is lived in the light of forgiveness.  That means that we set aside sin, for we have been unleavened.  Just as the Jews cleaned out all the leaven in their homes for the Passover, we must clean out all of the dishonesty and evil from our lives so that we may remain unleavened, unpolluted as best we are able by the pollution of sin.

It means humbling yourself.  Boasting is living in sin as though you can handle it, as though you are master over sin.  But if we do what is not right, if we lie and gossip and entertain ourselves with the lives and sins of others, that little bit of leaven gets in us and works in us to produce sinful desires and sinful thoughts, which lead inevitably to sinful actions.

Every day is to be a celebration that we have been set free from our guilt.  We celebrate with thanksgiving.  We celebrate by choosing to see the hand of God in all our blessings and opportunities, and trusting in and expecting the hand of God even in those things which trouble us and tempt us.  Like those actors on Television who shout and leap for joy that they have kicked the habit of smoking, or lost all that weight, we should celebrate our forgiveness and salvation.

                                          

Jesus' resurrection means that we, too, shall rise from the grave.  Our resurrection will be just like His, because it is tied to His and, in a sense, is His resurrection.  We will rise because He paid for our sins, and death has no claim on us.  We will rise suddenly and with the same sort of glory and excitement as we witness in the Biblical accounts of the first Easter.

We celebrate that resurrection now with faith and with a life which does not participate in the fear and frantic pursuit of hollow, sinful pleasures of this world.  There are enough good and sincere and wholesome pleasures.  We have no need for the private sins, the secret lusts, the sleazy, sinful passions.  We don't need to do them, and we do not need to wink at them in our entertainments, or among our families and friends.  Rather we need to hold up the love of God toward us.  We need to remind one another of God's grace and forgiveness.  We need to encourage one another in prayer and faith.

Jesus said, "I am the Bread of life."  He is the unleavened bread with which we shall satisfy ourselves in the new celebration of the feast.  His resurrection means that the promises made to us are true.  There is life, even beyond death.  There is so much that is so good, so much that it is well worth waiting for, and for which it is well worth disciplining ourselves.

Our boasting is not good, so let us set aside the boast, and humbly repent, knowing our forgiveness is as certain as the resurrection of Christ.  And let us not presume that we have wisdom to righteously live our life as it seems good to us, but let us resolve to humbly seek His guidance and wisdom.  Then we will celebrate the new celebration, where Easter is every day, because we look back at Jesus on the first Easter, and because we see what He has done and we hear what He has promised us if we live in Him, we can confidently look forward to our personal Easters.

He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!

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

(Let the people say Amen)

True Humility / True Glory

 Philippians 2:5-11

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in
Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and
being made in the likeness of men.  And being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on
Him the name which is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, of those who are in
heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father.

Sermon for Palm Sunday                                                       4/13/25

                                    True Humility / True Glory
                                                 
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There are a number of ways to
approach this text.  One could talk about
suffering.  This is the Sunday of the
Passion in the modern church-year
calendar, and that would follow the theme
of the day.  I could talk about obedience,
which is certainly well-modeled by Jesus.  I
could focus particularly on the love of
Jesus.  Or I could talk about all of them.
What I would like you to focus your
attention on, this morning, is the nature of
Glory - and its connection to humility.  We
consider these in Paul's message to the
Philippian Christians this morning, with
the theme, "True Humility/True Glory."

Paul writes:  Have this attitude in
yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who,
although He existed in the form of God, did not
regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself.  That is humility.   Jesus
Christ was God   is God.  Whatever it is to
be God, with all the power and glory and
whatever, Jesus had it.  He could do
anything, anywhere, anytime.  There is no
way for us to appreciate what Jesus had or
what He gave up.  What we can appreciate
is that He did not count whatever that is as
too precious or too important to let go of.
He did not hold His own glory such as we
cannot actually even imagine and power
beyond our comprehension and
prerogatives of divinity as more significant
or desirable than our salvation.  He
counted obedience to the Father and
redeeming us as more importance than the
enjoyment of His own participation is the
glories of the Holy Trinity for a time.   That
is true Humility.

Jesus didn't give up being God, or all
of the powers and glory of God forever.  He
merely (as though that word could actually
apply to God and His power) merely set
them aside for a time.  He laid aside the
use of His power and took on human
frailty.  He laid aside His knowledge and
became an infant in the womb.  He laid
aside His glory and became not merely
human, but a helpless child, in an
insignificant and desperately poor family,
in a backwards region of a poor nation
under military occupation.  That is what
Paul means when he says that Jesus
"emptied Himself."  That is humility,
humbling Himself beyond all reason and
setting aside His own comfort, glory and
prerogatives for the well-being and
salvation of His enemies   us   sinful man.
He set aside what He deserved from us on
our behalf and He counted nothing as "too
much" to give in order to accomplish His
purpose which is our redemption from sin
and death and hell.

That is the attitude that we are
challenged to imitate and emulate and
make our own.  If you want to think like
Jesus   and believe me, if you are a
Christian YOU DO   then this is what you
are called to imitate, humility.  Nothing
should be too much to lose for the sake of
Christ, or for the sake of His Gospel, or for
the sake of His people.  No indignity should
be more than you can bear.  No insult
should be too much to take.  No embarrass
ment should be enough to stop you, and no
loss, even to the point of your life, should
be beyond what you are willing to give.

You do not "have the attitude of Jesus in
yourselves" by merely permitting injustices
and declining to exercise your right to
escape.  The attitude of Jesus was more
than just enduring torment for the
advantage of others because it was what
was expected of Him.  You can force
yourself to endure the unpleasant and
embarrassing, but that is not the attitude,
that is merely the behavior of Jesus.

The attitude of Jesus is love.  He loved
His Father, and He loved us so much that
He faced shame and ridicule, suffering,
torture, and finally death on our behalf and
in our place so that we might never have to
face them as a consequence of our sins.  He
faced them particularly so that we might be
spared eternal death and torment in Hell.
When He had the power to do something
else, He did this.

That was the "mind of Christ"   humility
which permitted Him to become one of us,
and to die so violently and shamefully for
us.  We are to partake of that humility too.
We are to humble ourselves in our own
minds so that our interests and our
comfort can take second place to the
welfare and spiritual health of others!  This
is not about allowing someone to make you
do something, it is about doing it yourself,
because it is right, setting others and their
needs first before our comforts, our
preferences, our personal pride, and even
our own needs simply because it is the will
of God that we do so.

Of course, that means that we have to
stop the silly talk that often happens in
American churches about "rights".  Jesus
set aside not only what He had a right to,
but what He flat out deserved, and what
was already His.  He set aside what He
already possessed and counted His natural
equality with God as something He could
do without to accomplish His purpose of
salvation for you, and for you, and for me.
So, if you want to follow Jesus, you must
seek and learn and follow His humility.
You have the right to do what you want to  
politically, as an American  but not as a
Christian and not as a member of the
Church and not as a slave of God in
Jesus Christ.  At the door of the house of
God, talk about rights and what we deserve
and what we can do if we want to stops,
and humility must rule.  This life is not
lived in a democracy   it is lived in a
monarchy, and Jesus Christ is the King.

Of course, this humility toward others
is all aimed first at "one another."  This is not
about society in general.  There are other
places in Scripture where that issue is
addressed, but here it is not about the
world around us, it is about one another  
fellow believers   members of the body of
Christ, particularly those we are connected
to, fellow members of the congregation.
And then, just as in our outreach missions,
this circle of care and agape love grows
wider and wider by steps.  Our fellow
members here, then fellow believers in the
area, who may not be members of our
congregation, then the Church in the larger
area - circuit, district, nation, world.

Is all of this Law?  Yes, but not in the
sense that you must do it or you cannot be
saved.  This is the response of the heart to
the truth of the Gospel.  This is what
happens when you have been saved, and
you believe the goodness of God and you
witness for yourself what Jesus did to
redeem and save you.  This is the fruit of
faith.  This is how we are encouraged to
respond to the knowledge of Christ and His
humility on our behalf.

Jesus did not just give up glory and
power.  He gave up His life. [He] emptied
Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and
being made in the likeness of men.  And being
found in appearance as a man, He humbled
Himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross.  He became one
of us.  He took on the form and nature of
those He had created to be His servants -
His slaves.  He became everything you are,
except for sin.  He carried the aches and
pains.  He carried the troubles of life.  He
carried emotions and joys and griefs.  He
endured not being able to have it His way
at every moment, of having others decide
for Him.  He was a normal guy, except that
He was also God, enduring this normalcy
and humbling Himself to submerge His
power and glory in this human nature.

Tacitus, a Roman writer and
philosopher, who hated Christians and
strongly encouraged their persecution,
wrote in abject wonder in the second
century of the Christian Church, "See how
those Christians love one another."  How
long has it been since anyone, friend of foe,
said something like that about us?  But
that kind of care for one another is what
the humility of Christ is all about.  When
you look at the task, it seems too big.  Who
could care for others like that?  How could
you take care of yourself and do this?
Doing this would consume all of our time
and energy and our resources!  We would
be left with nothing!

And the answer of God would be -
"Precisely!"  The mind of Christ is the
attitude of humility marked by love.  He
loved us so much that He endured the loss
of all things.  He was willing to even set
aside the glory of being God to take on our
human flesh and blood and human nature.
He loved us so much that He was willing to
endure the assault of human sinfulness
while He lived a perfect and sinless life.  His
love was so deep that He was willing to take
our sin on Himself and endure the wrath of
God against us, so that we will never need
to.  The passion and the cross were truly
terrible, and the wrath of God which
caused Him to abandon His only-begotten
Son to bleed and die on the cross alone is
beyond our comprehension, and the
humility of Jesus Christ led Him to do all of
that so that we might be forgiven, justified,
and brought into the love of God by grace,
and adopted into His family as not merely
slaves, but as brothers!  His resurrection
and eternal life are also ours.  It is won for
all men, and poured out on all and truly
possessed by those that trust God and
believe His Word and love.  "He that believes
and is baptized, shall be saved!

And Paul exhorts us to have the same
attitude   the True Humility of Jesus.  Paul
is inspired to remind us of the reward for
Jesus, for His humility and obedience to
the will and plan of the Father;  Therefore
also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him
the name which is above every name, that at the
name of Jesus EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, of
those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under
the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.

His glory was increased, and His joy,
by enduring the things God set before Him
on the path of the will of God.  And what is
the will of God?

Just as it was for Jesus, it will be for
us as well.  We will not lose by imitating
His humility.  It is true, you may well be
left with nothing, but that would be nothing
of this world, not nothing at all   and you
will be leaving behind everything of this
world one day soon, anyhow.  Imitating the
attitude of Jesus receives the same good
pleasure of God.  The blessings are not the
same, of course, just as the tasks we will
perform are not the same.  But God will
also reward our true humility with a true
glory of our own and bless us each with life
eternal   and that in glory beyond our
comprehension.  Whatever we may have is
what God has given us to use in His
service.  The truth is that He may not
require every blessing and every treasure be
given up and poured out for Him upon our
neighbor.  But even if He did, it would be
well worth it.  Jesus said so, in Matthew
19, and in Mark 10, "Truly I say to you, there
is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters
or mother or father or children or farms, for My
sake and for the gospel's sake,  but that he shall
receive a hundred times as much now in the
present age, houses and brothers and sisters and
mothers and children and farms, along with
persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life."

We will not lose treasures, we will not
lose joys, we will not lose our lives, but gain
them, and far more.  Any loss we may
suffer now is but for a time, and the reward
and the joys will be forever.  God has
promised to return and repay all of our
losses.  We will not lose a thing, only,
perhaps, delay the enjoyment for a time.
And it is all so that God may work through
us just as He did through Jesus   that His
will might be fully accomplished for us and
those to whom God would have us bring
the good news.

But this attitude is not something you
or I can do on our own.  I am not telling
you to grit your teeth and work it up in
yourself and do the unpleasant.  I am
encouraging you to live in the light of the
truth of the Gospel.  God loves you, and He
will provide.  He knows everything you
need, and everything you do.  And to
strengthen us and encourage us and
enable us to possess the mind of Christ, He
has left us this meal.  Here we receive the
very body and the true blood of our Lord
Jesus.  We take Him into us and are
cleansed and forgiven and strengthened
and renewed so that we might walk before
Him as faithful children and diligent
servants.  Here, in this Holy Supper, is the
will and the ability to think like Jesus.  The
power and the humility are here too.  Here
God would feed us with this precious and
life-giving food and strengthen our faith,
and increase our love, and enable us to do
His will from the heart.

So, come, eat and drink and be
strengthened and cleansed and prepared.
Let God feed your souls as He does your
bodies, and make you able to change your
mind, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so
that you will be able to think like Jesus.
You cannot outrun God's goodness or out-
give His generosity or overestimate the care
and concern which God has for you.  What
God is saying through Paul, and through
me this morning, is walk in the light of the
love of God, and live true Humility.  Trust
God to be your supply, and take care of one
another.  Live as though God has given you
everything you need, and He has placed
you here to love and take care of one
another, and to share His love with those
who have not yet believed.  Then you will
also find true Glory, for the glory of God is
that He did all that He accomplished in
Jesus Christ -  for sinners - for you and for
me.   Have this attitude in yourselves which was
also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in
the form of God, did not regard equality with God
a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking
the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the
likeness of men.  And being found in appearance
as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross.

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

                                                                           (Let the people say Amen)

Love -- The Truth and the Myth

 Romans 13:8-10

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.  For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany                                      02/02/25

Love -- The Truth and the Myth

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There is a myth that is common in our time.  It is the myth called "love."  It is one of our most popular and enduring myths.  We sing about it.  We have poems about it.  We have little morality plays about it, and big movies about it.  We talk about it all of the time, and everybody wants to have it, or be in it, or have someone else have it for them.  And it seems that almost no one has any idea what it really is.

Well, our text this morning speaks about love.  It is not everything that can be said about love -- the Bible has a great deal more to say on the topic.  But since our text opens the topic up, this seems to be a good time to talk about it.  So, this morning we will look at the truth and the myth about love.

The first myth is that love is an emotion.   The truth is that love is an action, a behavior.  Country music singer Clint Black captured the sense of it well in his son, "It's Something that You Do."  He talks about how love isn't somewhere we fall, or something that we have, or something that we are in, it is something that we do.  Our text takes that approach when it talks about the Law, and how we fulfill it by love.

Love is fulfilled by how we deal with our neighbor.  Paul defines it negatively – "Love does no wrong to a neighbor," but it can be defined positively as well.  Love is doing for the neighbor what the neighbor needs, and (when it is also to their good) what the neighbor desires be done.  Love can be cleaning a room, or it can be doing your chores.  Love can be scratching someone's back or speaking a kind word when a person is down.  An emotion stays locked up inside of you.  Love shows and love acts.  I would be a fool if I did not acknowledge that there is often an emotional component to love, but love is so much more than mere emotion.

Another myth is that love is how you feel.  What horrible things have been done by someone who felt something they called "love."  It is almost too large a topic to consider.  People will treat others with disrespect, with hostility, with violence and then call it love – they will say, "I love . . ."  It is certain that they are feeling something, but the behaviors do not reflect love because they are not for the well-being of the beloved.  The Mills Brothers sang about this kind of "love" in their song, "You Always Hurt the One You Love, the One You Wouldn't Hurt At All."  The truth is, however, that you would not normally hurt the one you love.  You would rather suffer loss or pain for yourself, and protect the one you love.  That is what love is about.

The other side of this perversion of love is the person who cannot correct or discipline the one they claim to love.  They cannot bear to see their beloved suffer the discomforts of discipline.  The problem with such love is that it is self-absorbed.  It only cares about what the one who claims to love feels.  There are disquieting and uncomfortable experiences that are good for us, and which we sometimes need to endure to remain healthy or holy.  Whatever the feeling may be that shields someone from such important experiences, it is not love.

Everyone recognizes, for example, that the undisciplined child has not been helped by the parent's lack of discipline.  Neither is it love that permits someone to not do the things that will strengthen them simply because the beloved doesn't wish it.  Exercise is painful and difficult, at times, but without it, you cannot be healthy.  Memory work is never popular with children, but without it, the child is poorly equipped – and fails to learn a skill – the skill of memorizing – which is so important in so many places in our lives.  Love is not how you feel, or feeling good.  Sometimes the Everly Brothers were right – love hurts.

The third myth is that love is communicated with words.  Again, there is some truth here – words of love are a component of the process of communicating love – but not a necessary component.  You can communicate love by simple, silent acceptance.  My parents did not talk a great deal about loving us.  They simply spent time with us.  They demanded the best from us and praised us when we gave it our best.  They expended that little bit of extra effort freely for us at times so that we could see or do things they felt were important for us.  We didn't need a lot of love talk – we had love at work – and I never was confused about my parent's love for me, even when I didn't like their particular actions or attitudes now and then.

On the other hand I have seen people say "I love you," and then humiliate their "beloved", or deliberately fail to take them into account in their time or their decision-making.  Movies have been made about the rich kid who lives at the boarding school and has every luxury and privilege one could dream of, but has none of the time or attention of the parents.  The clear message is that simply saying the words of love is not enough.  A husband or a wife that simply says it, but doesn't take time to act out love, will say one thing, and communicate something else entirely.  Love is not communicated with words alone – it is communicated by actions – consistent, regular action.

Yet another myth is that love makes all things permissible.  People commit adultery for the sake of love.  They steal and lie for the sake of love.  As long as it is done for love, it is okay, or so the myth says.  But our text reminds us that love is doing what is right, not simply what is desirable or pleasant.  Love is the fulfilling of the Law.  In the Old Testament, the love of the people for their God was measured by how well and faithfully they adhered to His Law.  They did the things of the Law as a way of showing God their trust in Him.  It is not so much different today.  We discipline our flesh for Christ's sake because we are His people, and in thanksgiving for what He has given to us and won for us.  We don't do it to become holy, we do it because He has made us holy already and adopted us into His family and called us by name and made us His own.

Our love for God, and His love for us, makes many things impermissible.  We cannot ignore Him.  We cannot worship another God.  We cannot do what He has taught us is contrary to His will.  We cannot believe whatever we wish, but His love compels us to listen to His Word and believe what He teaches us.

The final myth for this morning is that love is overpowering.  It is a popular idea that love puts one out of control.  "I couldn't help myself," is what they say.  "I just had to do it . . .".  But true love is completely within our control.  True love is intelligent and thinking.  It is self-possessed and self-disciplined.  True love has the beloved in mind and the welfare of the beloved at heart.  True love sees clearly and understands.  And true love gives of itself, risking itself, not taking but giving and enriching the beloved.

How do I know?  I study the greatest example of love that I can find.  Jesus said that "A greater love has no man, than he lay down his life for a friend."  He demonstrated His love for us by dying for us and in our place, on the cross.  His love was intelligent.  He saw what we have done to ourselves in sin.  The wages of sin is death, and we all sinned.  There is not a righteous man on earth who does only good and who never sins.  We Christians have a further Law – that we love one another.  Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

But even in the church, we don't always see that love, do we?  There are cliques.  Some people hold grudges against others and avoid certain others.  We take our shots at one another, and hurt one another.  We politic in our assemblies, and grumble and gossip against and about one another.  We often care more about what we prefer than about the welfare of the brother or sister in Christ.  And in such lack of love, we make ourselves all the more sinful, all that much less lovable, all that much more worthy of death.

And hell.  But Jesus died for us.  He saw our need, and our helplessness, and so He planned how He might save us.  The plan was to do the impossible.  He would carry out His judgment of death and destruction on the sinner, and yet save the sinner alive.  To do that He came to earth as one of us, born human and responsible to be holy before God just as we are.  He kept the whole Law of God for us.  He kept it perfectly and earned eternal life.  Then He died.

He died for us.  He deserved no death of His own, he had to take our death to die.  He carried the guilt of our sins and endured the wrath of God against us, so that He could forgive us, and give us the eternal life He earned.  He not only planned this rescue, but His love drove Him to do it, to put the plan into action, even at great personal cost and suffering.  His love was not just a word, it was how He dealt with us and still deals with us.  He created us.  He feeds us.  He cares for our well-being day by day.  He died so that we might escape the wrath which we have earned, because we simply could not bear it, it would destroy us.  Then He declared His love so that he that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

He did love, and He does love.  He loves by maintaining His church among you, that you might believe and be saved.  He does love by laying this Holy Supper before us so often, for you to eat and to drink and to find strength and comfort in it.  He loves by forgiving you your sins, sins you have committed even though you have seen His love and tasted His goodness.  He still forgives, and He still loves, and He still feeds, and He still clothes, and He still blesses, and He still preaches, and He still places you and your life and your salvation and your blessing first.  He causes all things to work together for good for you – for those who love God.  That is His love.

Is it an emotion?  Surely, but not as we conceive of them.  Is His love a feeling?  No.  God doesn't have feelings like we have feelings – He has not revealed any such anyhow.  Is His love communicated by words?  Yes, as surely as I preach.  But we know His love in what He does and has done, not merely what He says.  Does the love of God make all things permissible?   No, It makes all things possible.  God doesn't have love for us, He is love, perfect love.  It is in considering God and His dealings with us and on our behalf that we find the meaning of love itself.

There are many myths about love – and just one profound truth.  God is love.  And if we love Him, He instructs us to love one another.  That is the sign that we are His disciples.  And when we want to know what love looks like, from one to another, we look to God's law,   For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.  And that is the truth, as opposed to the many myths, about love.

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

(Let the people say Amen)