Caretakers of Revelations

 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

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

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

Caretakers of Revelations

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abounding in Hope

 Romans 15:4-13

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

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

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

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

Abounding In Hope

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Faith Alone: Old Testament Faith

 Genesis 3:15

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

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

Faith Alone: Old Testament Faith

Reformation Advent Truths

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The Night is Almost Gone

 Romans 13:11-14

And this do, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.  The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand.  Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

Sermon for 1st Sunday in Advent                                                       12/01/24

The Night Is Almost Gone

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Have you ever tried anything really difficult?  Some of the most common and most difficult things to do are quitting smoking and dieting.  People struggle against smoking and eating and very often fail to achieve what they desired – or what they said that they desired.  Many times, the problem is that they can see the advantage of doing the thing they are aiming at, but when push comes to shove, they really do not want to do it all that badly.  They are clearly not willing to endure what they need to endure to reach their goal.  I am very familiar with struggles of that sort myself.

A noteworthy fact is, when the motivation is powerful enough, the temptation to do that thing you seem powerless to resist suddenly loses all of its power.  For example, a writer who had tried and failed to quit smoking for decades wrote that when the doctor told him that he had cancer and was going to die soon from it, he lost all desire to smoke, and had no difficulty never picking up another cigarette.  He wrote about it, in the last article he ever wrote, in Reader's Digest when I was a teen-ager.  It was actually published after he died.  People who could never discipline themselves to lose weight have often found that health problems, a brush with death, or severe pain caused by their weight gave them the ability to do what they formerly did not possess the discipline to accomplish.  These events are simply illustrations of human nature.

Our text, this morning, lays out the only genuine motivation for Christian holiness.  The task of actually being holy is beyond our abilities - our holiness is from God.  But the holiness which adorns our conduct is a cooperative endeavor.  God gives us the power, and guides us in the doing - even gives to us the will to do it, but the actual doing of it is ours.  And still it is incredibly difficult - and so we need the proper motivation to enable us to do anything at all and to endure the terrible lure to do that which is sinful - and our text tells us that motivation.  The only way we can do it is to keep in mind that the night is almost gone - and that is our theme this morning: The Night Is Almost Gone.

Before I talk about that holiness, however, I need to make one thing clear: Jesus Christ is our true holiness.  What this text talks about is our conduct by which we confess Christ and show forth His glory, and live as His children, but our true holiness is Jesus Christ.  He pours our forgiveness and give us His holiness.  That is a part of the Gospel.  We are holy in Christ by imputation – He counts us righteous with His righteousness.  In and of ourselves, even the good things we do are corrupted with sin and unholy aside from Christ's cleansing and gift of righteousness.  With that truth in mind, we continue with the text.

The first thing that impresses me from the text – as you might have surmised – is the urgency of the message.  The Apostle Paul is pressing the importance of the holiness of the Christian's conduct on the basis of the realization that its almost over.  The time of this world is almost done.  Jesus is coming back any time now.  Whatever is going to be done needs to be done now and we need to have a sense of urgency about it.  It is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep!  The night of sin and darkness is almost gone, and the day of salvation and life eternal is at hand.  You can see the sky brightening in the east already.

That is especially important because we don't want to be found unprepared, living as though we are not Christians.  One reason, of course, to not want to be found living as though you are not a Christian is that if you live in such a manner, without concern for being God's holy child in all that you do, you probably are not a Christian in reality.

Living for this world and in the values and attitudes of the world around us is the sleep from which we need to awaken.  The hard part of the instructions Paul gives us is making no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts.  To do otherwise is to be asleep.  Paul described such a man in First Corinthians, and delivered him to Satan for the destruction of His body in order to rescue his soul.  What that means, precisely, is debated, but obviously this was a man who needed to wake up!  He who dies with the most toys does not win - he just dies.  Life is not about accumulating possessions, or having a good time, or even watching your grandchildren grow.  Those things may be part of life, but your life is about Christ, the hope of salvation, and rescuing the lost and confused around us.

Paul gets pretty specific.  Life is not about partying.  That is what carousing and drunkenness refer to.  God wants us to enjoy life, but all things in moderation.  

Life is not about taking the most pleasure out of it that you can.  That is what words about sexual promiscuity and sensuality are about.  Promiscuity distorts life and makes it all about one particular pleasure, and misses or deliberately rejects God's plan for our happiness and well-being in life.  Sensuality, on the other hand, simply lives for the pleasure and delightful, sensual experiences of it.  The life of a Christian is not about how it feels.

Our lives are not about who is first or who is greater – strife and jealousy arise out of such a misunderstanding of the purpose of life.  In fact, strife and jealousy in the church always demonstrates that we have forgotten who is first and who is greatest – Jesus Christ.  These mistaken behaviors and focuses are the sorts of things that Paul refers to when he instructs us to lay aside the deeds of darkness.

Our alternate course is to put on the armor of light.  That expression is used in parallel with the expression, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our alternatives are to sleep in sin and do the deeds of darkness or put on the Lord Jesus Christ –  which means faith and laying aside the sorts of evils that Paul has named.  You put on Jesus when you live as though your sins are forgiven, when you walk as a child of light and as one who has eternal life as a certainty, and when your life reflects the conviction that God is your loving heavenly Father, and He is always on your side.

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ means a change in you and a change in how you relate to the world around you.  The change in you is trust in the forgiveness that Christ won for you on the cross and a humble dependence on God.  Such trust looks back on sin with repentance and the joy of forgiveness — and it looks forward on sin as something alien and deadly and earnestly to be avoided.  The change in your relationship to the world - or how you relate to it - is that you see the world for what it is.

The world is passing away.  It is temporary.  It is not worth your time and devotion.  This life, and the pleasures of it, are not the focus of the life of a child of God in Jesus Christ.  This is not to say that we ignore taking care of the environment, or we deliberately turn away from others in need.  We serve the good of the people around us out of love - but the world does not determine our lives - the love of God for us does.  We cannot panic because someone thinks that the world is falling apart.  God is in control, and although things can look grim at times, and real problems arise around us, we know that God, who loves us and will always care for us, is in absolute control.  That is what I described a moment ago as "humble dependence on God".  We children of God never need to fear what is coming upon the earth.  Our Father can handle it, and will handle it for our sakes.

So, in everything we do, we live out our faith.  We may well work at preserving the world around us – but we do it as an act of faith – not as though we are desperate and frightened about what would happen if we did not, but as those who are taking care of our fellow men and women out of the same sort of love for them that God has shown to us.  We serve our fellow men from a heart of compassion, as God has had compassion on us, and as those whom God has abundantly blessed so that we can be a blessing to others.  Whatever we do, we do it to the glory of God, not because we expect that without our help, God will not also bless them.  All that we do is done as an expression of our faith and a confession of Christ.

The task of confessing Christ and sharing God's grace and salvation is all the more urgent today because we know that the time is short.  The words of Paul, inspired by God, are all the more meaningful today.  If salvation was nearer when Paul wrote to the Romans than when they first believed - imagine how much closer it is today, two thousand years later!  Of course, the hour is late personally - we never know how much time we have to do what God has given us to do.  Each of us knows just how short life is, and how quickly even forty or fifty years can slip by.  But the time left for the entire world has even grown short.  The last day is two thousand years closer – and we started the very last days on Good Friday, when Jesus died for our sins.  On Easter Sunday, when Jesus rose for our justification and showed us what He had in store for those who are in Christ Jesus, the end of this world had begun in earnest.

And we know what it is that God has given us to do.  Our twin tasks are bringing the gospel to others who do not know it yet, and taking care of one another in the faith.  Neither part has priority over the other - and neither part can be ignored due to some misplaced preference for one over the other.  Our lives, our times, and our riches are about the Gospel - telling it to those around us outside of the church, and encouraging our brothers and sisters in the household of God who are inside the church to stand firm, remain faithful, and hold fast to the hope which is ours in Jesus Christ.

And that hope is resurrection from the grave and life eternal beyond sin and death, beyond sorrow and sickness.  This isn't the idle, wishful thinking kind of hope.  This is the hope guaranteed to us by the death of Jesus on the cross in our place, and certified by the resurrection of Jesus from the grave on Easter morning.  This isn't a weak hope, but the certainty of that which is yet to be experienced in its fulness.  Your sins are forgiven, and you are the chosen of God Himself – beloved and precious to Him, and you experience the foretaste of that hope each Sunday in the Lord's Supper, and in the holy absolution, and even in the hearing of God's Word in our lessons and in the sermons.  God is saying, it is going to be like this, only fuller, and richer, and better!

It may seem like life is going on just like it always has.  It might seem at times like the urgency of the work of the people of God is not really all that urgent.  But time is running out.  Jesus told us that it would seem like this.   Paul, writing in First Thessalonians, wrote:  While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.  But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.  For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.  But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.   For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The message of our Epistle, on this First Sunday in Advent, is know the time.  Wake up!  Salvation - and the end of the world - is much closer today than when you first believed.  Get ready for it, and act the part of who you are – the redeemed of God in Jesus Christ.  It is important as an exercise against the temptations of the devil, of the world, and of our own flesh in these last days.  It is important as a confession of Christ before the world, a world that desperately needs to see Christ and know Christ now, before it is too late.  It is urgent today because the night is almost gone!

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Thanksgiving

 Galatians 6:7-10

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.  For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.  And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.  So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

Sermon for Thanksgiving                                       11/28/24

Thanksgiving

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday, not a church holiday.  We are having service today, as I say each year, because we have the opportunity, and we don't want the world to mistake us for those who have no gratitude to God.  But it would be a mistake is we began to think that this day was special for the fact that we give thanks on it, or that thanksgiving was accomplished the way most Americans do it.

If you were to judge by our cultural celebration, you would think that thanksgiving was accomplished by eating too much food, or watching football on TV.  Those are the modern day perks that many of us enjoy - along with family gatherings and such - but they have nothing to do with giving thanks to God.  In fact, they usually stand in the way of thanksgiving.  The question is, "What does real Thanksgiving look like?"  That is what our text for this morning is describing.  Our theme is simply, "Thanksgiving".

Every thing we have, and every moment we live, and every sense we utilize is a gift from God.  Our consciousness and our ability even to say thank-you in any way is a gift.  Heavenly beings, like the angels, pour their very being into serving the Lord.  That is how they worship and that is how they give thanks to God – by being what God created them to be and doing what God created them to do.  So the question for us mortals is: What does real thanksgiving look like?  How can we – whose breath and very being is a gift – give to God true thanks.  Simply saying "Thank-you," is not adequate.  It may work for politicians, because they want the attention of the press.  It works for hypocrites, because they want just the sound of it anyhow.  We, as God's children, want actually to give praise and thanks to God.  And the Bible says we have nothing to give to God which He hasn't first given to us, so, how do we give genuine thanks to God?

The answer is that we do it by how we live.  Angels give thanks - as I said earlier - by being who God created them to be and doing what He created them to do.  We must do the same.  Saying that is one thing, of course, and doing it is another.  It doesn't come naturally to us, since we are sinful by nature, and at our best we wrestle with temptations and sins within and without.  That is where the words of our text, and other words of Scripture come into play in our lives.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.  These words serve as our guide as we consider how we are to live, and what sorts of thing we are to do.  If we live as though how we live does not matter, God knows that it does not matter to us.  If sin and holiness do not matter to us, for example, then clearly, neither does whether we go to heaven or to hell.  It is true that our actions do not earn us heaven, or hell for that matter.  We all deserve hell, and our hope for heaven is in Jesus and not in ourselves or our behavior.  Having said that, however, we never mean to imply that sin doesn't matter, or that holiness is unimportant.  It is just that our works and our conduct are not the cause of our salvation.  Jesus is the source and the cause of our salvation, and unbelief is the only cause of damnation.  That has been true since Jesus died on the cross in our place.

Think about it:  Jesus changed everything!  We do not naturally have the ability to be pleasing to God.  We were born fit for death and hell, and our deeds since then have further fitted us for eternal death.  But Jesus came into the world and lifted that doom from our shoulders by suffering all that we, by our sins, have earned.  Scripture says explicitly that Jesus bore our sins on the cross and nailed to that cross the handwriting of the Law which was against us.  He died our death.  He took our place, and by doing so, took us out of the equation of salvation.  Now it is the will of God that all those who look to the Son of God for their salvation and place their trust and hope in Him will rise to everlasting life in glory.

The only possible thanks we can give that means anything real is that we live in the light of that Gospel, that we live as the beings God has created us in Christ to be, and we do the things that we were created new in Christ to do.  God even says something to that effect in Ephesians 2:10, where He caused the Apostle Paul to write: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."   

On the other hand, if you live as though this world is all there is, and you gotta reach for all the gusto you can get, then, for you this world is all there is – at least all the good stuff that there is.  You will reap what you sow.  Our text says,  For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.  If you sow to the flesh, which means that you live as if the flesh is what really matters, you will reap what the flesh earns – death and hell.  If you live in the Spirit and from the guidance of the Spirit, and you sow toward the work of the Spirit, you will reap from the Spirit eternal life – again, not because your behavior earns it, but because only the children of God are being led by the Spirit.  Everyone else always sows to the flesh.

It is this life of holiness that is true thanksgiving.  It is only by living as God's holy people that we bring glory to Him.  Thanksgiving and praise isn't just a matter of what we say, although that counts too.  It really is our lives.  Actions speak louder than words, or so they say.  If you are happy that you have been set free from sin and death, then you live a life that reflects that freedom from sin, to the best of your ability.  If you are thankful that God loves you and counts you as His own, then you live a life that shows your joy, demonstrates your trust, illustrates the hope that is yours in Jesus Christ.  A life of thanksgiving is not a life of grasping greed, but of sharing.  It is not a life of self-service and minding one's own business, but a life that cares for the welfare of others and looks out for the well-being of the other.

Of course, some people won't appreciate such attention.  Oh, they are glad to have you give them money and food and stuff like that, but care for others which includes protecting them from false teachers, and warning them against spiritual counterfeits and guiding them into the truth is not always welcomed.  They want the outward help, but there are government agencies to do those things.  Who is there to tell them the truth about God and His love?  That work is left to us!  Again, people seem to welcome political action on their behalf, but where can they find theological action on their behalf?  We who have the truth need to stand firm in the truth and show them the way of the Word of God against the errors of our age, and point the way to that narrow way of life.

These theological sorts of things are the good deeds that no one else is doing, no government agencies, no public charities, and precious few churches.  And, frankly, people don't necessarily want to hear it.  They will freely bite the hand that feeds them the spiritual food they need.  That is why Paul writes,  And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.  It is easy to grow weary, but we are encouraged not to lose heart, but to continue on in doing good.

And - what so few recognize even though it is a common proverb - our good works and our charity ought to begin at home.  It is so inviting to look at the charities of the world, and get caught up in the unending needs of the world around us, and overlook the brother or sister in Christ who needs our time, or our compassion, or even our help.  It is a fine thing to help others, the poor, the homeless, without regard for who they may be.  It is a very American thing.  But our text reminds us that as God's people, we take care of one another first.  I'm not talking about blood family taking care of blood family first – that seems to come naturally.  I am talking about brothers and sisters in Christ – understanding that the Church is our family, and taking care of our family in Christ before we take care of the world.

So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.  To love others and do good in every situation is vocation of the children of God, who are to live in imitation of their heavenly Father, who makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust and the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike.  But the other children of God come first for us, just as they also do for God.  The world will hate us, so we must love one another all the more.

Besides, if we only clothe and feed an unbeliever, we have only preserved him for the fires to come.  But if we rescue and encourage, feed and support a fellow believer, we help one of God's children hang on and hold fast and stand faithful unto life everlasting.  The best way to thank God for all His goodness to us is to share it with another soul, helping them hold fast to faith and salvation.

But this is not an either / or.  This is a both – and.  We are not to neglect those who need to hear about Jesus in favor those who already have, nor do we turn our backs on those who believe in order to reach out to those who do not.  We do both.  We sow to the Spirit among those who have not yet believed – out of gratitude for God's grace to us, and we sow to the Spirit by fellowship and encouragement, by sound doctrine and the witness of a faithful life among those who share the burden of the cross of Christ with us.  

This is true thanksgiving.  It is a life of service and love.  It is a life of holiness and faithfulness.  It is a life given to God's truth, and God's people, and God's mission.  It isn't simply a day.  It is our entire life; a life of discipleship, of holiness, of love, and – yes – of thanksgiving, lived deliberately and consciously, aware that we are strangers and aliens to the world, and fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God.  With eyes wide open, and our attention fixed on Jesus, we live in this world as ambassadors to the truth, and fellow travelers with the whole household of God.  That is thanksgiving!

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

Be On the Alert!

 Matthew 25:1-13

"Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom.  And five of them were foolish, and five were prudent.  For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps.

"Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep.  But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom!  Come out to meet him.'  Then all those virgins rose, and trimmed their lamps.  And the foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.'  But the prudent answered, saying, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.'  And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut.

"And later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.'  But he answered and said, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.'  Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour."

Sermon for the Last Sunday in the Church Year                     11/24/24

Be On the Alert!

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

On the Last Sunday in the Church Year we look at the Judgment, but we don't look at the formal Judgment Day scene.  The judgment scene that we want you to consider this morning, in the light of the text, is the one each one of you will face immediately upon leaving this world and the body you now inhabit.  They are the same judgment, at least in consequence, but one is seen as the judgment of all mankind, and the other is deliberately very personal.  Our theme is Be on the Alert!

The Gospel lesson is the Parable of the Ten Virgins.  In it, five were wise - our translation says that they were prudent - and five were foolish.  We could take every element of the parable and tie it to something and make quite a story out of it, but that would actually do a disservice to the words of Jesus.  He told a simple story with a very simple message, "Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour."  In other words, be prepared.

The problem the foolish young women had in our Gospel is that they were not prepared for the wait.  They did not appear to have thought beyond the moment, and they did not anticipate what they might need.

I suspect that the parable was heard differently when Jesus spoke it, and in the early Church than it might be today.  Back then, they were looking for the quick return of Jesus.  The disciples were already eager and impatient for the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.  The early Church harbored the anticipation that Christ was going to return soon, and so they sold their property and they often quit their jobs and they hung out together to be ready, waiting and watching for the soon return.  Obviously, their eschatological expectations were not accurate.  They needed this parable to teach them to be prepared for a wait that is going to be somewhat longer than they expected.

The hope was so deeply entrenched in the early Church that when people began to die, physically, some of the earliest Christians began to mourn, fearing that their loved ones had missed out on salvation.  I know, it seems foolish, given the promise of the resurrection of all flesh.  Apparently they had not paid a great deal of attention to that teaching because they were so fixed on the expectation of the end.  So, they needed to hear this parable as a remedy to their impatience, and understand that the return of Jesus - the Bridegroom - might be delayed until the midnight hour. 

Most of us don't have that problem.  We are clear on the fact that Jesus is not likely to return in the first fifty or sixty years.  The Church today is more likely to forget about the possibility of His return than they are to grow impatient with the wait.  For us, the parable is a reminder to be on the alert.  Jesus is coming again, and we want to be among those prepared.

The oil for the lamps is whatever one needs to be prepared.  It is tempting to call it "faith" and sing, "Give me oil for my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning".  Faith certainly is something we want not to run short of - and yet faith is the gift of God.  It is not something we can hoard or create or sustain by our own powers.  I suspect that the flame on the lamp would be a better image for faith than the oil.  In fact, I don't think we can fix whatever the oil is a symbol for too closely.  It is, instead, whatever we need to continue waiting for the Bridegroom and to be prepared when He finally comes.

One thing it certainly seems to suggest is doctrine.  The early Christians struggled with the wait because they were fixed on their own expectations and not paying much attention to the whole body of doctrine.  They thought about the return, but they forgot about all that Jesus taught concerning the wait, and they often just skipped over the teachings about the resurrection on the last day because they so ardently expected to be standing up, still alive and looking into the sky as Jesus returned.  And they will be alive, and standing, and looking into the sky - it is just that they will be alive again, not still alive.

Throughout the ages, some Christians - or rather, members of the visible Church - have lost sight of the coming of the Lord.  Some have despaired of His ever coming, and others have simply figured that it would be no time soon, and so they lost their focus and got busy living in this world as though this was all there would ever be.  Either way, the result is that when the call comes - or in many cases already came - they were not ready.

You see, the call comes when the Lord sends His holy angels to escort you into His heavenly presence.  We call that moment when the escort arrives to receive you, "death".  For the child of God it is anything but - it is death only of the body.  The saints go to live in the presence of the Lord until the moment of the resurrection, at which time they receive their bodies back, resurrected and perfected, and fit out for eternal life.  Our loved ones who die in the Lord are actually more fully alive than we are, who dwell here in this flesh.  They see and taste and know reality without the illusions and deceits of sin and of the ‘flesh'.

Those who refuse to keep these truths in mind as they wait are often among those foolish whose oil runs low, and who must run for new supply - and while they are gone, the Bridegroom comes.  Of course, they don't really run anywhere.  That is just a dramatic device for the parable to symbolize their unpreparedness when Jesus returns.  They are found without what they need.  They are absent from the company of the saints - the virgins - when the Bridegroom comes.

We cannot take the parable too far, for we are not just the attendants at the wedding, we are the bride of Christ - the Holy Church.  If we are missing, the Bride still marries, but we are not in attendance.  Jesus tells us this parable so that we might be on the alert.  That is more than merely ‘being ready' or ‘being prepared'.  It is an active state of watch.  We are to be alert, prepared, and on the watch for the coming of the Bridegroom.  The flame of faith, if you will, should be burning, no doubt.  The oil you need to bring in plenteous store is whatever it takes to wait faithfully.  I would identify it a doctrine.

You need the Word of God.  You need to build your life and your values around all that it teaches.  You cannot afford to expect only good stuff, when the Word teaches you that you will likely endure suffering.  It not for nothing that Jesus spends so much time telling His disciples that they will lose their stuff and endure persecution – but if they remain faithful, they will receive many times what they lost, and in the resurrection, eternal life.

We need to be on the alert.  The only way to do that is to take seriously what Scriptures teach concerning the life of the Christian and the life of the Church.  Is Jesus returning?  Yes!  Is He going to return today or in the next five years?  There is no way of knowing.  We should be prepared for His return in case the cry, "The Bridegroom comes, come out to meet Him" comes soon.  But we should also be prepared to wait, until death if necessary.

Jesus died for you, and it is clear that most who are Christians will also need to die for Jesus.  Some die in persecutions, and some die in bed of old age, but so far, all have died.  When death comes, the cry, "Come out to meet Him," has come for that individual.  Jesus bore the cross for our sins, and He has appointed that those who follow Him will also bear the cross.  The trials and troubles and the losses that we must endure should not shake us.  The fact that we must endure such things should not surprise us - the Bible tells us that it will be so.  If we walk by faith and not by sight or sinful human reason, we should find that one of the sorrows we must endure is not that we did not expect such things.

Be on the Alert!  Around us the world is changing.  The hour is getting late!  This is not the time to run short of patience, or lose sight of all the comforts that God has given us.

Your sins are forgiven.  They are forgiven because Jesus died on the cross in your place.  Now He invites you to share in the cross.  He isn't going to ask most of you to hang on one, nailed through hands and feet.  The cross appointed for each of you is the one that fits you.  And we have His promise that No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.  You may find yourself wishing at times that the Lord did not have such a high estimate of what you are able to bear, but His promise is sure.

We must pass through many things, as Paul taught in Acts 14, where [Paul was] strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."  He was proclaiming the same message as Jesus was in the parable in our Gospel lesson this morning.  Pay attention.  Take heed to all that God teaches.  Be prepared for the wait, and be on the alert, for the Bridegroom is coming - you just never know the day or the hour that He is coming for you!

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Believing

 John 4:46-54

He came therefore again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain royal official, whose son was sick at Capernaum.  When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him, and was requesting Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death.  Jesus therefore said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe."  The royal official said to Him, "Sir, come down before my child dies."

Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives."  The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he started off.  And as he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living.   So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better.  They said therefore to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.'  So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives"; and he himself believed, and his whole household.

This is again a second sign that Jesus performed, when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.

Sermon for 21st Sunday After Trinity                            10/20/24

Believing

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There is believing -- and then there is believing.  I can say that because the official, whose son was healed in our Gospel lesson, discovered several different ways of believing.  The Bible itself speaks of believing in a number of different ways, and not all of them are viewed as saving faith in Scriptures.  This morning I would like to take the opportunity of the text to look at what the Bible says about believing.  So, that is our theme: Believing.

In our Gospel this morning, an official comes down to Cana from Capernaum.  He is called a royal official, which tells us little.  In our Gospel this morning Jesus seems to be critical of the man's need to see a sign in order to have faith.  To be fair, Jesus did not just criticize the royal official.  Jesus' comment seems more to be aimed at the Jews in general, as the "you" in His sentence was plural.

This official's son was sick.  We don't know what illness he may have had, but it was thought to be potentially fatal, and that it was about to end the life of the child.  He had undoubtedly heard things about this Jesus-Rabbi, and so he came to where Jesus was – in desperation.  How do I know this?  Jesus looked into the man and saw that there was no real faith yet.  "Unless you see signs and wonders, You will not believe."  Clearly, the man did not yet believe - although he believed enough to travel for two days to seek out Jesus.  I suppose that is a kind of believing.  He was desperate, "Sir, come down before my child dies."  The man did not say, "Come down or else my son will die," but "Sir, come down before my child dies."  He still seemed to expect the boy to die, down deep in his heart.

Then Jesus said, "It's taken care of."  "Go your way, your son lives."  No waving of the arms.  No mysterious chants.  No potions.  No signs and wonders.  Just the Word of God, "Go your way, your son lives."  And John writes that the man believed the word which Jesus spoke to him, and started off.  There is believing.  He heard, and he took Jesus at His word and headed home.  What faith!

On his way home, his servants met him.  Cana is twenty, maybe thirty miles from Capernaum.  Since they did not yet have cars, and even with a horse (if they had one) thirty miles is a long way, it took the man the rest of the day – with an evening resting under the stars or at some inn somewhere – and part of the next day to get home.  Before he made it all of the way, however, he was met by his slaves coming to meet him with the happy news that his son was now better.  He asked at what time the boy began to mend, and they said it was about 1:00 P.M. – the seventh hour (since they started their daily hours at about 6:00 A.M.).  The man recognized that it was just about at that time that Jesus had said that his son was going to live.  Then John writes the most peculiar thing – ". . . and he himself believed, and his whole household."

The man had believed in the first place, but Jesus saw that it was not real faith but more desperation.  Then Jesus promised that his son would live and the man headed home, and John wrote that the man believed.  Now, all of a sudden, having heard that his son is recovering, the man believes.  Apparently, there is believing, and believing, and then there's believing.

What we are seeing is different kinds of faith.  First is the half-believing, half-disbelieving, skeptical but desperate kind of thing that brought the man to travel for two days to get to Jesus.  Next we see a faith that kinda-sorta believes.  He took Jesus at His word, but it still appeared to be a wait-and-see kind of thing.  He had something like what we call an historical faith.  He accepted the proposition that his son was going to get better, but he seems to have been far from convinced.  He got what he could, and went home with hope, and not much else.  How do I know?  Because when he heard that his son had recovered, he had to ask when he started to get better.  Even with the news that his son was well, he couldn't quite believe that Jesus was responsible for it.  He had to double-check.  He had to ask.

Then he really  believed. He discovered that the fever broke at the moment Jesus said that his son would recover.   Now there was no doubt.  He trusted.  Sure, he had what he wanted for the moment, but now he trusted Jesus for far more than just this healing.  Now he understood who Jesus was and what that meant for his life.  

Our experience of coming to faith in Jesus Christ is similar.  The Holy Spirit creates faith in us by the Word of God.  That is instantaneous and complete by God's power, but our experience of it, our consciousness of it often feels much like this man's path.  We start with a need and a wish and not much else – and then we try God.  We believe the Word of God, sort-of, when it tells us of the love of God, and we put God to the test.  We don't really expect God to keep His promises, but we try Him out in situations where we don't have too many other options anyhow.  When God proved Himself to us, then we believe.

Many Christians, so-called, have that historical faith.  That is faith like the Bible says demons have: "You believe that God is one.  You do well.  The demons also believe, and shudder."  These so-called Christians believe that a man named Jesus lived and died, and they accept that He rose from the grave.  They talk about the forgiveness of sins, and accept it in some sort of academic way, but it never reaches into their hearts.  They never learn to trust God.  This is the faith which one professor of mine once called the intellectual assent to propositions of low probability

What is missing from such faith is trust.  God has forgiven you all of your sins.  He paid the cost of your sins by killing His Son of the cross instead if you.  He made Jesus bear your pains and your guilt and your shame.  Jesus died for you, and, as a result, God has forgiven you every sin.  He demonstrated the sufficiency of the death of Jesus for your redemption by raising Jesus from the dead.  Saying that this forgiveness is so is one thing.  Trusting it is another.  There's believing, and then there's believing.

What does it mean to trust in God?  It means more than simply saying that the Word of God is accurate or factually true.  It means living in confidence about God and in God.  It means answering your fears with God's promises and with the knowledge that God loves you.  It means doing what you know to be right even if it doesn't seem safe or practical or popular.  It means that you force yourself to stop listening to the devil accuse you about anything and you start giving thanks instead for the forgiveness of your sins.  It means that you calculate the forgiveness of sins by its cost – the very life blood of the Son of God, and that you measure the seriousness of sin by that cost.  Doing that would mean that you judge your willingness to sin, or to be unconcerned about sin, by the cost of your salvation, not by the comfort of the next moment or by the pleasure offered by the next temptation.  It is all part of believing.

Do you trust God?  Then you forgive, as He has told you He would have you do.  Then you set your priorities as you know God would have you set them, and not as they appeal to you, necessarily.  Then you put first things – God's things – first.  Do you trust God enough to risk looking  unusually religious?  Do you trust God enough to find contentment in His will and His love for you, no matter how painful or troubling you may find life to be?

Do you trust God?  The official came to pray to Jesus, but he clearly was prepared to go home without what he asked for.  He didn't necessarily expect that Jesus could heal his son, or that Jesus would, so when he prayed to Jesus, he was doing what I call and "just in case" prayer.  You know, just in case God is listening, and just in case He is interested, and just in case He wants to help, I will pray.  Do you pray like that, or do you pray with confidence that God will answer?  

Someone once told me the story about a time during a drought when they were younger and they had gone out to pray for rain in a field with the pastor and the entire congregation – and only two members of the congregation brought umbrellas.  The rest apparently did not expect God to answer – and they got soaked.

Do you pray like those wet ones, or do you pray expecting God is going to take care of things?  I know God does not always give us what we want, but if we ask for His will to be done, then we ALWAYS get what we pray for!  That's believing.

That is how faith built on trust responds to life.  Look at the Supper on the Altar this morning.  What is it?  Does your hunger for it reflect a casual human sense that this is a fine ritual of the church, or does it reflect the faith that here is forgiveness, and that Christ is coming to you personally to transform you and give you eternal life?  Do you count it as precious and hunger to receive it as often as you may, or does receiving this Supper just now and then seems sufficient?

You see what I mean?  There's believing, and then there's believing.  Simply acknowledging the truth is not the same as trusting in God.  

Now, does God demand that every Christian be a radical Christian?  YES.

"Radical" means "to the root".  We are to be rooted in Christ and hoping in Christ, and not in this world.  We are to lean on God and trust in Him and not trust our own wisdom, or strength or understanding.  If we do, we will live that faith out, not by being something weird, but by doing everything in the light of that faith, guiding our actions and our words and our attitudes by our trust in God and hope in forgiveness and expectation that we will rise from the grave to live forever.  That's believing.

The man in the Gospel saw Jesus in action, and understood that He was God — and that He cared for him and his family.  He trusted from that moment on that Jesus could and would take care of him, his family, and his needs.  Undoubtedly, he learned the Gospel after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and grew further in his trust in God.  

You, too, can let every pain, every crisis, every need rest in the hands of Jesus.  You can trust Him to love you, keep you, and save you, and raise you from the dead to everlasting life at the last.  This faith is more than just believing that it is true, it is believing that it is for you, and that God counts you precious to Himself and watches over you, and will bring you through all things safely.  

You see, that is believing.

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

(Let the people say Amen)