The Things that Make for Peace

 Luke 19:41-48

And when He approached, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace!  But now they have been hidden from your eyes.  For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them, "It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,' but you have made it a DEN OF THIEVES."  And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging upon His words.

Sermon for Tenth Sunday After Trinity                                           08/09/26

The Things which Make for Peace

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There are things you can do to encourage certain behaviors or circumstances, and there are things you can do to discourage them.  Taxes, for example, are used to manage social change.  If you want some behaviors, you avoid taxing them, and reduce taxes that my infringe on them.  If you want people to stop doing something, you tax that behavior.  That is why, for example, the government taxes cigarettes.  Part of it is a desire to make money off of the nicotine addiction, and part of it is to make smoking as financially painful as possible.  They tax liquor and beer for the same reasons - to take you money when you do something you enjoy (and that way supposedly you won't feel so bad about them taking your money) and to discourage people from drinking.  Just making it illegal didn't work in the twenties, and it cut the government out of the loop for the money.

Reward someone for doing something, and they are more likely to do more of it - and others are more likely to join in doing it, so in some areas they pay children to read books.  It seems to work for some.  Punish a behavior, and people will do less of it - or so the theory goes.  Similarly, Jesus speaks about things which make for peace in our Gospel.  There are things which promote peace, and there are things which work against it.  This morning, I invite you to join me as we look at our Gospel and talk about the things which make for peace.

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem in our Gospel, perhaps as He approached Jerusalem for His Palm Sunday ride - which is reported in the verse just before our Gospel lesson.  As He approached, He began to weep over Jerusalem because He knew what was coming for the city, and why.  When Jesus expressed what He saw He was not just predicting future events, but pronouncing judgment on the city and her inhabitants.  Their failure was that they had not recognized the time of their visitation.  They were facing destruction because God Himself had come to live among them as man, and they rejected Him and would not believe what they could actually see with their own eyes.

Yes, the Jews of Jesus' day could tell that Jesus was the One who fulfilled all of the prophecies of the coming One.  They stubbornly refused to accept it, and found ways to question what they were clearly seeing, not unlike reporters who don't want to hear what they are hearing or see what they are seeing today.  Jesus did the miracles.  They saw them and knew that they were real.  He healed the sick, refreshed withered limbs, fed thousands miraculously, and even raised the dead - the undeniably dead were undeniably alive again.  He spoke the Word of God and taught as no one had among them in a long time.  They knew who He was, and what it all meant, but they just couldn't let themselves believe it.

Of course, some did believe, but the leaders, and the majority of the teachers did not, and their flocks often followed them blindly, just as the flocks of the false teachers today will follow their leaders stubbornly, even, at times, to drinking the poisoned Kool-aide.  Because of their violent rejection of the Savior, their city was to be destroyed violently.  Jesus described the siege of Jerusalem that took place between sixty-six and seventy A.D.  Because they broke faith with God completely, God wiped their city out and kept His covenant with them by abandoning them.

The theme of the sermon came from the words of Jesus in verse 42,  "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace!  But now they have been hidden from your eyes."  It is kind of ironic that the sorrow of Jesus over Jerusalem is because they had not known the things which make for peace.  It is ironic because the name of Jerusalem means, "the city of peace", or "the place where peace dwells".  There He was, and they did not know it.

So what are the things which make for peace?  Obviously, they are the things that Jesus brought to Jerusalem that Jerusalem refused to see and believe.  First of all, I would list the will of God.  God chooses us and by His will He has prepared salvation for us - so the will of God is one element of the things which make for peace.  And what is the will of God for us?

(Our Salvation)

Grasping that truth with our minds and our hearts brings that "peace which passes all comprehension."  Just knowing that God's will is always for our good and blessing, and that whatever we may endure or perceive around us, we have the God-given certainty that His will is for us and is good for us, and so we may rest in peace while we live, and not just when they bury us.

That certainty, of course, is what we call "faith" It is not the things we can accumulate that bring peace.  We often discover that it is the pursuit of our desires that is the most enjoyable, not the possession of them.  How often haven't you wanted something, and worked to find it and buy it only to discover after a very short time that is hardly touched, not often used, and much less important or enjoyable that it appeared during the pursuit?  Things don't bring peace - they bring worry - about the first scratch, about someone stealing it (or them), about wear and tear and the like.  No, things don't make for peace, not even really good things.

Money doesn't do it either.  Money can smooth the road some, but either it is in danger of running out, or someone wants to take it, or - for some who find riches too suddenly - it makes them feel guilty.  Faith, on the other hand, comforts us with the assurance of God's promises, and makes us look beyond the moment and our circumstances to the promise and the hope.

Then there is the Gospel, with the forgiveness of sins.  It is the substance of the faith.  The Gospel tells us what Jesus has done, and what it means and how certain the promises are.  The cross and the empty tomb remind us of how far God has gone for us, to save us, so that we know that we can always depend on Him and His blessing and protection in our times of need.  The death of the Son of God for you demonstrates that God will do whatever it takes to keep you – and the resurrection of Jesus on Eater preaches the full and free forgiveness which He won on the cross for us.  The resurrection means that God accepted the exchange of Jesus and His righteousness before the bar of His justice for us and our sins.  If Jesus' death had not been enough, He would not have risen from the dead - but He has.  Even His enemies, who desired to keep His resurrection a secret, testified that Jesus arose from the grave.  They testified with the limp little story about those frightened fishermen overpowering Romans guards and stealing the body.  Oh yea, they said the soldiers fell asleep on duty!  Anyone who knew Romans soldiers would know right off that it was a lie.  First, Roman soldiers did not fall asleep on duty - to do so was a death sentence.  Second, even if one did, it was not a good way to continue living to run around saying that a soldier fell asleep on duty.  The Romans would want to silence that kind of talk immediately.  Nope, Jesus rose from the dead, and your sins, and mine, are forgiven.

Repentance is another thing that makes for peace.  Guilt has a way of eating at you.  Repentance is the one sure way to be certain that God has heard about your sin, and has addressed it with His grace.  "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

And then there is prayer.  Jesus points out the importance of prayer when He cleanses the temple.  "It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,' but you have made it a DEN OF THIEVES."  His actions in the temple bought things to a boiling point.  Luke says that the leaders were trying to destroy Jesus after that.  We all know how much trouble those words can bring in modern times, when you quote them in regards to sales and dinners and such - but Jesus was first, and attacking the income of the priests and leaders of the temple by driving those moneychangers and those who were selling animals and such out of the temple.  He did it in part to fulfil prophecy, of course, but He also did it because prayer is so important.

If you need peace, there are few things you can do that will help you as much as a heart to heart talk with God.  I know, I have experience with long talks with God.  And He listens so well - and things do change.  And prayer is part of all those other things that make for peace.  You pray in worship, and you pray in repentance, and, of course, you pray in faith because God invites you to do so, and commands you to do so, and makes such wonderful promises to us about answering our prayers and blessing us when we pray.

It is appropriate, also, to note that as Jesus pronounces this judgment against Jerusalem, He indicates that the time is up!  They cannot come to this understanding later.  Jesus says,  "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace!  But now they have been hidden from your eyes."  They haven't killed Him yet.  The destruction of Jerusalem still waits thirty-five to forty more years, and yet the judgment is done.  The city continues for a while yet, in all appearances alive and "save-able", and yet it is done.  God has hidden it from their eyes now because they so flatly refused to see the truth before.

We should take from this the warning that we have not as much time, necessarily, as we like to imagine.  This reminds me of those passages which say, "Today is the day of salvation", "Now is the right time."  We don't have time to postpone placing our trust in God, and our friends and acquaintances may not have the luxury of all of the time of their earthly lives, either.  We will always treat everyone who does not believe as a potential convert, because we do not know, but it is a sobering thought that God may close the book on someone before He closes their eyelids in death.  Today is the day of our visitation, and we should make the most of it in faith and in confessing our Lord and Savior.

God gives us the things which make for peace.  Faith, forgiveness, the Gospel, and even prayer are gifts from God.  All we can do is recognize what great gifts they are, and make use of them.  We want to use the gifts and see the things which make for peace while we still have time.  This is our hour of visitation.  We want to ‘make hay while the sun shines', so to speak.  We what to live our faith and confess our Lord and do those things which we can to fully live in that peace which God gives by being deliberately and thoughtfully Christian day by day.

We want to answer life's questions with faith and confidence in all that God has given us.  If we do, we will possess and we will take full advantage of all of the things which make for peace.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Using What You Have

 Luke 16:1-9

Now He was also saying to the disciples, "There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and this steward was reported to him as squandering his possessions.  And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you?  Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.'

"And the steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me?  I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg.  I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the stewardship, they will receive me into their homes.'

"And he summoned each one of his master's debtors, and he began saying to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?'  And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.'  Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?'  And he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.'

"And his master praised the unrighteous steward because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.  And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings."

Sermon for Ninth Sunday After Trinity                      08/02/26

Using What You Have

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Have you ever had a bad day?  Of course you have.  But, I am willing to bet that it wasn't as bad a day as the day described by Jesus in the parable in our Gospel lesson this morning.  That man was having a really bad day.  Jesus tells the parable to make the point about using what you have to the best effect.  I want to take you through the lesson and discuss that point.  Our theme is, "Using What You have."

In order to make sense of the parable, you need to remember a couple of facts about what Jesus refers to as a "steward" in our Gospel.  In English, we might call someone in his position a manager or an administrator.  In the day and culture of Jesus' Israel, the office was called, in Aramaic, a "shaliak".  A Shaliak would be a manager with extraordinary authority, from the twenty-first century perspective.  He could make deals that his master did not approve of, and the deal was made as surely and with the same authority as though the master had done it himself.  That is why the "squandering" of the master's possessions was such a serious thing.  His employer had no recourse to recover mismanaged funds.

Everyone in Jesus' day would have known this.  This is just how things worked back then.  What was happening was something like what happened to Joe Louis, when his managers squandered all that he had earned, and the champ was left penniless, and so had to keep fighting just to make a living, day to day.  Unlike Joe Louis, the master in the parable discovered the problem in time to keep from going broke, and when he fired the steward, the steward had to leave his employment with the shirt on his back and nothing more - unlike Joe's crooked managers, who left quite well-off.

So, the man was going from relative wealth to absolute poverty overnight. He faced reality squarely.  He was not cut out for heavy labor - probably as much due to age and long inactivity as anything, and he couldn't bear the thought of begging - which was the first century's unemployment and social security plan all rolled up into one.  Back then, you worked, or you begged and depended on the generosity of the townspeople, or you starved.  It was a simple equation.  Just like today, the townspeople would grudgingly support a truly needy beggar or two, but if too many were to appear, the generosity of the people around the area would dry right up.  Unlike today, they were often less than kind even to the beggars they happened to support.  That was strange too, because their religious duty required them to be generous to the needy- so they needed beggars.  But, in truth, they had an abundance of needy people around them, widows and orphans and the disabled, and they did not need or want any more.

So, our hero was not inclined to beg.  He faced an existential dilemma.  His conduct had deprived him of his livelihood, as the ways of the foolish often do, and he was unable or unwilling to do the things that were left open to him.  When he took stock of his situation, he found himself left with only one option; lie, cheat, and steal.  He could use the remaining hours of his authority over another man's riches to build a nest egg for himself at his soon-to-be-former master's expense.  That is what he did.

He reduced the debts of his master's wealthier debtors by significant amounts, in all likelihood with the expressed understanding that they would owe him for his duplicity on their behalf.  He certainly expected a return on his graft.  That is what "so that when I am removed from the stewardship, they will receive me into their homes" meant.  And when his duplicity was discovered, "his master praised the unrighteous steward because he had acted shrewdly".  The parable doesn't tell us if he managed to keep his job, or whether his scheming worked or anything like that, because this is, after all, a parable - and not a real recounting of historical events.  The point of the story has been made, so Jesus did not need to add any more to the story.

The point is, "the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light".  People tend to exercise more intelligence and realistic thinking when they deal with the passing things of this world than Christians do dealing with the eternal realities of Christ.  People manage their portfolio's with care.  They know where their money is.  They calculate cash-flow and appreciation rates and almost always know how this or that action will serve their self-interest before they act.  This is not universally true - there are poor people and lousy managers out there, but generally, people pay attention to their things - and generally they follow easy to understand principles for self-preservation and self-advantage.  We lock our cars.  We don't loan our credit cards to strangers.  We try not to create havoc for ourselves when we are thinking clearly.

Christians are not so ‘shrewd'.  We often fail to live according to our theology.  We say we believe something, but we often act as though we do not.  We frequently value the things of this world in ways that suggest that they are the more permanent and significant, and faith, and fellowship with our fellow-believers, and doctrine, and the life of our family - the congregation - take a back seat to toys, and personal pleasures, and ideas and activities that often directly contradict our faith.  Christians often have their ‘faith' in a mental "lock-box" kept separate from how they think and how they speak and how they act in regards to life-in-general.  We see Christians placing the esteem and society of the unbelieving before the people and things of our faith.  And we behave as though life in this world is to be adhered to at any cost, as though the promises and hope of the Gospel are not real.

Jesus mean to draw your attention to that by means of this parable.  When he says, "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings", He is addressing what we might call the disconnect between what we confess and what we actually do.

The ‘mammon of unrighteousness' refers to the ‘stuff' of this world.  When Jesus says to make friends for yourself with it, He doesn't mean to use it to make friends of society or people around you, but to use it in ways that are consistent with your confession.

Let's face it, if we were to look at the church with the expectation that how we used our gifts of faith, doctrine, forgiveness, and the ‘mammon of unrighteousness' , we would come away with an entirely different picture of what the Christian faith was about than what we confess that we believe.  Synods and church bodies would appear to be about the accumulation of buildings and nest-eggs filled with cash and promoting a progressive social agenda in society at large.  Teaching about that guy in the Bible would not appear to be a priority at all.  Sound doctrine and clear confession appear to have no particular place here.  Advancing Biblical morality would take a back seat to looking good in the eyes of society and garnering the esteem of the secular authorities.

Judging by their actions, congregations would appear to be having a race about size and impressive edifices, and hosting tea-parties and selling barbecued meats and baked goods.  Sharing the good news of the grace of God, helping people to hear about their salvation, and encouraging one another to stand firm in the faith once delivered to us does not appear to dominate congregational activities very often.  The most active churches in some communities give away food to anyone who wants to take it, provide clothing for those who want to wear hand-me-downs, and host concerts and other cultural events for the community.  Garage sales are big.  Dinner fund-raisers are common, although they rarely seem to be raising funds for the actual spread of the Gospel.  We are instructed to build "evangelism" by meeting the community needs for day-care centers and alcoholic anonymous meetings.  And we are told that social service is "mission work".

Finally, individual Christians often behave as though everything else in life is more urgent than the faith - - or the other faithful.  The situation reminds me of the observation that if you want to quit fishing, move to the lake.  People do that, you know.  They move to the thing they say they value, and then, because it is right there, they know they can do it any time, and so everything else steps in and takes it's place.  Before you know it, you haven't been out in a boat for years because, ‘Awwww, you can do that any time - so let's go do this or that today and fish tomorrow.'

The Church is here, and presumably will be tomorrow, and next week, and next month, so the weekend visit to someone someplace else is more urgent.  One ‘needs' the things of life, and one can theoretically give more tomorrow, so one buys things today that aren't needs, and treats the Gospel and the fellowship of the faithful like something that they might attend to when there is nothing more exciting - nothing more interesting - to do.  You really do care about fellow believers, but your garden, your projects, your relatives, your vacation get away's, and your (you can fill in the blank here) are urgent, and just as important as . . . , and consume your attention.  And think about this: if anything is just as important as God, Jesus, faith, and salvation, you are no longer really a Christian.

Let's face the truth: what is more important than God's Word?  What do we need more than the gifts of God which He delivers to us in worship?  Who is really more important than our brothers and sisters in Christ, given to us by God to love and to care for and to encourage?  What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and to lose his own soul?  Are we dealing with the things of Christ as we want to when we think about faith and the Gospel and such?  How are you using what you have?

What Jesus is teaching by means of the parable is that we ought to be more shrewd in our dealings with the things of the world in ways that reflect and undergird our confession and our hope.  We are to use the things of this world in ways that help the proclamation of the gospel, or in ways that tend toward our spiritual health - you know, like going to church and Bible Study regularly, or reading good books, or financing the preaching and teaching of the Word of God both here and in the distant parts of the mission field.

Being shrewd might suggest not throwing money at "mission programs" that do not actually do missions, or not allowing ourselves to be confused by the popularity of social ministries of compassion and thinking that they are evangelism of some sort.  Social ministries are surely good works, and we should be about helping others in such ways, but we should never confuse that with missions or evangelism.  Being "shrewd in relation to your own kind" as "sons of light" means dealing with one another as beloved brothers and sisters in the household of God.  That means we care about one another, and know who is hurting, and who is in need of something we can provide, and understanding – or at least thinking about – what we can do to encourage one another and help each other live lives of peace and contentment here and now as the children of God in Christ Jesus.

Our failures in regard to one another are legion - and when I preach like this, I suspect I stir up a bit of guilt.  Some of you probably think that I am preaching down to you, as though I think that I do this stuff all the way it should be, and you are the only ones to miss the mark.  But it is not that way.  I recognize that I am not as "shrewd" in regard to my brothers and sisters in Christ as I might be either.  My only comfort is that we are, together, "sons of light".  We are the children of God, redeemed and forgiven for the sake of the death of Christ on the cross on our behalf, and His resurrection for our justification.

So, if you fall short of this shrewd stewardship of the mammon of unrighteousness, take comfort; your sins are forgiven.  And take a lesson from Jesus about using what you have.  God has given you all that you possess, your time, your abilities, your possessions and wealth, for His purposes, not merely for your own enrichment and entertainment.  Think about the steward in the parable and ask yourself how will you want to have used what you have when you are called to give an account of your stewardship?  You are going to go to heaven because of Christ, so that is not the question.  The question is, as one of God's chosen and beloved children, how do you want to be using what you have?

He that has ears to hear, let him hear.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The Four Most Horrible Words

 Matthew 7:15-23

"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they?  Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  So then, you will know them by their fruits.

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity       7/26/26

The Four Most Horrible Words

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The four most horrible words in all of human history are to be spoken by Jesus at the final judgment.  He will say to some, I never knew you!  No more horrible words can ever be spoken, for these words mean eternal destruction and damnation for those who called themselves "Christians" and called Jesus "Lord."

You want to be sure that you are not among such as these.  Jesus said that not everyone who said to Him, "Lord, Lord!" would enter the kingdom of heaven.  Many – not just a few, but many will claim to be confessing Christ, serving Him, doing miracles in His name, preaching Him, and yet will hear those four most horrible words in all of human history spoken to them.

What is the difference?  How do we avoid that pitfall and deadly danger?  Jesus said that the ones who enter the kingdom of heaven are those who do the will of [His] Father who is in heaven.  Now that begins to sound like what you do in this life will make all the difference.  If you confess Christ but do not walk the walk, as they say, you will not enter eternal life.  That conclusion, however appealing to our human reason, is absolutely false!

Ask yourself, "what is the will of our heavenly Father?"  Is it not best expressed in the First Commandment, the commandment which we must keep before we can keep any other, and which we will keep if we keep any other?  And what is the First Commandment?  Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.  And what does that mean?  We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  It means faith.  It means that you know who God is and love Him and trust in Him first and last and always and in all needs and circumstances.  That is faith.

And this is not just my opinion.  Look at where Jesus puts this exhortation – immediately following the section of warning about false prophets.  Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  Jesus began this section of warning by first commanding us to beware of false prophets – what we might call false teachers today.  He said that they would come in sheep's clothing.  Since all of God's people are called "sheep", and we are "the flock of the Lord", and He calls Himself the Good Shepherd, the suggestion that they will come to us in sheep's clothing means that they will look to us like fellow-Christians – but they will not be.  Inwardly they are blood-thirsty and destructive wolves – predators that prey on the sheep of the flock of God.

And Jesus holds you responsible to see to it that you are not made their prey.  You are to watch out for them.  And how can you tell who they are?  Jesus said, You will know them by their fruits.  So all you need to do is look at their fruits.

But what are their fruits?  Are we talking about what they do?  NO!  If we want deeds, behaviors, and actions as fruits, we look to actors.  If we want music as a fruit, we go to singers and musicians.  But if you are going to judge the fruit of a teacher, you must look at their teachings!  Remember, Jesus said that they would look outwardly like good Christians! 

And don't false teachers look good?  They clothe themselves in the appearance of righteousness and piety.  They are the ones who speak so much of holiness of life, of walking the walk and talking the talk.  They preach rules and principles of life that sound so good and appeal to our flesh.  They are the models of piety and personal character.  They look so good and sound so sincere, how can they be anything but righteous and holy and true?

But Jesus says that we will know them by their fruits.  And their fruits are their teachings.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit.  You have to look at their teachings.  A faithful teacher will teach the truth, faithfully.  He is the good tree.  A false teacher will lead you to hell.  That part of the Gospel lesson which says, Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' reminds us that these false teachers, these wolves in sheep's clothing, will also be among the lost – and may, in fact, be quite sincere – just dead wrong.

But when Jesus tells us that a rotten tree cannot produce good fruit, He is telling us that once we have identified a teacher as one who teaches falsely in any regard, we must flee from them and never trust them at all.  Jesus didn't say that it was not a good idea to hang around them, or that they might be dangerous, but you might be okay – He said that a rotten tree cannot produce good fruit.  And He commanded you to Beware!

Now, I know that some of you think that it is not necessary to be in Bible Study.  Some of you don't particularly care who the preacher is, or what he says.  You come to church for something else – for some other reason.  This text warns you that such an attitude is not Christian, and that many – not a few or just some, but many will not enter eternal life who fully anticipate they are going there.  They will be amazed, and they will stand before the Lord and say, "Now wait a minute, Lord.  I was Your child.  I witnessed.  I did the good works.  I went to church."  Jesus even says that some will say that they cast out demons and performed miracles in His name.  In short, they will tell Jesus that they belong among the saved, among His people, and they will claim a place in His body and in His bride – and yet Jesus will level them with the four most horrible words – 

I never knew you!

And then He will assign them their place among the damned, and send them away to that outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS..  And the lawlessness that they will have practiced is that they did not fear God as God – or love Him as God – or trust in Him, but they trusted in themselves and their own wisdom, choosing to follow the wisdom of their flesh, rather than the Word of God.  They will be guilty of not listening to Jesus' warning, and not testing the prophets and not checking their fruits.

A false teacher cannot teach you the truth.  It seems reasonable and very compassionate to say that just because he or she has this or that doctrine wrong, doesn't spoil the fact that they are fine preachers and good teachers.  Jesus, disagrees.  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they?  If you want false doctrine, a false teacher will do just fine.  If you don't care whether it is false or true, any teacher will be as good as the next.  But if you want the truth, you must cling to those who teach the truth faithfully, and flee from those who are careless or dishonest with God's Word -- those who are inwardly ravenous wolves.

The truth is the Gospel.  Jesus is your Hope and Salvation.  He has won forgiveness and life for you by dying in your place on the cross.  It is what Jesus has accomplished, and not how you behave, that will save you.  It is trusting the promises of God, and not hoping that you are good enough, that will receive the promises of resurrection to life everlasting and eternal glory.

It is not that your conduct doesn't matter – it always matters.  It just doesn't save.  You cannot hope to earn heaven, or be good enough to please God, or do everything right and go to the right church and figure that those things will have to be enough.  They are not.

You need to know the truth – about your sin, and your wickedness, and about God's love and how He rescued you – and then you need to rest all your hopes on Him.  When you do, that will make you different.  But the difference will be a difference of the heart that shows through in the life, not a change built on the hope that you will measure up in the final accounting.

Faith – trusting in God – receives the grace and the blessings of God.  Jesus has accomplished all that you need accomplished.  And that faith must be built on the truth if it is to be saving.  Believing something false – trusting in a Jesus who does not care about who you are or how you live, or hoping in a God who demands your righteousness as a pre-condition of your forgiveness, or holding to a God who has no clear identity, and who does not care if you know who He really is – believing anything which is not in accord with the revelation of God in Scripture is not saving faith.

How can you know?  How can you be sure?  You must study.  Your opinion of truth is not important.  Truth is.  The false prophet wants you to follow him.  It is his fame, or it is his fortune, or it is simply his living that he seeks to extort from you, and in the process he will destroy you, and add you to the number of those who will hear Jesus speak those four most horrible words to them.  The only way to tell which is what is to look at the fruits of the teacher – examine and judge his teachings in the light of the Word of God.  And I expect you to examine my teachings and judge me as faithful or false as well.

That is why we are Lutherans.  We have examined and judged the Lutheran Fathers to be faithful, and their writing, our confessions, to be clear and faithful and accurate expositions of the Scriptures.  That means that when there is a debate over what a passage means, or two doctrines are contrasted by teachers, we have found that the Lutheran Fathers have faithfully and truthfully explained and interpreted the Scriptures.  We don't go on to invent our own interpretations which contradict theirs – we study the Scriptures, and we answer our questions about "What does this mean?" by seeking the Lutheran Confessors' wisdom as part of our study – and we let them explain why they say what they say in the light of other Scripture passages.

When we have learned that, we compare our present day teachers to that standard.  If they say the same thing, we trust them – but if they fail to teach us the truth of Scripture, or they have something new and different from God's Word, we mark them as those rotten trees which cannot produce good fruit, and we avoid them as the ravenous wolves that they are.

Now, what if you don't agree with all those Lutheran Fathers, once you have studied them and the Scriptures?  Then you must confess that you are not Lutheran, and you should go to that church where they teach what you do believe.  If you cannot accept and do not believe that what we Lutherans teach is faithfully God's Word, then you must mark us as those who are rotten trees and ravenous wolves.  And you must flee from us and beware of us.

But frankly, I don't expect that to happen.  God's Word is powerful and effective and clear.  Where it speaks, God's people hear His voice and believe.  In all my years of ministry, I have never had anyone who accepted the Word of God who found the Lutheran Confession to be false, once they studied them.  I have known those who would not study them.  I have known those who were convinced without and before they opened the book.  But I have never known anyone who listened to God's Word who found the Lutheran teachings to be contrary to God's Word.

So, Jesus tells you to Beware!  He sets the standard before you – His Word and His Truth.  He tells you to avoid those who teach contrary to His Word, and He warns you that those who do not listen to His warning, and take heed from it, will be forced to listen to the four most horrible words of all of human history – horrible when spoken to you by Christ for what they mean for eternity, I never knew you!

God in His grace bless and keep, guide and preserve you and grant that you never hear those words from Jesus, but rather, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!"

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Compassion and Supply

 Mark 8:1-9

In those days again, when there was a great multitude and they had nothing to eat, He called His disciples and said to them, "I feel compassion for the multitude because they have remained with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to their home, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a distance."  And His disciples answered Him, "Where will anyone be able to find enough to satisfy these men with bread here in a desolate place?"

And He was asking them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven."

And He directed the multitude to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well.  And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.  And about four thousand were there; and He sent them away.

Sermon for Seventh Sunday After Trinity              07/19/26

Compassion and Supply

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Terrorism.  Shootings,  Rapes and murders.  It is all over the news.  We have a daily feed of this terror stuff and it seems most of the perpetrators are Moslems.

+The almost automatic reaction to all of this is to wonder where and when it will all stop.  When will we be safe?  When can we stop worrying about all of this terrorism stuff?  

There are two answers; one is theological and the other practical and more politically-realistic.  The second answer is "Never."  Islamo-fascism is here to stay.  The war they are fighting has been going on for at least 1400 years.  Luther mentions it in his writings.  As long as Islam exists, and other religions survive, the war against the infidel will continue.  Terrorism is simply the form it has taken for the last thirty years, and it shows no signs of growing less fanatical or committed.  This is the war between Islam and Christianity, and it will outlive us all - particularly when our leaders find it inexpedient to recognize it for what it is and call a spade a spade.

The first answer, the theological one, is that we can stop worrying right now.  It is in the hands of God.  The victory is already ours in Jesus Christ.  Nothing will happen - either to us or to our nation - except what God permits in order to accomplish His good and gracious will.  Our task is merely to be faithful in what we do and what we say and how we do it.  They - whomever "they" are - don't control things even as far as they like to think.  God is in charge – and God loves us!  In every time of need, He has compassion on us in our need - and He has the supply of that which we need.  That is the message of our Gospel this morning.  So, let us consider the Gospel with the theme, Compassion and Supply.

The Gospel doesn't start with anything nearly as urgent or frightening as the London bombings.  Jesus has been teaching the multitude - which, in this case, means about four thousand people.  Mark calls it a "great multitude."  This crowd has gathered to listen to Jesus and has been together for three days.  Jesus notes that they have nothing to eat.  This doesn't mean that no one has had anything for three days - but their food has run out.  Jesus recognizes the reality of the situation: they have been with Him for three days, they have nothing to eat, and some of them have come from quite a distance.  Some of them may not have eaten for several days, and Jesus is worried because some of them will collapse on their way home, if He doesn't feed them.

Seeing their need, Jesus feels compassion for them.  They didn't need great things.  They weren't in any great danger - just hunger.  It was a common, physical need, but Jesus felt compassion for them in their need, and supplied them with what they needed.  Hence our theme, compassion and supply.  He has compassion and He has the Supply.

And what a supply!  Jesus starts with seven loaves of bread – although "loaves" is a misnomer.  Their bread was probably those little flat pancakes of bread, an inch thick, or so, and probably six or eight inches across.  It wasn't slicing bread, it was hardtack and tear-off-a-hunk sort of bread.  The word for "loaves" in the Greek means literally, "bread", and nothing more.  So Jesus starts with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish, and He distributes the bread and the fish to His disciples, and they start handing them out to the crowd, as they sit on the ground.  The miracle is that they never seem to run out of bread or fish until everyone has some, and everyone has had enough.

One of the comments I read about this was that Jesus gave all of the food to His disciples.  He didn't keep any for Himself.  He gave them everything and they distributed it.  Whatever Jesus may have needed for Himself to eat was apparently shared with Him by His disciples from their abundance, which He gave to them.  I don't know if that is true because the Bible doesn't go into those details, so it wouldn't be fair of me to preach on them as though it were absolutely sure and settled and so it means something.  But it is an interesting thought.  Jesus gives us all that we need, indeed all that we possess, and then whatever He needs to work in the world today, He gathers from the sharing of His disciples today with Him.  It is our offerings and stewardship and serving one another and meeting the needs of the ministry among us that echoes this sharing of the bread and the fish by those first disciples.  He serves us and then waits for us to serve Him back.

Then Jesus asks His disciples to gather up the leftover fragments.  When they gather them, they fill seven large baskets with the left-over bread.  These seven baskets together are more than the leftovers in the twelve smaller baskets when Jesus fed the five thousand.  We know that by the names of the baskets in Greek.  The point of this detail is simply that they had more left over than they began with.  Jesus provided abundantly!  He had the supply!

The whole thing is sort of like God feeding the people of Israel in the wilderness during the Exodus with the Manna.

One lesson we can take away from our Gospel this morning is that food is no problem.  We never need to worry about that because God can feed us when there is little or nothing at hand.  We have trouble believing that, most of the time, because we trust our eyes and our judgment too much and trust God too little.  But supply is never a problem - and Jesus demonstrated that He is compassionate.  He has compassion even in regard to those things we need only for our physical comfort and well-being.  Physical supply is no problem - and there is no shortage of compassion either.  Compassion and Supply.

Now, that is the meaning of this miracle.  All of the commentators say so.  I could end the sermon right here.

But what would be the fun of that?  We can take this miracle as an illustration of a greater principle, too.  We have a need.  We are sinners, and we are justly under the sentence of death for our sins, if we look at things without Christ.  We are hungry for what Jesus alone can give - forgiveness and life and resurrection from the dead.  Is that what this miracle means?  No.  But what I just said about our need is true.

And Jesus has compassion.  If He is compassionate about physical hunger, we know - because He has revealed it to us - that He is genuinely concerned about our greater and more urgent need.  He is so concerned that He took on our human nature and flesh and blood and bore the burden of the law for us, so that He could die in our place.  He did not need to do any of it, but He felt compassion on us.  So He bore the burden of the Law, and then bore the burden of the wrath of God over against our sins..

That is what the Gospel is about.  Jesus died for us to bear the justice of God over sin and to bring us what we really need - salvation!  He has compassion and He has the supply - forgiveness, life and salvation!

If we want to take it a step farther, we can look at the miraculous meal, and see there a sign pointing our hearts to our own miraculous meal, provided by Christ, who gives to His servants the food which He has blessed, and makes it sufficient to feed them all - us - with His body and blood to refresh us so that we do not faint on the way.

It all of this part of the meaning of the feeding of the four thousand?  No.  Not really.  But every bit of it is true - He has had compassion on us, and He has supplied us with everything we need, and feeds us with a meal the likes of which no one else could feed us.  He gives us His body to eat and His blood to drink for our blessing, our forgiveness, our refreshment, and our salvation.  It is just as it was back there, only better. 

But the miracle teaches us that we need never fear need, or lack of anything.  Jesus knows our every need, and He has compassion, and He will supply all that we need.  His willingness to do this for strangers just because they took a few days off and listened to Him should embolden us.  He does this for strangers!  What will He be willing to do for His own people, chosen and precious, adopted into His household as brothers and sisters?

We have no need that He cannot see, and will not fill.  We might have to wait for it - like these people waited three days for the feast - but He will provide what we need.  All that is left for us is to be faithful.  Trust Him.  Learn from the example of the feeding of the four thousand, and live in the moments you are given to live in as though it is true, and Jesus can and will provide.  Live as though it is true, because it is!

What we face today is not a lack of groceries, but a world of Islamic terrorists and a culture increasingly hostile to our confession.  Nevertheless, we still have all that we need to do what Christ would have us to do.  We simply need to be faithful, and trust Him - and now and then offer to Him from the abundance He has given us whatever He may need to accomplish His work in the world around us.

Compassion and supply.  That is our Lord and Savior - and we are His beloved people.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Better than the Best

  Matthew 5:20-26

"For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER' and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.'  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

"If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.  

"Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.  Truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent."

Sermon for Sixth Sunday After Trinity                07/12/26

Better Than the Best

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Sometimes planning only makes things harder.  Have you ever noticed that?  As some of you know, I plan the services a month or more at a time.  I do that primarily to plan the hymns so our music people have time to make their plans.  It is more challenging to produce the music for the service than it might seem, if you have never participated in doing so.  When I plan the services, I read the text and try to plan the theme of the sermon - that is how I know which hymns to pick.

Usually this sermon-theme planning works out okay.  Sometimes, however, I come back to the text and discover that I overlooked something, or I cannot imagine what I was thinking of when I planned the theme that I put on the planning form.  The hymns are almost always appropriate - but writing the sermon can get to be a challenge, trying to fit into a theme I no longer see or resonate with.  I am sure you have had the same experience now and then, you know, reading a Bible passage and seeing one thing in it at one time, and reading it again weeks or months later and seeing something else, or something more -and wondering how you missed it earlier.

The reason for that is that the Word of God is living and active - according to the Bible itself.  God is at work through His Word, and He opens up certain things to us at the time we need them - as they apply to our situation at the moment.  It is the same Word, and it says the same things, and means the same things - but we just pick up on how it applies differently in different situations and according to the need of different moments.

I only mention that because each time I read our text for this morning, I see something more - something I either did not see earlier, or saw and dismissed from my planning, and cannot put out of my mind as I consider the text anew.  So, while we wrestle with this Gospel lesson, this morning, we will do so under the theme, Better Than the Best.

The theme came from the first sentence of our Gospel, "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  Although we carry a prejudice against the Pharisees because of the condemnation of Jesus, the truth is that they were pretty good people.  They were ultra-moral.  They were the most diligent of the Jews in minding the Law and keeping their religion's rules and regulations.  They were the kind of people that made others feel unclean by comparison, and they didn't have to brag about it to do so.  They did brag, but they didn't need to in order to make others feel less religious or less righteous.  They were really the Best.

Jesus didn't condemn them for keeping the Laws, but for their hypocrisy.  They were keeping the rules, but they had forgotten God.  They had the form of their religion, but they did not love God.  They didn't understand the rules they were keeping - or the reasons for them.  They were just about being the best without really thinking much about why or how their observance of their own religion matched up with the religion they were supposedly observing.  Some of them were masters of putting on a good show publicly, and accommodating every vice and lust without anyone seeing it.

Jesus knew the truth, however.  He saw their empty formalism.  He saw the pride behind doing outwardly and slavishly what God desired they do from their heart - out of love for their God and Savior.  The Pharisees didn't even call themselves "Pharisees".  That name means the "separated ones".  They called themselves "Haberim", meaning "The Associates" or "The Brothers".  Their public nick-name is the one that stuck, however, because they thought they were better than anyone else.  And, in terms of keeping the rules, they were.

And Jesus said "that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  You need to be better than the best.  Then Jesus goes on to sharpen the Law for us so that we understand that even if mere formalism were our goal, we would find it far more difficult than we might imagine.  It is not just enough, for example, to refrain from killing our neighbor.  We must also not speak ill of him or call him a rude name.  Even being angry is as bad as murder, but calling them a name or saying "You fool!" is enough to send you to hell.  The demands of the Law are far more exacting than we like to think.

They are so exacting that if we were to try honestly to measure up for ourselves, we would find ourselves failing miserably.  And that is the point of the Law.  It accuses.  The Law always accuses.  The law should always remind you forcibly that you are fit for hell, and you deserve no good thing from God whatsoever.  If you hear the Law preached and come away from it feeling pretty good about yourself, and think that you're not so bad after all, either I haven't done my job right, or you have not been paying attention.

So, just in case, listen up: the Pharisees were the very best at outwardly observing the Law and keeping the rule, and Jesus said that unless your righteousness was greater than that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  Note that Jesus did not say "might not" or that you could miss - but that you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  You've got to be better than the best. 

Then comes the part that jumps up and grabs me - the part I didn't think about before.  Jesus talks about making friends with your opponent at law.  "Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.  Truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent."

I have to confess that I have preached this as I have heard it preached in the past - reconcile with your brother now - you know, make hay while the sun shines.  But as I prepared to write this sermon, it just didn't fit.  The thought is okay, God would have us reconcile with one another - its just that it really never seems like that is what Jesus is getting at there.  He does that in the verses before, when He tells us to leave our gift at the altar and go and be reconciled with our brother before we present our gifts.  More than just saying, "God loves a cheerful giver," Jesus is saying there that God doesn't want anything from you - not offerings or worship or anything until you get right with your brother down here.  It is like where John writes, in 1st John, "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."

Jesus tells us in our Gospel that we have no business even approaching God with anything standing between us and our brother - that is, a fellow believer.  He speaks there of reconciliation and setting things right man to man and woman to woman so clearly that it cannot be what He is talking about in these last verses of our Gospel.

Then it struck me, our ‘opponent at law' is God Himself.  The judge will be Jesus at the end, and jail from which we shall never escape ‘until we have paid the last cent' is hell.  Jesus is preaching the Gospel here, sort of.  He is saying fix the problem of sin while you are on the way - you know while you are alive, before you face God at the end.  But we cannot.  We need to be better than the best.  We need to be better than we can be, and each one of us has dared countless times to come before God with anger and hard feelings standing between us and someone else, even between ourselves and those who also profess faith in Christ.  So what are we to do?

Since we are lost already - and we cannot make friends with our opponent at law while we are on the way - we need Him to rescue us.  And that is precisely what He has done.  He took the entire burden of our sins and paid the price, bore the penalty, endured the wrath of God which was ours by right and by deserving.  Jesus did all of that on the cross with His brutal death, and He invites us to make friends by taking Him at His Word and trusting His promises and believing that because of His death, and it is proclaimed by His resurrection, our sins are fully and freely forgiven, and that He that believes and is baptized shall be saved!

How do you make friends?  Trust Him.  Take Him at His Word.  If you do, and you take that seriously, you have that righteousness which surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you have the righteousness of Christ by His gift and grace.  You are cleansed by the waters of Baptism, and you are filled with the righteousness of Christ by forgiveness and by the in-dwelling of Jesus Christ in you which you receive as you eat of His body and drink of His blood in the Holy Sacrament.  In Christ, you are declared by God to be better than the best – at least the best that man can accomplish by his own powers and natural abilities.

Our lesson this morning is a piece of the Sermon on the Mount.  Many people love the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus taught it and they interpret it as pure Gospel, somehow.  It is not.  It contains some of the sternest Law of the entire Bible.  Jesus made the Law more demanding and exacting and comprehensive – as He did in our Gospel lesson this morning – so that no one could misunderstand and dream that they could earn eternal life.  Obviously, that hasn't stopped most people – not even most who call themselves Christians – but you should not allow yourselves to be deceived.

The message this morning is, give up on yourself.  You are not good enough.  Throw yourself on God's mercy, and He will have grace and forgiveness and salvation for you, if you humble yourself and repent, and trust Him.  When you do, the Holy Spirit will work in you through Word and Sacrament, and your life will demonstrate the sincerity of your faith as He leads you to live a changed, repentant life.   Sadly, your life on this earth won't be perfect even then, but our life and our perfection is not our hope.  Our hope is built on nothing less that Jesus' blood and righteousness.  In Jesus Christ, and only in Jesus Christ, are we better than the best.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Success is the Lord's

Luke 5:1-11

Now it came about that while the multitude were pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them, and were washing their nets.  And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the multitudes from the boat.  And when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."  And Simon answered and said, "Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Your bidding I will let down the nets."

And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish; and their nets began to break; and they signaled to their partners in the other boat, for them to come and help them.  And they came, and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink.  But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"  For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men."  And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

Sermon for Fifth Sunday After Trinity                     07/05/26

Success Is the Lord's

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

How many of you have ever watched a DVD? One of the small things that I get a kick out of is the "Special Features" on some DVD's.  They originally promised great stuff in the Special Features that they have rarely produced, but even some of the inane stuff is interesting in its own way.  I am thinking of those features that talk about how they make a movie.  The movie, "The Day After Tomorrow", a 2004 sci-fi disaster film about a global superstorm caused by climate change, had a feature in which they showed the layers of sounds added to the photography that made up the scene.  They took us from a silent film of the scene to where they had added the conversation, the sounds of the helicopter, the sound of air rushing by, the background noises, the radio transmissions just at the level of noise you would notice, and so forth.  It was interesting to note how the scene wasn't quite right until all of the sounds were in place.

If you had to choose, you would have trouble deciding which sounds were more important to the realism of the scene on the screen.  The little noises that I might forget about, if I were assembling the scene, were just as important as the voices of the characters, or the sound of the helicopter rotors turning through the air.  In a way that is analogous to the assembling of a scene in a movie, every part of the world around us is significant as well.  Every person has a role to play in the plan of God - particularly His holy people.  That is the focus of our attention this morning as we look at the Gospel lesson about Jesus preaching, and the miraculous draught of fishes.  Our theme is, Success is the Lord's.

Our Gospel opens with Jesus teaching.  He has quite a crowd - a multitude - gathered around Him.  You know how crowds are, they gathered too close to Jesus for effective communication with the whole group.  His voice was lost in the press of bodies and clothing right next to Him.  It might be helpful to remember that the personal space of the middle-east culture is a lot smaller than ours today in America.  We like people with whom we are having a private conversation to be at least a foot and a half away, sometimes just a bit farther.  We are not comfortable when people invade our personal space without our explicit invitation.

In the Middle East, people tend to talk literally nose-to-nose.  Imagine, then, the crowd gathered around Jesus.  Luke tells us that they were pressing around Him, and we can imagine that with personal space measured in inches, rather than arm's-lengths, His voice would be easily absorbed by bodies and clothing around Him, so, to teach the whole crowd effectively, He needed to put some space between Himself and the crowd – just like the space between the pulpit and the first row of pews here.

To accomplish that, Jesus climbed into Simon Peter's boat and asked him to put out a little way from the shore.  The choice of the boat and His presence at that particular place on the shore were not coincidences, although it probably appeared that way to everyone else.  Jesus had Peter in mind, and He led his multitude to this spot to accomplish what He was intending to do.  So, He climbed into the boat and had Peter put out a couple of yards from the shore, and He sat down in the bow of the boat (probably), as a teacher in those days would do, and began to teach from the boat.

There was nothing random here.  God doesn't do random.  Every detail was part of His plan, although no one but Jesus was probably aware of how deliberate each element of this scene was.  When Jesus was done with teaching the lesson for the day, He simply asked Peter to put out into the deep water, and let down His nets for a catch.

I need to mention that fishing of this sort was traditionally done at night.  Peter and his brothers and partners had been at it all night and without a catch.  It was likely quite unusual to fish all night and catch absolutely nothing, but that is what they had done last night.  Peter kind of complained that they had already spent the night fruitlessly, but, at Jesus' request, he would put down the nets one more time.  He already knew that Jesus was something special.  Not only had he heard Jesus teaching that morning, but in the previous chapter of Luke, Jesus had healed Simon's mother-in-law of a high fever, had driven out demons that cried out that Jesus was the Son of God, and had healed many people of various illnesses in the presence of Peter and, possibly, his brothers.  Peter may not have been a full-time disciple yet, but he had seen Jesus at work, and knew He could do amazing things, so he let down his nets.

You all know what happened, because I read it as the Gospel lesson this morning.  Peter immediately enclosed in his nets a great quantity of fish, so great, in fact, that the nets began to break and Peter had to call for the guys in the other boat to come out and help him.  When they came out, there were so many fish that they filled both boats with fish to the point where the boats began to sink - they were swamped with the success of the fishing.  It was a very profitable morning indeed.  Peter recognized the truth of our sermon theme - Success is the Lord's - and he realized again that he was standing in the presence of someone who was more than merely a man.  He could see that something divine was there, and he fell down before Jesus, which actually means that he began to worship Jesus, and he said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!

Peter understood at some level that he was standing in the presence of the holy God, and the first reaction he had was to become suddenly aware of his sin.  Peter was beginning to learn about Jesus - who He was and what He could do, and what He could accomplish.  Success is the Lord's, and God gives it where He chooses, for His own reasons.

What we often do not pay attention to is the night before.  I mean, why would we pay attention to that?  Jesus wasn't there yet, and nothing happened.  It was a singularly bad night of fishing.

And yet, if it had been a great night of fishing, or even an average night of fishing, Peter and his brothers would have doubtless been less impressed with the catch Jesus gave them.  The contrast between nothing and the unimaginable abundance makes the point that Jesus wanted to make so much more pointed.  So, why do you think that they caught nothing the night before?  Ever thought of that?  Do you think that it was just coincidence?

Remember, God doesn't do random.

Success is the Lord's - not just great success, but appalling success - also known as failure.  I don't want to blame God for every human endeavor that fails to accomplish something, but wherever God's people are, there He is.  He is with them, guiding them, blessing them, and granting them success.  When we are the Lord's, and we are faithful, we cannot fail.

God tells us that His Word never returns to Him without accomplishing that for which He spoke it.  When we preach it, or tell it to someone else, and see nothing happen, we must conclude that either God isn't done doing what He spoke His Word through us to accomplish, or we have witnessed what His Word was intended to accomplish, although we see nothing we would call success.

Remember the movie scene at the beginning of the sermon?  Just as every sound, no matter how soft or seemingly insignificant, was important to the completed scene, just so, every one of us, and all of our faithfulness is important to the plan of God, to what He is doing in us, and around us, and through us.  The hours of fishing with no catch played a vital role in accomplishing the plan of God for that day for Peter and his brothers and the work of Jesus.  In the same way, our time spent with no visible results, our faithful worship and our confession of the Lord day-by-day, and our inviting one person after another who ignore our invitation, plays an important part in the plans of our Lord for us and for those among whom we live and confess the faith.

It is important that we keep in mind that our salvation rests on what appeared to be defeat and failure.  Jesus' enemies triumphed over Him.  They arrested Him, humiliated Him, abused Him and then executed Him under false pretenses.  On Good Friday, Jesus looked to be a failure, the one man in Israel who had no friends, no ability to play the system, and not even a tomb to call His own.  Measured by any human standard, Jesus was a failure on Good Friday.

And yet, we know that Jesus scored His victory, and ours, on Good Friday.  He accomplished precisely what He had come to do.  He died, although innocent and actually deserving eternal life.  He carried our sins instead, because He had none of His own.  He paid the penalty and set us free from sin, death, hell, and the power of Satan, by dying in a way that appeared so helpless and defeated.  Isaiah said, By His stripes you are healed, and because He suffered for your sins, you are forgiven!  We all are!

Success is the Lord's.  We may feel insignificant.  We may judge our own efforts as futile and ineffective.  It may seem to us and everyone around us that our faithfulness is foolish - and pointless - and inconsequential.  They may point at our congregation and note how small and unimpressive we appear.  The devil will certainly suggest it to us, and invite us to despair.  But success is the Lord's.

We are God's holy people, and, as such, we cannot fail.  God Himself is with us to bless us, and guide us, and keep us.  He doesn't ask us to know, or to understand every moment or every detail of His plan.  He calls on us to be faithful.  He invites us to believe His promises, to trust in Him with all our hearts, to let down the nets even when we have spent the night fruitlessly working and have nothing to show for it, and to remain faithful.

Some of our number may have despaired and given up.  If so, only they have failed.  Jesus has not failed, nor has He broken His promises to us.  He never promised it would be easy, or fun, or impressive in the estimation of the world around us.  

Individually, we don't get to see everlasting life until we die.

But the promise of Jesus is, "Be thou faithful until death, and I will give thee the crown of life."

Besides, in the middle of that long night of fishing without a catch, we cannot see what part it plays in the plan, or how God is working through us.  Our sicknesses, our pains, our sorrows - they are all parts of life, and yet because we are God's people we not only know that we do not go through these things alone, but God has a reason for letting these tribulations come to us, and when we are faithful, we cannot fail, but we succeed, and accomplish what God sent us to accomplish - or, better yet, what He set out to accomplish through us.

Success is the Lord's.  He cannot and He will not fail - ever.  While we stand with Him, we cannot and we will not fail - ever.  So, come and refresh yourselves at the banquet of forgiveness and life set before us this morning, and hear the voice of Jesus invite you to drop down those nets again, this time for a catch.  Be faithful, and do not give up hope. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall make your paths straight.

Success is the Lord's.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Forrest Gump was Right

 Luke 6:36-42

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.  And do not judge and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.  Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap.  For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."

And He also spoke a parable to them: "A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he?  Will they not both fall into a pit?  A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.  And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye."

Sermon for Fourth Sunday After Trinity                                            06/28/26

Forrest Gump was Right

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Forrest Gump was right.  He was basically a moron - intellectually challenged by almost everything in the world.  He was too stupid to be dishonest.  He wasn't bright enough to know that he couldn't do things, so he went ahead and did them.  He was faithful and consistent and pleased with the simple things of life.  His creators viewed all of those qualities as retarded.  We wasn't bright enough to be unfaithful, too challenged to make a promise he would not keep, too slow or too thick to abandon his friends.  By placing all of those qualities in the mentally challenged Forrest, they were saying something about decency - and about everyone else who thinks they are so very clever.  What they were saying about either of those things was not nice.  True, at least in part, but not nice.

Forrest Gump said a number of things - "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."  That is true, life is not always what we expect.  Most of what he said was proverbially true.  The one saying I thought of as I read the Gospel text was "Stupid is as stupid does."  Basically, Forrest was saying that you live out what or who you really are.  Jesus says pretty much the same thing in our text, and couples it with some promises.  I want to take you through that gospel lesson, this morning, with the theme "Forrest Gump was right."

Jesus did not say in our Gospel that what you do determines things, but what you do that reveals who and what you are.  People in the movie would ask Forrest, "What, are you stupid?"  And Forrest would answer, "My Momma always said, ‘Stupid is as stupid does.'" For Forrest, stupid was not so much a state of being as a behavior.  You aren't stupid if you don't act stupid.  He proved the point by being successful in almost everything he did while those who were supposedly ‘smart' around him made stupid choices and made messes of their lives, and ended up being rescued, often more than once, by stupid old Forrest.

The words of Jesus tell us that the conduct of a Christian flows out of who they are.  It doesn't cause them to be who they are, but it reflects their true nature.

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."  If your Father is merciful, you are too.  If you are not merciful, then your father is not the merciful Father.  Jesus says it like a command, and yet we know that these things are not possible for us by our own devices, and are given to us by God.  So what Jesus is saying here is that the true child of the merciful heavenly Father is like that merciful Father, merciful.

"And do not judge and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned."  This is more of that ‘the child of God is as the child of God does' stuff.  Forrest Gump was right.  He wasn't original with these thoughts, but he was right.  Now, if you look at what Jesus says, and read it simply, it sounds like Jesus is saying that if you do not judge, then you will not be judged, as though your refraining from judgment causes God to not judge you.  Just the opposite is true, if you go about judging others, then you force God to judge you, too.

It's that forgiveness thing.  Jesus is indicating that he who is forgiven is also forgiving - just like the one who is forgiven much loves much.  If you actually understand your own sin, and know the grace of God in forgiving you, and believe it, you will forgive others too.  It isn't just that you should, but you will.  It doesn't come natural, however.

Natural for us is sin.  Natural for us is selfish and angry and violent.  Forgiveness is the grace of God, and it works in us to produce the same fruit from us - but our flesh is always going to be pulling us toward the sinful side.  We will be tempted to judge another, to condemn others.  It will seem natural and just and right and good to us.  It will feel right.  But it is not grace.  Judging and condemning others repudiates the grace of God toward us, and calls it wrong, and so God returns our rejection of His grace with justice and judgement and condemnation.  So Jesus warns us not to listen to the flesh.  Pardon, he says, and you shall be pardoned.  It isn't our forgiveness that causes or merits His forgiveness, but it is what happens when someone trusts God and believes what He has done.

It works the same in stewardship.  "Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap.  For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."  This is "Christian is as Christian does".  Forrest Gump was right.  We are all recipients of such rich blessings and abundant goodness.  If you know it, and believe it, and believe it is aimed at you personally, how could you be anything else?

God gives, and He gives abundantly.  He doesn't wait for us to be good and generous.  He gives to us as Jesus describes it - good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over!  What do you need that God does not supply?  I am sure you can name things you want, or that you think it would be nice to have, but what needs do you have that aren't answered - and more!?  We live in the richest nation in history, and at the time of greatest wealth.  We have such abundance we cannot afford to scrimp and hoard and save.  We have just too much for that!  There is a multi-billion dollar industry in providing extra, off-site storage for our excess possessions.  We dispose of perfectly good things, serviceable stuff, simply to upgrade to the next generation or the newer model, or the latest thing!

God doesn't wait for us to be abundant to us, and when know that, and believe His goodness to us is no accident, but flowing from His great love for us, we know we can afford to be similarly generous.  Where we see the need, we can give, so that our abundance fills in the need of others, just as the abundance of mercy in God filled in our need for salvation and hope.

Jesus doesn't say what to give to.  He just says, "Give."  It might be stewardship toward the congregation, or giving to a fellow-member of the congregation who is in need.  It might be a neighbor who is in need, or the poor, or the sick, or a mission field somewhere.  When you see the need, you should also be aware of the supply - God's abundance towards you - and be able and willing, even eager - to give.  

Grasping and greedy are natural to us human beings, but our greed in the face of the grace and generosity of God towards us repudiates His goodness and abundant blessing, and denies by our behavior the thought - the doctrine - that He will provide and He will take care of us.  If you tell God you don't expect any good from Him, He will deal with you according to your faith and give you what you expect from Him - or withhold from you, as you expect Him to do.  But if you live in expectation of His marvelous supply, He always does provide – sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

Jesus tells us that God will deal with us as we expect Him to - Forrest Gump was right.  "For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."

The second half of the Gospel lesson simply illustrates what Jesus said in the first half.  Jesus spoke a parable.  He talked about a blind guide.  What sort of parable is that?  The only point of comparison is blindness.  In order to navigate around the obstacles, one needs to be able to see them somehow.  

Who are the blind?  The answer is, we are.  We are spiritually blind and dead, and enemies of God by nature.  We need a guide if we are going to find our way at all.  Human wisdom, on the other hand, is all on the same plane.  It is all blind.  A human guide cannot improve our wisdom because a human guide can only make us as wise as he is - and he is born just as dead to God and blind to holiness as we are.  Stupid is as stupid does.  "A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher."

Our teacher, our guide is Christ.  He taught us love - in that He loved the world so much that He gave Himself for our salvation.  He set the pattern and gave us an example while He rescued us from sin.  He gave it all - suffering and dying in our place and enduring what we deserved so that we might have what we do not deserve, but so deeply need.  He died for us: He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.  Give and it shall be given to you.

He did not judge us.  He knew us in our guilt and sin, and although He possessed both the right and the power to judge and condemn us, He did not, but gave Himself for us that we might have forgiveness life and salvation.  Our judgment was handed down on Good Friday.  Jesus was condemned, and Jesus was executed for our transgressions!  Your sins are forgiven for Christ's sake!  He who is holy and pure endured not just our sins, but took them onto Himself and bore the righteous wrath of God against us in His flesh so that we would not.

And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

How can we look at another and see their sins against us, which are truly minor?   If we consider our own sins against Christ, the log must blind us to the dust-specks of others sins against us.  If we can hope in Christ for the log to be forgiven, and thereby removed, what other course can make sense to us than to remove the mote from our brother's eye by the cleansing washing of forgiveness?  Forgiven is as forgiven does!  Forrest Gump was right.

Jesus said it in another way, perhaps more directly, after He taught us the Lord's Prayer, in Matthew 6:14, "For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions."  What do you have, after all, that wasn't given to you?  Give freely, then.  Forgive freely, then.  Follow the guide who can see, and whose leadership is true, that is to say, Jesus Christ.

Again, what Jesus calls on us for in this text is not possible by our own powers and nature.  It is, however, His gift to us, through the cross and by the power of the Word and Sacraments.  But while we live, our flesh will always see things differently, and will try to draw us to what seems right and good to it, but does not follow Christ.  So, Jesus gives us guidance and warning, and His teaching sounds to my ear a lot like the message repeated by Forrest Gump - another one that the world considers retarded.  Stupid is as stupid does - and Christian is as Christ has done!  Forrest Gump - adjusted a little for our consideration this morning - was right!

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

(Let the people say Amen)