These Things They will Do

 John 15:26-16:4

"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me, and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

"These things I have spoken to you, that you may be kept from stumbling.  They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.  And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me.  But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you."

Sermon for Exaudi Sunday                                           05/17/26

These Things They Will Do

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Today is the Sunday between the Ascension and Pentecost.  It marks the period of time between Jesus removing His visible presence from among His disciples, and the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  In my mind, I liken this to that time in a race when the starter is crying out, "on your mark . . . get set . . ." just before he fires the starter's pistol to begin the race.

The Gospel is perfect for this day.  It records the words of Jesus during His last great discourse with the disciples before the Passion.  This is a warning and a promise, and none of it was spoken to us, directly, but to His disciples who were soon to be promoted to Apostles - from ‘students' to those who were the "Sent Ones", sent out to bear witness to what they had seen and heard and to spread the Gospel.  Our task this morning is to take these words, aimed squarely at the disciples, and see what they actually teach us.  Our theme is "These Things They Will Do".

Jesus warns the disciples about troubles that they will face.  He says that He warns them "that [they] may be kept from stumbling."  It is easy to understand this.  They have followed Jesus.  He has cared for them, and shielded them from all of the dangers and troubles that might have happened to them.  They may not have understood or even seen the providential care of Jesus for His disciples, but nothing happened to them.  He fed them and led them around the whole of the once "promised land".  They had enemies, and there were all sorts of local issues and parties, just as there are today in the middle east - just different parties, but the same old hatreds and animosities.  The disciples never seemed to have been confronted by them.  None of the enemies of Jesus attacked them physically - or seemed to have any success in shaping public opinion against them.  Jesus simply gave them a few years of peaceful instruction, as He modeled the faith and showed them how they were to live once He was gone -- without telling them in advance that this was what He was doing.

But now they were about to be cast out on their own - Jesus was going to die and rise again and ascend and leave them to be His witnesses.  He was going to take His visible presence from them, and withdraw the providential care that gave them such peaceful times with Jesus.  He was not taking His care away from them, but things were going to change, and God knew about it.  In fact, it is all part of God's plan.  Jesus told them, "They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.  And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me."

This meant that they were going to become targets of hostility for those Jews – the ones who were supposed to be God's people – who did not believe.  That part applies to us too.  The specifics that Jesus spoke of really only fit the first Christians.  I have never been cast out of a synagogue, nor would it bother me if I were.  I don't believe the stuff they teach in their synagogues anyhow, and I have no emotional attachment to them, either.  The disciples did.  The first Christians all - or nearly all - came from the synagogues.  Being thrown out of the synagogue was almost like ending life as they knew it.  It was extremely painful, and came with broken relationships, lost friendships, and hostility from those who should have been, and once were, friends.

You may have sampled some of that community gossip.  Those who were called fellow members of the congregations, suddenly became hostile to us, unwilling to take the time to come to worship, and seemed to want nothing more to do with us.  And the reason for our sorrow is pretty much the same as the reason for the hostility of the synagogue toward the disciples - "And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me."  It was doctrine.  They did not believe what we believed, and they rejected both us and our faith.

Jesus had to tell the disciples that this was coming because they were likely to be tempted with the idea that just because they worked for the Savior, things were going to go smoothly (as they had up to this point), and God would pave the way before them.  He would, of course, prepare the way before them, but not by removing obstacles like the hatred and violence of the world.  That remains - and in fact, that is a tool in the arsenal of God for getting the world's attention, and demonstrating His power, and our weakness, and making converts in the most unexpected of ways.  The early church even had the proverb, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."  Their patient endurance, with so little evident power, made many sit up and take notice, people who only understood the unbridled use of power and who could not comprehend what might lie behind patience and forgiveness and stubborn goodness such as they witnessed in the Apostles.

We are not witnesses.  We never saw Jesus.  We are confessors.  We confess what we have heard and believed.  We speak what God has spoken to us through His Word and through His called speakers - preachers.  We confess with the Church what those original witnesses bore witness of - and to.  We confess that Jesus is the true Son of God, come down in human form and having taken on human nature on our behalf.  We confess that Jesus kept the whole will and law of God, where all mankind has failed, and having earned and rightly deserved eternal life, has suffered and died in our place, and for our sins, and on our behalf.  His death on the cross is ours, taken for us to meet the justice of God against our sins.  That is what those first witnesses bore witness to.

Then we also confess that God raised Jesus from the dead, because those first witnesses saw it, and spoke with the risen Jesus.  We confess that His resurrection shows us that the death of Jesus has been accepted in our place and for our sins, and that it was sufficient, so that now we are forgiven and we stand in the good will and favor of God (we call that "grace").  We confess that there is nothing for us to do to earn our salvation - Jesus did it all - and that we fail to qualify to even start to work out our salvation, because we are sin-filled, and sin-corrupted, and fall short of the glory of God before we can even start.  We also confess that even our coming to faith is not possible for us by our own wisdom or will-power, but God must call us to faith and cause us to believe, and that He does so by the preaching of the Gospel.

It is those things, human weakness and corruption, and divine power and grace, that cause those who should be our brothers in the faith to respond to us with hostility and rejection.  Some of them want to be able to earn and deserve something of their salvation for themselves - and the idea that they cannot insults them and infuriates them.  Others want to claim that at least they chose the right path, they "decided for Jesus", and the doctrine of divine monergism - that God alone works faith in us against our nature and beyond our abilities - causes hostility in their hearts towards us.  The Law of God strikes hard and enrages us.  Most of the Protestants we know cannot accept a God they cannot understand, so the Sacraments, and the durability of the incarnation - that Jesus is always and everywhere fully and truly human even now, with His body and human nature still with Him wherever He goes - is unreasonable to them, and our stubborn confession of those truths makes them angry.

No matter which way we turn, we face the hostility of those who call themselves Christians, but do not believe what we believe.  They have another Gospel, and believe in another Jesus.  Please understand that I am not saying that those of other denominations are not Christians.  I cannot look into their hearts and judge that.  I can only look at the Gospel they proclaim, and say that it is not the same Gospel which we confess.  Individuals in these other bodies may  - and some surely do - believe exactly what we believe about Jesus and salvation, just as we have all encountered Lutherans who are not Lutheran - who do not hold to what we teach and confess, and believe something entirely different, but still call themselves "Lutheran".

But the doctrines of works righteousness, and the doctrines of decision theology, and the doctrines which place Christ in heaven, as to His human nature, and deny the very possibility of forgiveness in either Sacrament, or of the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper - these doctrines are unbiblical, and unchristian.  They paint a picture of God and of Christ which is unlike our Savior, and they hide the comfort of Christ and the hope of salvation from many that believe them.  As Jesus said, "they have not known the Father, or Me."  

And they will reject us, and try to marginalize us, and often when they have the power, they will try to drive us out of the church.  They will do so with the complete conviction that they are right, and that they are serving God and God's truth.  Of course some will not count God in the picture - they will be convinced that they are serving "truth" and "all that is reasonable" and that they are fighting "superstition"

We have the Helper, that Jesus promised - the Holy Spirit.  And Jesus warns us of the truth of the hostility of the world to our confession, through the warning to the disciples of the hostility of the world to their witness.  It still applies by extension.  "But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them."

Jesus wanted them to know that when they came upon these pains and sorrows and troubles, that it was to be expected.  Nothing was out of order.  Suffering is part of the confession.  We share in Christ's righteousness, so we also share in His suffering.  Ours has no redemptive quality, but it does carry some power, by the will of God, in confession, and speaking to the mind and hearts of the unbelieving world.  And since we are Christ's, we should know that this is coming, and, as Peter put it in His first epistle, chapter 4, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation."

When the pain comes, and people turn on you, and speaking the wonderful good news of Jesus gets you into trouble, or your friends and even your family turn away from you, you may be tempted to be confused, and wonder why this is happening.  Jesus warned the Disciples, and through their warning He warns us - it is coming.  Expect it.

  Knowing that pain is coming doesn't change the pain, but it explains it - and it is for your strengthening and comfort that Jesus tells us about it.  These things they will do.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The Helper

 John 16:5-15

"But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.  But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.  And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

"I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you.  All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you."

Sermon for Cantate 5/03/26

The Helper

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One of television's most interesting devices is what we call a flashback.  In the middle of the story you can jump back to an earlier episode and explain the meaning of the present situation.  That is not a new idea.  The lectionary has been doing it for thousands of years.  Our Gospel lesson is something akin to a flashback.  It takes us from after the resurrection and on the way to Pentecost back to just before the crucifixion so Jesus can explain what is coming up in very near future, in terms of our Gospel lectionary progression.  As we approach the celebration of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the official start of the Christian Church, Jesus tells us that He is going to give His Spirit, whom He calls "the Helper", and describes His work and the meaning of the gift.  Our theme, this morning, is "The Helper".

Contrary to the ordinary expectations of men and women, Jesus explains that His departure from His disciples is actually a good thing.  They will gain much more than they will lose.  It was hard to see that from a human perspective.  All they could imagine is that their master is going to be going away.  Jesus explained that He will send the Helper to them, which will be a great advantage and blessing.  If you read these words casually, you might not find the blessings Jesus is speaking of.  You need to read them carefully, and apply the words to the situation.

For example, Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit – the Helper – will be making everything work.  Jesus says that He, when He comes, will accomplish all the things Jesus names.  What isn't so obvious is that Jesus is talking about the work He is leaving His disciples to do.  The Spirit is the One who will make it happen.  That is how He is "the Helper".  He makes whatever they are doing effective and accomplishes the mission Jesus sets before them.

And what is that Mission?  "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment."  That is the Mission.  The first thing we see is that the scope of the mission is the entire world, and that is what the Helper will enable them to reach – the world.  What the disciples are charged with is a mission to the entire world, and every man, woman, and child in the world is included in their message.  The Spirit will convict the world, that is, the Spirit will work faith and give the message power.

First, He will convict the world of sin.  Jesus then went on to say that the world will be convicted of unbelief: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.  That is the chief sin, not to believe in Jesus.  All other sins flow out of the failure to believe that Jesus is God and to trust in Him.  Now that Jesus has paid the cost of sin, the only thing that stands to convict anyone is unbelief.  And we all stand convicted of unbelief before Christ.  Aside from the aid of the Spirit, not even Christians would believe.  Our natural state is unbelief.

The history of the church demonstrates this truth.  Time after time, the church wanders from the simple and pure Gospel.  We would expect the world around us to reject Christ and the faith, and they do, but the most aggressive attacks come from within the church.  There are those who simply cannot accept the incarnation.  ‘God could not do that, or if He could, He would not!'  They reject the atonement.  ‘It is too little,' or ‘it is too much,' or ‘it is too violent,' or ‘it is unreasonable to demand the bloody death of His Son for the sins of others.' Over and over, so-called teachers have led the way to unbelief and irreligion, showing how clearly all men are convicted of the sin of unbelief prior to the work of the Helper.

The world has no appreciation for the reality of this sin.  It is all the same to the world if you believe in God or not – or which deity you choose.  The world is worried about those "sins" that mess up their dealings - murder, or adultery, or theft.  They don't always condemn or punish those evils, but they feel them and see them.  This sin, unbelief, they do not feel or see or care about.  They do not know that this sin is the foundation and food for the evil of the world.  This is the sin in which a man says "I am God".  "I come first."  "Whatever I want at whatever price, I claim it!"  And we all stand convicted.

Then the Helper convicts the world of righteousness.  That is the proper work of the Spirit, proclaiming the Gospel through the agency of the messengers sent by Christ, and bringing men to faith.   But the righteousness of which the world is to be convicted is not its own, worked by the hands of men.  It is that alien righteousness of the grace of God, imputing Christ's complete righteousness to men that believe.  You can hear this in the way Jesus describes it: and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me.  Now who would describe righteousness like this?  Only Jesus.  

He describes it this way because it is not our righteousness but His that He speaks about.  It is the only righteousness that avails before God for salvation, but it is totally His work and not ours.  It must be accounted to us and given to us – and it is.  That is the work of the Spirit.  Luther often said that this is the reason the Holy Spirit is called Holy, because He makes us holy.  These words show us clearly that Christ is not speaking here of outward, secular righteousness, which is important and necessary for this life, which Moses or judges and philosophers teach in their books, and which man has the ability to practice.  This righteousness is of an entirely different sort - it is the sort of righteousness for which God looks, the righteousness of the heart and soul, cleansed of sins and humble before God.

This is why the world hates this righteousness - this Gospel - because it is not something they can accomplish or establish or even sense and feel.  There is no personal credit or glory in it.  It is all Christ.  That is why He speaks about the world being convicted because He goes to the Father.  The world has no use for it if it is not serving their felt needs or egos.  This righteousness, however, is completely concealed, not only from the world but also from the saints.  It is not a thought, a word, or a work or a feeling in ourselves, as the preachers fantasize about grace when they teach that it is something poured into our hearts – or something that we sense.  No, it is entirely outside and above us; it is Christ's going to the Father, that is, His suffering, resurrection, and ascension.  Christ placed this righteousness outside the sphere of our senses; we cannot see and feel it. The only way it can be grasped is by clinging to the Word preached about Him, which tells us that He Himself is our Righteousness.  Even for believers, it is received only by faith, and perceived only by hearing the Word of it, and that with the aid – the conviction – of the Helper.

Finally, the Helper will convict the world concerning Judgment.  Jesus said, and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.  We naturally think of earthly judgment, laws broken, crimes committed, and guilt established and punished.  But Jesus is speaking here of the work of the Helper which places all human righteousness in the scales of justice and condemns all of it.  Here we are presented with the work of the church in preaching and teaching the truth, both Law and Gospel, rightly divided.  We proclaim the freedom of the Gospel from the regulations of the law, and this silences and condemns the "ruler of this world", the devil, with all of his guilt-mongering and fear. 

The devil is the father of lies, and so any false doctrine stands judged by the clear preaching of the Word of God.  It is not important to this convicting work of the Helper that the world around us recognize that judgment today.  It will recognize it and confess it as true and correct in the end, but today it is enough that we know that it is true.  The Helper convicts the world by contradicting the wisdom and judgment of the world with the forgiveness of sins and by changing the hearts of men.  The world looks at the outside and makes its judgment.  God bestows His grace, and changes the spirit of men and women with a new righteousness which is true and pure and saves you.  The world judges falsely and condemns and persecutes the people of God, and so it is judged in turn, and condemned along with its evil ruler.

All the while, we stand by watching as the Helper does all of these things.  We hear the Words of the Absolution, and believe by the power of the Spirit, and we are forgiven.  We hear the Words of Institution, and believe by the power of the Spirit, and we receive holy food.  We are not idle, for we are the messengers sent to preach, but the work and its success belongs to the Spirit.  He takes what Christ has earned, and pours it out on us in Word and Sacrament.  As Jesus said in our text, "He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you."  He brings all glory to the Father by glorifying Christ in everything so that we know and believe, and are comforted here, and are rescued for eternity.

Our Gospel for Cantate Sunday prepares us to celebrate Pentecost, and to find the true blessing of Christ's Ascension.  Christ needed to go away from us to the Father in order to send the Spirit to help us, and teach us this divine understanding of sin, and righteousness, and to know that the judgment has come already, on Good Friday, when the ruler of this world was judged, and our sins were punished, and we were redeemed and set free from death into everlasting life.  The Helper had to do it because, by ourselves, we could not believe.  We need help, and so He sent us the Helper.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

God is at Work In You and Through You

 Philippians 1:6, 9-11

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Sermon for TSLSITCY     Final sermon here         11/16/25

God is at Work In and Through You

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Well, here we are. This is the day we have all been looking forward to.  Suddenly, Immanuel will be without a pastor. Pastor Rickbeil will try to do his best, and we all know that it will be very good.  

I have looked forward to this day with a sense of dread and excitement and nervousness, with a complex of emotions that only the pastors and perhaps their wives among us can imagine.  They have been here before.  Really, the only thing I can say is the first line of our text: "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."  

If you are despairing, remember that God is in charge, and He loves you.  In other words, good thing or bad, God is at work, so we may have hope.  And sinful human beings are at work so we know how messed up things can get - but we always have hope in God.

God is at work in the Church - and He has always been.  He often has different goals than we do, and often different ways of accomplishing what He wills, so we must always walk by faith - not by our perceptions or understandings.  Our text this morning underlines that fact for us.  It tells us plainly that God is at work in us – and through us.  And that is our theme - God is at work in and through you.

First is the work - Paul calls it "the good work", which God is doing in you.  It is the work of faith.  He has begun that good work in you.  Paul reminds us that our faith is not our doing or our choosing, but the creation of God in us.  He began the good work in us, not we ourselves.  But Paul is saying more here.  He is also saying that God will continue that good work - Paul uses the Greek expression "He will perfect it."  That doesn't mean that He will make it flawless, but that He will bring it to completion or to the goal which He has for it - which is your salvation.

Paul is confident in God for this.  He is confident that God can do it, and that God wants to do it, and that God will do it.  Your persistence in the faith is God's doing - just as we confess in the Catechism - "I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him."  We confess that we cannot come to Jesus, nor remain in faith without God at work in us.  He will continue to do so until Jesus comes again.

The second point is that God is also at work through you.  It is by His working that your love will abound more and more.  That love is the love which you have for God - part and parcel of faith.  It is knowing and believing the love which God has for us that causes our love.  John writes in his first Epistle that "we love because He first loved us."

Paul speaks about his prayer that your love abounds in real knowledge and all discernment.  This is God working in you.  He works real knowledge in you as opposed to the so-called knowledge of the world around us.  We have that debate in our society all of the time.  The so-called knowledge is what everyone "knows" but simply isn't true.  It is about all of the lies of our culture.  Homosexuality being a normal "affectational preference," is an example of the so-called knowledge.  The right of a woman to choose to abort her baby is another example.  So-called knowledge hates Christ and Christianity and loves the pagan, or the eastern mysticism and "spirituality".  I received an email quoting an article from Time Magazine a while back - I mean, email, right? - which offered a quiz purporting to help you discover you how spiritual you are.  My responses rated me as "highly skeptical, resistant to developing spiritual awareness".  The thrust of the article was that Jews and Muslims were people who could use both science and religion, but Christians were just religious and superstitious.  So-called knowledge.

The real knowledge is what the Bible reveals to us, namely the truth, and He who is the Truth.  The world is frightened by the capriciousness of luck and life, but the Christian knows that God is with him or her, and loves them, so they have nothing to fear.  The world is confused about what is right and what is wrong and why – the Christian has God's Word to guide him.  The world is unsure of why we are here, and how intelligent life came to be – in fact a real evolutionist, like Behavioral Psychologist B.F. Skinner, will tell you that genuine intelligence doesn't exist, and can't exist.  We Christians know our origin, and we know also our purpose, and we understand the will of God for us.  And, again, what is the will of God?

The unbelievers have to wrestle with guilt and a gnawing fear about the possibility of a final accounting - a judgment day.  We have eternal life and salvation as God's people, and the full and free forgiveness of all of our sins.  We know about Jesus, about His death in our place on the cross, and about His resurrection, which proclaims and proves the forgiveness He proclaims to us is real and true, and valid.  Your sins are forgiven.  "Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."

God also works in you all discernment.  He guides your mind and helps you discern true from false, holy from profane, and right from wrong.  Without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, people tend to be stupid.  "Professing to be wise they became fools," so says Romans 1:22.  You have probably witnessed it when people cannot figure out whether stealing little things is still stealing, or cheating on their taxes is still wrong, and they think they have a right to act out their twisted fantasies even though they would agree that someone else doing those things would be sick or evil, or both.  Faith enables you to see the black and white where your reason would tell you there are all sorts of subtle shades of grey.

The result is God working through you to love others, and to approve the things that are excellent, and be filled with the fruit of righteousness.  God keeps speaking to us through His Holy Word, but no one has to tell a Christian the importance of worship, or of prayer, or of compassion for someone else.  Those things just make sense to one who can see the shape of reality.  We need worship and the Word of God, and we know that our brothers and sisters in Christ need us there as much as we need them there, bearing witness to their faith, encouraging us, and supporting us in this fight against the devil, the world, and our own flesh.

God works concern for our fellow man because God loved the world.  He loved the world by sending His Son to live for them, too, and die in their place and redeem them.  We, as His children, share that love-agape love.

Of course, the selfish and the self-centered make sense to us too - we all carry the traitorous flesh which still serves sin.  But the Holy Ghost works that good work in us and teaches us to discipline ourselves and do what is holy and righteous in Jesus Christ by His power.  Paul says that we have been filled with the fruits of righteousness.  Even our good deeds and our holy lives, though they call for discipline and deliberation from us, are not our own.  They have been poured out in us by Jesus.  When we do what is holy, we do what God placed within us to do.  This echoes what Paul says in another place "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

Naturally, then, everything we do is to the glory and praise of God, as Paul says in our text.  It all flows out of the good work which God has begun in us, and continues to do in us–– and it flows through us to others.  That is why Christians are good neighbors and good citizens of their country.  What God works in us also works through us, benefiting our neighbors and our society.  Recent history shows us what happens when those who call themselves Christian abandon the Word of God by and large and begin to live their lives for themselves, rather than living for God and the neighbor, as God works in the hearts of those who are truly His.  See Antifa and BLM as recent illustrations of this truth.

Let's think for a moment; to whose glory is Oral Roberts University?  Who is glorified by the Crystal Cathedral?  Where does the praise seem to be focused when you consider a ministry (so-called) like the Bennie Hinn ministry?  Who makes all the money?  Then look at what standing faithful brings to the child of God.  There is little worldly glory, and it is not often immediately evident what God is doing through the humble circumstances of His faithful people.

But we know.  We know that He is working our salvation by bringing that good work of faith to its ultimate goal, which is our salvation.  He is perfecting it, in the sense of using that good work to accomplish His good and gracious will for us, and when we don't stubbornly resist Him, through us in the lives of others around us, and in the life of our community.

So, we come to the end of the ministry of Pastor Fish among the good, godly people of Immanuel of Bartlett Township.  I will leave behind friends, associations with my fellow pastors, and the congregation of people that I love, and for whom I pray every day, and will continue to pray for as I head to Montana. You think you have the difficult part, and I am skipping off happily into another life. You have no idea how difficult this is just to keep my voice under control. We each need one another's prayers. 

And it is my prayer along with the Apostle, this morning, that "that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."  Then we will know that we have God at work in us and through us.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Loving Jesus

 John 14:23-31

Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.  He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.  These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.  You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.'  If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.  And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you may believe."

Sermon for Pentecost Sunday                                                 05/19/24

Loving Jesus

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

All you need is love, or at least that is what John Lennon said.  Many Christians talk a lot about loving God and loving Jesus, and by that they each seem to mean specific things, or they mean to use the concept to induce people to engage in certain courses of action or behavior.  They turn loving Jesus into a law, and use the faith-driven desire of the believer to manipulate them and shape their behavior.  Certainly every child of God wants to love Jesus.  We have been treated to a lifetime of exhortations to do just that.

In our Pentecost Sunday Gospel this morning, Jesus talks about what it means to love Him, and what effect it has.  It turns out that loving Jesus is not the same as what so many preach it is.  This morning we will take advantage of the words of Jesus, and see what it means to love Him, according to His definition, and what follows upon that love.  Our theme is "Loving Jesus."

First of all, Jesus describes loving Him, He doesn't command how to do it.  In this, Jesus is speaking as He did in the Ten Commandments.  Jesus does not say, "If you love me, then you must do this and do that."  He says, "The one who loves me is the one who is keeping my Word", just as in the Ten Commandments God does not actually say, "Don't Murder!", or "Don't steal!", but "My people are the sort who simply will not take the life of another, or the personal property of another, or the wife (or husband) of another, and so forth".  In other words, Jesus is describing, not commanding.  I know that because Jesus knows, as the Scriptures clearly teach, that none of us is capable of obeying the Law by nature, and so commanding us to behave in a certain way is unfruitful.  Jesus describes instead.

Loving Jesus means keeping His Word.  It doesn't mean that we love Him by keeping His commands, but that we keep His Word as part of loving Him.  Now, we can turn it around, and measure our sincerity by looking at our faithfulness to His Word - and even use these words as a motivation of sorts to do what is good and right, but we have to remember that this is not a command, in the sense that we can do it on our own, but as revealing what God would work in us, and help us to understand which way the Lord would lead us.  So we need to consider what it means to Keep Jesus' Word.

Keeping His Word, for example, means knowing it.  Let's face it, it is difficult to be faithful to something if we do not know what it is.  This is the knowledge part of faith - what theologians like to call the "fides quae creditur".  You need to possess substance to your faith - the stuff that you believe.

Keeping His Word also means believing it.  Once you know what His Word is and what it contains, you must actually believe it - this "believing-ness" is what theologians have called the "fides qua creditur", that is, the faith with which you believe.  Luther called this "fiducium cordis", that is, the trust in the heart - the trust that all that you accept as true actually is true and that all that it means and offers applies to you and that you may depend upon it and act upon it.

It almost goes without saying, then, that Keeping His Word means sound doctrine.  You cannot be faithful to Jesus or to His Word, His teachings, without holding fast to what He said, and what it really means.  When you do not care what the truth is, you are not keeping His Word.  When it is more important to "get along" than confess the faith, you are not keeping His Word.  The appeals to the brotherhood of man, and love for another, and uncertainty in the face of the variety of opinions promulgated by the various church groups, for you to be more patient with other doctrines, or for you to be less clear and assertive with your confession are appeals to you to surrender the Word of Christ, rather than keep it.

Keeping His Word also means living out what it teaches.  This is the trust in the heart working its way out in real life.  So, Jesus died for your sins, did He?  So what!?  What does His death mean to your life?  What does His love mean to your dealing with other people?  What does the forgiveness of your sins mean to how you live, and how you deal with others?  What does the gift of eternal life mean - that is, how does it influence your thinking, and your choices, and your approach to life and dangers and sickness, and such things?

You see, if God loves you as deeply as you confess that He does - and you believe it - it has to mean something to what you think, and how you respond to life and its pressures.  The temptation that the devil wants to stumble you with is the temptation to forget the love of God and fear stuff and worry about what it happening around you, and pull in your horns, so to speak, so as not to draw any attention to yourself or your confession.  We confess that God is intimately aware of us - the very hairs on your head are all numbered - and genuinely concerned for our well-being.  We are, after all, His chosen and beloved - right?

So what difference does that make in your life, in your choices and values, in what you will dare to do and what you will refuse to do?  Remember, all of life is theological, and your life between the end of our service and, perhaps, Bible Study, this morning, and the beginning of service next Sunday, is your worship.  No moment in your life is insignificant or dismissible.  No decision, however daily and ‘secular' it seems to you is excluded from your life in Christ.  Keeping His Word means not just putting a Bible on the coffee table or bedstand, but living all of your life, even the little parts that no one sees, as though you are God's, chosen and precious, forgiven and blessed with everlasting life, and protected by the Creator of all that exists because, as Jesus says, He loves you.

When you love Jesus – the way Jesus talks about our loving Him, and not the warm and squishy, ‘feelings' oriented kind of love – certain things will be true.  I struggle with how to describe them.  First I wanted to say "results", but that makes it seem like quid pro quo - as something we cause to happen, which is not true.  I then chose the word "consequence".  But the dictionary say that this refers to cause and effect, which is not where I want to go either.  What I want to talk about is connected to our loving Jesus, and contemporaneous, but not caused by us or our behavior, since God makes us believe.  So I chose the word "accompany" - there are circumstances which Jesus tells us attach to us when we love Him and keep His Word.

The keeping of His Word is accompanied by the love of God for you.  Jesus said, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him."  It isn't that God doesn't love anyhow, since God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, but when we love Him, He loves us personally, not just in general.  He claims us as His own, and counts us special and precious and privileged.  His promise to hear our prays and answer each one is an example of this special and personal relationship.

The keeping of His Word is also accompanied by God – both the Father and the Son – being with you, blessing you, guiding and keeping you (living with you).  Jesus says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; . . . and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him" Wherever Jesus is, there must be all of His blessings and help.  We are literally in heaven - except that our sinful flesh cannot perceive it or enjoy it as it should.  It is also the will of God that we walk, for a time, by faith and not by experience or sense data.  God has a purpose for our time and life here, not the least of which is to confess Him before men and share the hope that is in us.  So He tells us what we cannot perceive, namely that He is with us, and not just aware of us, but making His dwelling-place with us and in us.  

So, when we love Jesus, we have everything we need.  We don't necessarily have everything we might want - but that is also because of our sinful flesh, which desires that which is not good for us, and which lusts after evil - and is incapable of sensing the riches of God which lie about us at every side.  So Jesus tells us of His love, of His presence, of our full and free forgiveness because of His cross and suffering.  He tells us that we have only to awaken from our graves, on that good day, and we shall live before Him in glory, and not the humility of the flesh which we have today.

And so, the keeping of His Word is also accompanied by peace - "the peace of God which passes all comprehension" - not just human comprehension.  This peace comes with faith.  It is peace in circumstances that don't warrant peace.  It is peace which comes by gift of God, not as the result of human reason, or observation.  It is the peace of God which God gives, for Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."  We have the gift and the promise of the peace, so Jesus tells us not to allow our flesh to be troubled or cause us to be fearful.  No, instead we cling to the peace which is our gift by virtue of keeping the Word of Jesus.

The keeping of His Word is also accompanied by rejoicing.  How could we not rejoice, if we really and truly believe?  Your sins are forgiven.  You will live forever.  Even the grave cannot change the will of God for you, the plan of God for you, or the love of God for you - you will rise from your tomb fully alive!  While you live here, you are promised everything you need, and blessing and guidance.  We poured that out on Kennedy Sue this morning in her baptism!  How could you not rejoice?  The only way would be if you did not keep the Word of Jesus.

The one who does not keep the Word of Jesus does not love Him.  He or she is, by definition, an unbeliever.  Whether they reject the Gospel outright, or try to change it by changing the Word and denying this or that while pretending to hold to the core - they do not believe.  If they cannot take Jesus as He presents Himself to us in His Word, they cannot do it because they do not know Him or love Him.  If they deny His gifts, they do it because they do not love Jesus.  You cannot have Jesus without His Word, just as you cannot have the Father without the Son.  The one who does not keep the Word of Jesus does not love Him, and, vice-versa, the one who does not love Jesus cannot keep His Word.

The long and the short of it is, Loving Jesus means being a Christian - the sort of Christian that is saved by grace through faith, not just the sort that wears the title like a disguise.  Some like the name, but hate the substance.  Some want the sense of religion without having to deal with the reality of it.  You can see that in some of the churches that reach for feelings and experiences in their worship, rather than for the Word of Christ, and the confession of the faith.  But only in Jesus Christ, in His crucifixion and resurrection, is there salvation.  Only in the Word of Jesus is the truth.  And only in keeping that Word is it possible to know and love Jesus.

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

These Things They will Do

 John 15:26-16:4

"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me, and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

"These things I have spoken to you, that you may be kept from stumbling.  They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.  And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me.  But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you."

Sermon for Exaudi Sunday                                          05/12/24

These Things They Will Do

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Today is the Sunday between the Ascension and Pentecost.  It marks the period of time between Jesus removing His visible presence from among His disciples, and the gift of the Holy Spirit and the official jump-starting of the Church on Pentecost.  In my mind, I liken this to that time in a race when the starter is crying out, "on your mark . . . get set . . ." just before he says "Go!" or fires the starter's pistol, or whatever it is that begins the race.

The Gospel is perfect for this day.  It records words of Jesus during His last great discourse with the disciples before the Passion.  This is a warning and a promise, and none of it was spoken to us, directly, but to His disciples who were soon to be promoted to Apostles – from ‘students' to those who were the "Sent Ones", sent out to bear witness to what they had seen and heard and to spread the Gospel.  Our task this morning is to take these words, aimed squarely at the disciples, and see what they actually teach us.  Our theme is "These Things They Will Do".

Jesus warns the disciples about troubles that they will face.  He warns them "that [they] may be kept from stumbling."  It is easy to understand why Jesus would do this.  They have followed Jesus.  He has cared for them, and shielded them from all of the dangers and troubles that might have happened to them.  They may not have understood or even seen the providential care of Jesus for His disciples, but nothing happened to them as long as Jesus was with them.  He fed them and led them around the whole of the once "promised land".  They had enemies, and there were all sorts of local issues and parties, just as there are today in the middle east - just different personalities, but the same old hatreds and animosities.  The disciples never seemed to have been confronted by them.  None of the enemies of Jesus attacked them physically - or seemed to have any success in shaping public opinion against them.  Jesus gave them a few years of peaceful instruction, as He modeled the faith and showed them how they were to live once He was gone -- without telling them in advance that this was what He was doing.

But now they were about to be cast out on their own.  Jesus was going to be brutally murdered, and then He would rise again from the grave, and then ascend into heaven leaving them to be His witnesses.  He was going to take His visible presence from them, and withdraw that providential care that gave them such peaceful times with Jesus.  He was not taking His care away from them entirely, but things were going to change, and God knew about it.  In fact, it is all part of God's plan.  Jesus told them, "They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.  And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me."

This meant that they were going to become targets of hostility for those Jews – the people who were supposed to be God's people – and yet who did not believe.  That part applies to us too.  The specifics that Jesus spoke of really only fit the first Christians.  I have never been cast out of a synagogue, nor would it bother me if I were.  I don't believe the stuff they teach in their synagogues anyhow, and I have no emotional attachment to them, either.  The disciples did.  The first Christians all - or nearly all - came from the synagogues.  Being thrown out of the synagogue was almost like ending life as they knew it.  It was extremely painful, and came with broken relationships, lost friendships, and hostility from those who should have been, and once were, friends.

We've sampled some of what that is like in our congregational conflict.  Those who we called friends, and fellow members of the church, were suddenly hostile to us, angry with us, and wanted nothing more than to drive us out.  And the reason for our pain was pretty much the same as the reason for the hostility of the synagogue toward the disciples - "And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me."  It was doctrine.  They did not believe what we believed, and they rejected both us and our faith vehemently.

Jesus had to tell the disciples that this was coming because they were likely to be tempted with the idea that just because they worked for the Savior, things were going to go smoothly (as they had up to this point), and God would pave the way before them.  He would, of course, prepare the way before them, but not by removing obstacles like the hatred and violence of the world.  That remains - and in fact, that is a tool in the arsenal of God for getting the world's attention, and demonstrating His power, and our weakness, and making converts in the most unexpected of ways.  The early church even had the proverb, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."  Their patient endurance, with so little evident power, made many sit up and take notice; people who only understood the unbridled use of power and who could not comprehend what might lie behind patience and forgiveness and stubborn goodness such as they witnessed in the Apostles.

We are not witnesses.  We never saw Jesus.  We are confessors.  We confess what we have heard and believed.  We speak what God has spoken to us through His Word and through His called speakers - preachers.  We confess with the Church what those original witnesses bore witness of - and to.  We confess that Jesus is the true Son of God, come down in human form and having taken on human nature on our behalf.  We confess that Jesus kept the whole will and law of God, where all of mankind has failed, and having earned and rightly deserved eternal life, Jesus has suffered and died in our place, and for our sins, and on our behalf.  His death on the cross is ours, endured for us to meet the justice of God against our sins.  That is what those first witnesses bore witness to.

Then we also confess that God raised Jesus from the dead, because those first witnesses saw it, and spoke with the risen Jesus.  We confess that His resurrection shows us first that Jesus is true God, and secondly, that the death of Jesus has been accepted in our place and for our sins, and that it was sufficient, so that now we are forgiven and we stand in the good will and favor of God.  We confess that there is nothing for us to do - to earn our salvation - Jesus did it all.  

We confess that we fail to qualify to even start to work out our salvation, because we are sin-filled, and sin-corrupted, and fall short of the glory of God before we can even start.  We also confess that even our coming to faith is not possible for us by our own wisdom or will-power, but God must call us to faith and cause us to believe, and that He does so by the preaching of the Gospel.

It is those things, human weakness and corruption, and divine power and grace, that cause those who should be our brothers in the faith to respond to us with hostility and rejection.  Some of them want to be able to earn and deserve something of their salvation for themselves - and the teaching that they cannot insults them and infuriates them.  Others want to claim that at least they chose the right path, they "decided for Jesus", and the doctrine of divine monergism - that God alone works faith in us against our nature and beyond our abilities - causes hostility in their hearts towards us.  Most of the Protestants we know cannot accept a God they cannot understand, so the Sacraments, and the durability of the incarnation - that Jesus is always and everywhere fully and truly human even now, with His body and human nature still with Him wherever He goes - is unreasonable to them, and our stubborn confession of those truths makes them angry.

No matter which way we turn, we face the hostility of those who call themselves Christians, but do not believe what we believe.  They have another Gospel, and believe in another Jesus.  Please understand that I am not saying that all of those in other denominations are not Christians.  I cannot look into their hearts and judge that.  I can only look at the "Gospel" they proclaim, and say that it is not the same Gospel which we confess.  Individuals in these other bodies may  - and some surely do - believe exactly what we believe about Jesus and salvation, just as we have all encountered Lutherans who are not Lutheran - who do not hold to what we teach and confess, and believe something entirely different, but still call themselves "Lutheran".

But the doctrines of works righteousness, and the doctrines of decision theology, and the doctrines which limit Christ to heaven, as to His human nature, and deny the very possibility of forgiveness in the absolution or in either Sacrament, or of the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper - their doctrines are unbiblical, and un-Christian.  They paint a picture of God and of Christ which is unlike our Savior, and they hide the comfort of Christ and the hope of salvation from many that believe them.  As Jesus said, "they have not known the Father, or Me."  

And they will reject us, and try to marginalize us, and when they have the power, they will try to drive us out of the church.  They will do so with the complete conviction that they are right, and that they are serving God and God's truth.  Of course some will not count God in the picture - they will be convinced that they are serving "truth" and "all that is reasonable" and that they are fighting "superstition".  The point is, they will persecute and trouble those that confess the truth of the Gospel, all the while thinking that they are the good guys and on the side of the angels.

We have the Helper, that Jesus promised - the Holy Spirit.  I will not talk much about that today, because that is the point of the feast of Pentecost, which we will celebrate next Sunday.  And Jesus warns us of the truth of the hostility of the world to our confession, through the warning to the disciples of the hostility of the world to their witness.  It still applies by extension.  "But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them."

Jesus wanted them – and us – to know that when they came upon these pains and sorrows and troubles, that it was to be expected.  Nothing was out of order - except the unbelief of those that persecuted them.  Suffering is part of the confession.  We share in Christ's righteousness, so we also share in His suffering.  Our suffering has no redemptive quality, but it does carry some power, by the will of God, in confession, and speaking to the mind and hearts of the unbelieving world.  And since we are Christ's, we should know that it is coming, and, as Peter put it in His first epistle, chapter 4, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation."

When the pain comes, and people turn on you, and speaking the wonderful good news of Jesus gets you into trouble, or pain, or your friends and even your family turn away from you, you will be tempted to be confused, and wonder why some strange thing is happening.  Jesus warned the Disciples, and through their warning He warns us - it is coming.  Expect it.

  Knowing that pain is coming doesn't change the pain, but it explains it - and it is for your strengthening and comfort that Jesus tells us about it.  These things they will do.

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

The Spirit of Truth

 John 16:5-15

"But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?'  But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.  But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.  And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

"I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you.  All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you."

Sermon for Cantate Sunday                                                              04/28/24

The Spirit of Truth

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

He is not coming.

He is here!  The Spirit of Truth of which Jesus spoke.  He is here through Word and Sacrament.  And, yes, it would be correct to say that He continues to come in the preaching of the Word and in the gifts of the Sacraments.  My point is, however, that it is no longer merely a future event.

The Apostles were looking forward to the coming of Pentecost, although they did not know it.  Jesus had not died yet, and they were not expecting that, so how could they be anticipating Pentecost?  The Spirit is at work among us already, convicting the world and teaching us the truth.  It is this work that is so important that it is to our advantage that Jesus is not among us now, so that the Spirit may be among us and working His work.

What is that work?  Convicting the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgement, and leading us into the truth.

He convicts the world concerning sin.  That doesn't mean that the world becomes convinced about sin.  The world's certainty about sin comes and goes - it waxes and wanes.  We are presently in a time when most of the world, including the part that calls itself Christian, is unconvinced – and usually unconscious – about sin.  That is why we have legal abortion and preferential treatment of homosexuals, and women ministers, and such things.  Part of the problem, of course, is that so many preachers do not preach the law clearly.  Too many have decided that what the Church has to offer is so weak and pathetic and undesirable, that we must approach people in a socially appealing way, and sell them on the sweetness and delight of the treasures we distribute or they want to change the message altogether.  They think we must find some sort of sugar-coating to get people to take the bitter medicine of the Gospel.

You can't tell people that they are wicked and sinful and expect them to come back to church week after week.  That is how the story goes.  Unfortunately for such preachers, that is the only tested and true way to make people want to come back.  Those who hear such a message are the only sorts of people who will come back week after week, faithfully.  Sinners need forgiveness and salvation.  Those who are not really sinful need to be entertained and "uplifted," and they don't really need it every week.

The whole thing really comes down to the "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me," that Jesus spoke in our Gospel a couple of weeks ago.  The Good Shepherd comes to rescue us, not entertain us, or please us with His bag of tricks.  Too much of the world around us thinks that the purpose of religion is to make us happy or to make life make sense for us.  The Gospel does that, but that is a secondary benefit.  We find that life makes more sense when we know that we rest secure in the hands of the Good Shepherd, and when the real issues of life and death are resolved for us.  Jesus came to solve the problem of death and hell, not give us a heartwarming hour of praise music, or deal with the injustices of our society or of the world around us.  The world wants so much less from God than He wants to give us.

Thank God that He has done just what we really needed, solved the problem of dying and of eternal misery in hell.  One of the reasons that you don't hear so much about that problem is that Jesus has saved us.  Too many people figure that since we have salvation, we should talk about something else, and not dwell on the negatives - - like sin, and God's wrath, and guilt.  People want to feel good.  Since Jesus has saved us, they say, we should look at the positive side, and stand up and sing happy songs, and just feel good!  So that is what most churches do.  It certainly seems like it should be more appealing to people than sin and guilt and death and hell.  And the big churches generally prove that point.  The unbelieving world wants to feel good, and they believe it is the job of their churches to make it so.

The Spirit, meanwhile, convicts the world of sin because they do not believe in Jesus.  The world believes something about Jesus, that's for sure.  But the world believes, basically, in themselves.  Some figure that their choices and decisions are what make the difference in their salvation - so they really believe in themselves.  For others, their feelings determine how they are and how things are going, not Jesus, not the promises of God, but how they respond to the preacher and the worship "event."  

That's the big thing for them.  Truth be damned, how you feel inside is what really counts.  So, they figure that if they feel good enough, or pious enough, or repentant enough, or "spiritual" enough, that is what is important.  That is what they count as saving.  Jesus can tell them that their sins are forgiven because He died on their behalf, and to them that is nothing but words.  Their preachers do not dare to speak either the absolution or the retaining of their sins.  He (or she, some of them have women preachers) may not believe it himself, but even it he does – who does he think he is to do that, only God can forgive sins!  Jesus had the same problem with the Pharisees a long time ago.

Since the world does not wish to hear about sin, and the members of the world do not place their hope completely on Jesus, they stand convicted of the sins they do not want to hear about, do not want to repent of, and do not want to hear the absolution of spoken to them.  

They stand convicted because they called Jesus a liar when He said "This is my body, given for you," and "This is my blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins."

They stand convicted because they will not take Jesus at His Word when He tells them that Baptism is step one of the two step program for making disciples, or when Jesus says that one must be born again by Baptism (by water and the Spirit) to enter the kingdom of God  – and they call Peter a liar when he teaches us, by the inspiration of Jesus, that Baptism saves you.  Oh, they practice baptism, but they do so only after carefully calling Jesus a liar and saying that it is only a rule we must follow – and not the very gift of life itself.

The Spirit of Truth convicts the world of sin by preaching it to them, and they simply will not listen.  You can ignore those letters from the IRS, too.  But if you do, eventually, they will come and take your stuff away from you – and when people ignore it and reject it and call it a lie when the Holy Spirit preaches the Law to them, and reject the wonderful gift of forgiveness and life which He brings to them in Jesus' name – they still stand convicted of sins, precisely because they refuse to believe in Jesus.

The Spirit of Truth convicts them of righteousness, too, because Jesus is righteous, and he has gone to be with the Father.  It is not their righteousness, however, that they stand convicted of, but Jesus'.  He is perfectly righteous, otherwise He could not stand in the Father's presence.  But we Him see no longer, as did the disciples of old, because He is righteous and can stand in the presence of the Father, interceding for us, and bestowing upon all that believe His own perfect righteousness.  Believing or unbelieving, the righteousness of Jesus stands as a truth, and He gives it to each one of you – by grace, received through faith.

Your sins are forgiven!  Each of you stands before God as perfect and holy, just like Jesus, because Jesus died for you, and forgives you.  It doesn't matter how you feel today, or tomorrow.  It is simply the truth.  If your life doesn't make sense to you, that's okay.  Your salvation is still the truth of God!

Then, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of Judgment, because the ruler of this present, sinful world has been judged.  Court was held on the cross, and in the grave that once held Jesus.  The resurrection was the verdict.  Christ is arisen!  Your sins are forgiven.  Now death and hell have been destroyed!  No one need ever suffer eternal death and condemnation.  The only people who will are those convicted of sin!   Remember the great courtroom scene of Romans 8?  Listen again as I read it for you.  What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?  Who will bring a charge against God's elect?  God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?  Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Far from being convicted of sin, you are each justified!  Your sins are forgiven and are nowhere to be seen!  The only people who will face judgment are those who refuse to be rescued by Jesus.  They are the ones who stand convicted of sin.  These are the truths into which the Holy Spirit leads us.  These truths are not accepted by everyone.  They are not even accepted by everyone who boasts of the name "Lutheran".  Nevertheless, they are true.  They are God's treasures, poured out on all mankind, but received only by them that believe.  To the rest, these truth are all either just a dream, or they are an error, and the world does not wish to participate.  They often dress their rejection of life and salvation up as wisdom, or science, or spirituality, or inclusiveness and compassion.  It is rejection, however, and it is their mistake - a tragic and fatal mistake.  They stand convicted of judgment.

The Spirit of Truth teaches Christ.  He proclaims forgiveness won by Christ and freely bestowed – and totally undeserved by every single one of those that receive it.  The Spirit of Truth speaks of the Love of God and of confidence in His good will toward us within which we may rest secure.  Every bit of it is true, because it is from Jesus, and Jesus got it all from the Father.  Human opinion does not carry any weight here, because these things are work of Jesus Christ and the trustworthy teachings of the Spirit of Truth.

Our part - and it, too, is a gift, really, is to speak the "Amen."

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

You Shall Surely Die

 Genesis 2:7-17

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.  And the LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.  And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.  And the gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.  And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.  And the name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."

Sermon for 7th Sunday after Trinity                   7/23/23

You Shall Surely Die

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Have you ever been around a curious child?  A little child asks "Why?"  They are new to the world and most things are curious to them – they want to know why.  Why is the sky blue?  Why does Grandpa have hair growing out of his ears?  Why is Mommy crying so much, Grandma has just gone to live with Jesus?  Why is sauerkraut so sour?

And when you answer a child's question, you usually get another "Why?" in response – wanting to know why what you have just said in response to their first question is so.  Adam doesn't ask the question in our text, but it seems like a fair question to me.  God places Adam in the Garden of Eden, and then He tells Adam that if he eats of a certain specific tree, he will die.  To his credit, Adam did not ask the question.  We want to look at it this morning, however.  Our theme is "You Shall Surely Die."

Our Old Testament lesson this morning is the account of the creation of Adam.  This is before Eve comes on the scene.  There is the story of Adam's creation, the planting of the Garden of Eden, and the command concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The part about the planting of the Garden is historical information, but it does us no good.  We cannot find the Garden.  We cannot find it, because it isn't there any longer.  The geographical data is from before the flood of Noah, when there was just one continent.

How do I know?  The description of the placement of the Garden tells me.  The river that flows out of the garden splits into four rivers which flow to or around various lands – and the lands named are not all on the same continent today.  I don't know for sure where Havilah is, but the river once known as Pishon which our text says flows around it, is today called the Ganges – the river in India.  The Gihon flows around Cush, which is modern day Ethiopia, which means that the Gihon would be the Nile, and the Nile does not flow around Ethiopia.  The Tigris and the Euphrates are also known rivers today, except that the Tigris in Eden flows to the east of Assyria, and the Tigris we know today flows on the west side of Assyria.  In short, these rivers, which all have their origin in Eden, identify rivers and places on three continents today, and they do not all share a common source today, as they did in the times of Eden, when the Bible tells us there was only one continent, and only one sea.  It would appear that the flood of Noah changed the earth's geography significantly, and scrubbed the Garden of Eden off the face of the globe.

So the part of this account that tells us something we can use today is the part which describes Adam's unique creation, and sets before Adam the command of God, coupled with the warning that on the day that he would eat of the forbidden tree, he would surely die.

God created Adam in a unique way.  All other creations were simply "spoken" into existence.  God planned them with almost unimaginable wisdom, intelligence, and complexity, and yet when they were created, the creation is spoken of as merely "saying" "let there be . . .", and they sprang into existence according to the wisdom and plan of God.  Man alone is spoken of as being "formed" by God.  How He did it, and precisely what the differences are, we cannot say with certainty.  The human body shares a great many design features with other creatures.  That makes sense.  If you build it to live in the same environment, and eat the same sorts of foods, you can use similar design features.  Why "re-invent the wheel" each time, so to speak?

Man's creation, however, was different, by design.  God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the "breath of life", and man became "a living soul."  The word for "breath" is also the word for "spirit."  God gave man unique physical attributes, and unique mental abilities, and then He gave man a spirit, and man became more than just an animal.  He became a living soul.  It is not said in this Scripture, but it is spoken in other places; the spirit in man is eternal.  The "living soul"part of this is the eternal part of man – the part that either lives forever, or dies forever.  It is in connection with the soul that the flesh of man was to live forever, because God had created man to be both flesh and spirit.

The warning about eating from the forbidden tree spoke about the life and the death of the spirit.  The death of the body was incidental.  It is absolutely sure, but it is connected to the spirit.  God did not say, "if you eat of it, your flesh will die."  The living soul – which was comprised of that marvelous body and the spirit of the man – would die.  And since the spirit is eternal, the death would be eternal also – not just dead and gone like the road-kill we pass every day, but eternal death.  Scriptures have taught us that this eternal death is what we call hell - torment and suffering of body and spirit, and complete and final and lasting separation from God, who is the Source and Fountain of Life.

The will of God towards man was good and was about life and communion - some sort of sharing and conversation together.  Look at the Garden!  It was filled with beauty and food, readily and freely available.  "And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food."  Sin is mankind's rejection of God.  God told Adam what would happen.  I don't think the tree had an intrinsic quality that gave the knowledge.  It was the Word and command of God.  When Adam avoided the tree, he knew by personal experience what "Good" was and what it was to be good.  When he ate from the tree, he learned what evil was, and what it was to be evil, and so the tree gave him the knowledge of both – filling in the blank of the one he had not known.

In a sense, Adam's sin was unbelief.  God warned him about the tree, but Adam ate anyhow, not trusting God or believing His Word.  As unbelief always does, it caused sin.  The lack of trust in God and in God's Word caused Adam to perform a sinful act.  Our sins are also the products of unbelief -- fruits, if you will.  We don't trust God in our lives, so we steal, or we lie, or we gossip.  Perhaps we don't trust God to take care of us.  Perhaps we don't trust God to work good and blessing in every situation.  Some situations are hurtful and frightening and we don't trust God to deal with it in a satisfactory way.  We don't trust God to be good to us or have a good will toward us, as He says that He does.  So, we take control.  We do what we should not do, or say things that we know we ought not to say.  The result of our unbelief is, as it was with Adam, sin.

When we sin, we are rejecting God in favor our ourselves or someone else.  When we reject God in sin, we step away from that Fountain and Source of life.  That is why You Shall Surely Die.  Sin breaks the connection between the sinner and Life itself.  It doesn't break the chain of existence, however.  That is why we face an eternity of death, of "fire and brimstone", according to Jesus, "of weeping and gnashing of teeth", "where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED."

Sin does that.  My sin does that.  Your sin does that.  If you end your time in this world and this life in sin, you shall surely die.  Your death in that case is not the one we observe here, with weeping and funerals and such.  It is the one God has warned us about, when all flesh shall rise from the grave, and bodies and souls re-united shall go to their final and eternal reward.  And we have no power to stop it, or to turn ourselves away from it.  It is like trying to resist tasting that delight when you are on a diet – only far worse, far less possible.  We cannot even cry out for help effectively by our own powers.

That is why the Gospel is so precious!  Without the Gospel, you shall surely die.  God understood that all along.  He warned Adam about it.  Now that we have all sinned, and each one of us personally deserves to die and face that eternal death, about which God warned us when He warned Adam.  The wages of sin is death.  Praise God, our Epistle lesson did not end with those words, nor does God's Word to us end there!

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  The will of God is still good towards us, and His will is for us to live , just as it was with Adam.  Since we have sold ourselves into death by sin, God redeemed us, literally bought us back again, by the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  He who is Life bore our sins to the cross and endured our death for us.  Now, to all those who know the truth and trust God and believe the promises of forgiveness and resurrection and life everlasting, God pours out all of those blessings.  Once again, it is life for those who believe God and take Him at His Word.  Forgiveness and life and salvation have been won for all people everywhere, but it is received and possessed only by those who believe.  It is by grace through faith.

And just as God gave Adam all sorts of good things in the Garden, He gives us good things here and now.  He has given us His Word, to teach us and through which He works within us.  He has given us one another to love, and to support and encourage one another.  He has given us this holy Meal.  Here He feeds us with the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He hides those very real treasures under the form of the bread and wine, but it is by the power of His Word and command that they are really there!  It is just as it was in the garden.  The fruit of the forbidden tree did not look deadly.  Adam could not see the danger and death that lurked beneath the form of the fruit.  And we cannot see the life and health and forgiveness and blessing that lie hidden by the forms of the bread and wine, but it is the Word and promise of God that those blessings are there, forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting!

Without those two blessings, you shall surely die.  But we are never without those blessings with the Gospel!  God gives them to us in our Baptism.  He pours out His grace upon us in the absolution -- and in the sermon.  He feeds us with the bread of life, as Jesus fed the four thousand in our Gospel lesson this morning.  Over and over again, God pours out grace and forgiveness and life and salvation upon those who believe.

Adam faced a unique choice.  He was holy and alive for eternity – unless he chose to turn away from God and walk in that place where God had warned him, and eat the fruit which God had promised on the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.  You, too, are holy, by the gift of God in Christ Jesus.  You, too, shall live forever – unless you also make the choice of Adam, to walk where God has forbidden, and to eat of those "fruits" about which God's Word tells us that if we partake, you shall surely die.  

Come, let us walk together in love, and let us eat together this holy meal!

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

Perfect Love

 1 John 4:16-21

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

Sermon for 1-SAT             6/19/22

Perfect Love

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Sometimes words simply fail us.  I know each of you has had that experience.  I am not speaking of those times when we have no words because something is too big or too striking or too emotional for us.  At those times all of our words fail us – they simply don't show up and give us the tools to express what is happening inside of us, or to describe what is happening outside of us.  The situation I am intending to describe is when we use words and they simply say too many other things, so that the words get in our way and fail to say what we want, or to convey reliably the ideas that we are thinking.

Our text this morning is a good illustration of what I mean.  Everything that John wanted to say is clearly expressed in our text, and yet, if I gave you all a quiz, with your Bibles open, and asked you to tell me what you read was saying, in this text, I would guess that most of you would probably read several words to be saying things that they are not intended to say.  Knowing Greek helps a little, because when the intended sense is clear in the Greek and not in the English, I would have an advantage, but even then, some of the words in this text simply fail us because they can be taken in a number of ways.  For example, John writes about "perfect love".  We could define that phrase in a number of ways.  But John only meant one thing - and so this morning we are going to parse the language - work on clarifying which meanings were intended.  Our theme is "Perfect Love".

In order to get at that, I am going to start with the verse just before our Epistle lesson begins, 1 John 4:15:  Whoever confesses Jesus is the Son of God – the Christian faith in its entirety is meant here – God abides in him and he in God.  That is actually the starting point for John, this morning.  Confessing Christ also means that God abides in you and you abide in God.  Then John goes on to discuss that we, believers, have come to know the Love of God for us - love seen on the cross in our redemption.  We know it, and we believe it.

Then John makes a genuinely radical statement: God is love.  He is talking about Agape Love, of course, a love of understanding and comprehension and compassion which puts itself ‘out there' on behalf of the ones that are loved.  God is all about us.  One theologian went as far as to say "God is all that He is, not for Himself, but for us."  That may be over-stating things in a way, but God does all that He does in love and for love - that is with us in mind and for our blessing and benefit, ultimately.  God is wholly just.  God is completely powerful.  God is as wise as can be, and God is love.  These are His attributes.  These are good things to know about God.  If you are dealing with God as a Christian, you are dealing with love – love for you and for fallen mankind.

John mentions this here to make the point that if anyone abides in God, that one abides in love, and love abides in him just as surely as God abides in him.  So, the one who confesses Christ, the believer, abides in love – agape love.  We live our lives in the self-giving love of God, and we are filled with this type of love, because God dwells with us and in us.  That also means that we become somewhat God-like in that we begin to live out the same sort of love that God lives out for us.  This is where John comes to talk about perfect love, or love being perfected in us.

Just as John did not mean affection - you know, liking someone or feeling all warm and squishy about someone when he spoke about love, he doesn't mean perfect in the sense of being without flaw.  Agape love is a love of concern, compassion, intelligence, and the desire for the welfare of the beloved.  Perfect love is love that has accomplished what it set out to do.  It is telios – that is the Greek word here for perfect – it means that this love has reached its goal.
John tells us, by inspiration, that the Love of God achieves its goal in us when we have no fear of the judgment, but rather confidence - and therefore no fear of death.  The goal of the love of God toward us is that we are saved, that we know that we have no reason for fear of death and hell, but that we know the realities of sin and forgiveness, and we trust in them - and trust in Him.  You may have notice that John doesn't talk here in the terms of the Apostle Paul so much, talking about sin and grace and forgiveness and the like.  He talks in terms of fear and love.  So the goal of the love of God is also the goal of the will of God and what is the will of God for you? [Our Salvation].

We do not fear the judgment because we are in His love and He is in us and we are just like Him - righteous by His gift, and fit for everlasting life.  Being filled with this love - being filled with God - is, if you remember the beginning of the sermon, consequence of the confession of Christ, that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for you and by His stripes you are healed.  John said that there is no fear in love because "perfect love cast out fear".  That doesn't mean flawless love, but love - the love of God - that has achieved its goal in you.  And that goal is faith and trust in God and in His love for you.  There is no fear in this love because we know the love of God and live in it, so we know that our lives are in His love - in the Gospel, if you will - and we cannot be frightened by judgment - and, therefore, our life must serve God's good and gracious will, and His good and gracious will must serve our life, or preserve it.

Now, that means that if  you are afraid of life or death or the judgment, you have not come to the goal of the love of God for you, but you are short of it.  That doesn't mean that you do not have the love of God or that He does not love you.  It means that you still need to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and come to understand and believe all that the love of God means for your life.  That means you still need to look more deeply into the Gospel.  John speaks of this love in us by saying, We live in this love because He first loved us.

Now all of this love stuff brings about a result in us.  Since we are the recipients of God's love, and since by our faith in Christ, God dwells in us, we are filled with this love by virtue of being Christians.  Since it is not a love of mere emotion, it is not a feeling that suffuses us.  Many would-be Christians make that mistake.  It is comprehension and compassion and understanding and concern from us as it was those things for us by God.  And it is aimed at one another, our "brother".  Here, Brother is another one of those words that means a number of different things to us, but only means one thing here in John.  Our brother is our fellow believer, particularly our fellow member of the congregation - the church and family - in which the love of God has placed us.  Brother is one born of the same Father - God.  You remember, Jesus said it to Nicodemus in last Sunday's Gospel lesson, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is Spirit."

John says here that you must love your brother – one born of the same Father – because he is whom God has given you to love.  When you love your brother you are actually loving God, and when you love God you do it or show it by loving your brother.  This principle works itself out for us something like the Old Testament Law worked for them.  The one who feared and loved God also trusted in God, and so he or she would do what the Law instructed out of faithfulness even when it seemed easier, more profitable, or more enjoyable to do otherwise.  So, they would sacrifice, for example, even when it seemed inexpedient to do so, because they trusted God to make it all work out correctly, rather than trusting what seemed ‘best' to them, or what seemed to make sense at the moment.  Faith of the faithful followed God's will.

So, too, here.  We love our brother because of the love of God in us and for us.  We are compelled to be concerned - and intelligently so - for the welfare of our brother.   This has loving nothing to do with loving the unbeliever - whether that person is family, friend, or neighbor.  Those people are not your brother, because you have been born again and they have not.  You are of the household of God, and they are not.  If you want to be affectionately minded toward them, that is fine, and decent, and somewhat natural at times, but that is not what John is speaking of here.  He is speaking of your true brother and your true family in Christ, born of the same Father, born of the same love and filled with the same love as you.

He also says that you cannot love God while hating God's child.  If you claim to love God but do not love the one born of God, then you are simply lying.  You might think of this as a test of the truth of the statement that ‘I love God'.  The one who claims to love God but hates the one in whom God is present, standing before them, cannot actually love God.  They would love the person because they love God who fills them.  And remember, in the realm of this New Testament language, there is only love and hate.  There is no middle ground.  To not love is to hate.  John makes this teaching, that you must love the one born of God, if you love God, explicit in the verse just following our Epistle lesson.  The very next verse, Chapter 5, verse 1,  says, "Whoever loves the Father loves the one born of Him."

Here is where the Gospel lesson for today fits rather nicely.  The Gospel is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  The rich man demonstrated that he was not one of God's people by callously ignoring Lazarus, whose name is a code for a Child of God: "Whom God helps".  The rich man did not care for one who should have been his brother, proving that he, the rich man, was not a brother to one who was beloved of God.  He was not filled with love, and it did not achieve its goal in him, and therefore he had a great deal to fear from the judgment.  As we know, the state of each man at the end had nothing to do with their prior earthly condition of blessing or want.  It had to do with their relationship with God.  By his name, Lazarus clearly stood with God, and by his conduct the rich man clearly did not.  "Whoever loves the Father loves the one born of Him."  And,  the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

John says,  And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.  By faith in Christ and love for God you are doing the commandment - and you love the ones who are also in connection with God and His love.  You must because if you don't love your brother, John has already said that you cannot love God - so you must be fulfilling the commandment by genuine faith in Christ.  So why would John list the commandment here?  Because it is not a matter of emotion only but of your mind and of your will, He encourages you to be deliberate about loving one another - loving your brother.  That is why he says, "should".

We each need that love of the brother.  We need that encouragement.  You have been placed here in this place and among these fellow believers for this purpose.  We cannot sense the love of God, we can only hear about it in the cross of Jesus Christ.  We can, however, feel the troubles of life, and sense the fears and the pressures of life.  It is in the face of these things - and the temptations of the world and the false teaching of those who oppose Christ, that we need the encouragement from one another.  And so God has given me to you and you to me and to one another to do that encouraging, so that we might stand in perfect love - the love of God that has accomplished its goal in us, so that we are not filled with any fear by the coming of the judgment, but confident in Christ and encouraged all the more by one another.

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