Beware! Be Aware! Be in Christ’s Care!

 

Sermon for Trinity 8, July 25, 2021

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Matthew 7:15-23  ¹⁵Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.  ¹⁶By their fruit you will recognize them.  You do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do you?  ¹⁷So then, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.  ¹⁸A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.  ¹⁹Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  ²⁰So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.  ²¹Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  ²²Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?”  ²³Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you.  Depart from me, you evildoers.” (EHV)

Beware!  Be Aware!  Be in Christ’s Care!

Dear friends in Christ.

          A few thousand years ago, a woman had a conversation with what she assumed was just one of God’s good creatures which she had seen in the Garden of Eden perhaps many times.  It would soon become apparent, though, that the serpent was not seeking her best interests.  Instead, by inhabiting that snake, the devil sought to destroy her along with every good thing God had created.  Sadly, Eve was not on guard against a creature using deception to destroy what God loved. 

In our sermon text, Jesus reminds us that we must constantly protect ourselves from those who would seek to lead us away from the salvation God has given us.  We must be watchful.  We must understand that the devil still seeks to deceive and devour those who are unaware.  We need a defender.  To summarize, one might say: Beware!  Be Aware!  Be in Christ’s Care!

Beware!  Jesus tells us, “Watch out!”  Essentially, we are to keep our distance from those who seek to deceive.  It is vitally important that we be continually on guard against any, and all, false prophets.  The Greek word is literally “pseudo-prophets:” counterfeit, fake, misleading, unreliable.  What these false teachers speak is something other than the saving Gospel we have in God’s Word. 

Jesus warned against those who “come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”  Sheep would naturally keep their distance from an obvious threat.  They would be too terrified to venture out of the protection of their sheep pen if there was a pack of growling wolves circling around it.  You and I are no different.  We wouldn’t be too interested in listening to the teachings of a raving madman who came in declaring that he hated God, or that God didn’t exist, or any other garbage that atheists and unbelievers boldly spout.  Of course, these obvious wolves are dangerous, and we need to avoid their teachings with all diligence, but the wolf in disguise can be infinitely more dangerous because he can catch us unaware, and this type of misleading foe can turn up anywhere.

One example is the wolf that comes in the disguise of a good friend.  It could be your spouse, a sibling, or a coworker who after getting to know you says, “Did God really say…?”  Or, “surely God doesn’t mean…”  And in that, the wolf mimics the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  It could even be a trusted fellow believer, who never in the world would conspire to mislead you yet does so when he himself is deceived on some doctrine.  It could be a preacher, even a very famous one.  Or, it could be you yourself—talking yourself out of following God’s pure Word when your own ideas, desires, and sins become too attractive to give up.  So, we must Beware! 

Jesus called false prophets “ravenous wolves.”  They will do anything to fill the cravings in their belly.  Spiritually, they seek something other than what God has written for us.  Whether willingly led or simply deceived and unaware, the wolf is trying to steal you away from God, because the spiritual predator is controlled by the devil in his constant jealous wickedness. 

You see, the devil is the ultimate predator.  He wants no one to be saved.  He wants to take the place of God, so he will use any means he can to steal you away from your Savior.  The devil will also use the spiritually starving, those who hunger for salvation but seek it in ways other than what the Bible teaches.  Beware!  There might be two different kinds of wolves, but the effect is the same.  The devil uses them to steal the Christian from Christ to kill for all eternity.

In this dangerous world, we must Beware!   We also need to Be Aware!  Jesus said, " By their fruit you will recognize them.  You do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do you?”  Of course, we cannot find grapes on thornbushes and figs on thistles.  If we could, every farmer around would likely welcome those plants in his fields.  However, every plant on earth produces only what is natural for it to produce.  Thus, Jesus’ obvious conclusion: “So then, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.”  What He means is that we must be well acquainted with what God says in His Word, and while keeping our distance, be aware also of what the false teachers are spewing.

So, what is the good fruit we are to watch for?  Are we to watch for good deeds?  Are we to watch for those people who do nice things for others?  While good and useful in the world, those physical deeds do not necessarily prove that what is done is good in God’s eyes.  Even just quoting the Scriptures is not enough.  Jesus made that clear when he declared, “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven.”   Earthly good deeds can serve our fellow man but may also be part of the deception, so the good fruit Jesus seeks must be something different. 

To truly recognize this good fruit and the prophets who bear it, we must focus on God’s Word and know it well.  To Be Aware, we must be able to compare what is being said by the teacher, pastor, friend, brother, or spouse with what God’s Word really teaches.  We must be like the Bereans about whom Luke reported, “Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians.  They received the word very eagerly and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)  We need to know that the Bible centers on Christ and that salvation comes only through Jesus by faith in what He has done for us.

We need to do more than just escape catechism class through confirmation.  We must hear God’s Word more than on an occasional Sunday and maybe Christmas and Easter.  The devil is crafty and seeks to twist God’s Word for his own evil desires.   Yet, the devil can be discovered, and he can be defeated if we learn God’s Word and use it against him, just as Jesus did to repel Satan’s temptations. 

Now, each of us can admit that we don’t study the Scriptures enough.  Moses commanded God’s people to focus on His Word continually, saying, “These words that I am commanding you today are to be on your heart.  Teach them diligently to your children, and speak about them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)  In other words, God’s Word, and especially His gospel, is to be foremost in our minds, hearts, and actions continually, which means we all fall short of giving perfect attention to God’s Word.  

Thus, dear friends, on our own we don’t bear much fruit.  In fact, Jesus said that on our own we are not even able to produce good fruit. (John 15:4)  That would seem to indicate that we all are bad trees right along with the false prophets, and you heard Jesus’ warning about the bad trees, "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  Left on our own, we would fall just like Eve who thought the fruit the chief false prophet offered her looked delightful and beneficial to eat, but Satan’s fruit was a poison that brought death to the world.  So, we need to Be Aware!  However, even more so, we need to Be in Christ’s Care! 

Though we fall short in our attention to what God desires for us, there is One who always produces only good fruit.  That One is Jesus.  Jesus came into this world to do His Father’s will in every way, shape, and form.  Thus, as Jesus warns against the false prophet, He says, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  Jesus is that Only One who has merited His Father’s acceptance, so we need a connection with Him.

Jesus was ever attentive to God’s Word expressly for you and me.  Jesus lived His life in perfect fulfillment of the Law to fulfill all righteousness on our behalf, and then, continuing the love that brought His Son to earth, God punished Jesus for our sins.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)  To our modern sensibilities, that may sound unreal and so very unfair.  Yet, this “Great Exchange” gives us life in the kingdom of God. 

God sent Jesus to be our substitute, so God took our sins and charged them to Jesus, but in exchange, He also credits Jesus’ righteousness to you and me.  Thus, through faith in Jesus, our guilt is wiped away, and we are forgiven for all those times we have failed to obey, or to study God’s Word diligently, or when we inadvertently led someone astray, and when we failed to be on guard against the devil’s disguises, because through faith in Christ Jesus, we are counted righteous.

Be in Christ’s Care!  Jesus told His disciples, “I am the Vine; you are the branches.  The one who remains in me and I in him is the one who bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)  Only when we trust in Jesus for forgiveness and life can we bear good fruit.  Also though, while trusting in Jesus as our Savior, everything we do to serve our Lord and our neighbor is good fruit.  Grafted into the good vine of Jesus, we become good fruit bearers.  When we remain in God’s Word, and we remain trusting in Jesus as our Savior, we can’t help but produce good fruit because the Holy Spirit produces that good fruit in us.

The last portion of this sermon text gives us the Judgment Day lament of those false teachers.  Jesus said “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.  Depart from me, you evildoers.’”  Some false teachers may even have imagined they were doing God’s will, but by substituting human ideas for God’s true Word, they produced poisonous fruit.  When they claim their own imperfect works are good enough to satisfy God, those works are worthless fruit in God’s judgment because they are not perfect, and they are not done out of faith in Christ.  Only that fruit which grows out of what Jesus has accomplished for us has the perfection necessary to please God.  Jesus’ perfect work is credited to those who trust in Him alone.  That is the theme that runs through the Bible from beginning to end: justification by faith in Jesus Christ, the One, True, Perfect, Son of God. 

Come Judgment Day, those who trust in their own ideas and their own works will hear Jesus final terrible command, “Depart from me, you evildoers.”  On the other hand, all who trust in Christ alone for forgiveness, salvation, and life will be commended for the good fruit they bore, because they will be credited with Jesus’ good and perfect obedience to God’s will.  Jesus tells us “By their fruit you will recognize them.”  Every person will be known by the faith he believes and confesses.   Trust in Jesus for your righteousness.  Then, for the rest of your life, Beware!  Be Aware!  Be in Christ’s Care!  Amen.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, both soul and body, be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.  Amen.

God gives us what cannot be earned.

 

Sermon for Trinity 7, July 18, 2021

To all those loved by God…called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Romans 6:19–23  ¹⁹(I am speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your flesh.)  Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.  ²⁰For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.  ²¹So what kind of fruit did you have then?  They were things of which you are now ashamed.  Yes, the final result of those things is death.  ²²But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification—and the final result is eternal life.  ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (EHV) 

God gives us what cannot be earned.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            Have you ever tried to make it rain?  Can you force the sun to shine on a cloudy day?  Can you make a forest grow by the words you say, make a man out of a lump of clay, or tell the Tyrannosaurus where to play?  Imagine having to make an ocean or putting the stars in their place.  If we can’t do those things, how dare anyone imagine that we can match God’s fame?  Humans can do many amazing things, but some things are simply beyond our abilities, and it will stay that way.

Sometimes when one ponders the texts of a given Sunday, it can be hard to see a connection between the readings appointed for the day.  At first glance, you might think that is the case today.  Yet, there is a connection, for all three texts point us to what God does for His people, so this Trinity 7 service centers on God’s providence, how He provides for our earthly lives, and especially how He gives us what we need for eternal life.  We learn that God gives us what cannot be earned.

In our Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah, we saw God give hope to an exiled people.  A nation that lost its way had been conquered by foreign powers and its people carted away into exile without any hope of returning to their beloved place, but God promised that He would be with them and return them to the homeland He had granted to their forefathers.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus provided sustenance to a large group of people who had neglected to plan for the journey they took to see Jesus.  In their eagerness to receive a blessing of healing and life from the Lord Jesus, they had failed to plan for their bodily needs.  Lest any of them grow faint and succumb to the strain of their pilgrimage, Jesus fed thousands of people with what, to us, was less than a loaf of our bread and a can of tuna.

Then in our Epistle lesson, we visit God’s primary concern which is providing for our greatest need—our need for a righteousness and holiness that we did not possess and could never earn or achieve.  Apart from the righteousness that comes from God, we would be lost in eternal death.  Yet, because He is love, God gives us what cannot be earned.

Paul wrote, (I am speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your flesh.)  Because natural man cannot understand what God has planned for us, Paul wrote using terminology and a picture that the people of his day could comprehend.  Slavery was extremely common in the Roman empire.  Some cities had more slaves than free men, and women and children often had status not much above that of slaves.  So, when Paul talks about being enslaved, those people understood.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote, “Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”  I suspect that in our times, unless a person has been caught in some form of human trafficking that led to slavery or involuntary servitude, these words may not seem so serious, but people truly caught in slavery have no control over their lives or even their own body.  Their labor, skill, time, and indeed their bodies and lives are under the control of the one who rules them.  Still today, we hear scattered reports in the daily news of tragic, devastating consequences that many have experienced when put in that position unwillingly—as is almost always the case.  Children forced to work in hard labor.  Women and girls forced into sexual servitude.  Victims of kidnapping, betrayal, or false and deceptive promises.

Most of us can’t imagine the terror of being used and abused that way.  However, when one is born into slavery, there are times when it seems normal, and it can be hard for the enslaved to imagine a different life.  That is the story of the human race.  We all were born into slavery to sin under the devil’s control.  Since we and all our neighbors were born into that condition, it seemed normal, and the natural soul can’t imagine anything better.  We look around the world and we see all the many things that people do that go against God’s commands and to many around us, it seems normal.  Many think, why shouldn’t we do the same?  That is, until we learn about real freedom.

Paul showed his audience that true freedom enables us to give our service not to the one who opposes God by oppressing us in every way, but to serve the loving Savior who rescued us and gave us a future.  While under the devil’s control, everything we did was tainted with sin.  The commands of God, if we knew them at all, were seen merely as stumbling blocks to doing what the devil tells us to do.  The result, Paul says, is that “when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.” 

Apart from God, we could do nothing good.  Free from righteousness meant we were hopelessly separated from God.  The prophet Isaiah wrote, “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth.” (Isaiah 64:6)  When sin entered the world every last one of us was trapped in the devil’s control.  He owned our souls, and we could do nothing to escape his condemnation.  Thus, the question came, “So what kind of fruit did you have then?  They were things of which you are now ashamed.  Yes, the final result of those things is death.” 

Sinful man is not always ashamed of his sin, but after we learn what pleases God shame enters our minds for sure.  Of course, because the law was written in our hearts from our creation, though that knowledge of God’s will was fractured and corrupted in the fall, guilt often weighs heavily even on those who don’t know Jesus, because subconsciously, they know that sin brings punishment.  Furthermore, our experience of wickedness against ourselves tells us that evil deserves to be destroyed.

Today, the world is so corrupt that it often tries to shame God’s people for turning away from the evil ways of the deceiver.  Yet, as believers in Christ Jesus, we now understand that sin leads to death, and not just physical death (because our natural man pretends that death is normal), but eternal death as in the separation from God forever in hell.

So, there we sat by nature—ashamed of ourselves for the guilt we bore, yet shamed by the wicked world if we tried to follow the leadings of our conscience, fractured as it was.  Afraid of the one who tormented and accused us, yet groveling at his feet with our willingness to serve evil.

I can’t think of a more hopeless condition than the sinner lost without God’s gifts of forgiveness and life, which is why we find comfort in Paul’s writing when he says: “But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification—and the final result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

When we were slaves to sin, we were completely without hope.  Even the gods we had could do nothing for us.  They only made us labor for a lost cause.  Yet, God in His amazing mercy and love saw our hopelessness and came to set us free.  Making us right with Him is the main providence of our God—that He took upon Himself to rescue those who couldn’t save themselves and didn’t deserve His intervention.  Completely to His own glory, God came to free us and bring us home.

Because we were all born in sin, we all deserved nothing but to be cast away from God into eternal death, but God would not, could not, stand by for that tragic outcome.  The Lord God of heaven and earth created us to be His people.  Therefore, the Lord God of heaven came to earth to make it so.  Jesus, the only-begotten of the Father, came down to earth in human flesh, living for us in perfect righteousness, and suffering the cruel death we all deserved, including separation from God and His love. 

Jesus went face to face and toe to toe in battle with our kidnapper, the cruel tyrant who had controlled all people since Adam and Eve disobeyed.  Jesus took on the devil’s lies, the temptations to disobey, the misuse of God’s Word, and the slanders of His name.  Jesus endured the attacks of the devil’s henchmen as they falsely accused Him, struck Him in the face, whipped and clubbed Him, and nailed Him to the cross in supposed disgrace.  Jesus took all of that in His battle with evil, but evil couldn’t win.

On the third day after they nailed Jesus to that awful tree, the third day after He lay dead in a tomb with His side riven open by a Roman spear, Jesus rose to live again, glorified and nevermore to die.  This is the King we now serve, the Savior who sent the devil down to hell with his head crushed and his tail between his legs.  Our Savior now lives triumphant in glory at His Father’s side, ruling all things, and providing for us righteousness, peace, and hope.

On our own, we still wouldn’t have the strength the walk away from the devil’s control, but Jesus doesn’t leave us to battle alone.  He sent His Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament to rescue us with the proclamation of His grace.  By the power of His Word, He gives us new hearts of living flesh that replace our hearts of stone.  With the water and word of baptism, He washed away all the stench and stain of sin, and then so that our souls will never again go starving in this wilderness world, Jesus offers us His true body and blood in the bread and wine of His Supper as living food to strengthen faith, so that we are enabled to continue on our journey home.

Once, the whole human race had no hope to stand in peace before a righteous God.  Today, we stand at one with God, united in holiness with His Son through faith.  Once, the thought of serving God brought only fear, but now clothed in Jesus’ righteousness, we see that His righteous apparel fits us perfectly.  Once we were homeless slaves serving an evil overlord, but now with a home in God’s kingdom of glory, we gladly serve the Savior of all God’s people.  None of this was our doing.  All of the praise and glory belongs to God alone, because God saw our need and didn’t turn away.  He saw our sad state, and out of love for His people, God gives us what cannot be earned.  Through His Son, God gives us forgiveness, peace, holiness, a home in glory, and life that never ends.  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

We are saved by the Lord your God.

 

Sermon for Trinity 6, July 11, 2021

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Exodus 20:1-17  Then God spoke all these words: ²I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.  ³You shall have no other gods beside me.  ⁴You shall not make any carved image for yourself or a likeness of anything in heaven above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.  ⁵Do not bow down to them or be subservient to them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.  I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, if they also hate me.  ⁶But I show mercy to thousands who love me and keep my commandments.  ⁷You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not permit anyone who misuses his name to escape unpunished.  ⁸Remember the Sabbath day by setting it apart as holy.  ⁹Six days you are to serve and do all your regular work, ¹⁰but the seventh day shall be a sabbath rest to the Lord your God.  Do not do any regular work, neither you, nor your sons or daughters, nor your male or female servants, nor your cattle, nor the alien who is residing inside your gates, ¹¹for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.  In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.  ¹²Honor your father and your mother so that you may spend many days on the land that the Lord your God is giving to you.  ¹³You shall not commit murder.  ¹⁴You shall not commit adultery.  ¹⁵You shall not steal.  ¹⁶You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.  ¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. (EHV)

We are saved by the Lord your God.

Dear sojourners in the wilderness,

            When the larger parts of our country were being settled, many wagon trains set out on long journeys into uncertain futures.  If at any time the wagon master felt there was danger of an imminent attack, he would call for his charges to circle the wagons as a form of protection for the people within.  The circled wagons would be a barrier against the attackers, and no one would be permitted to leave that circle of protection until the threat had passed, for to leave those confines would expose the foolish person to immediate danger of death.  This picture well represents what God was doing as He spoke these words of our text.  The primary message for us is that We are saved by the Lord your God.

This text is often recognized as the Ten Commandments, but Moses didn’t record it as the commandments but as the words, or declarations, of the Lord.  Then, also notice that the first saying here listed is not the First Commandment as we know it, though it is related.  Rather, God’s first statement is this most important declaration: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.”  This statement tells us, without a doubt, that no one is saved by obedience to the law, but that we are saved by God graciously rescuing us from our former slavery to sin, death, and the devil just as God delivered the Israelites from their enslavement by the Egyptians.

The Lord God Creator of the world is your God and mine by nature, by action, and by declaration.  We rightfully belong to the Lord because He created the world and everything in, all of us included.  Because He is our Creator, God has the natural right to do with us as He pleases.  But, take note, God created this world expressly for mankind, so that He could have a relationship with the human race. 

The Lord God is also our God because of His actions.  Though mankind had been captured by the devil’s trickery and led into a life of servitude to the one who hates God with a white-hot passion, God didn’t allow that kidnapping to stand forever.  Indeed, shortly after the moment of the betrayal by the devil and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God promised deliverance for His loved ones.  In this, just as He didn’t demand that the Israelites fight their way our of Egypt and rescue themselves to reside in His presence, God doesn’t offer us any hope of self-rescue, but rather, God sent His Son into the world to be the ransom that won us back from the devil’s deceit. 

Paying His own lifeblood in exchange for your soul and mine, Jesus was God in human flesh delivering mankind from slavery to the devil.  In Egypt, the blood of spotless lambs protected the Israelites when the angel of the Lord wiped out the firstborns of Egypt as God crushed Pharaoh’s resolve to hold God’s chosen people.  Likewise, the blood of the spotless Lamb of God rescued us from the deceiver’s control as Jesus gave His life on the cross for the sins of the world.  Then, in undeniable victory, Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning signaled that by His sacrifice, Jesus had completely destroyed Satan’s rebellion, crushing that serpent’s head so that he can no longer reign over us. 

Again, just like the Israelites were rescued once more from their slaver’s threat as God led them through the waters of the Red Sea, so you and I also were delivered from despair by the waters of baptism whereby God puts His name on us and declares that we are His dear children.  So, by baptism and faith in God’s word, We are saved by the Lord your God.

Now, going back to the picture of the introduction, God put a circle of protection around His rescued people with the remaining words He spoke.  Those statements that we recognize today as the Ten Commandments are the summary of God’s will for the whole human race.  Those words were not given to stifle our free expression or to limit us from having fun, but instead, God puts these restrictions in place because through the laws, He defends us from every evil attack that the devil, the world, or our own sinful flesh might bring against us.

We must admit that we are under constant attack as if wild savages were racing around us firing flaming arrows intended to destroy us.  Though Christ has defeated him, “your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)  Likewise, the Holy Spirit warns that as the world and our own flesh tempt and deceive us, “The flaming arrows of the Evil One,” (Ephesians 6:16) are continually aimed our way.  Against such forces, we are defenseless on our own.  We can’t fight against these attacks with guns, canons, or physical strength but only with the Word of God. 

Now, I say “only with the Word of God” with an ironic intention, because God’s word is the most powerful force there is.  Whatever God says will be accomplished in exactly the time and place He determines.  Therefore, if we heed God’s statements, we will remain under His protective care.  It is only when we sneak outside of God’s circle of help that we are left defenseless.  Thus, one of the main purposes of the commandments is to guide us in how to remain safely in God’s kingdom of grace where He defends us from all evil attacks so that We are saved by the Lord your God.

If you remember from your days in catechism class, there is another main purpose to those commands, and that is to show us our sins.  By giving us these proclamations of His intentions for our lives, God teaches what His divine omniscience knows is best for His people, but each of these words serves also as a mirror showing exactly when we have crossed the line and left God and His loving care behind. 

Beneficially to us, these words of God are amazingly simple yet all-encompassing in scope so that if we only obeyed these simple commands, we would have no need for any other laws.  For example, if we obeyed the statement, “You shall have no other gods beside me,” we would have no worries, no doubts, and no fears about what tomorrow might bring.  If we fully obeyed the command not to murder, there would be no need for the wide variety of laws that deal with human killing, no need for hate crime regulations, and no need to teach kids not to bully the powerless.  If we fully observed God’s statements not to lust for things, people, or power, there would be no adultery, fornication, rape, theft, swindle, or war.

Now, there is one interesting twist in all of this.  The Hebrew language has the unique characteristic in that it has only two verb cases, perfect and imperfect—finished and not finished.  Thus, it is a beautiful language for how God describes our obedience of the law.  Because there is no imperative, or command, tense in Hebrew verbs, in each of these words, God simply says that you will do these things.  However, we know we fail often, and grievously, in our remaining close to God and inside His protective circle.  Because we so regularly, and sometimes, even willingly disobey God, we would naturally be found outside of God’s protection and mercy.  Thus, because of our sin, we need continual rescue.

This God’s Son did for us.  In His Son, Jesus, God fulfills all of the commands He gave us so that He can count us as His dear, holy, and blameless children regardless of the faults and betrayals we have fallen into.  That certainly doesn’t give us permission to disregard His words here.  However, we also need not fear that we have sinned in such a way that God will not forgive, because Jesus has lived in perfect obedience of every will of God for our lives.  Jesus is the One Man of whom God would honestly testify, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:17)  Yet, God doesn’t stop there.  In loving mercy for all those who believe and trust in His Son, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

You see, in this way, not only did Jesus pay the penalty for every time we have strayed outside of God’s protective circle, He also lived His own life fully inside that circle of commands so that God could rightly count those He credits with Jesus’ obedience as though they never sinned at all.  In other words, through faith in Christ Jesus, when we are called out of life on this earth, we will enter heaven credited as having perfectly obeyed all those things God said we would do. 

Furthermore, while we who believe remain here in the barren wilderness of the world, Jesus gives us His own body and blood in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper as a medicine of immortality that heals all the wounds the arrows of the devil, the world, and our own flesh have inflicted upon our souls.  All of this, dear friends, is why we rejoice that no matter what this world brings against us, no matter how desperate our situation might look, We are saved by the Lord your God.  Amen.

The God of all grace, who called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.  To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.

At the word of the Lord, we follow Him.

 

Sermon for Trinity 5, July 4, 2021

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  He gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father—to whom be the glory forever and ever.  Amen.

Luke 5:1–11  One time, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.  ²He saw two boats there along the lakeshore.  The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.  ³Jesus got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore.  He sat down and began teaching the crowds from the boat.  ⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.”  ⁵Simon answered him, “Master, we worked hard all through the night and caught nothing.  But at your word I will let down the nets.”  ⁶When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were about to tear apart.  ⁷They signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  They came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.  ⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.”  ⁹For Peter and all those with him were amazed at the number of fish they had caught, ¹⁰and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.  Jesus said to Simon, “Have no fear.  From now on you will be catching people.”  ¹¹After they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. (EHV)

At the word of the Lord, we follow Him.

Dear fellow citizens in the kingdom of heaven,

            There is surprising controversy recently about what it means to be a citizen in our great country.  There are many contrasting opinions, and some people even claim that a definition of a real American isn’t possible.  Now, I have no intention of entering that political debate, but I likewise point out that there is much debate, also, about what it means to be a citizen in God’s kingdom.  This text shows that for citizens in Jesus’ everlasting kingdom, it means; At the word of the Lord, we follow Him.

Imagine for a moment the scene Luke describes: a huge crowd has gathered around Jesus to hear Him speak, and they are so excited to hear God’s Word that they are almost crowding Jesus into the Sea of Galilee.  Now, can you imagine a congregation in our fellowship so likewise excited to hear the word of our Lord that they crowd around the pastor in the pulpit?  Of course, we can make the excuse that today we have amplified sound so there is no need to crowd so close to the speaker to hear Jesus’ words.  Yet, at the same time, we must confess that we are not always so eager to hear.

Luke wrote, “One time, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.”  With the crowd pressing in on Him, Jesus was being pushed against the edge of the water.  Naturally, Jesus immediately worked out the solution.  “He saw two boats there along the lakeshore.  The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.  Jesus got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore.  He sat down and began teaching the crowds from the boat.” 

A seeming problem is immediately rectified as Jesus turns the problem into a blessing.  With Jesus now seated in the boat, His words go out to the shoreline as a natural amphitheater.  Jesus could speak easily without being shoved into the sea, and far more people could hear Him speak as they gathered along the shoreline in all directions.

The point for us is to trust Jesus for the solution in whatever difficulty we might have.  Yet, even more so is the point that God’s Word must be proclaimed.  That was always Jesus’ priority as He walked this earth.  He wanted and needed to share the Good News that God’s Son has entered the world to rescue all troubled people from the curse of sin and death.  Everything Jesus did was to further that cause.  Therefore, Jesus taught the people, expounding what the prophets had written under the Holy Spirit’s guidance and inspiration. 

“When [Jesus] had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.’  Simon answered him, ‘Master, we worked hard all through the night and caught nothing.  But at your word I will let down the nets.’”  Here, we see the average Christian believer in real life.  Jesus was not a stranger to Simon.  Indeed, not long prior, Jesus had healed Simon’s mother-in-law when she lay sick in bed with a raging fever.  The disciples had already seen Jesus turn water into wine at a wedding.  They had heard Jesus proclaim God’s word on any number of occasions.  Yet, we see Peter a little hesitant to do as he is asked.  It’s not that he refused, but he mumbled just a bit about how long they had worked, the futility of those efforts, and underneath that is the skeptical guess that this too would be a fruitless waste of time. 

I have to ask; how often do we feel like we are wasting our time when it comes to following Jesus’ commands?  Remember the great commission, “Go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to keep all the instructions I have given you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)  Do we feel like this is a fruitless endeavor when the pews don’t fill up on a Sunday morning?  Do we start to point fingers at our fellow congregants and pastors accusing them of not doing their jobs?  Do we selfishly wonder if the Holy Spirit is still doing His?  Or is the real problem that we aren’t so confident and excited about God’s Word?

It is easy for us to negligently assume that the great commission was Jesus’ command only for His apostles and the pastors, elders, and deacons they commissioned to follow them, but the truth is, this was Jesus’ instruction and encouragement for His whole Church which is made up of every person who believes in Him as Lord and Savior.  No, we will not all be pastors, teachers, or missionaries, but we are all living members of the body of Christ which is His Church, and we all need to keep faithfully doing whatever the Lord in His good will gives us to do. 

Everything we do out of faith in Christ, in line with the Ten Commandments, to serve God and our neighbor is part of this service to Christ Jesus.  So, do we sometimes complain about our jobs, about those we work with, about how hard life is, or how fruitless our witnessing might seem to be?

Never fear, Jesus is here.  Peter said, “‘At your word I will let down the nets.’  When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were about to tear apart.  They signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  They came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.”  So much for Peter’s doubts, and so much for ours.  Here, Jesus demonstrated, for all to see, the power of His word.  That fishing trip was at the wrong time of day, in the wrong part of the lake, when no fisherman worth his salt would have expected a catch, but they filled both boats to the point of sinking with the bounty of listening to Jesus.  We need to remember that the whole world was created through the word of Christ.  If God made the sun, moon, and stars by simply speaking them into existence, He can certainly make true everything He says to me and you.

Now, we too would be amazed if suddenly people started crowding into our church to hear God’s Word, but Jesus never commanded us to make that happen.  Instead, He told us to be His witnesses to the world with His word and with our actions and lives.  In doing so, He will give the results.

We let down our nets when we simply trust His word without hesitation.  We are following our Lord when what we do in life honors His will for our lives.  That means we let the Ten Commandments be our guide for living.  It means we have complete trust in the promises God makes in His Word.  It means, especially, that Jesus has made us right with God.

“When Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.’  For Peter and all those with him were amazed at the number of fish they had caught, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.”  What was Peter confessing here?  His sin of doubt?  His lack of trust?  His total lack of worthiness to stand in God’s presence?  Or was it his realization of all that it means that Jesus is who He claims to be?  I think it is all those things. 

Like Peter that day, we too have been guilty of questioning our Savior’s wisdom.  I don’t know in what way you did that, personally, but I suspect we all have in one way or another.  Regardless, we all feel the guilt of our nature.  We all know we haven’t obeyed God as we should.

Notice, however, Jesus didn’t berate Peter that day.  He simply said, “Have no fear.  From now on you will be catching people.”  Peter, a rough and tumble fisherman who knew he had no right to stand before God, or to serve Him, was now officially one of Jesus’ chosen disciples and witnesses to the world.  Peter stood in the grace of God’s forgiveness as Jesus said, “Have no fear.” 

No fear.  That is life in Christ Jesus.  No matter what temptations the world may throw against us, no matter what troubles this sin-broken world brings our way, we really have no reason to fear our God.  The heathens tremble at the thought of how the gods will deal with them, but Christians have no need for that kind of terror, because God became our Savior when His Son came to earth to live as a Man in perfect holiness on our behalf, and to be the Lamb of God who would make the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world so that God could declare the whole world righteous.  “That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

Luke reported, “After they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”  Simon Peter, and his partners had seen enough.  There was no longer any question in their minds that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah God had been promising since the time of Adam and Eve.  Likewise, they realized that their true treasure is not the things of this world.  The most precious thing we can ever have is the faith to follow Jesus.  Wherever He leads us, we will go.  No matter what trial or hardship might come, the believer in Christ Jesus will understand that we have riches in heaven that simply cannot be compared to what we might think we miss out on here.  Martin Luther wrote, “Take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won; the kingdom ours remaineth.”  At the word of the Lord, we follow Him.

Dear friends, the main point of this text is that we can trust Jesus no matter how farfetched His instructions and requests might seem to our frail minds.  When we are terrorized by guilt, we can fall at Jesus’ feet in repentance and hear His comforting word, “Have no fear,” because He has taken all our sins away and paid the full penalty for all our guilt. 

If this world should seem unbearable at some point, and persecution, troubles and sorrows start to feel like too much for us to endure, we can rest confidently in Jesus’ promise, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.  If it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am.” (John 14:2-3) 

Finally, if we should ever wonder, “how long, O Lord, until we see Your glory and righteousness?” we can be comforted and assured by His word, “And look: I am coming soon!  Blessed is the one who holds on to the words of the prophecy of this book.” (Revelation 22:7)  Jesus told those who followed Him, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples.  You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)  At the word of the Lord, we follow Him.  Amen.

The one who testifies about these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”  Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints.  Amen. (Revelation 22:20-21)