The new life of the forgiven

Posted on October 14, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Booklet

Sermon for the week of Trinity 19

Isaiah 44:21-23 + Ephesians 4:22-28

“Take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven you!” The paralytic from Sunday’s Gospel heard those very words from Jesus. And then he heard other words: Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And, healed by the powerful word of Jesus, he did. He arose, picked up his bed, and went home. But imagine if, instead, the paralytic had not risen, had not picked up his bed, and had not gone home, responding instead to Jesus, “You don’t get to tell me what to do!” That would be, unthinkable, outrageous, scandalous. Could a person really receive forgiveness from Jesus, and then turn around and defy Him like that, refusing such a simple instruction, which was meant to be a blessing to the man, on top of it?

Sadly, many do, and they wrongly think they’ll hold onto that “forgiven” status before God, even as they go on to defy His word and commandments. But that’s not what we Christians have been taught to do. On Sunday, we emphasized the Gospel of Jesus forgiving and healing the paralytic. This evening, let’s turn back to the Epistle you heard on Sunday, and again tonight, and reflect on what God has to say about the new life of the forgiven.

You Christians—which is the same thing as to say, “you sinners who have been forgiven through faith in Christ”—were taught to put off the old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. The first thing you were taught was to recognize and repent of your sins. The second thing you were taught was to flee in faith in Christ Jesus, who made satisfaction for your sins on the cross and in whom alone God the Father offers a place of refuge from His wrath and condemnation. As Paul writes to the Romans, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Which is the same thing as to say, There is now only forgiveness of sins and justification for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But you were not taught to stop there and pay attention to nothing further. You were taught, as Paul says, to put off the old man, which belongs to your former manner of life. How does he describe the old man here? He is “corrupt through deceitful desires.” The old man, also known as the sinful flesh, or the sinful nature, is the nature we’re all born with—the only nature we’re born with, the flesh or the nature we inherited from our parents, and they from theirs, back to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin. It’s corrupt, twisted, mangled, and ugly. It’s characterized by deceitful desires, like Eve’s deceitful desire to disobey God in order to gain knowledge for herself and become God-like. Those desires were something new for Eve, but for us, we’ve lived with them our whole lives, thinking we can be happy if we just follow those desires where they lead. But they’re “deceitful” desires. Because they don’t actually lead to happiness. Look at the state of the world, the state of our country, of our own community, where mankind has pursued every twisted, wicked desire imaginable. Has it made the world a better place or a worse place? Are people happier now than ever before? Just the opposite.

Paul describes those fleshly desires in other places: The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh…Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Those are the very things we witness all around us in the world, everywhere, as if such things were normal. And they are normal for the unbeliever. They used to be normal for the believer, in our “former manner of life.” But that must no longer be the case.

Put off the old man, like a filthy robe that has been dragged through the mud and the muck. Take it off and don’t walk through the sewage any longer.

Instead, Paul writes, you were taught to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. That’s a continual, ongoing renewal he’s talking about. It has to be. Because your old man is always there trying to climb up into your mind and point you in the way he wants to go. That’s why you need to be made new continually by the Holy Spirit, working with your spirit, to point you in a different direction, every day.

You were taught to put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Remember, Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God in the beginning. But they lost that image and likeness. Their own image became twisted and corrupt. That’s the image and likeness that now passes down to us and to our children. But now a new man has been created in each and every Christian, one that resembles the likeness of Adam before the fall, one that resembles God Himself. There is no filth in that image, only purity, only goodness, only selflessness, only love, and the desire to obey God and to please Him. Put on that new man every day, that is, set your mind to living that new and godly life. Make decisions based on the likeness of the new man, not the old man. Put to death the deeds of the flesh, and live the life God gave you for God.

Paul gives just a few examples of this in the verses that follow. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Everything that has to do with falsehood, and deception, and lies must be put away, put aside, taken off and left to lie in the dust. Instead, speak the truth at all times. But don’t be satisfied with that. Make sure that, when you speak the truth, it is done out of love for the hearer, not out of condescension or mockery, not carelessly, or with a desire to harm.

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Anger is not necessarily sinful, but it can easily become sinful if it leads one to abandon love, to forsake mercy. Anger can be like food that feeds the old man and keeps him stewing on how he’s been offended or neglected. Instead, do not let the sun go down on your anger. That is, deal with whatever or whoever it was that offended you that same day. Forgive wherever possible, and where not possible, give the offense to God. Because when the Christian lets anger take root and grow in his heart, he’s giving the devil an opportunity to hack away at his faith until there’s nothing left but bitterness and unbelief.

Finally, here in our Lesson, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Christians may be former thieves. They may be former lots of things. As Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians, Some of you were fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners. But, he adds, you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. In other words, you have been forgiven. And that means that you have been called to a live a new kind of life, one that is no longer characterized by sin, but by the righteousness of God, with which you have been clothed, and to which you have been called.

Put off the old man. Put on the new. That is the daily task of those who have been forgiven, of those who have been baptized, because, Paul writes, we were buried with Christ through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged | Comments Off on The new life of the forgiven

Authority on earth to forgive sins

Posted on October 11, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Folder Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 19

Ephesians 4:22-28 + Matthew 9:1-8

It’s a wonderful story we have before us in today’s Gospel about the healing of the paralytic. It’s especially memorable when we pull in some details from Mark’s Gospel, who explains that the paralytic was brought to Jesus in a very special way, by being lowered down by his four friends through an opening they had made in the roof, because the house where Jesus was preaching was so crowded with people that they couldn’t make a path to carry the stretcher through on foot. The faith of the five men was clearly on display as they went to such lengths to reach Jesus, because they believed that He could and would have mercy on the man who was paralyzed. And He did! But not, at first, in the way that everyone was expecting.

This healing account teaches us the lesson that was behind all of Jesus’ healing miracles: the lesson that Jesus, the Son of Man, was speaking and acting on God’s own authority, in everything He said, in everything He did. Jesus represented God the Father, not only because He was the Son of God, but because He had come into the world as a Man to be the perfect Mediator between God and man, with all the authority to speak and to act on God’s behalf. And the specific authority He displays in today’s Gospel is the authority to forgive sins—sins that had been committed against God, sins that would otherwise keep a person out of the kingdom of heaven, sins that would otherwise condemn a person to hell. It’s that authority to forgive sins that we want to focus on this morning.

The paralytic was successfully lowered down through the roof until his bed was lying on the floor right in front of Jesus. Matthew writes, When he saw their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.” No one was expecting those to be the first words out of Jesus’ mouth. Clearly the paralytic had come to receive physical healing from Jesus. But Jesus, the great physician of the soul, had diagnosed a deeper problem, a need for the man to know if God was angry with him—a question that often troubles people who suffer from a chronic disease or illness. “Is God angry with me because of my sins? Is God punishing me with this illness or with this trouble that won’t go away?” Jesus sees the man’s questions. But He also sees the man’s faith that Jesus will help him. So God the Father speaks through His Son, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.”

And, behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man blasphemes.” Mark and Luke add the rest of what they were thinking: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” You see, it is blasphemy, insulting God!, to pretend to speak for God without permission, without authority from God to speak for Him or to act on God’s behalf. The sins Jesus forgave at that moment weren’t sins that the man had committed personally against Jesus, as if the man had made fun of Jesus or had slapped Jesus across the face. Anyone can forgive the sins committed against him or her, because, in that case, the one doing the forgiving is the one who was originally offended, and forgiveness means that you’re no longer holding that offense against the offender. Your relationship is healed. Forgiveness means that the one who has been offended is no longer angry over the offense, no longer angry at the offender.

But what Jesus did was something else. He didn’t forgive the man for offenses committed against Him, the Man Jesus. He forgave the man for all the offenses he had ever committed against God. And the scribes were right—only God Himself can forgive the sins committed against God. Only God can unlock the prisoner’s shackles and set him free from death and eternal condemnation—unless God has authorized someone to forgive sins on His behalf.

And that’s exactly what God has done.

God the Father sent His Son into the world with the full authority to act on His behalf, to forgive sins in some cases, where the terms of the pardon (set by God) are met, and to withhold forgiveness in other cases, where the terms of the pardon are not met.

Now, what are the terms God has set for His pardon (for His forgiveness)? Well, first, atonement needs to be made for the sins committed against God. That lesson was driven home for the people of Israel through all the sacrifices for sin that God’s Law demanded. Atonement has to be made. Forgiveness has a price. In this case, the price of forgiveness is blood, that is, death. But not just any death. It has to be the death of someone whose blood has infinite value in the sight of God, the blood of someone who is innocent, righteous, not guilty of any sin. That’s why no sinner can ever meet this term for him or herself. It requires the death of God’s only-begotten, righteous, and innocent Son. That is the price required for paying the sin-debt every sinner owes to God. And it has now been paid, once for all, by Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. And because God is eternal, not bound by the progression of time, as we are, the future sacrifice of Jesus, from the perspective of the paralytic in today’s Gospel, was just as valid for his forgiveness as the past sacrifice of Jesus, from our perspective, is for us. So that term has already been met; Jesus’ atonement is available for anyone and everyone to use in order to satisfy the terms of God’s pardon.

The other term of God’s pardon is not a matter of earning forgiveness. It’s a matter of how the already-earned forgiveness can be applied, can be pronounced. Forgiveness must be sought through Jesus and because of Jesus. Anyone seeking God’s forgiveness in some other way, in some other place, for some other reason, cannot have it, remains unforgiven, just as anyone who doesn’t seek God’s forgiveness at all, because he’s happy holding onto his sins, remains unforgiven. But to the one who seeks God’s forgiveness through Jesus and for His sake, God the Father speaks through the mouth of Jesus Christ, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you!” And it’s not blasphemy at all, because Jesus has the permission and the full authority to speak and to act on His Father’s behalf. As He said after His resurrection, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”

He goes on to prove that authority to those who accuse Him of blasphemy in today’s Gospel: Is it easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And the paralytic was immediately healed, with power only God can give, proving that Jesus, the Son of Man, had authority from God to forgive sins.

The text before us is actually a perfect example of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 5: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them. Now, reconciling the world to Himself doesn’t mean reconciling or forgiving the sins of everyone in the world—or everyone in the room. That’s not what Jesus did in today’s Gospel. But one by one, as the word about Christ brought people to faith in Him, He reconciled them to God through faith in Him. He forgave them their sins, according to the terms of the pardon set by His Father: that atonement has to be made, and that God’s forgiveness has to be sought only through Jesus, who is the atonement or the “propitiation” for our sins.

But then St. Paul goes on in 2 Corinthians, and God has committed to us (that is, to His chosen ministers) the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Just as God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, forgiving sins to those who sought forgiveness from Him and through Him, so the Lord Jesus, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, has appointed ministers, who are His divine ambassadors to call sinners—in His name!—to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, and to forgive the penitent and believing in His name.

So Jesus said to His apostles, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And again after His resurrection, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. And still there are many people today who call themselves Christians who hear a pastor pronouncing the absolution and cry out, “Blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins! I don’t need any man’s forgiveness!” Well, that’s true, you don’t need the minister’s personal forgiveness. But you do need to approach God for forgiveness in the way that God Himself has instituted, namely, through the ministry He has placed here among us on earth. That’s why we confess this in the Small Catechism: Confession consists of two parts. First, that a person confesses his sins. Second, that a person receives the absolution or forgiveness from the minister, as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that his sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven.

The truth is, it is God who has given this authority to men, to deal with sinners and to forgive sinners in His name. It’s how Christ has chosen to forgive sins, to justify sinners, and to reconcile sinners to God during this New Testament era until He comes again in glory. It’s an authority that Christ has delegated to His Church, which calls men to wield the authority of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, according to God’s command and according to those same terms of forgiveness that God Himself has established. They are to forgive sinners on the basis of Christ’s atonement, when the sinner seeks forgiveness from Christ, through the ministry that Christ has established on earth, a ministry of forgiving sins: through Baptism, through Holy Communion, and through the simple spoken absolution.

Take Baptism. Peter said to the crowds on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins!” Take Holy Communion. Jesus commanded His ministers to do as He did on that Maundy Thursday evening, to take and to bless bread and wine, and to distribute them to those who are gathered in Jesus’ name, assuring them that this is His body, given for you, and that this is His blood, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. And take the simple word of absolution. You came before God today, confessed your sins, confessed your faith in the Lord Jesus, who made atonement for your sins, and then asked God to forgive you for Jesus’ sake. And then you heard from me, the minister, the same exact words that the paralytic heard from Jesus: Your sins are forgiven you.

Because God Himself has set the terms of the pardon, that makes the absolution certain. That makes it something you can rely on, something you can believe in, something that your faith can stand on. “God’s authorized minister has examined me and has found that the terms of God’s pardon have been met. Atonement has been made for my sins by Christ. And I am, right now, seeking God’s forgiveness from Jesus and for His sake alone. God’s minister has, therefore, absolved me of my sins, with the full authority of God. So I know for certain that God is no longer angry with me, but that He has welcomed me into His kingdom and will give me eternal life. The forgiveness I have received through God’s authorized minister—in Baptism, in the Lord’s Supper, and in the simple word of absolution—is God’s own forgiveness, because God has given to men the authority to forgive sins.” Rejoice in that authority, whenever it is used according to Christ’s institution! Take great comfort in it! And, having put on the New Man through faith in God’s promise of forgiveness, live as the new person—the forgiven person—God has made you to be! Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Authority on earth to forgive sins

Treasure the Law of love, treasure Christ all the more

Posted on October 4, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Folder Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 18

1 Corinthians 1:4-9 + Matthew 22:34-46

Last week we talked a little bit about the unique position of the Third Commandment—the Sabbath Day commandment—among the Ten Commandments as the only commandment that spelled out a ceremony instead of a moral principle. Resting from work on Saturday was a ceremony that God commanded Israel to observe religiously. As we said last week, that ceremonial command was not a universal and permanent expression of God’s will for all people. It was only for the people of Israel, and it came to an end when Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses and then set it aside, making a New Testament in His blood. But behind that ceremony was the standing moral principle that remains: You shall love God above all things, which means you shall love everything that He commands, even the ceremonies, simply because He commanded it. With regard to the Third Commandment, Israel was to love God by keeping that ceremony that God had commanded them to keep, honoring His Word and command above their own desires to get some work done—and possibly make some extra money—on the Sabbath Day. The commanded ceremony has since passed away, but the moral principle, to love and honor God and His Word above all things, remains as a permanent expression of God’s will for all people. That’s why Luther summarized the New Testament meaning of the Third Commandment the way he did: We should fear and love God, that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it.

In today’s Gospel, you heard Jesus summarize the first and greatest commandment in similar terms: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. That was and still is the greatest commandment, the chief obedience that God requires according to His holy Law: love for Him with your whole self. Even though this is the first and greatest commandment, it’s the one that most people skip right over, as if it didn’t exist. People like to think of themselves as “good people” if they don’t go out of their way to hurt or say mean things to their neighbor, or if they do some nice things for their fellow human beings, or if they advocate for some social cause they think is important. But all the while, this first and greatest commandment is hanging over them: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole self. Notice, it’s not any old god that people are commanded to love. It’s not a command to “be religious.” It’s a command to love, specifically, the LORD God, the God who revealed Himself in the Old Testament by the name Yahweh, or Jehovah, the God who made a special covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with the whole people of Israel at the time of Moses. This is the God whom all people everywhere are commanded to love and to worship. This God, and no other.

But there is also that second-greatest commandment that Jesus cited: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love for God comes first. Love for your neighbor comes second. And, as Jesus says, the whole Law depends on those two commandments, as do the Prophets. In other words, the whole Old Testament Law is summarized in those two simple commandments. And here, it’s important to remember what that means. It means that none of the laws and commands and teachings of the Old Testament contradict the law of love for one’s neighbor, as if certain commandments were unloving on God’s part. No, they all support it! For example, God gave Israel certain laws commanding them to punish, or even execute, lawbreakers. The death penalty was common under the Old Testament Law. Does that sound “unloving,” executing people? On the contrary, as the saying goes, “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” Love for one’s neighbor does not mean leaving the guilty unpunished. It means punishing the guilty, so that the guilty aren’t out there terrorizing or otherwise harming the rest of your neighbors.

In our context, you might apply that to the death penalty, which, if employed swiftly and justly, is still a good and godly means of punishing evil, protecting the innocent, and deterring more evil. Or you might apply it to illegal border crossings. Some people claim it’s the loving thing to do—even commanded by God—to let illegals stay in the country they crossed into illegally, and to leave them unpunished for their law-breaking, even reward it with benefits. But so-called love for the lawbreakers results in cruelty to the innocent. The innocent foreigners, who didn’t try to enter the country illegally, often suffer for trying to do things the right way, because of all those who did things the wrong way. Meanwhile, the innocent citizens of this country suffer higher prices, higher taxes, and reduced housing and public services because of the lawbreaking of the illegal aliens. And when they go unpunished, un-deported, it only makes it worse for the innocent. Failing to punish lawbreaking is not love.

Now, I bring this up merely as an example of the fact that “love” for one’s neighbor, as God defines it in Scripture, does not mean letting people do whatever they want, whatever they feel like. It doesn’t mean letting them “love who they love.” It doesn’t mean supporting wickedness or leaving wickedness unpunished. That’s not love. All the commands of the Old Testament, about how to worship God, or about how to treat one’s neighbor, or about how the guilty are to be punished, are all wrapped up in the commands to love God first, and to love your neighbor second.

At this point, we need to take a look at why Jesus is talking about the greatest commandments here. He didn’t just decide to preach a sermon on the commandments. He was approached with these questions about the greatest commandment, during Holy Week, by the Pharisees, who wanted to test Him, and trap Him, with these questions.

You see, for those who were fanatics for keeping and enforcing the Law, like the Pharisees, Jesus didn’t seem to be focused enough on the Law. He didn’t preach like the Pharisees did, always and only harping on people for their behavior, or bragging about how well they kept the Law. It seemed to the Pharisees that Jesus didn’t care enough about the Law, and so they prodded Him, to see if they could get Him to reject the Law of Moses. Because, if He did, they could bring Him up on charges right then and there. They wouldn’t have to follow through with their plot to arrest Him secretly later that week and hold kangaroo court against Him, in order to kill Him. If He publicly denied the Law of Moses, they had Him!

But He didn’t deny it. He correctly summarized the whole Law, and they actually agreed with Him on His summary. In another account, one of them says as much. Jesus didn’t deny the moral principles expressed in the Old Testament Law. He upheld them all.

But then He pressed the Pharisees with a question of His own. It was His turn to put them to the test. He asked them, What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” They said to him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How, then, does David, in the Spirit, call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?”’ Now, if David calls him Lord, how is he David’s Son?

Let’s start with why Jesus asked them this question. The Pharisees thought they had everything they needed in the Law, in the commandments God had given to Israel through Moses. They were so focused on the Law that they missed the more important teaching of the Old Testament, the part that taught about the coming Christ. They thought of the Christ, the Son of David, as nothing more than another lawgiver and law enforcer, which is why they rejected the idea that Jesus could be the Christ, because He hadn’t been going around giving more laws or meting out divine punishment on the guilty. He had been preaching another message, called “the Gospel.” And the Gospel hinges on who the Christ truly is.

Whose Son is the Christ? They answered rightly that He is the Son (that is, the offspring) of David. God had promised to David that his son would sit on his throne, and build him a house, and reign over God’s kingdom forever. That promise was fulfilled in a lesser way by David’s literal son Solomon. But everyone in Israel understood that the true Son of David was not Solomon, but would be the coming Christ.

How, then, can David refer to his Son as his Lord? Jesus cites Psalm 110 to them, a Psalm of David, which he composed “in the Spirit,” that is, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And in it, David called his Son, the Christ, his “Lord.” The Pharisees were baffled. They had never considered that truth before, that David’s Son would also be David’s Lord. That the Christ, who would be true man, would be much more than a man. He would also be true God.

Now, why did God have to come in human flesh? Why did the Christ have to be both God and man? After all, God didn’t have to come as a man to give to the Law. He did that through a man named Moses. He didn’t have to come as a man to enforce the Law. He could do that directly from heaven by sending catastrophes or natural disasters or plagues. But the one thing God couldn’t do from heaven was to live under the Law in man’s place, and die under the Law in man’s place. To accomplish that, for the salvation of mankind, David’s Lord had to become David’s Son.

The Law is good. It is good and right to love the LORD God with your whole self, and to love your neighbor as yourself. The whole Law of God is good, including the punishments for disobedience to the Law—punishments which all people have earned for themselves, because all have sinned against the Law of God. All have earned the death penalty, including the eternal-death-in-hell penalty. Which is why the Christ came, to live under the Law in our place, to suffer and die in our place, and so to earn for all mankind a way to be saved from sin, death, and hell apart from the Law, through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

Most of the Pharisees continued to cling to their precious Law, without ever acknowledging that they themselves hadn’t kept the Law, without ever acknowledging that they needed the Christ to save them. As usual, the Holy Spirit calls out to you in this Gospel, “Don’t be like the Pharisees!” Acknowledge that the Law is good, yes, but also acknowledge that it cannot save you, that you need a Savior from your sins against God’s Law, and that Jesus is that Savior. He came both to earn for sinners, and to give to sinners, the free gift of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Receive His gift! Repent and believe in Him! Treasure and pay attention to God’s Law of love. But more than that, treasure and pay attention to the Son of David, the Son of God, whom the Father gave to the world, because He so loved the world, that all who believe in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Treasure the Law of love, treasure Christ all the more

They always see the face of the Father

Posted on September 30, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Booklet

Sermon for the Festival of St. Michael and All Angels

Revelation 12:7-12 + Matthew 18:1-11

The Roman Catholic Church has a common prayer to St. Michael. It goes like this: “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”

On the one hand, you should never say this prayer to Michael, because, just like the saints, Michael the archangel is not omnipresent, or omniscient—unless the Biblical references to “Michael” are actually giving us another name for the Lord Jesus, as some have suggested. But, assuming that Michael is a created angel, as the Scriptures seem to depict him, he may be very powerful, very faithful, he may be a prince among the angels, especially the angels who are sent to defend God’s people throughout the world, but we have no reason to believe, from Scripture, that Michael can hear our prayers, since he can only be in one place at one time, wherever that is. Nor are we directed by God to worship him, to seek him out, or to pray to him. All our worship and all our prayers are to be directed to God alone. We have direct access to the ear of God Himself, the Creator and Commander of the heavenly armies, the Lord of hosts. Why would we waste our time pleading with His subordinates?

On the other hand, the content of the prayer to Michael is actually better than all the prayers to Mary, because, while Scripture never, ever makes Mary into a defender or protector or helper or patron of anyone, Scripture does refer to angels this way, as having these very duties. And so we take a moment this evening to hear again what the Scriptures teach us about the holy angels, and to give thanks to God for their faithful service.

There’s a single verse in our reading from Matthew 18 that mentions the angels: Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.

First, notice that Jesus, in speaking of these “little ones who believe in Me,” refers to “their angels in heaven.” “Their angels” means that little children who believe in Jesus have heavenly angels assigned to them for their protection. And we have every reason to believe that this applies not only to little believing children, but to all believers, who, as Jesus Himself said at the beginning of the lesson, must all become like little children if they are to enter the kingdom of heaven. All true believers humble themselves before God, like little children, and, like little children, believe simply and steadfastly in the Lord Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer. Therefore, all believers have “their angels” watching over them.

Meanwhile, Scripture also makes clear that the devil and his evil angels are, in one way or another, targeting us for ruin and destruction. As Peter writes, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. Or, as John depicts it in Revelation 12, the devil was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him, and, therefore, he says, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. And then, after that, he depicts the devil persecuting the Church. That’s why it’s so important that Christians also have “their angels” with them.

Jesus says that their angels “always see the face of My Father in heaven.” If the devil and his angels are coming after you, take heart! Because your angels are never cut off from the presence of God, which means they’re never unable to rescue you from the devil’s power. Meanwhile, if you despise, look down on, or mistreat a Christian, no matter how little he or she may be, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant in the world, you’re a fool. Christians are under God’s own watchful eye, and He takes it personally if you look down on any of them—and even worse, if you dare to cause one of them to stumble. God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has assigned some of His valiant spirit warriors to attend to these little ones, and those angels are continually “seeing the face” of God, taking orders from God directly about how to watch over His little ones, and how to deal with those who would cause them harm.

There are two Psalms that express the same thing beautifully: Psalm 91, Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. And Psalm 34 says, The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them.

There’s certainly a warning here for anyone who would mistreat a Christian, or make himself the enemy of a Christian. But for the Christian, what great comfort this is! There are so many dangers surrounding us at all times, from nature, from the wicked, and also from those unholy forces of evil in the heavenly realms, the demons who would love nothing more than to harm us, tempt us, or lead us astray into sin, or, just as bad, into false beliefs, which surround us like a plague. But our Father, in His great mercy, has given His angels charge over all His children, giving us these mighty spiritual warriors to minister to us in our hour of need. They always see the face of Jesus’ Father. They are always ready to carry out His commands to minister to those who will inherit salvation.

So don’t pray to Michael. But do pray to your Father in heaven to send Michael and his angel armies to defend you in battle, to be your protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. Ask your Father to rebuke Satan for coming after you, and, finally, ask Him to cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Your Father, who already gave His only-begotten Son into death for your sins, will also give you all the angelic help you need to make it safely through this enemy territory into the inheritance He has prepared for you and all the saints. Give thanks, today and every day, for that angelic help! Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged | Comments Off on They always see the face of the Father

A Sabbath lesson in humility and love

Posted on September 27, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Folder Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 17

Ephesians 4:1-6 + Luke 14:1-11

Meekness and humility, patience and love. These are essential qualities and attitudes for those who would walk in the footsteps of Christ, for those who are called the children of God, as you heard Paul say in today’s Epistle. But humility and love are the very qualities and attitudes that were lacking among so many in Israel at the time of Jesus, as we see in today’s Gospel, and we need to be careful that they are not lacking among us Christians. So let’s turn to today’s Gospel and learn a Sabbath lesson in humility and love.

We start with the Sabbath lesson in love. Luke tells us that it was on a Sabbath Day that Jesus went to dinner at the home of a certain ruler of the Pharisees, and, as usual, they were watching him closely. They were watching Jesus closely to see if He would break the commandment to rest on the Sabbath. You see, the Pharisees had turned the Sabbath rest into the litmus test for Jewish orthodoxy, and Jesus hadn’t been playing along with their expectations. He had been healing people on the Sabbath, which they counted as “work.” In fact, on one occasion, He healed a crippled man on the Sabbath Day and then told the man to pick up the mat he had been lying on and carry it home, which, according to the Pharisees, was pure wickedness. Carrying a mat on the Sabbath Day, after letting someone heal you, on the Sabbath Day? How evil!

Well, there was a man present at this Sabbath dinner who had dropsy—a painful swelling of the limbs, and Jesus intended to heal the man. But He got out in front of the Pharisees and asked them point blank: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Let’s go back and review what the Law and the Prophets had to say about it.

The Sabbath Day fell on the 7th day of the week, which we call Saturday. The 7-day week goes back to the six-day creation plus the 7th day on which God rested, and it says that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. It may be that Adam and Eve devoted every 7th day of the week to worshiping God, but the truth is, we don’t know how or if the 7th day was observed in the early days of humanity; nothing more is said or commanded about the Sabbath Day until Moses gave the Law at Mt. Sinai.

So it was a brand new Law that God gave to Israel at Mt. Sinai: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it. Moses goes on a little later, The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever.

The Sabbath commandment was unique among the Ten Commandments. Resting on Saturday isn’t part of the moral Law, the universal principles, that God has written into the hearts of all men. For example, He never blames non-Israelites for failing to rest on Saturday, whereas He often blames non-Israelites for their moral failures: idolatry, murder, violence, dishonoring parents, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting. Those things are always sinful and wrong by their very nature, because those things are always unloving practices and attitudes, whereas the Sabbath commandment, given to Israel only, was like the commandment of circumcision given to Abraham and his descendants, or like the commandment given to Adam and Eve only, not to eat from the fruit of that one tree in the Garden of Eden. Those ceremonial laws were imposed on a certain group of people, for a limited time, for a specific purpose.

And, some of those ceremonies could be set aside in case of necessity. For example, for as important as circumcision was in God’s ceremonial Law, the Israelites didn’t even circumcise their children during their 40 years of wilderness wandering, because they never knew how long they would be staying in each place in the desert. It was only when they were finally ready to enter the Promised Land that all the men were circumcised. Until then, the ceremony was set aside for the sake of necessity. Or, one time, David and his men were out of food, so the priest at the tabernacle gave them the show bread from the tabernacle, which, according to the ceremonial law, was only to be eaten by the priests. Again, the ceremony was set aside for the sake of necessity.

The Sabbath ceremony, too, could be set aside in case of necessity, because, as Jesus said on another occasion, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In other words, God imposed a day of rest on them for their good, and as a sign of their love for God in obeying this special ceremonial law. But, if one of them needed surgery or rescuing on the Sabbath Day, or (as we’ll see in a moment) if one of their animals had an emergency on the Sabbath Day, it was the right thing to do, the loving thing to do, to set aside the ceremony in order to help the animal, or, even more, their fellow Israelite. Because love was the motivating principle, not the ceremony.

So now you can answer the question: Is it lawful to heal a man on the Sabbath? Absolutely! Because it was a ceremony, not a universal principle, and ceremonies can and must yield to love, and it was entirely loving to give a person relief from his or her suffering on the Sabbath. But the Pharisees, who were experts in the Law, remained silent and refused to answer Jesus’ question. Because, for them, love was never part of the equation. They never understood it. They never lived by it. For them, the worship of God was all about external works, especially ceremonies.

Well, Jesus didn’t wait for their permission. He healed the man and let him go. And then He tried to teach the lesson to the Pharisees: Which of you, if your ox or donkey fell into a pit, would not immediately pull it out on the Sabbath day? They all would! So, why would they deny healing to their fellow Israelite on the Sabbath? There the truth comes out: They would help their own animal on the Sabbath, because the animal had value to them. They didn’t want to see their brother helped, because their brother had no value to them. And so their despicable lack of love was exposed for all to see. And still they remained silent. Because they were stubborn and unteachable.

What about you? Are you teachable? If so, then learn how a lack of love, for God and for your neighbor, is the root of all disobedience to God’s commandments. Why does a child dishonor his parents? Because he doesn’t love God or his parents enough to honor them. Why do people steal? Because they don’t love God or their neighbor enough to respect their neighbor’s property. Why do people have sex outside of marriage or otherwise commit adultery? Because they don’t love God or their neighbor enough to respect God’s commands concerning sex and marriage. Why do people worship idols or invent ways to worship God? Because they don’t love God or His Word enough to worship Him according to His Word. It’s for this lack of love that all people deserve to be condemned by the God who is love, and who wants to surround Himself with people who are also characterized by love.

But because God is love, He sent His Son into the world to call sinners to repentance, to live and die in our place, and to bring us, by faith, back into God’s favor. Now the Spirit is at work in all those whom He has caused to be born again. And just as God once sanctified the Sabbath Day, setting it apart from all the other days of the week, so now He has sanctified and is sanctifying His believing children, permanently setting us apart from all the people of the world, to live a life that is more and more characterized by love.

Now, since I wanted to take some time to go over the Sabbath laws themselves, we only have a little time left to learn the Sabbath lesson in humility. But we can summarize it rather briefly.

On the same Sabbath day, in the same Pharisee’s house, Jesus watches as the guests all run to grab the seat of highest honest for themselves. Now, even from a human perspective, that was just dumb. Because, as Jesus points out in His lesson to them about the wedding banquet, what if the host of the banquet decides that someone else is more important than you? Then he’ll go up to you and tell you to leave that seat. He’ll give it to someone else. And you’ll be disgraced before all the guests and will have to move down to the lowest place. Better, wiser, to start at the lowest place, and then let the host see you there, and raise you up to a higher place, if He so chooses, and so honor you in the presence of everyone. Arrogance before men is foolishness; humility before men is wisdom.

But Jesus had a much more important lesson for the people to learn. He wasn’t really concerned with giving the people good advice for their wedding etiquette. It isn’t a human banquet that matters for eternity; it’s the banquet of God’s kingdom. It isn’t the honor given by a human host that matters; it’s the honor—or dishonor—given by God. Humility before man is wise. Humility before God is crucial. The Sabbath commandment itself was there to teach the Israelites humility before God, to submit their will to His will, to trust in Him to provide for them, and not in themselves and their work.

On both fronts, before God and before men, many in Israel failed to humble themselves. To be honest, everyone has failed. Our natural hearts don’t willingly submit to God’s will, or wait patiently for God to act, or trust in Him to do what is right. We want to take the reins of power for ourselves and insist that God do things our way. That’s nothing but pride. And before men, well, we always tend to think we deserve more, or better treatment, than the next guy. But all throughout the Scriptures, there is this constant warning for man to humble himself, to lower himself, not in a degrading kind of way or in false humility, but to learn the simple-but-profound lesson Jesus taught at the end of today’s Gospel. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And there we have both the warning and the promise, both the Law and the Gospel. Do not think too highly of yourself. Do not act as if you were the most important person in the room. Admit your sinfulness before God and, as you all confessed a little while ago, admit that “I deserve only Your wrath and punishment.” The Law calls you to repentance. And then believe the Gospel promise, that whoever humbles himself will be exalted, that God, purely out of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy, will raise you up, forgive you all your sins for Jesus’ sake, restore you to His favor, and even honor you before men.

Humility and love. Learn this Sabbath lesson from Jesus. Make every effort to live in humility and to act in love, and to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on A Sabbath lesson in humility and love