Faith, though imperfect, is powerful

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 + Luke 18:31-43

I’d like you to think about the story of Abraham for a moment. Think of all the things God told him that made no sense. Get up, leave your home and your country and go to the place I’ll show you! It’s true, you have no children, and you and Sarah are old, and she is barren, but you will have offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky. Yes, I told you your offspring would be reckoned through Isaac, but go and sacrifice him anyway! None of those things made sense, even to Abraham. And yet he clung to the word and the promise and the faithfulness of God. Not perfectly, as we see in many examples, but persistently. We call it “faith,” this clinging to the word and promise and faithfulness of God. Hebrews 11 gives us a classic definition of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In other words, to have faith is to cling, already now, to the things you hope to have in the future, because, even though you don’t see those things now, you know for certain that, one day, you will. Now, Abraham’s faith was strong, but still imperfect, as was the faith of every Old Testament and New Testament saint. But in reality, even the strongest faith is still imperfect in this life, because perfection lies in seeing, in actually having and experiencing the things we hope for. Paul described it in today’s Epistle like this: Now we see through a mirror, darkly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I am also fully known.

That describes well the situation that Jesus’ apostles found themselves in in today’s Gospel—seeing through a mirror, darkly, knowing only in part. And, as Paul makes clear, that also describes our situation. We see and we know imperfectly when it comes to the things of God. But, as we see in the example of the blind man in the second part of the Gospel, even imperfect seeing can achieve amazing results, because, even though faith isn’t yet perfect in this life, when faith is placed in Jesus and His Word, it does have a perfect object—something perfect in which to believe. Faith, though imperfect, is powerful, because the object of faith, which is Jesus and His word, is perfect, and perfectly reliable.

Our Gospel begins with Jesus taking His twelve apostles aside and telling them plainly, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be finished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And they will scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he will rise again. It’s very close to Holy Week. They’re heading toward Jerusalem. And Jesus, as the Son of God, sees perfectly the path before Him. He sees it. He understands it. He knows exactly what will happen to Him, and He even knows why. He will be unjustly accused, attacked, arrested, tortured, condemned, and crucified, as the atoning sacrifice that pays for the sins of the world, so that sinners might look to Him in faith and have our sins blotted out before the judgment seat of God. Our forgiveness would come at the price of Jesus’ suffering and death. He saw the path forward perfectly.

But His apostles didn’t, even after He explained to them what had to happen, even after telling them that He would rise from the dead on the third day. They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not understand the things that were said. And that’s okay. They weren’t supposed to understand everything perfectly yet. They weren’t supposed to see clearly at this point. All they were supposed to do was listen, remember, and trust. Trust Jesus, who always saw everything perfectly, even though their faith was imperfect. Jesus, the object of their faith, was not imperfect.

And they did trust Him. Not a single disciple walked away after hearing the dreadful things Jesus said would happen to Him, even though they didn’t understand what He meant, or why these things had to happen. They all kept following, except for Judas Iscariot, who kept following physically but, by this time, in his heart, was no longer a believer. The rest of them stayed with Jesus, and would eventually see everything play out with their own eyes, and would eventually understand what it had all been about. Their faith, though imperfect, was still powerful.

Then, on their way to Jerusalem, Jesus and His apostles, along with a great multitude accompanying them in a great procession to the Passover feast, encountered a blind beggar. His sight was certainly imperfect, non-existent, even. He was, physically, in about the same shape as Jesus’ apostles were spiritually, when it came to their understanding of Jesus’ prediction about His suffering: unable to see.

But this blind man showed a faith that went beyond that of most people. Blind as he was, he still heard the crowd approaching and asked what the commotion was all about. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. Hearing that, he began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those simple words tell us quite a bit. To call Jesus the Son of David was to acknowledge Him as the Christ for whom Israel had been waiting for two thousand years. Even the crowds weren’t claiming that. Even Jesus’ apostles had not yet publicly proclaimed that, though they had in private. But faith in Jesus, and in the word of Jesus, doesn’t know any boundaries of social class or religious education. Faith comes from hearing the message, not from anywhere else. What’s more, the beggar cried out to Jesus for mercy. That tells us that he had heard that the Son of David had both the power to help him and the reputation for showing mercy to those who sought it from him, whether they were lepers, or tax collectors and sinners, or beggars on the street. This beggar hadn’t heard everything Jesus had ever said or taught, didn’t know as much doctrine as the apostles did, but he had heard that Jesus, the Christ, was merciful. And he believed it.

And what did this beggar want from Jesus? Not a handout. Not a meal. Not wealth or comfort. He wanted one simple thing (which no one else on earth could provide): Lord, I want to see. And Jesus granted his request. Receive your sight! Your faith has saved you! Your faith has saved you. See what power faith has! Not because it’s perfect. Faith isn’t powerful because of its perfection, but because of its object, which is Jesus, and His word, and His faithfulness. When the beggar first came to Jesus, he didn’t yet have the thing he hoped for—to be able to see. But, by calling out to Jesus in faith, by holding onto his hope in Jesus in spite of the scoldings of the crowd for him to be quiet, he showed that he already had the substance of what he hoped for. By believing the word about Jesus, he already had the evidence of the things not seen. And his faith, though imperfect, proved to be a powerful thing, because it held onto Jesus, who is both powerful and perfect. As the Scripture says, No one who believes in Him will ever be put to shame.

For those who have no faith in the Lord Jesus, it’s not too late. You stand condemned before a righteous God because of your sins, including your sin of unbelief. But Jesus, the Son of David, is merciful and good. He knowingly faced suffering and the cross to atone for your sins. Repent and believe in Him, and you will be saved!

As for you Christians, you know there are many things you don’t fully understand when it comes to God and His word. Whether it’s sayings in Scripture that make you scratch your head, or, just as likely, things going on in the world, or in your life, that just don’t make much sense. So often it’s hard to see what God is doing, or why He’s doing the things He does. And even on its strongest day, your faith is not perfect. We’re still waiting for perfection, still waiting for the full explanation of things, which only comes at the end. But that’s okay. Cling to Christ, the Son of David, who suffered for you, willingly and knowingly, that you might live with God forever! Cling to His word, and know for certain that God’s Word is always dependable—more so than anything on earth. And trust that God Himself is faithful. He would never lie to you. He would never lead you astray. Your faith doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it will never be. But God is perfect, and so is His Word. As long as your faith is placed in Him, it’s powerful enough to save you and to make you eternally blessed. Amen.

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This is how God’s kingdom comes

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the week of Sexagesima

Isaiah 55:10-13 + Mark 4:26-32

Every time you say the Lord’s Prayer, you make this petition of your Father in heaven: “Thy kingdom come.” What do you mean? What are you really asking for? How do you want it to come? I think some people are thinking, “Father, may Your kingdom come and replace all the evil, violent, deceitful and unjust kingdoms of this world! May Your kingdom come and rescue Your children, the subjects of Your kingdom, who are suffering here below!” In other words, people are asking for God’s kingdom to come visibly, either now, before the end of the world, so that God gets rid of all evil and makes the world a better place—which is a faulty prayer, because that’s not how God’s kingdom comes. Or, people are asking for the Last Day to hurry up and get here, like, “Come, Lord Jesus!” which is a good prayer, but only a small part of what “Thy kingdom come” is supposed to mean.

How does the kingdom of heaven come? Jesus answers that question through the parables He told. Most of them, if you’ve noticed, are about the kingdom of heaven—what it is, what it looks like to live in it, and how it comes. And while the Last Day is often included in those parables, at the end of them, the parables also teach us how God’s kingdom comes now. For example, Sunday’s parable of the sower and the seed showed us how the kingdom of God comes as the Word of God is preached in the world, like seed that’s scattered on different kinds of soil, and how its coming is often thwarted in the hearts of those who don’t really listen to the Word they hear. We heard that parable from Luke’s Gospel on Sunday, but Mark also records it in chapter 4 of his Gospel, followed almost immediately by the two short parables you heard this evening, also talking about the kingdom of God, and also talking about it in terms of seeds and growing plants. Each little parable teaches us a simple truth about the kingdom of God and how it comes. Let’s take a look at them again.

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

The kingdom of God is where Christ reigns in the heart of men. The seed is still the Word of God. Preachers preach it, non-preachers speak it, and then the work of the preacher or the speaker is essentially done. The seed is sown, and the power of the Word of God does the rest, producing faith, sustaining faith, and changing a person’s life, so that Christ does indeed reign in the hearts of believers. The kingdom of heaven comes by its own power, automatically, inevitably, without our help, without our planning, without our worrying, without our understanding. The power is all in the seed, in the Word of God itself, because the Holy Spirit is at work in the Word. The plant will ripen. The plant will produce its fruit, all by the power of God’s Word. And then, at the Last Day, the kingdom of heaven will be harvested and brought into God’s heavenly barn.

That’s essentially what God said through the prophet Isaiah, whose words you heard earlier: For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

Martin Luther also referred to this, five years or so after he posted the 95 Theses. He wrote, For the Word created heaven and earth and all things; the Word must do this thing, and not we poor sinners. In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.

The Word did everything, does everything. So just be content to have it preached among us, and to invite others to come and hear it, and to speak it to the people you know, whenever you have the opportunity. Speak, not just any part of God’s Word, but the parts that center on sin and grace, and on the Lord Jesus Christ, specifically, who died for our sins and rose again, to call all men to repentance and faith, and to give believers the right to become children of God. There’s more to the Word of God than that, but to speak that is to sow the seed, that grows without your help, where and when the Spirit pleases.

That’s the first parable, in a nutshell. The power to grow the kingdom of heaven is in the seed, not the sower, in the Word of God, not the one who speaks it. Now for the second parable: With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

The Word of God, when it’s proclaimed, looks so tiny, so small, so insignificant, and those who believe it are so few compared with the rest of the world. That was true at the beginning of the New Testament, and it remains true today. Imagine going out into the pagan world, as the apostles did, and preaching this message about a man who is also God, who gave His life on a cross and rose again from the dead to save us from our sins. Imagine telling the world that the little nation of Israel alone, out of all the nations of the earth, had been given the Word of the true God, and that His Word had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. How could such a message compete with the Roman Empire and and the Greek culture with their well-established religions? But the kingdom of heaven came, all by itself, and grew, and has been growing and spreading throughout the world into something enormous, something that has lasted 2,000 years, and that will last until the end of the world, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

So don’t worry about how small a certain church appears, or how insignificant a conversation may seem where you plant the Word of God, centered on Christ Jesus. The kingdom of God comes through such little conversations, and through sermons heard only by a few, and maybe uploaded to the internet, where a few more are able to hear. The kingdom of God will continue to grow until it reaches its full height. God will see to it. It will come by itself, by its own power, and will grow into something magnificent. And neither the devil nor his children in the world will be able to stop it.

But Jesus still teaches you to pray for it: Thy kingdom come. So pray. Pray that God will bless the preaching of His Word, and know that He most certainly will. The kingdom of heaven has already come to you who believe. Now may it continue to come, to us, and to others, until the Last Day, when we will see God’s kingdom come in all its glory. Amen.

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Things to watch out for when God’s Word is preached

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Sexagesima

2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9 + Luke 8:4-15

During His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus preached to all sorts of people, as illustrated in His parable of the Sower and the Seed.

Some people who heard Him preach the Word of God, calling all men to repentance and to faith in Him, the Savior sent from God to redeem mankind from their sins—some of them just dismissed His words out of hand. His words fell on deaf ears. They didn’t care enough to think about what He said, or to compare His teaching with the Old Testament Scriptures. They didn’t take Him seriously. They never applied His words to themselves.

Others who heard Jesus preach the Word of God were excited, at first. They latched onto Him immediately. They liked the nice things He said, about love and peace. They believed He was some kind of Messiah, that He was going to save them (somehow). They started out following Him gladly. But their excitement didn’t last long. The more He preached, the more it became apparent to them that actually following Him and putting His words into practice wouldn’t be very easy, or exciting. It would require effort on their part. It would come with persecution attached. And some of the things He said were just so extreme. It wasn’t all love and peace, actually. And so those hearers would follow Him for a while, but then whatever faith had begun to grow in their hearts would soon wither away, and they would abandon Him.

Others who heard Jesus preach the Word of God nodded in agreement with what they heard. They believed in Him. They went along with Him for a while. They kept listening, kept following. The Word of God was starting to make more and more sense to them. Until, you know, politics is also really important to follow, and there’s work, and friends, and fun, some opportunities to make some extra cash, to have some nicer things. They got too busy with day-to-day things to keep listening to Jesus, and to keep growing. They eventually, slowly, drifted away.

But there were always a few hearers—at certain times, no more than a handful—who heard the Word that Jesus preached, and believed it, and took it seriously—took the warnings seriously, took the comfort seriously, understood that they needed to keep hearing, keep pondering what they heard, keep praying for God’s help, not allow themselves to be distracted and drawn away by less important things. These hearers knew that they had found a treasure in the Word of God, and in the Person of Jesus—a treasure that was worth more than anything in this world, more than life itself. And so they remained with Him, learned to practice His Word each day, bore up under the hardships that came with the Christian life, and produced a life full of faith and love, for God and for their neighbor. Four different reactions to the hearing of God’s Word, but only one that had a happy ending.

Now, it was to a very large crowd of people that Jesus told the parable of the Sower and the Seed, preaching the Word of God to them as a farmer walks alongside his field and tosses out handfuls of seed in every direction, knowing that some of His words would fall on deaf ears, while others would be quickly believed but soon abandoned, while others would be believed but eventually thwarted by earthly concerns, while still others would find fertile soil, and would be not only believed at first, but would grow, and grow, and grow, until they produced a bountiful harvest. And so He spoke, and kept speaking, knowing, always, that most of those who heard would not remain with Him to the end.

We have to assume that most of those who heard Jesus speak that parable didn’t understand what He was talking about—this seed falling along the path, and on the rocky soil, and the thorny soil, and the good soil. His own disciples may not have understood it, if they hadn’t asked what it meant, and if He hadn’t explained it to them. But thankfully, they did, and He did. And so, what those crowds heard on that day with confusion, you are privileged to hear with understanding—the understanding given to you by the Son of God Himself, and by His Holy Spirit, so that you can benefit from the story your Savior told, so that it can take root in your hearts and produce in you the kind of hearers who not only have ears, but who also use them to hear, believe, and put into practice the words and the warnings of your God.

The parable of the Sower and the Seed helps you to understand what happens when other people hear the Word of God, so that you’re not surprised when you see most people, even most Christians, turning away from God’s Word, either quickly or eventually.

But more importantly, the parable of the Sower and the Seed helps you to know what to watch out for, not only when you come to church to hear the Word of God, but also when you leave church to go back to your life in between church services. When you hear the Word of God—His commandments, His promises, how much He hates sin, how much He loved mankind, to the point of sending His Son, the Christ, to suffer and die for your sins, to make you into beloved children of God—When you hear that Word of God, don’t harden your hearts to it. That’s just what the writer to the Hebrews says, citing a Psalm that was written originally for Israel: Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as [the Israelites at the time of Moses did] in the rebellion. Be aware that, as you listen to God’s word, the devil is right there, wanting to snatch away the Word from you as a bird snatches away the seed that falls upon the hardened path. But, with God’s help, you won’t leave the word sitting on the surface. You’ll listen to what you hear and allow God’s Word to penetrate down into your heart.

When you hear the Word of God, receive it with joy, as when a seed that falls on rocky soil sprouts up quickly. That’s good! Because it really is good news, that God looked at us in our misery and in the filth of our sins, took pity on us, and sent His Son to save us. And it really is a joyful thing, that God has promised a happy ending to the story and the eventual wiping away of every tear. But don’t let your joy at hearing about those good things overshadow the reality that, as the apostle Paul said, We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. Remember, Jesus never promised that the Christian life would be all sunshine and roses. It requires the deepening roots of a faith that is regularly watered with Word and Sacrament, and the roots of a knowledge of God that can only come from persistent study of God’s Word. Only by growing in these things, with the Holy Spirit’s help, can anyone hope to survive the burning heat of trials and persecutions.

When you hear the Word of God, let it take root in your heart, but remember that thorny weeds are dangerous things. As you go along through the Christian life, there will be one distraction after another. The cares, riches, and pleasures of this life will always be vying for your attention, tempting you to pay more attention to them and less to the Word of God, threatening to take over the field of your heart, to ensnare your fragile faith and to choke it out. But, with God’s help, you can watch out for those weeds and distractions and recognize them for the danger that they are, and you can clear them out before they choke you to death.

Yes, when you hear the Word of God, strive, with the Spirit’s mighty help, to be the good soil, the ones who hear the Word with good and noble hearts, hold fast to it, and bear fruit with patience, with endurance. This is your God speaking to you! Teaching you, guiding you, correcting you, upholding you, nourishing your faith and sustaining the eternal life that He planted in you when He first brought you to believe in His only-begotten Son. Take His warnings seriously. Take His comfort and forgiveness seriously. Take His commandments seriously, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Your life literally depends on hearing the Word of God, as the life of a plant depends on a continual supply of water and light. And God, your Father in heaven, knows that your faith needs sustaining, and has promised never to remove His Word from those who cherish it. This is the one on whom I will look, God says through the prophet Isaiah: On him who is of a poor and contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word. Tremble at it, as something sacred, as something precious, as that which gave you new birth into God’s family, and as that which will sustain your precious faith until the end. The voice of the Lord Jesus still calls out into the world: He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Amen.

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The Lord has finally come to His temple

Posted on February 4, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord

Malachi 3:1-4 + Luke 2:22-32

42 days ago today (40 days ago, counting from this past Monday, February 2nd), we celebrated Christmas. Why do we count off 40 days from December 25th to make a holy day out February 2nd? We do it, because Mary and Joseph did it; they counted off 40 days from the day of Jesus’ birth, and then they took Him up from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, to the very Temple of which God had spoken through the Prophet Malachi, “And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts. And finally, after 400 years from the time Malachi wrote those words, He did come. The Lord finally came to His Temple, 40 days after His birth.

Why 40 days? Because Mary and Joseph were godly Jews who paid attention to God’s ceremonial laws for the Jewish people, and the Law of Moses required that they perform two ceremonies: Purification for Mary, and the Consecration of her firstborn son.

In Leviticus 12, Moses gave the Israelites God’s command about purification after childbirth. Just like eating pork or touching a corpse made someone unclean, so childbirth made a woman ceremonially unclean. She was unclean for 40 days after the birth of a son, 80 days after the birth of a daughter. On the 40th day after the birth of a boy, the mother was to take two offerings to the Temple to be sacrificed: either a lamb and a turtle dove, or, if she couldn’t afford a lamb, then two turtle doves, which is the offering Luke indicates that Mary brought.

Purification was commanded by God, because every time a child is born, there is a flow of blood—a sinner’s lifeblood. And in the Old Testament, God used lots of symbols. A sinner’s blood was a symbol of sin—sin that needed to be punished with death. That’s why God gave them so many animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, to teach them that blood needed to be shed in order for sinners to stand clean and pure before God. But even the animals were just symbols. What was really needed was the blood of a spotless, sinless human being, and not just any sinless human being, but the very Son of God, sent to earth for this very purpose. The ceremonies and the laws about clean and unclean were shadows pointing to the Christ who would bring real, spiritual purification to sinners. And the much shorter time of a woman’s uncleanness after giving birth to a boy pointed to the coming of a male Child who would redeem us all. Well, now, finally, the Christ had been born, the sinless Son of God who, by His death, would make atonement for the sins of all people. Finally, all the pictures of the Law of Moses and the Jewish ceremonies were being fulfilled. Finally, and for the first and only time in human history, a clean, sinless Son had been born of a woman. And right there in Mary’s own sacrificial offerings for her purification, the future sacrifice of her sinless Son was being foreshadowed.

The second ceremony that had to be fulfilled according to the Law of Moses was the Consecration of the firstborn son. That goes back to the Exodus, to the first Passover, to the tenth plague God sent against Egypt, the plague of the firstborn. You remember, God sent the destroying angel against all the firstborn sons of Egypt, but He spared the firstborn sons of Israel by telling them to take a lamb and slaughter it, to take its blood and paint the doorframes of their houses with it. When the destroying angel saw the blood of the lamb, he passed over their houses. Then God put a claim on every firstborn son who would be born in the future generations of Israel. Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the LORD. Now, what does that mean? It means that, as an Israelite, either you present your firstborn son to God in His Temple and leave him there to serve God for the rest of his life (as Old Testament Hannah did with her son Samuel), or, as was usually the case, you had to redeem or “buy back” your firstborn son from God, for the price of a lamb.

Did Mary and Joseph actually buy Jesus back from God with a lamb? Luke makes no mention of it here, and that makes sense, because of all the sons born to men, Jesus truly was holy to the Lord. Jesus was the Son of Man who belongs to God the Father and cannot be redeemed from Him, but would dedicate His life to God’s service and to being the Redeemer whose blood was the redemption price of the world. We hear at Jesus’ Baptism how God claimed Jesus as His own, beloved Son. So it makes sense that Luke doesn’t record Mary and Joseph offering a lamb to buy the Lamb of God back from God.

It seems that they planned to, they planned to redeem the Redeemer—to, as Luke says, do for Him according to the custom of the law. But they were interrupted by divine intervention. It was at that moment that God’s Spirit brought old Simeon over to Mary and Joseph.

Simeon was one of those Jews—one of the relatively few, it seems—who understood, by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit, that the Law of Moses was pointing ahead to someone, pointing to the coming of the Messiah. He was “waiting for the Consolation of Israel,” the consolation or comfort that Isaiah had promised long ago. Not the comfort of a cushy life on earth, but the comfort of the forgiveness of sins and peace with God. As Isaiah said, “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God. “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD’s hand Double for all her sins.”

God’s Spirit revealed in the prophecies of Scripture that the Messiah had to be born right around that time, and God’s Spirit revealed to Simeon that he wouldn’t see death until He saw the Lord’s Christ with his own eyes. So at just the right moment, on just the right day, God’s Spirit brought Simeon to the Temple and brought him right up to the right family. And he took Jesus up in his arms and blessed the Lord with those Spirit-inspired words that we sing every Sunday and on many Wednesdays: Lord, now You let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word. For my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a Light for enlightening the Gentiles, and for glory to Your people Israel.

Let’s take a brief look at this Nunc Dimittis. First, Simeon announces that he is ready to depart—to be dismissed from the Lord’s earthly service, to die, in peace. You hear some people say, “I’m ready to die, whenever.” Some of them even mean it! Some of them aren’t actually ready, though, even if they think they are. They delude themselves into thinking they’ve lived such a good life that God will surely let them through the “pearly gates.” Others think that death just has to be better than what they’re suffering here, as if hell didn’t exist. Still others delude themselves into thinking that God is so “nice” that He’ll just let everybody into heaven. But, no. Simeon’s readiness came from only one place—from faith in the God of Israel who had promised to send a Savior to Israel—the very Child whom he held in his arms.

For My eyes have seen Your salvation. This is such a basic truth: Sinners need salvation, an offering, a sacrifice that atones for their sins and rescues them from eternal condemnation in hell. And Simeon tells us that this salvation of God is found nowhere but in one place—in the Child whom he held in his arms. St. Peter says the same thing, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Only by the name of Jesus, the Son of God, true God and true Man, who would give His life on the cross as the redemption price.

The price for whom? “Prepared before the face of all peoples, a Light for enlightening the Gentiles and for glory to Your people Israel.” No one on earth, Jew or Gentile, no matter how sincere or religious they may be, will be saved, unless they believe in this Child, held by Simeon, in Jesus, the Christ, the Savior sent by God to save all men from their sins. God sent Him to bring the light of the knowledge of God to all the Gentiles. And He also sent Him to bring glory to Israel, the only nation on earth that already had the light of God’s salvation shining from the Old Testament promises of God, promises which centered on the coming Redeemer. The Lord Jesus was offered into death for all men on earth, and He is offered now as the One who defeated death—offered to all men on earth in the preaching of this Gospel, so that all might hear, and repent, and believe in Him, both Jew and Gentile.

So again today, on this Feast of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Jesus, we celebrate the revelation of God’s salvation to us sinners in the Person of Jesus. And again today, we celebrate the great Sacraments that God has given us, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. Why? Because Holy Baptism is our purification ceremony by which God washed us clean, through faith in Mary’s firstborn Son. And why Holy Communion? Because Holy Communion brings the Lamb of God to us with consolation, with salvation, with the promise of forgiveness, so that, just like Simeon, our eyes can see the very bread and wine to which Jesus has attached His promise, This is My body; This is My blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. As truly as Simeon saw with his eyes the Lord’s salvation, so we see Him with the eyes of faith every time we receive the Sacrament of the Altar, so that we, too, may depart in peace, at any moment, whenever the Lord is ready to dismiss us from His earthly service and bring us into heavenly glory. Amen.

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Let God’s favor be the only reward you seek

Posted on February 1, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5 + Matthew 20:1-16

Why does the average person go to work, would you say? If you’re of working age, why do you spend all those hours usually away from home, away from your family, working at a job? I’d say that almost everyone does it to earn a living, to make some money, so that you have some money to spend on the things you need, or on the things you want. You expect your employer to pay you for your work, and, in a just world, you expect your wages to reflect how long and how hard you worked, and how well you performed at your job, and you would be rightfully upset if your employer decided, at the end of the day, to pay you the same amount he paid to another worker who didn’t work as long, or as hard, or as well at the same job. All of that makes perfect sense in the business world. Because the business world is all about working to earn your well-deserved wages.

But that all gets turned upside down in the kingdom of God. That isn’t how things work in God’s kingdom, and because things do work that way in our day-to-day lives, with our businesses and with our jobs, there’s a real danger that a person could begin to see his place in the kingdom of God just like his place in the workplace. Go to work, work hard, get paid for the amount of work you do or the amount of time you put in.

The apostles themselves began to think of their place in the kingdom of heaven that way. At the end of Matthew chapter 19, Matthew tells us about a rich young man who refused to part with his wealth in order to follow Jesus. He was unwilling to give it up, to pay that steep price. But the twelve apostles—they had given up everything to follow Jesus, which Peter went on to point out to Jesus, and then asked, “What will we have as a result?”

Oh, you’ll sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, Jesus said! And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But, those rewards come with a warning.

Some will be called by God to give up much as they live in God’s kingdom. They will have to work hard and suffer much, and long. On the other hand, some will be called to suffer less, maybe much less. They will not have to work as hard or give up as much during their time in God’s kingdom, and yet they will still receive the same promised reward of eternal life and eternal joy in God’s presence as those who worked hard their whole lives. That’s not how it works in the business world, but it is exactly how it works in God’s kingdom.

And here’s the warning, the thing to watch out for: Many who suffered much, and gave up much, and worked their whole lives will begin to view the reward at the end of the day as the just compensation for their hard work, just as it is in the business world. And that will cause them to become jealous and resentful toward their brothers and sisters in Christ who weren’t called upon to work or suffer as much. At the same time, they’ll grow bitter toward God, who dares to give the same reward to those who didn’t work as hard, revealing that they weren’t really in it to serve God, but to earn a reward that matched how hard they worked. The ones who came into God’s kingdom last, and who worked the least, will end the day with God’s favor, while these who came in first and worked the hardest will end the day with God’s contempt.

That’s a summary of the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Now let’s walk through it piece by piece to see what it teaches us about work in the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a household who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. The vineyard is the kingdom of heaven, and God Himself is the master of the household or the “landowner,” as some translations say. And, understand, the kingdom of heaven isn’t only what awaits when a person’s soul is taken to heaven. No, the kingdom of heaven is already here on earth in the form of the Holy Christian Church. All believers in the Lord Jesus have entered the kingdom of heaven, whereas, to be outside the vineyard is to be outside the kingdom of God, to be among the lost who will not inherit eternal life, because they are still in their sins, responsible for their sins, separated from Christ. But, in His mercy, God comes to sinners, through His ministers, and calls them into His kingdom, into His Church, into the company of believers in Christ Jesus. Notice, there is no price of entry, no qualifications needed. Their works don’t get them into God’s kingdom or into God’s grace. Instead, they are called into God’s kingdom in order to be able to work. Repent and believe the good news! Live in faith and in God’s forgiveness each day!

After agreeing with the workers on a denarius for the day, he sent them out into his vineyard. God tells sinners what to expect when they come into His kingdom: His mercy, His love, His attention, eternal life in their souls now, eternal life in heaven at the end, for all who love Him, for all who believe in the Lord Jesus. Those who repent and believe in Him are welcomed into the kingdom of heaven, and begin their lives of sanctification, getting to work in God’s vineyard, with love for God and love for your neighbor, struggling against sin, praying earnestly, worshiping God, hearing His Word, receiving His Sacraments, taking up your cross, and suffering for Jesus’ sake, knowing that, at the end of the day, when your work on earth is done, you’ll remain in God’s presence forever. Living in the loving presence of God is the goal.

Now, the landowner went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace and said to them, ‘You also, go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.’ So they went. He did the same thing again at the sixth hour, and at the ninth hour, and even at the eleventh hour, when the sun was beginning to set and the day was almost done. Who are the ones who start at the beginning of the day, and who are the ones who are called into the vineyard later? Well, we can look at it, first of all, as a reference to people groups. A few centuries after the Great Flood, while the rest of the nations had already gone their own way, after their own false gods, God came to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then, eventually, to Moses and the children of Israel, and called them into a special covenant with Him, ratified at Mt. Sinai. The Israelites, the Jews, were the first to know the true God, to be called into His kingdom, and to be given work to do and toil to suffer within His kingdom. Then, at the time of Jesus, still within the people group of the Jews, He called tax collectors and sinners, who had abandoned God’s kingdom by their sins, called them back into His kingdom. Then He called the Gentiles, one group of them after another, into His Christian Church. The Jews, as a people, had borne the burden of the Law of Moses for 1500 years before the Gentiles, as a people, were invited in.

But we can also look it at with regard to individuals, some who are called to the faith early in life, others later, and still others toward the very end. We can look at it, not only as different lengths of time various people spend within the Church, but also as the different circumstances under which people are called. For example, some Christians are called to suffer more at the hands of persecutors, some less. Some are given more opportunities to serve, some fewer. Some are called to sacrifice much, others (seemingly) little. There are disparities in the kingdom of heaven when it comes to such things. If we were talking about the business world, the ones who work the longest and the hardest should get something better than the ones who work the least.

But we aren’t talking about the business world. We’re talking about God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, which isn’t gained through our work, or through our suffering, but is gained for us, through the work and the suffering of the Lord Jesus. If we lose sight of that, then we’re in big trouble.

That’s what we see at the end of Jesus’ parable. Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’ Now, when those who were hired about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. So when the first came, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received, each one, a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day.’

The hearts of the longest and hardest workers are revealed at the end. All their hard work, all their suffering, caused them to lose sight of God’s free gift in Christ, caused them to begin to believe that they deserved God’s favor, caused them no longer to desire God Himself, but only the good things He might hand out. Those who worked longer expected more, thought they deserved more, revealing that, for them, the work was not done in service to the owner, but was done entirely for the reward. For them, there was no concern at all for their fellow workers, or for the owner himself. For them, the generosity of the landowner was despised, not praised. When that happens, those hard workers who have become bitter toward God because they aren’t getting all the things they thought they deserved—it will not go well for them. They will be greeted by God with contempt. He answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I give you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.

As always, Jesus’ warnings aren’t given in vain. It doesn’t have to turn out this way for you. If you’ve worked long and hard in the kingdom of God, if you’ve pursued the Christian life with zeal and devotion, that’s good! But why have you done it? Was it to earn more blessings from God in the end? Was it to compare yourself with others, to compare your sacrifices with their sacrifices? Would you dare to think of God as unfair for giving you no more than He promised to give you in the beginning? He promised to give you Himself! Was that not enough?

Let it be enough. Let God’s favor be the only reward you seek. As Jesus promised His apostles, you will receive, at the end, a hundred times more than you ever gave up. But don’t serve God for those things. Serve Him, here in His kingdom, because He gave His Son into death for your sins. Serve Him, because Christ loved you and gave Himself for you. Serve Him, because it is an honor just to be counted among His children. And, whatever you do, never, ever, ever start to think of yourself first, to depend on yourself, or on your past obedience, or on all the time you’ve spent in the kingdom of God, as if that were a guarantee of your future. Depend on Christ, and on Him alone. Think of Him first, and of yourself last. Then you will be counted among the first, being both called into the kingdom of God and chosen to remain there, in God’s favor, for eternity. Amen.

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