Flee from idolatry as you endure the great tribulation

Posted on November 7, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Third to Last Sunday (Trinity 25)

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Matthew 24:15-28

Today the lectionary begins turning our thoughts to the end times, to the state of the world and of the Church leading up to Christ’s return. It isn’t a pretty picture. But there is hope in it! Not the hope of a better world here, but the promise of God’s protection and help as we live through the dark days of the great tribulation. Alongside that promise, though, comes a warning from the Lord Jesus, an urgent warning to flee from the idolatry that will afflict the Church as we wait for Him to return.

Jesus is talking with His disciples about the signs leading up to His coming at the Last Day. He foretells a horrible event from the beginning of the New Testament period—the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century—but uses that same event as a metaphor for the last days.

Therefore, He says, when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. The Old Testament prophets refer to idols as abominations, things that God truly hates. A desolation is something that lays waste to an area. Daniel, who lived about 600 years before Christ, prophesied that an idol would be set up in the holy place, in the innermost part of the temple in Jerusalem, right next to the place where God had promised to dwell. That prophecy was partially fulfilled some 400 years later when Antiochus Epiphanes would oppress the Jews over the course of about three years, banning their religion and literally setting up an idol in the temple. But Jesus applies Daniel’s prophecy to another event yet to come, to the idolatry of the Jews who would reject Him, who would still use the temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices for sin, mocking the sacrifice of Christ that had already been made once for all. That idolatry culminated in the desolation caused by the Roman armies that besieged and finally destroyed Jerusalem.

Just as Scripture often uses the literal kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament as a figure of the spiritual kingdom of Christ in the New Testament, so Jesus uses that literal idol in the literal temple and the resulting desolation in the literal city of Jerusalem to represent a spiritual abomination, a spiritual idol (or idols) in the spiritual temple of God, which is the Holy Christian Church.

The papistic idolatry, the idolatry of the Roman Church, grew over the centuries, setting the saints and their merits next to Christ in the holy place of the Church, setting the justifying works and satisfactions of the Christian next to Christ, setting the pope himself next to Christ and actually above Christ because his teaching contradicted the word of Christ, and yet he was to be believed instead of Christ, which is why Lutherans refer to the papacy as the Antichrist, or at least as the ultimate Antichrist. Because not all the idols that have been set up in the Church can be traced directly to the papacy.

Or maybe they can, in a way, if “popery” is considered more generally. Every time a teaching is set up in the Church that contradicts the Word of Christ and is supposed to be believed instead of Christ, you have a little pope there, don’t you? Every time a man (a pastor or a priest or a minister of this or that) insists on being obeyed in the Church when he’s teaching something other than the word of Christ, you have a little pope there. Every time a synod or a church body demands your loyalty, regardless of the Word of Christ, or every time Christians give their loyalty to a synod or a church body or a minister, regardless of the Word of Christ, you have a little pope there, a little antichrist, an idol, an abomination that will cause desolation.

So, “Flee!” Jesus says. Fleeing ahead of the Roman armies was a physical fleeing. Fleeing from all these other idols is a spiritual fleeing, although there may be some physical fleeing involved. Run away from that church or that church body that has set up an idol where only Christ belongs. Get out of the assembly where idolatry, even secret idolatry, is being openly practiced. Run away in your heart from every idol that you might fear, love, or trust in more than God.

Flee! And do it without delay! That’s what Jesus’ instructions boil down to. Let the one who is on the housetop not come down to get anything out of his house. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to get his clothes. But woe to the women who are with child and who are nursing in those days! Pray that your flight is not in the winter or on the Sabbath! In other words, anything that hinders your flight from where idolatry has taken hold in the Church will harm you! Getting away from it is urgent, and all the more urgent as the Last Day approaches, when the tribulation will be at its greatest.

You see, fleeing from Rome and from all the idols that are set up within the visible Church is essential to avoid the desolation it will cause—the desolation of souls! But it doesn’t get you out of the great tribulation. Jesus says, For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not happened since the beginning of the world until now, nor will there ever be. Indeed, if those days were not shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. The Book of Revelation talks about the saints who were even then “coming out of the great tribulation.” So, in a sense, it’s been going on since the first century. But just as the first abomination of desolation was literal and the second is spiritual or figurative, so might the tribulation be. The great tribulation of the first century involved severe physical persecution and torture. The great tribulation near the end of the world may be much more of a spiritual tribulation, trouble and affliction of the spirit, the trouble of being surrounded and assaulted by false doctrine, the trouble of a hundred different Christian church bodies, the trouble of a world that completely and thoroughly rejects God’s Word, natural law, and justice. The public schools of our country (and in most of the world) teach what I call a “gentle atheism.” They don’t come right out and say God doesn’t exist, or that all religion is evil. They just unteach everything the Bible teaches and replace it with a false history, false morality, and false authority. They train generations of citizens not to rely on God’s word, but on science and the ingenuity of the human race. Practically all the world powers deny Christ, if not by name, then by policy and by action. This is all part of the great tribulation, and it would be too much even for the elect to withstand, if God didn’t shorten the days for us.

Now, sometimes He shortens the days by giving us a brief reprieve, a few moments of sanity and normalcy. But those reprieves are temporary. Sometimes He shortens the days by bringing believers out of this life, so that we finish our race in faith and win the battle by leaving the battle safely. But in the end, only the coming of Christ will truly shorten the days of the great tribulation in which we find ourselves. Only the coming of Christ will put an end to the great tribulation.

Jesus has further warnings for those who live in the great tribulation: “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will perform great signs and wonders, so as to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time. False prophets pointing to false christs. Isn’t that exactly what we see in the Church at large? False prophets pointing to evolutionary Jesus, who didn’t create the world in six days, pointing to LGBT Jesus, who didn’t create them male and female and bless the marriage of one man and one woman, pointing to socialist Jesus who compels people to charity by force, to collectivist Jesus who demands that people get vaccines or wear masks “for the good of the collective society,” to abortionist Jesus, to a false Jesus who calls “love” what the Jesus of the Bible calls “sin.”

That’s the false Jesus of the liberal talking points. But then there are plenty of false prophets on the more “conservative” side who point to American patriot Jesus, or to “Baptist Jesus” or “generic Evangelical Jesus,” who waits for you to make a decision for Him and invite Him into your heart by your own powers, who doesn’t work anything through Baptism but views it as your own work of obedience, to the Jesus who doesn’t want little children to be baptized, or who does want them baptized, but not for the forgiveness of their sins, to the Jesus who doesn’t give His true body and blood in the Holy Sacrament.

Therefore, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the desert!’ do not go out; or, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes out of the east and is visible in the west, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. There is only one true Jesus Christ, who has ascended into heaven and will not return until the very Last Day of this world when every eye will see Him. Until then, He has left a sure and dependable witness of His teaching: His words faithfully recorded in Holy Scripture, which will never pass away. And He has left a ministry of the Word that carries His blessing and His authority. If you go seeking Jesus apart from His Word and the ministry of it, you will only find a false christ.

Our Gospel concludes with that rather strange saying: For where the carcass lies, there the eagles will gather. It’s actually a paraphrase from the book of Job, where God is scolding Job for thinking himself wiser than God. And God has to remind him that God is the one who gave the eagle the nature and the ability to spy out the landscape from afar, to pinpoint where the dead body is, and to gather there. So it is with God’s children. We won’t miss Jesus at His coming. We won’t miss out on the eternal life He will bring. Instead, St. Paul describes the scene beautifully in today’s Epistle: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

Such is the wisdom of God, to allow His visible Church to falter and to embrace the idol and to allow His true believers, His invisible Church to suffer much in this great tribulation. But rather than question God’s wisdom as Job did, let us embrace it and acknowledge that God knows far better than we do what is right and necessary for this world and for His beloved Church, including each one of His dear children. Trust in Him. Watch out for idols and flee from them, wherever they are set up. Seek Him in His word and the ministry of it during this great tribulation. And eagerly expect His coming! Amen.

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The Lord’s Prayer: Invocation and First Petition

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Small Catechism Review / Celebration of All Saints’ Day

1 John 3:1-3  +  Matthew 5:1-12

It’s no coincidence that our celebration of All Saints’ Day coincides with our focus on the Small Catechism, specifically the Invocation and 1st Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. I lined it up this way, because the connections are so beautiful.

Jesus teaches us to address His eternal Father as “our Father” in heaven. To whom is He speaking? Not to all of humanity. The Lord’s Prayer hasn’t been given to everyone. Oh, anyone can read it or hear it. But to pray it, in truth? That only belongs to those who have been given the right to become children of God, to those who have believed in the name of the Father’s only-begotten Son. Jesus taught this prayer to His disciples, to the baptized, to believers. In other words, He taught it to His saints on earth.

What are the saints on earth to believe when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven”? With these words, God would invite us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children. That’s what believers in Christ are to believe, that, for Christ’s sake, the eternal Father is now our true Father, and we His true children. We don’t deserve to believe that, or to be called that. It’s pure grace, for the sake of Christ. And it applied also to Old Testament believers, who were taught to call upon the God of Israel as “our Father” through faith in the coming Messiah, sealed with the blood of the Old Testament.

All the saints on earth have learned to call God “our Father.” Not our earthly father, but our Father in heaven. We earthly fathers do the best we can to imitate His love and fatherly care for His children, but we fall so far short it’s barely worth the comparison. Still, Jesus used the comparison and wants us to view His Father as our Father and to know that His Father views us as His dear children, just as dear to Him as Jesus Himself is.

And that relationship doesn’t end when our bodies die. Our earthly fathers die, and while we still acknowledge them and love them as our fathers after they die, our interaction with them is lost. Not so with our heavenly Father. When a child of His dies, the relationship and the interaction continue. In fact, we call Him Father “who is in heaven,” which is precisely where the departed saints dwell, together with the holy angels. They still call Him “our Father” and are still cared for by Him as His dear children, so that the “Our Father” of the Lord’s Prayer unites the saints on earth with the saints in heaven. Though we can’t interact with each other, we still call upon our Father together.

Now, once we believe that we, as believers in Christ, are God’s true children, what is Jesus teaching us to do with these words? He wants us to believe it so that with all boldness and confidence we should ask Him, as dear children ask their dear father. Pray! Ask! Knock on the door! Seek! But only ask if you actually need help. I mean, if you can face this world on your own, by all means, do it! If you can provide for yourself without our Father sustaining you and prospering you and giving you the opportunities you need, then go for it! If you can handle all the hardships, all the oppression, all the persecution, all the overwhelming force of this world’s hatred and injustice, then don’t ask Him for help. But if you’re wise enough to realize that your needs are very great, and if you believe that God is your dear Father and you His dear child, then why wouldn’t you ask, and ask often?

The saints above no longer have earthly needs, and whether or not they have heavenly needs they still need to ask our Father to fulfill, we don’t have any idea. They may well ask Him to help us, His earthly children, though we have no reason to believe they can know the specifics of what’s going on in our lives. Still, we know they did ask Him, they did pray to our Father when they were here, when their souls were still united with their bodies, and we know that our Father heard their prayers. Some of those prayers are recorded in the Psalms, others in Collects and hymns of the Church, and in the Liturgy itself. When we pray as the saints before us prayed, whether with the same words or with the same thoughts, we’re again participating in that great but invisible communion we have with the saints on the other side of this life, who have received the ultimate fulfillment of the last petition, “Deliver us from evil,” by being admitted to heavenly glory. That, too, should spur us on to ask Him, our Father, to pray, following in the footsteps of the saints.

And the very first thing our Lord has taught us to ask for is the content of the First Petition: Hallowed be Thy name. May Your name be hallowed, made holy, sanctified, dear Father in heaven! A perfect petition for a celebration of All Hallows, that is, All Saints, those who have been made perfectly holy, not only in their status before God by faith, but in their existence and in their conduct. They no longer sin. They no longer carry around the sinful flesh with its weaknesses. The Old Man has been put to death once and for all. They have received most of the promised blessings of the beatitudes that we heard this evening, while a few still wait for the coming of Christ. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven, forever and ever. They are being comforted. They are being filled, never to hunger again for righteousness or for anything. They have obtained the fullest measure of God’s mercy. They see God. They are called the sons of God. And their reward in heaven is great. Among them, God’s name is held as perfectly holy at all times.

But what do we mean when we pray, Hallowed by Thy name? We ask in this prayer that God’s name may be made holy among us also.

How is that done? Luther’s explanation is short and to the point. It’s done in two ways: (1) When God’s Word is taught purely and correctly, and (2) when we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it.

So “hallowed be Your name” means, first of all, Heavenly Father, help the Christian parents among us to teach Your Word rightly to their children, that they may know Your name rightly, may know rightly who You are, what You command, what You promise, what You have done for us and what You will do. Help our pastors to preach well, to persevere in the true doctrine of Your Word that their hearers may know Your name rightly. Protect parents and pastors from the lies of the evil one, and grant them a heart of faith and a life that reflects it.

Secondly, “hallowed be Your name” means, “Heavenly Father, help us Christians, who have been baptized into Your holy name, to lead holy lives on earth, so that those who see us and our behavior don’t think poorly of You as we bear Your name in the world.” You know how God’s name is blasphemed in the world. And one of the causes of it is people who bear the name Christian but lead lives that are contrary to God’s Word. “Hallowed be Thy name” is an earnest prayer to God that we don’t fall into open sin, so that our very lives become false teachers about who God is and what it means to believe in Him.

But we can also think of the saints above when we pray the First Petition. We can give thanks to God for all the parents and preachers who have finished their race in faith, who did teach God’s Word purely and correctly, so that we can know it, too. We can give thanks to God that, in spite of their sins, in spite of their weaknesses, in spite of the temptations and the persecutions that they faced, the saints above, those who fell asleep in faith, did sanctify the name of God through their confession of sins, through their confession of faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and through their confession of Christ before the world. We can give thanks to God that they are now among those who sanctify our Father’s name perfectly, together with the holy angels.

Is it strange to think of the dead as we pray the Lord’s Prayer? It shouldn’t be. Because as Jesus has said, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Nor is He the Father of the dead, but of the living. Those who died in faith are actually alive. They’re just calling God “our Father” from a different place, from a place where we can’t go yet but will go eventually, by our Father’s grace and with His help and protection. So tonight, and whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, let us remember with thanksgiving the whole family of our Father, both below and above. Hallowed be His name! Amen.

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The Church still forces its way into the world

Posted on October 31, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation

Revelation 14:6-7  +  Matthew 11:12-15

On this Reformation Day, we turn our thoughts to the Gospel from Matthew 11 and make some applications to the past, present, and future of the Christian Church.

Those four short verses from Matthew 11 that you heard today are somewhat cryptic because they’re somewhat figurative. At the time Jesus spoke these words, John the Baptist was in prison, Jesus had just praised him as the greatest among the prophets. But He had also just noted that “the least in the kingdom of heaven” was greater than John. Why? Because John would not be around to see the kingdom of heaven coming in full force into the world.

John marked the end of an era. He was the last of the prophets to foretell the future coming of God’s kingdom into the world through the reign of Christ the King. He wouldn’t live to see Christ ruling as King from the cross, or risen from the dead, or beginning His reign at the right hand of God at His ascension, or the King’s sending of His Holy Spirit into the world to build His kingdom at the Day of Pentecost. No, John didn’t get to be a part of the New Testament era, whereas you and I and all believers since do get to be a part of it.

Still, although the kingdom of heaven hadn’t yet come in full force, it had been coming in force since the days of John, when he first began preaching his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, announcing that the Christ had come and was already in their midst.

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven is forcing its way, and forceful people are laying hold of it. The word we’ve translated “forcing its way” is one of three possible translations. God’s kingdom either forces its way, or exerts force or violence, or suffers force or violence. “Forcing its way” fits best with the parallel passage in Luke’s Gospel, where he explains how it’s “forcing its way,” in that the Gospel is being relentlessly and forcefully preached, in spite of opposition, doing “violence” to the norms of the day and to the false religion that had nearly overtaken the Church of Israel at that time. Even as the Church was being persecuted, even as John the Baptist sat in prison and was about to be put to death, Christ’s Church, the kingdom of heaven, was actually taking over, forcing its way into the world. The kingdom of God was actually winning, although it appeared to be losing.

Like the prophet Elijah before him, who faced strong opposition from King Ahab and from Queen Jezebel and from all the false prophets who were leading the people astray at that time, John the Baptist would preach to the people of Israel during times of opposition and apathy within Israel. John was a prophet who would have a powerful impact on the people, as God’s instrument for forcing His kingdom into this world that is under Satan’s control, a prophet who would preach seriously, earnestly: Repent! Your time is short! This is no time to sit back and relax. There’s no more time for business as usual. Because the Christ is here! And if you squander this opportunity, this chance to come into the kingdom of heaven through faith in Jesus the Christ, you will be sorry!

And forceful people were seizing the kingdom of heaven, were laying hold of it. What does that mean? Again, Luke explains: People are “forcing their way” into the kingdom of heaven, seizing it in the face of opposition, laying hold of it, and not letting go, people like the tax collectors and harlots and sinners of all kinds, who had once been alienated from the kingdom of God because of their impenitence, but were now eagerly rushing into it due to the force or the power of the Gospel; people like the Gentiles—the Canaanite woman, the Samaritan woman, or the centurion. Jesus is referring to the serious men and women in Israel who recognized: This is it! I can’t go on as I have been. I must change. I must turn my thoughts, no longer to a comfortable life in this world, but to the life that is with God. They laid hold of the kingdom of God by repentance and faith in Christ Jesus.

It’s a good thing for the Church to force its way into the world, and for forceful people to lay hold of it. In fact, Christians always get into trouble when the Church is at ease, when life for the Christian is comfortable and easy. St. Augustine saw that long ago, long before the Reformation. During the days of horrible torture and persecution of Christians, the Church suffered violence, but the Church also forced its way into the world. It held firmly to the sound doctrine of the apostles. And forceful people laid hold of the faith to the point that they were willing to be tortured and thrown to the lions rather than deviate even a bit from the confession of Christ. But then what happened? After Constantine turned the Roman empire into a friend of the Church in 312 AD instead of her enemy, it took less than a hundred years, according to Augustine, who lived at that time, for the Church to grow soft, complacent, comfortable, tolerant of sin, and willing to compromise in order to avoid even a little suffering. Then Rome itself fell, and Augustine interprets it as a warning and wake up call to the Church that had declined significantly when the times grew peaceful, when the Church grew comfortable, and when Christians no longer had to lay hold of God’s kingdom and cling to it for dear life.

You want to talk about forceful men laying hold of the kingdom of God? Try questioning the doctrine and the politics of the pope in 16th century Europe, publishing 95 Theses (on this day in 1517) that you know will anger the people who have the power to excommunicate you, banish you from your country, and burn you at the stake. Try being summoned before the powerful Cardinal Cajetan, as Martin Luther was in 1518, threatened with excommunication and being burned at the stake as a heretic. And then summoned again to stand before the Emperor, Charles V, 500 years ago this year, with the threat of death hanging over his head. And then living under constant threat for the rest of your life, for another 25 years, hearing reports of other Christians being burned at the stake—Christians who believed the very same things as you. Imagine being the Electors of Germany in 1530 who had to defy their elected Emperor in order to continue to practice their Lutheran faith. Yes, it took forceful men to lay hold of the kingdom of God at the time of the Reformation, true heroes of the faith who led the way in rejecting the darkness of Rome’s doctrine and laying hold of the core teaching of Scripture: That sinners are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone.

But those who weren’t the main characters of the Reformation story were also heroes and “forceful people” in their own way, the members of the churches who heard the voice of their Good Shepherd in the preaching of Luther and who were willing to abandon centuries’ worth of traditions and allegiances and family ties in order to follow Christ faithfully.

And that’s what this forcefulness is about: following Christ, no matter what it means for your earthly life and wellbeing. Standing on the Scriptural truth that you are saved by faith alone in Christ Jesus and not by any other means or by any other merit. Standing on His Word in the face of powerful “experts” who assure you that they know better. Living according your conscience, informed by God’s Word, and not according to the mandates of earthly rulers. And being ready to suffer for it.

For a time in our country, Lutherans enjoyed relative safety and security in being Lutherans, in being Christians. Christianity, at least in a generic, external form, was celebrated here and recognized as something good, something right, something beneficial. American culture, more or less, used to line up with Christian values. You weren’t tarred and feathered for proclaiming that marriage is only between a man and a woman, or for recognizing God’s creation, or for acknowledging a male as a male and a female as a female. You didn’t even get in trouble for asserting that Christ Jesus is the only way to salvation. Not everyone believed it, but it didn’t make you a target to say it.

But that was a historical aberration. And as result, we grew soft, complacent in our religion, just as Americans in general have grown soft and comfortable and fearful of anything that might disturb our comfort. We began to think that the Christian life on earth is supposed to be this way, comfortable, easy, popular, acceptable—and that compromise is better than suffering.

Those days are over. God is calling on Christians once again to renew our zeal, to become forceful again. Not violent against our neighbors. Not forceful in fighting for our rights. But forceful about holding onto and holding out the kingdom of heaven, forceful about clinging to Christ and His Word in the face of opposition. Forceful about confessing the faith once for all delivered to the saints to a world that will hate what it hears, but it needs to hear it, so that the forceful few of the elect who remain to be converted may be converted and enter the kingdom of heaven.

How can we be so forceful? Because the Son of God has shed His blood for us and has taken up His life again to defend us against all sin, all guilt, all the devil’s accusations, and all the world’s fury.

How can we be so forceful? Because we have something firm to stand on. Not the theological musings of the theologians. Not the fickle feelings of popes or the decisions of councils that are so prone to err. But the Word of the Lord that endures forever.

How can we be so forceful? Because God has given you His Word. He’s given you His Sacraments. He’s given you His Spirit. He’s given you heroes to learn from and to imitate, Elijahs and John the Baptists, the saints and apostles, Martin Luther and the Lutheran Reformers. Above all, He has given you His Son Christ Jesus as a Hero, as a Model, and as a Savior.

How can we be so forceful? Because we know, by faith, that the Church of Christ Jesus is winning and will win. It will continue to force its way into the world and throughout the world, . Seen or unseen, in ways big and small. And soon, when the Lord appears, the devil’s kingdom will crumble. But even before then, the victory is already ours. Or as the hymn says, “The kingdom ours remaineth.” Amen.

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The Third Article of the Creed, Part 2

Posted on October 27, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Sts. Simon & Jude (Small Catechism Review)

1 Peter 1:3-9  +  John 15:17-21

So you believe in the Holy Spirit. That is, you believe that you cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, your Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified and preserved you in the true faith, even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and preserves it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all sins to you and all believers, and on the Last Day He will raise you and all the dead and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ. That’s what you mean, isn’t ?, when you say you believe in the Holy Spirit. And you’re absolutely sure about it, aren’t you? Because to all this you say, This is most certainly true.

Last week we talked a little bit about the Person of the Holy Spirit, how He works through the Church and the ministry of the Word to call people by the Gospel and to enlighten them with His gifts. We noted that Luther called His work “Sanctification.” Let’s expand on that this evening.

There are two uses of the word “sanctification” in Scripture. We talked about the first one last week. The very first sanctifying act of the Holy Spirit is when He brings a poor sinner to faith in Christ, separating him out of the devil’s kingdom and setting him apart in God’s kingdom. In that sense, “sanctification” is really a synonym for “justification” and “reconciliation” and “regeneration” or “rebirth,” which are all synonyms for the forgiveness of sins. That’s why we confess “the forgiveness of sins” in the Third Article of the Creed, because while Christ earned the forgiveness of sins for us, it is the Holy Spirit who has to bring us to faith, so that our sins can actually be forgiven. Because without faith in Christ, no one stands forgiven before God.

This is the problem with “Objective Justification” or “Universal Justification.” Those who believe that God forgave all people when Christ died on the cross or rose from the dead are removing the Holy Spirit from God’s act of justification, whereas Scripture is clear that the Holy Spirit is directly involved in that act of forgiveness. Paul writes to the Corinthians, You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. That’s because it’s the Spirit of our God, working through the Church, who calls sinners by the Gospel and brings them to faith in Christ Jesus, in whom we have the forgiveness of our sins.

Justification is an act. It’s a declaration on God’s part. It’s a state in which the believer stands as God regards us as perfect saints, as He chooses to judge us through Christ, being covered with the perfect righteousness of Christ. But the more common use of the word “sanctification” involves more than justification. In the narrow sense, “sanctification” is the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of helping the saints to live like saints, carefully avoiding sin and zealously doing good works. It’s synonymous with the term “renewal,” the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of helping God’s children to live like God’s children, nurturing the New Man to live a new life of obedience to God.

Both parts of sanctification are summarized in one verse from Hebrews 10: For by one offering He (that is, Christ) has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. He “has perfected,” that is, he has justified, those who “are being sanctified,” that is, in the ongoing renewal that the Holy Spirit is working in us.

This ongoing renewal is also sometimes referred to as “new obedience.” Why is it “new”? How is it different from the “old” obedience?

The “old” obedience was the obedience the Old Testament Law required, unfailing, unflinching, strict obedience to every detail of the Law of Moses, whether it was a moral law or a ceremonial law or a civil law. In fact, that obedience was part of the Israelites’ part of the covenant. “We will obey,” they promised. It was the obedience that was required to keep the covenant, to avoid punishment. It was the obedience that, in the end, resulted from fear and coercion.

The “new” obedience is described by Jeremiah as he prophesies the New Testament of Christ: Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” When the Holy Spirit brings people to faith in Christ, He also write God’s law in their minds and on their hearts, making them willing imitators of God, willing servants. Love is still God’s commandment, and His Ten Commandments are still guides for us to understand what “love” looks like. But our motivation is different than it was under Law. We love Him because He first loved us. We don’t obey God’s commandments in order to earn forgiveness, but because we have been freely forgiven through faith.

And so St. Paul urges us to “walk with the Spirit,” as the Spirit pulls and prods and encourages us to say “no” to sin and “yes” to righteousness, to love, even when it’s hard, and to show mercy to others, because of all the great mercy we’ve been shown by God.

That’s sanctification, and it won’t be complete in this life, because we still carry around our Old Adam, our sinful flesh, who’s always fighting against the Spirit and the New Man. As Luther once wrote, This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is the road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified. Or, if you will, “sanctified.”

Now, before we finish our discussion of the Third Article and the Holy Spirit’s work, we have to mention that other work of His called “Preservation.” The Preservation of the First Article was God’s preservation of His creation and His protection of His children from harm and danger. The Preservation of the Third Article is the Holy Spirit’s work of keeping us or preserving us in the one true faith, keeping us with Jesus Christ. How does he do that? It all comes back around to the means of grace. To the word and sacrament. Those are the Spirit’s special tools for keeping us in the Holy Christian Church. Without his ongoing help and preservation, we would quickly fall away. We would quickly give in to our flesh. We would quickly, or at least eventually, stop relying on Christ alone for our salvation, and the devil would have us back.

But St. Paul gives us reason to hope: I am confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Holy Spirit won’t abandon you after He brings you to faith. He will preserve you. But He insists on doing it through means, through the instruments of Word and Sacrament. Through those means, He’ll continue to preserve you in the faith and to help you stand under the cross, in times of persecution and hardship and doubt and fear. There will be the Holy Spirit working in you until you’re complete, that is, until the Last Day, when He will raise you and all the dead and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ. Then, and only then, will His work of sanctification finally be done.

This is most certainly true. That’s what you confess at the end of each article of the Creed. Now remember that it’s all certainly true, and live and believe accordingly! Amen.

 

 

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The faith part of the whole armor of God

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 21

Ephesians 6:10-17  +  John 4:46-54

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul gave us that beautiful analogy of the Christian as a battle soldier, fighting, not against our fellow man, but fighting a spiritual battle against the devil and his demons and against their influence in the world; as a battle soldier, equipped, not with firearms or physical weapons, but equipped with the spiritual body armor that God provides, and with a spiritual weapon. The battlefield is your every-day life in this world that’s destined for destruction. It’s not for nothing that we call the Church on earth the “Church Militant.”

Among the spiritual pieces of body armor that God provides is the shield, and that shield is said to be faith, faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Since today’s Gospel focuses specifically on the faith of the nobleman who came to Jesus, we’re going to have a look at the faith part of the whole armor of God, which is essential for standing and withstanding in the battle that is raging all around us and in which God has made us all battle soldiers.

Jesus had performed a single miracle up in Galilee so far, His first miracle of changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Then He had gone down to Judea and had performed many miracles there. And many of the Jews from up in Galilee had seen those miracles, because they had also gone down to Judea to attend the feast of Passover. Now Jesus is back in Galilee, back in Cana. And a nobleman from the town of Capernaum—about 16 miles away from Cana—has heard that Jesus is back from Judea. He either heard of Jesus’ miracles there or he himself had been there to see them. Either way, he believed that Jesus could help his dying son. He went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

There’s faith there. A little faith, at least. Faith in Jesus’ power and willingness to cure an earthly disease. It isn’t necessarily saving faith—faith in Jesus as his Savior and Redeemer from sin—but at least the nobleman believes Jesus can help. He also assumes, apparently, that Jesus has to come with him, has to be there in the room with his son to perform the healing.

Jesus’ first response is a warning, and an expression of righteous frustration on God’s part. Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe. Believe what? That Jesus can do miracles? Well, they already believed that, after seeing all the miracles He had performed in Judea and after hearing about changing water into wine right there in Cana. But this is important. Jesus is just beginning His ministry, and He has done several miracles. But those miracles were not the purpose of His coming. They were to be signs confirming His teaching. They were to be signs confirming that He had been sent by God, that He was the promised Christ, and that He was to be their Savior from the enemies of sin, eternal death, and the devil. That’s what the people were supposed to believe, and not primarily because of the miracles, but by the power of Jesus’ teaching, that is, by the power of His Word, both the Word written in the Old Testament and the Word that He and John the Baptist had spoken. In summary, they were supposed to believe Jesus’ words and promises.

But hardly anyone believed in His words and promises. Their faith was limited to what He could do for them to improve their earthly lives. And even that faith was built on the foundation of what they could see with their eyes.

The nobleman was still in that category. But he was desperate, and he did believe Jesus could help his son. Lord, come down before my little boy dies!

Jesus was willing to help, but not to come down with the man to his house, not to give the man an outward proof to hang his faith on or to cling to. No, Jesus simply said, Go! Your son lives. Nothing to look at, nothing to see. Just a word and a promise to cling to, a word to believe.

And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken to him, and he went. Just the word and promise of Jesus. And the nobleman believed it. And because he believed it, he acted on it. He stopped begging for Jesus to come with him or to help. He left, believing that Jesus had helped him, even though he couldn’t see it yet. He left, expecting to get back and find his son healed. It may not have been a perfect faith; there may have been shadows of doubt in his heart. But Jesus’ word had given him faith, and had given his faith something to cling to.

He started walking those 16 miles back to Capernaum, had to spend the night somewhere along the way, because the miracle took place in early afternoon, and he could only walk so far before sunset. But he got up the next morning, still hopeful, and continued his journey. Then his servants met him along the way and told him his son had been healed the day before, at the same time Jesus had spoken that almighty word. Then we’re told that he himself and his whole house believed. Believed what? That Jesus had healed his son? That was no longer a matter of faith, but of sight. No, the man and his household now believed in Jesus Himself, that His word was powerful, that His word was true, that He had come from God, that He was the promised Christ, that their lives and their very souls were safe in His hands.

With that kind of faith, the nobleman was prepared for what was to come, both for himself and for Jesus. Regardless of the miracles Jesus would do over the next few years, most of his countrymen would never believe in Him. Many would follow Him for a time, but then turn back when He didn’t perform signs on demand, like they wanted. But the nobleman and his family had been brought to a faith that was stronger than that, faith in the word and promise of Jesus that didn’t require sight anymore.

That’s the kind of faith we all need. That’s the kind of faith God is looking for in each of us. That is to say, it’s the kind of faith God is working to create and to build up in each of us. God isn’t looking to create faith in you by showing you any other signs but the ones He has already given. He isn’t looking to bring you to faith or to strengthen your faith with bright lights or shiny visions or spectacular miracles, and certainly not with the testimonials that other people might give of such things. He gives you His Word, recorded in Scripture, preached by a pastor in His name. And He expects that to be enough.

He gives you His word that the water of Baptism saves. You can’t see it washing away sin. You can’t see it giving new birth or sealing the new birth of faith. You can’t see the Holy Spirit working in it. But Jesus speaks the word that Baptism is a washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, and He expects you to believe it. He expects His word to be enough.

He gives you His word that “this is His body” and “this is His blood” in the Sacrament. You can’t see anything but bread and wine. You can’t see or taste the body that was sacrificed on the cross or the blood that was poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. But Jesus speaks the word about His holy Supper, and He expects that to be enough.

Of course, it isn’t enough for our sinful flesh, for our fallen human reason. We demand to see a sign of God’s love and faithfulness, to see a sign that tells us, “God is truly on our side!” Or, “This is the right church and not that one.” Or if we don’t demand it, we simply refuse to be comforted by God’s promises, we go on living in despair, as if the world is as out of control as it seems, although, according to God’s word, Christ still reigns at the right hand of God and is still working all things together for good to those who love Him.

No, you need to repent of your reliance on human reason and what your eyes can see. You need to repent of the despair and the hopelessness that your experience tells you is all too reasonable. And you need to listen to Jesus again, just to Jesus, just to His Word, and cling to it for dear life, whether it’s His Word about Baptism or the Lord’s Supper, or about the final victory of His Holy Christian Church, or about the raging spiritual battle in which you have been made a battle soldier.

With the shield of faith, He says, you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. What are those flaming arrows? They’re attacks on your soul—spiritual attacks. They come in the form of temptations, for example. Temptations to sin against any of the Ten Commandments. Temptations to go along with the world in order to avoid persecution, to be silent when you know you should speak, to ridicule when God calls on you to show mercy, to hate when God calls on you to love. Temptations to despair, or to disbelieve God, or to forfeit the peace and joy that God offers in His Word. With the shield of faith, you’ll be able to extinguish those flaming arrows.

Those arrows also come in the form of persecution itself, and the many forms of injustice and mistreatment by others that threaten to make you bitter and angry and sorrowful. With the shield of faith, you’ll be able to extinguish those flaming arrows, too.

Those arrows also come in the form of lies, lies from false teachers and false prophets about who God is and what God’s will is, lies from government officials, lies from “scientific experts” to support demonic agendas, lies from your own neighbors and from your own culture about what is right and wrong anymore. With the shield of faith, you’ll be able to extinguish those flaming arrows. That doesn’t mean the lies go away, or the persecution goes away, or the temptations go away. It means they won’t be able to harm you. They won’t be able to get to your heart or to your soul to destroy you.

Faith is powerful protection in this battle—not the only protection, as Paul mentions other pieces of armor—but still powerful. Keep your faith focused on the word of God alone. Believe what He says, no matter what things look like. And don’t waste your time looking for signs. You have the word of God. And that is enough. Amen.

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