The basic truth of the Trinity

Posted on May 30, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Holy Trinity

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

There are many “gods” in the world, that is, imaginary gods that exist only in people’s minds. The god of the Jews who reject Jesus; the god of the Muslims; the gods of the Hindus, and all the gods of the pagans. They aren’t real, and yet they are worshiped as if they were. There are also other kinds of “gods” in the world, that is, created persons or things that people have turned into their gods. But who is the true God, the real Creator of all things, the One who is separate from the creation itself? He is the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible: one God, who is three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. This God, our God, is both Trinity (“Threeness”) and Unity (“Oneness”).

The eternal Father eternally begets or brings forth the Son, who is true God from true God, a distinct Person from the Father, and yet one God, together with the Father. The Spirit of God proceeds from the Father, through the Son, to bring life to the creation. So don’t think of God as the Father over here, and the Son over here, and the Spirit over here. Think of God as the Father in the back, as the Son in front of the Father, begotten of Him, and as the Spirit in front of the Son, proceeding from the Father and the Son, so that every time you think of God or pray to God or worship God, you have in your “line of sight,” as it were, all three Persons at once.

The Pharisee Nicodemus, in today’s Gospel, actually stumbled upon the Trinity of God by accident when he spoke to Jesus: Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. “Rabbi,” referring to Jesus. “Come from God,” referring to God the Father. And doing signs by the power of God, who was with Him, a reference to the Holy Spirit, who is credited with signs and miracles throughout the Old and New Testaments. Nicodemus didn’t understand the Trinity at that point, but he was right in what he noticed.

Jesus goes on to teach him more about this mystery, focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit, who is, in a sense, our contact-point with God as the one who brings us to Jesus and to the Father as He reaches us through the divine Word, whether it’s the Word as it’s preached with sound alone, or the Word as it’s combined with earthly elements, like the water of Holy Baptism, or the bread and wine of Holy Communion, so that it becomes a Sacrament. It’s the Spirit who comes in Word and Sacrament to enlighten our eyes to see Jesus as our Savior, and, seeing Jesus as our Savior, to see God as our Father. And when that happens, we are reborn.

That rebirth, that “being born again” is absolutely necessary for a person to be saved. As Jesus says, Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. A person’s first birth is worth nothing when it comes to entering the kingdom of heaven. Just being born does not make a person a child of God. On the contrary, our first birth, our natural, fleshly birth lumps us in with the rest of fallen humanity. Flesh gives birth to flesh. Sinful human beings give natural birth to sinful human beings, so that, by nature, by birth, we were dead in sins and trespasses, children of wrath, just like the rest, as Paul writes to the Ephesians.

Unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God…Spirit gives birth to spirit. You can’t work your way into heaven. You can’t earn your way into heaven. You can’t even atone your way into heaven. You have to become an entirely new person, and that’s not something you can do to yourself, just as a baby can’t give birth to him or herself. You have to be born again spiritually, given birth to, not by your mother, not by yourself, but by the Holy Spirit, which He accomplishes through His instruments of Word alone, or Word plus an earthly element, in this case, water. Baptism is described, not only here, but throughout the New Testament as the Spirit’s means of giving new birth and the forgiveness of sins. As we heard last week in Acts 2, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Gal. 3, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. In Eph. 5, Baptism is called the washing of water by the word. In Titus 3, Paul says, He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. And Peter says in 1 Pet. 3, baptism, which also saves us now.

Jesus goes on explaining to Nicodemus, The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. Such is everyone who is born of the Spirit. You can’t see the wind (the word Jesus uses for “wind” here is the same word as “spirit,” by the way), but you can hear it. So you can’t see the Holy Spirit. But you can hear Him as He calls out to sinners through the Word, “Repent and believe! Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ! Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved!” And some who hear—those who don’t stubbornly resist the Spirit’s work—are brought by the Spirit to believe and so are born again.

Nicodemus answered him, “How can these things happen?” Jesus answered him, “You are the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? These are the basics of the Jewish/Christian faith! First of all, the basic truth of the Trinity of the one God. From the creation account, where God, spoke the creative Word, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters; or from God’s words, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness;” or from the threefold benediction, “The Lord bless, the Lord make, the Lord lift;” or from the threefold word of praise from the angels in Isaiah’s vision: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts;” or from the words of Isaiah, “The Spirit, of the LORD, has anointed Me,” that is, the Christ; or from the words of the Psalm, where David says, “The LORD said to my Lord,” referring both to the Father and to the Son as Lord; or even from the very word for “God” in Hebrew, “Elohim,” a plural noun that’s always used with a singular verb when referring to the true God.

What’s more, Nicodemus, as the teacher of Israel, should have understood from the Old Testament man’s natural sinfulness and lostness and need for rebirth. He should have understood the work of God’s Spirit through preaching and through the Sacraments, which included circumcision in the Old Testament. He should have understood the most basic thing of all: how a sinner can enter the kingdom of God, only through faith in God’s promises, especially the Father’s promise, through the Spirit’s Scriptures, to send a Savior into the world who would be both God and Man and would become the once-for-all sacrifice for sin.

But even the basics are often beyond those who call themselves scholars and teachers. They become so wrapped up in their knowledge and position that they fail to listen to the words they know so well. How many teachers there are in Christian churches who deny man’s natural, sinful state, who ascribe some power to man to regenerate himself, to believe, to choose God, who deny God’s promises attached to Baptism and search long and hard for some other way for people to be born again. Likewise, how many teachers there are who go looking for the Holy Spirit in their feelings or in tongue-speaking, even as they ignore the work He does through Word and Sacrament.

Truly, truly I tell you, we speak what we know, and we testify to the things we have seen, and you people do not accept our testimony. Now, who is the “we”? Well, it’s Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Spirit testified through preaching and the accompanying signs that Jesus was doing. Jesus testified as the Preacher, the One who was sent. And Father testified by sending Jesus into the world, and by sending His Spirit to testify about Jesus. But here we learn another solemn truth: God does not compel people to be born again; He doesn’t force them to believe. The Spirit works on them through the Word, but He does not work by His omnipotence. He doesn’t force people to live. He allows Himself to be resisted as He works through the Means of Grace, a stern warning not to receive His grace in vain.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, namely, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. Another mystery of the Holy Trinity. Jesus, who has come down from heaven, speaks to Nicodemus as someone who has already ascended into heaven and who, even as He stood there speaking to Nicodemus, was in heaven. Now that’s a “heavenly thing” that no mortal can understand. Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of God, assumed human flesh in the womb of the virgin Mary, as we confessed today in the Creed. And so there are two natures, a divine and a human, but one Christ. According to His human nature, He confined Himself to time, so that He descended from heaven and was conceived, then born, then grew up, then ascended into heaven again. But according to His divine nature, Jesus is eternal, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He exists outside of time, in the past, in the present, and in the future, all at once. And yet He isn’t two separate Persons, the divine nature doing one thing while the human nature does something else. No, He is one undivided Person, one Christ.

Is that too difficult? Is that too lofty? That’s OK. Jesus leaves that saying to stand on its own and goes back to focus on something much more basic, something much simpler to understand: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. You remember the story from the Old Testament. The Israelites had complained again in the wilderness, so God sent venomous snakes to punish them—to bite them and to kill them. But when they cried out to Moses for help, Moses took their sad situation before God, and God gave him a remedy. Make a serpent out of bronze, put it on a pole and lift it up in the middle of the assembly, and whoever looks up at it will be saved. What clearer, more basic picture could there be? All men have sinned against God and are rightly punished for it and in danger of eternal death. But the Father gave Jesus, the Son of Man, to be lifted up on a cross, so that whoever looks to Him in faith is saved from eternal death. The whole purpose of the Holy Trinity, and the whole purpose of the Son of God taking on a human nature, is man’s salvation: through faith in the Son, who was sent by the Father, and who is revealed to our ears and hearts by the Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament.

There are many “gods” in the world. But none of them can save. Salvation comes only from the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you know Him rightly, then you have the Spirit of God to thank for it, who worked powerfully through Word and Sacrament so that you see the Son and the Father, even as the Father sent the Son, and the Father and the Son sent the Spirit so that you might be reborn as His precious child, so that you might spend eternity with the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The miracles attest: Repent, be baptized, and remain devoted

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

On this great festival of Pentecost, we turn to the words that the Holy Spirit, whose coming we celebrate today, inspired St. Luke to write in the book of Acts, chapter 2. In fact, the inspiration of Scripture is one of the many works attributed to the Holy Spirit, as Peter writes, Prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So it is with good reason that we mention again the verbal inspiration of the New Testament Scriptures, because it’s connected with what Jesus promised in today’s Gospel: the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I have said to you. Jesus’ promise, combined with the fulfillment of the promise on Pentecost, is the reason why we have absolute confidence in the words of the Bible.

As you know, the Jewish feast of Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, took place every year. But the one we celebrate today took place ten days after Jesus’ Ascension and 50 days after His resurrection. On that day, Jesus sent the Spirit from the right hand of the Father, as He promised He would. He poured the Spirit down upon His gathered disciples in Jerusalem, as a cloud pours rain down upon the earth. So the Spirit was poured out on the Church.

But a spirit, by definition, can’t be seen. A spirit has no physical form of its own. How was anyone to know for sure that the Holy Spirit had come? That was the purpose of the three miracles that occurred on that day, as we heard in today’s reading. It began with the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. Not a natural wind, because it wasn’t accompanied by the swaying of trees or the blowing of air. Just the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. And since the word “wind” is related to the word “spirit,” that was the first sign that this was the arrival of God’s Spirit. It was also a sign of how the Spirit would do His work in this New Testament period, invisibly, like wind or breath, working on the hearts of men through the preaching of the Gospel, preaching, which is made up of breath and sound formed into words.

Second, there were the tongues of fire resting above the heads of the disciples, another miracle indicating the Spirit’s presence. Tongues, because the Spirit would work through the tongues of men, again, through the preaching of the Word of God. Of fire, because the Word of God is compared to fire in Scripture. As God said through Jeremiah, “Is not My Word like a fire?” And what does fire do? It burns and it spreads. It sets other things on fire. In the same way, the Spirit would kindle the fire of faith and love through the preaching of the Gospel, faith and love that would spread throughout the world like wildfire, even as the preaching of the Gospel would spread throughout the world like wildfire.

And third, the actual tongues of the disciples were then turned into the Spirit’s instruments to proclaim the wonderful works of God in many languages, languages that were known to the hearers visiting Jerusalem that day, but unknown to those who spoke them. It was no accident that the Spirit was sent on a day when large crowds were gathered in Jerusalem from all the surrounding nations. It was God’s purpose to show that Jesus the Christ was the Savior of the whole world, to show that the Gospel was intended for every nation, tribe, language, and people, that there is no such thing anymore as a favored race or a favored language. It signified that the Gospel is truly to be preached in all the world, in all the languages of men, so that not just a few lucky people in Jerusalem, but all men everywhere might be brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and so be saved from the wrath that will one day be poured out on the world for all mankind’s sins.

Our Epistle today ended with the miracles, but the day of Pentecost wasn’t really about the miracles. Again, the miracles were just there to get people’s attention and to confirm the word that the apostles would preach. So we would do well to listen to Peter’s sermon on that day. Let’s turn back to Acts 2 and pick up where our Epistle left off:

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.’ “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the LORD always before my face, For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’ “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” ’ “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they remained devoted to the apostles’ doctrine, and to the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.

That sermon. That is what Pentecost is about. That is what the Holy Spirit does. He empowers Christians to preach the Gospel clearly and boldly, and He works through their preaching.

What a beautiful summary of the Gospel we have in Peter’s sermon! Jesus went around doing good. His words were attested and confirmed by God through all the many miracles He did. You should have listened to Him! But instead, you mistreated Him and crucified Him and killed Him. But God raised Him from the dead, just as He said through the prophets that He would. And now He has seated Him at His right hand to reign as Lord and Christ, to crush His enemies and all who oppose Him in due time.

Then, once the hearers were cut to the heart and realized just how much danger they were in for sinning against God and for disbelieving His Christ at first, the Holy Spirit adds the rest of the Gospel: Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. The answer to your sin, says the Holy Spirit, is not to keep sinning, but to repent of your sins, to grieve over them and to fear God’s wrath. But there is hope for those who repent! A sure hope that cannot fail. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized in His name for the remission of sins, for the forgiveness of sins. That’s the answer! Not pretending to be innocent. Not redeeming yourself. Not atoning for your sins. But faith in the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and in the atonement price He paid with His blood. Where there is faith, where there is Baptism, there is forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The Holy Spirit worked in, with, and through that preaching on the day of Pentecost to call men to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. He then brought the believing to Holy Baptism, where He washed away all their sins and gave them new birth and new life. And then He continued to work in the baptized believers so that they remained devoted to the apostles’ doctrine, and to the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. In other words, the Spirit didn’t just create faith in all those people and then leave them to go off on their own. No, He continued to drive them to the Word of God as the apostles preached it. He drove them to gather with one another and to love one another. He drove them toward the “breaking of bread” (clearly a reference to the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper). And He drove them to the prayers by which they, as a Church, continued to seek God’s help.

The same Holy Spirit is still at work today whenever the Gospel is preached, whenever Christians are gathered in the name of Christ. We don’t have the same kinds of miracles to attest to the truth of the Gospel as they did in the early days of the Church, nor do we need them. How often does God need to prove Himself, after all? How often does He need to confirm the apostles’ doctrine with miraculous signs? Again and again, for each and every generation? Is the Spirit’s early testimony in the Church worth so little that we won’t believe it unless we see the signs for ourselves? Certainly not! Instead, believe the testimony of the apostles and of the early Church! Understand that the Bible itself, and the very existence of the Holy Christian Church throughout the world, and the perpetual ministry of the Church, and the continual administration of the Holy Sacraments are all visible signs from God that we should listen to His Spirit in the Word. So listen to the Spirit and repent, with daily contrition and repentance. Listen to the Spirit and be baptized, if you haven’t been, and if you have, then live each day according to the New Man who was born in Baptism. Listen to the Spirit, and remain devoted to the preaching of God’s Word, and to the fellowship of the Church, and to receiving the Lord’s Supper, and to the prayers that will most certainly result in God’s help and guidance, until the Church is fully gathered and fully sanctified, until you join the Lord Christ at the right hand of God and see for yourself the awesome work that the Spirit of God has been doing on earth since that great day of Pentecost, in which you—praise God! —have been given a part. Amen.

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The planned (apparent) failure of the Church

Posted on May 16, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

What expectations do you have for the Church, or for your own future as a member of the Church? On Thursday, we heard the apostles’ expectation, or at least what they hoped the future would look like: Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? They expected glory, one victory after another for the Church of Christ, now that Christ was risen from the dead. They looked for Jesus to make everything right, for truth to prevail, for light to shatter darkness, for the good guys to win.

Basking in the glory of Christ’s resurrection, they seem to have forgotten Christ’s words on Maundy Thursday. He told them in no uncertain terms what the future of the Church would look like, what their own future held. It wasn’t glory. It wasn’t victory. It was widespread rejection and being killed. It was “failure,” as most people would measure failure. And yet, clearly the “failure” of the Church was planned by God all along. The testimony about Christ had to go out, had to be rejected and persecuted, had to “fail.” And yet, through this apparent failure, those who testified and appeared to fail would actually be victorious, and the Church would be built, even as it was battered and beaten down. This image, this picture of a failed Christian Church is constantly held before our eyes in Holy Scripture, so that we may know, it’s only an apparent failure, and it’s all part of God’s inscrutable, incomprehensible plan.

For the fourth time since Easter, we return to the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday evening, where Jesus is giving His disciples some much-needed instructions before His death, resurrection, ascension, and beyond. As we’ve seen for several weeks now, everything, the whole future of the world and of the Church, hinges on the coming of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

He “proceeds from the Father,” Jesus says, and from the Father to Christ, and from Christ He is given to the Church. He will testify about me, Jesus says. And who better to testify than one of the holy Three Persons, an eyewitness to everything the Father wills and thinks, to everything the Son is and does? As Paul says to the Corinthians, For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

He will testify about Jesus in several ways. First, He would testify about Jesus internally, in the apostles themselves, so that they would understand Christ’s whole doctrine rightly and be equipped to preach Him correctly and record His words and teachings accurately. This is what gives us confidence in the New Testament Scriptures, just as we have confidence in the Old Testament Scriptures. The Scriptures are the infallible testimony of the Spirit of truth, the only infallible witness the world will ever have, save for Christ Himself when He walked the earth.

Second, the Spirit would testify about Jesus externally, to the world, through the visible manifestations of the Spirit’s gifts. The miracles of Pentecost were divine, supernatural testimonies, certifying and confirming the apostles’ testimony about Jesus. The manifest gifts of the Spirit accompanied the apostles and their preaching throughout their lifetimes, from speaking in tongues, to prophecies about the future, to casting out demons, to miraculous healings. Those miracles were external signs that the apostles were telling the truth about Jesus, the Spirit of God testifying to the world that all men should listen to these apostles of Christ, that they should repent and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Third, since the preaching of the apostles carried the Holy Spirit to the hearers, who made their preaching powerful and effective, the Spirit would testify about Jesus in that way also. He would work through the preaching of the Law to convict sinners, to bring people to see their sins and mourn and fear, as sinners ought to fear before the holy and righteous God. Then He would work through the Gospel, through the Means of Grace to create, strengthen, and preserve faith.

Finally, the Spirit would also testify about Jesus internally, within each believer. As Paul writes to the Romans, The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

But the Spirit would not be off doing all this testifying on His own somewhere. He would do it through the testimony of the apostles. Jesus says, You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. The eleven apostles were the eyewitnesses of everything Jesus said and did during His ministry on earth, eyewitnesses of His teaching, eyewitnesses of His character, eyewitnesses of His miracles. So they would be called on by God to testify before the world, much as the prophet Isaiah was called on by God to testify to Old Testament Israel.

But do you remember what Isaiah’s message was to be? The Lord told him, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate, The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But, God called Isaiah to preach! Isaiah would preach the truth of God, with the power of God! And yet his testimony would, in human terms, be a failure.

So, too, the testimony of the apostles. Jesus tells them, They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is doing God a service. And these things they will do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But, they would have the Spirit of God working in them and with them! They would use all the right words, do all the right things, and still, they would be hated, excommunicated, and killed! And the ones responsible for it would pat themselves on the back and pretend to be doing it all in God’s name, for the good of the society, for the good of the church.

Learn a lesson from this! We like to think that the truth will always prevail in this world. If we just use the right words, if we just lay out the facts clearly enough, if we’re just filled with enough of God’s Spirit, if we just use the right method, or the right music, or the right instruments, or the right tone, then the world will be convinced, then Christ will be welcomed by the world with open arms, then the Church will grow and flourish, and any who stand in the way of Christ and His Church will perish. But that is not what Jesus says. You can use all the right words, give Spirit-filled, eyewitness testimony, offer miraculous proofs from the Spirit of God Himself—and men will still ignore you, or reject you, or worse. After the time of the apostles, some Christians would be marginalized, others would be handed over and put to death. What happened to the apostles by the hand of the Jews and the Roman empire would happen here and there throughout history, until the Roman Church would take over for the Jews and persecute Christians, and the governments of the world would take over for the Roman empire. Even now, apostate and heretical churches persecute true Christians, and the governments of the world are still the Church’s enemies.

Sometimes Christians think this is strange or wrong. They think this or that government is going to come around and save them, is going to be the friend of Christians. They think this or that church body is immune to the haughtiness and pride that has overtaken so many other churches. But that’s simply not the way it is. It’s not at all what Jesus foretold.

But for that very reason, we should have expected this all along. We should have never expected outward success for the Church, or even to be tolerated by the world. Jesus said, I have told you these things so that you may not stumble…I have told you these things, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

So, what? Is there no hope for the Church and her testimony about Christ? Of course there’s hope! That’s the point! Jesus told His Church all this ahead of time. Her apparent failure is part of His plan. You may see the Church persecuted and failing. You may be counted worthy to suffer for Christ yourself, even to the point of death. But this is how the Gospel prevails in the end. Isaiah’s ministry was an apparent failure, a planned failure. But through him, the Lord preserved a small remnant of believers in Israel, as He had promised to do. The apostles were almost all tortured and put to death for their testimony. But through them and through the many persecutions of the Church, the Lord saw to it that His Word remained and grew right there in the midst of defeat.

This is the picture of the Church in every age, a battered and beaten, barely surviving Church, with only brief periods of respite and peace. It’s the picture of the Church that’s given throughout the book of Revelation, where, for most of the New Testament period, it looks like the Gospel is failing, but in the end, Jesus wins, and the Church wins, that little flock that remains faithful to Jesus, that endures hardship and the cross without despairing and without giving up.

Too many Christians refuse to accept this picture of the Church. They run around, looking for growth and success and good feelings and the world’s acceptance. And they find churches that look like that. But the true Church, according to Scripture, rarely looks like that.

So instead of shrinking back from this truth, embrace it. Embrace the well-known reaction of the world to the testimony about Christ. And continue to trust in Christ that He knows what He’s doing. Continue to trust only in the Gospel of Christ to convert those who will be converted, and to preserve the battered and beaten Church until the end.

And remember, we have not been left on our own. The Comforter has come, as promised, and though we weren’t eyewitnesses of Jesus’ words and works, we are eyewitnesses of the Spirit-inspired writings and teachings of the Apostles, and of the Spirit’s working in our own hearts, bringing us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ Jesus for forgiveness. By His working, we confessed our faith this morning in the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic Church. We are not left powerless or ignorant. The Comforter has been poured out on the Church, and He now abides with us until the end of the age.

That end of the age is closer now than ever before. The end of all things is near, Peter told us in the Epistle. Therefore, be sensible and sober so that you can pray. But above all, have fervent love among yourselves. Let that be our answer to the world’s hatred of us. Let us love one another all the more, and let us bear the Church’s apparent failure, with all the suffering it entails, both with patience and with assurance that our Father’s plan is being accomplished in us and through us. Amen.

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The tasks ahead for the Church and her Head

Posted on May 13, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of the Ascension

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

Between Mark’s Gospel and Luke’s account in the book of Acts, we get a pretty well-rounded picture of the time Jesus spent on and off with His disciples after He rose from the dead. Mark condenses it all into a single account, as if it all happened at once. But Luke makes it clear that the various things happened over the course of 40 days, between Resurrection Sunday and Ascension Thursday, as Jesus instructed His disciples about the tasks that Christians would be carrying out after Jesus’ departure, during this time between His Ascension and His coming again, and about the tasks Jesus Himself would be doing during that time. If we pull together other sayings of Jesus and of St. Paul in his Epistles, we see an outline of the tasks ahead, for the Church and her Head.

After Jesus had convinced the eleven apostles on Easter Sunday that He had truly risen from the dead, He immediately began giving them instructions for the tasks that awaited them in the days ahead, following His Ascension. One of those instructions, which applied only to the apostles and believers at that time, was this: To not depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, “which,” he said, “you have heard from me. For John baptized with water; but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Now, this was, by far, the easiest task Christians would have to do: simply wait. Wait to be “baptized” with the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus call it a baptism? Not to replace water baptism, since He Himself had instituted water Baptism and connected a promise of salvation to it: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And it wasn’t to institute a “second baptism” that all Christians are to undergo. No, this would be a special gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit, given on the Day of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension, a gift that would “bathe” them, be “poured out” on them, which is what the word “baptize” really means. But once the Spirit was poured out on the Church, from that time forward, water Baptism included the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is why St. Peter preached to the crowds on Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” even as Baptism is called the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” and why the baptized are said to be “born of water and the Spirit.” We’ll say more about that two Sundays from now.

At that point, the apostles still didn’t understand the tasks Jesus was leaving to them, or the tasks He would be about. Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Jesus’ answer is important. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has established by his own authority. It’s not for you to know the timing of God’s plans, and that’s for the best. Imagine, if the apostles had known it would be some 2,000 years or more before the “restoration.” They couldn’t have imagined at that time how earthly Israel would never have the kingdom restored to it, how the nation of Israel was going to keep rejecting the Gospel of Christ, for the most part, and would therefore fade into irrelevance, how the kingdom of heaven was actually going to incorporate Jews and Gentiles into a new and spiritual Israel, which is the Holy Christian Church. They understood it later, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, but not yet. They couldn’t have imagined how God would turn disasters into blessings, or persecutions into boons for the Church. That wasn’t their task. It’s not for us to know the timing, either, or to figure out the methods the Lord will use to direct the events of the earth for the building of His Church. That isn’t your task.

It was their task, as apostles, it is your task, as a Church, to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, to be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It is your task to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, to teach all nations to observe everything Christ has commanded you, to “do this” consecrating of bread and wine and eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood “in remembrance” of Him. It is your task to “watch and pray,” to be “sanctified in love,” to “lead holy lives,” to be “imitators of God, as dearly loved children.” It is your task to “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

All those tasks have been given by Christ to His Church to carry out during this time between His Ascension and His coming at the end of the age, all with the presence, strength, and guidance that His Holy Spirit will continue to provide. And it’s more than enough to keep us busy until Christ comes, whether it’s very, very soon, or whether it’s not during our earthly lifetime.

But He will come. He promised it, and so did the angel on the day of Christ’s Ascension. After Jesus was lifted up into the sky and hidden from the apostles’ sight, two men, two angels, in white clothing stood by them. And they said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

What does it mean that Jesus was “lifted up” and “hidden from their sight”? It means that Christ, the Head of the Church, would no longer dwell visibly with His Church, which is His body. And yet, the Head hasn’t been severed from the body, as if the Church were now decapitated. He remains the Head, firmly attached to His body, only invisibly. He is by no means far away. On the contrary, St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, He is the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And, God gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

But what are some of the tasks ahead for Christ, our Head? Well, they’re all summarized by the phrase, “seated at the right hand of God.” As Mark writes, So, then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. As we just saw, that’s not a “place” or “location” where Christ is enclosed, far away from us. It’s a position of power and authority. Paul says in Ephesians, God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet.

And what does He do with that power and authority?

His “first” task was to pour out the gift with which He had promised to “baptize” His apostles. As Peter said, Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

What else does Scripture tell us about Christ’s tasks at God’s right hand? St. Paul comforts the Romans with this truth: It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. That means that all who repent of their sins and look to Christ for forgiveness and deliverance from God’s righteous judgment have an Advocate before the Father at all times and never need to fear, as long as they keep looking to Christ alone in faith.

Jesus Himself had told His disciples earlier about one of His tasks after His ascension: In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. Even now, Christ Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, is fulfilling this promise, seeing to it that you are guarded and guided through this life, seeing to it that you have everything you need to persevere in the faith, including access to the Means of Grace, to Word and Sacrament, so that you reach the mansions of heaven, as long as you use those means and don’t despise them.

In order to provide you with the Means of Grace so that you safely reach that place He’s preparing for you in heaven, the ascended Lord Christ also carries out another task. Paul writes, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men…He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. The existence of pastors is no accident, and no human design. The ministry exists in the Church because Christ gives it from the right hand of God as His tool and instrument for creating and strengthening faith. As Peter says, God has exalted Christ to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins, so that, even though the ministry is carried out by men and the Church is built and nourished and preserved through the ministry of men, Jesus could rightfully say, on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. He even confirmed the preaching of the original ministers He had sent by empowering them to perform miraculous signs, as you heard at the end of the Gospel: They went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with the accompanying signs.

Finally, the ascended Christ carries out another task in which we can take great comfort. Psalm 110 says, The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” And Paul adds in 1 Cor., For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. Do you see the enemies gathering against the Church of Christ? They’re everywhere. The devil rages. The world grows fiercer and fiercer. And one of the Church’s enemies even lives inside each of you, the sinful flesh that wars against the Spirit and would lead you to abandon the faith and perish. But at the right hand of God sits the ascended Lord Christ, who invisibly wages war against these enemies, reigning over the governments of the world and the plots of the devil, so that, although they devise evil and carry out wicked plans, it must all serve for the good of those who love Him, until He conquers them all at His glorious return.

So truly you have nothing to worry about. You have nothing to fear. Your Lord reigns over all things. His purpose is good. His plan is right. So instead of worrying or trying to figure everything out, be about your God-given tasks and wait just a little while longer. Meanwhile, the Head of the Church is constantly carrying out His vital tasks, too. When He’s done, He will come, and the reckoning will come, and those who are still found as living stones and faithful members will finally see the Head of the Church, to whom you’ve been united all this time by faith. Then you’ll know Him also by sight. And the Church and her Head will live together as Bride and Groom, happily ever after. It’s a true story. Believe it! And rejoice! Amen.

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The only prayer God doesn’t hate: Prayer in Jesus’ name

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Easter 5 – Rogate

James 1:22-27  +  John 16:23-30

You may be aware, our U.S. Congress has designated the first Thursday in May, which was this past Thursday, as a National Day of Prayer. But I’ll tell you something which will sound very strange to most people: a National Day of Prayer in our pluralistic society is as useless as a national day of Thanksgiving. In fact, worse than useless, it has become an abomination to God, a celebration of idolatry and falsehood, and I urge you never to come together with this or any nation to pray as a nation.

Let me read to you a portion of the White House’s proclamation for this past Thursday:

“Throughout our history, Americans of many religions and belief systems have turned to prayer for strength, hope, and guidance. Prayer has nourished countless souls and powered moral movements — including essential fights against racial injustice, child labor, and infringement on the rights of disabled Americans…Today, we remember and celebrate the role that the healing balm of prayer can play in our lives and in the life of our Nation.  As we continue to confront the crises and challenges of our time — from a deadly pandemic, to the loss of lives and livelihoods in its wake, to a reckoning on racial justice, to the existential threat of climate change — Americans of faith can call upon the power of prayer to provide hope and uplift us for the work ahead…On this National Day of Prayer, we unite with purpose and resolve, and recommit ourselves to the core freedoms that helped define and guide our Nation from its earliest days.  We celebrate our incredible good fortune that, as Americans, we can exercise our convictions freely — no matter our faith or beliefs.  Let us find in our prayers, however they are delivered, the determination to overcome adversity, rise above our differences, and come together as one Nation to meet this moment in history.”

I left out some of it, but nothing important. There’s a whole lot wrong with this proclamation, including some of the things for which the president would have us pray. But did you catch the most glaring omission? In the entire proclamation, including the parts I left out just now, you notice who’s not mentioned even once? God. God isn’t mentioned at all. God isn’t even implied. Instead, prayer itself is given all the credit here. The act of praying is what has the power to “nourish,” the power to give “strength, hope and guidance,” not any “God” to whom anyone might be praying. That alone is an abomination in God’s sight. But understand, even if “God” had been mentioned, it would still be an abomination, because it wouldn’t be the true God. It would be all the “gods” of the “many religions and belief systems” of America. The truth is, there is only one God, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A prayer to any other god is a prayer to an idol and a demon. You think the true God is pleased with such prayers? You think the true God is pleased when Christians “come together as one nation” to pray to the false gods whom so many of our fellow citizens worship? Not at all. In fact, He hates it.

But there is a form of prayer and a coming together to pray that He loves, and that He commands, where He promises to hear and answer, and that’s the kind of prayer Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel, the only prayer that is pleasing in God’s sight, the only prayer He doesn’t hate: The prayer in Jesus’ name.

When will Jesus’ disciples be able to pray this way? In that day, Jesus says. He has just spoken of the “little while” when they wouldn’t see Him, and again the “little while” after which they would see Him and rejoice, and even the “little while” until He would go to the Father, when He would ascend into heaven. So “in that day” refers to the time after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the time in which the apostles would spend the rest of their lives, the time in which we still live.

In that day, Jesus says, you won’t ask Him anything. Ask, as in, ask Him any questions. First, because He won’t be here with us as He was with His disciples prior to His ascension. You can’t go up to Jesus and ask Him things. But that’s OK, first, because as we heard last week, Jesus would be sending His Holy Spirit back down to His Church after His ascension, who will dwell with the Church forever and guide us into all truth.

Second, it’s OK that we won’t ask Jesus things, because there is no need. As His disciples said at the end of today’s Gospel, Now we know that you know all things and that you do not need anyone to ask you. Jesus doesn’t need you to ask Him questions, because He knows our questions and our needs before we ask.

Besides, in that day, during this time after Jesus’ ascension, you will be able to go directly to God the Father in prayer and ask Him directly for whatever you need. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

What does it mean to ask for something in Jesus’ name?

First, what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean you have to ask Jesus for things so that He can take your requests before God the Father. No, Jesus says. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not telling you that I will ask the Father for you. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” The Romanist notion that you should go to Mary or to any number of saints, so that they can take your requests before God is pure deception. According to Jesus, His people have full access to God the Father without the need for anyone, even Jesus Himself, to stand between you and God.

What does it mean, then, to pray, to ask the Father for things in Jesus’ name?

First, it means to come before God with your requests only through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul says to the Romans, Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Or again in Ephesians 3, In Christ we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. This is the meaning of the tearing of the curtain in the temple of Jerusalem when Jesus died on the cross, that now, through faith in Christ crucified, we have the forgiveness of our sins, which allows us to have direct access to God.

Now, faith in Christ implies also an acknowledging of our own sinfulness and unworthiness to stand before God. It means that we don’t claim to be worthy when we pray. “Lord, You know I’ve done many good things for You. Give me what I ask! You owe it to me!” It means that we don’t make bargains with God when we pray to Him. “Lord, if You do this for me, then I’ll do something special for You!” No, praying in the name of Jesus means asking for things with the full admission that you don’t deserve them and can’t deserve them. All you deserve is God’s wrath and punishment. But you have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who suffered for your sins, who earned God’s favor for you, and who has reconciled you to God through faith in Him. In other words, praying in Jesus’ name means daring to pray to God the Father only because you know you stand forgiven before Him of all your sins through faith in Christ Jesus.

This, by the way, is what also made the prayers of God’s Old Testament people acceptable in His sight. Because they prayed to Him as the God who had promised to send the Christ to make atonement for their sins. In that sense, Old Testament believers also prayed “in Jesus’ name.”

Secondly, praying in Jesus’ name means to come before God by the invitation, command, and promise of Jesus, the beloved Son of God. We can step before our heavenly Father in prayer, confident that He will hear us and help us, because we have been given this privilege and invitation by Jesus Himself. And He has also told us what to pray for—for all the things included in the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. For our Father’s name to be hallowed or made holy among us, in our doctrine and in our lives. For our Father’s kingdom to come, to us and others. For our Father’s will to be done among us and for every other will to be put down. For our Father to give us our daily bread, everything we need for today. For our Father to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. For our Father not to lead us into temptation, but to deliver us from every evil. To pray at Jesus’ invitation, according to the pattern Jesus taught us, is to pray in Jesus’ name.

That pattern includes, by the way, the whole pattern of prayer taught throughout the Bible, in the Psalms, in the prophets, and in the rest of the New Testament, so take note of that in all your reading of Scripture. Take note in what you read of how and for whom it teaches you to pray. Pray for one another, James writes. So today, on Mother’s Day, we’ll say a special prayer for mothers. Paul writes to Timothy, Let prayers be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. So, although we won’t “come together as a nation” to pray, we Christians will pray for our nation and for our leaders, as we always do. We’ll pray for all men in their various needs, for unbelievers, for Christians who are still our brothers and sisters in Christ, although they may still unknowingly be deceived by some false doctrine, and we’ll also pray for one another and for all the Christians who confess the faith together with us as one.

Finally, to pray in Jesus’ name is to expect your dear Father to hear and help you, because He loves you for loving Jesus. As the Lord says in the Gospel, the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. The word here for “love” is not the “God so loved the world” love, the love that covers everyone equally and seeks the best of the other, regardless of who he is or what she’s done. Rather, it’s the love of friendship, the love of liking something about someone else, the love of having something in common. In this case, the thing that we Christians and God the Father have in common is a love for Jesus, that we love Him for who He is and for what He has done. God the Father thinks very highly of people for that, even though it was God the Father Himself who drew us to Jesus through His Word and Spirit in the first place, who brought us to know and to love Jesus. And here Jesus is, telling us that the Father loves us because of that very love for which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are responsible. To pray in Jesus’ name is to love Jesus and to know that we’re loved and that our prayers are favorable to God the Father for it.

So, you see, Christians don’t need a proclamation from congress or from a president to turn us to prayer. Nor do we dare pretend that all those prayers that are not offered in Jesus’ name are anything but hateful to God. We have been given a great gift, to know the true God and to be invited to bring our prayers and requests before Him. Use that gift, and trust in the Giver always to be eager to hear and to help, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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