A supper to which all nations are invited by grace

Posted on June 21, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon (audio)
Download Sermon

Service(video)
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/431247638 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 2

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

Through the negative and the positive examples of the rich man and the poor man last week, the Holy Spirit guided us toward those two basic tenets of Christianity: faith and love. Today’s Epistle points especially to love once again, especially love “for our brothers.” But who are these brothers? Is it the “brotherhood” of all mankind, as we are all descended from one man and from one woman and are all united in one human race? Well, that brotherhood is real, and it’s important, but it’s not what St. John was referring to. No, the apostles in the New Testament and even Jesus Himself usually use the word “brothers” to refer to those who have been born again of water and the Spirit, to those who have been given the right to be called children of God, born into His family through faith in the One who became our human Brother—Jesus—in order to make us His spiritual brothers through adoption into God’s family, through Holy Baptism. St. John in the Epistle focuses on the love we Christians must show to one another as brothers in the same family, no matter which families we came from originally. The Gospel, on the other hand, focuses on how we have come together as a Christian family.

We have come together around a great supper to which God invited us all by grace. Today’s parable of the great supper is similar to another banquet parable Jesus told, recorded in Matthew 22, but that one emphasizes the things that went into God’s eternal election. Here the emphasis is on the grace of the invitation itself, and the tragic rejection of that grace by many. As with most of Jesus’ parables, it comes with both comfort and a warning. The comfort is in God’s gracious invitation to His supper, which goes out to all nations. The warning is in the refusal of many to come.

A certain man prepared a great supper. God has prepared a great supper, a friendly meal, a family meal around His own supper table. The supper is fellowship with God through Jesus the Christ. It’s peace with God, it’s reconciliation. When our race was plunged into sin by Adam and Eve, we were enemies of God, lost and condemned creatures. But He has given His Son into death for His enemies, so that we might be reconciled to Him through faith in the death of His Son as the atoning price that has been paid for all people of all nations. Christ was sent and the supper of reconciliation was prepared by grace alone, by God’s free, undeserved favor. No one deserved for God the Father to give His Son into death. It was His free gift to mankind, given for free, given because God loves to give free gifts to people who don’t deserve it.

The man invited many people to his supper. These many people were the Jews. Beginning with Abraham, then on to Isaac, then on to Jacob (that is, Israel), then on to all of Jacob’s descendants, the children of Israel. They were all told about this great supper God would prepare, about the Christ whom God would send to sacrifice Himself for their sins. As Paul wrote about the Jews in the book of Romans, To them belong the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the worship of God and the promises. To them were committed the oracles (or the sayings) of God.

For centuries, for nearly two millennia the children of Israel received those oracles and carried those oracles and preserved those oracles of God in the Old Testament Scriptures. They rebelled against the God who had told them about this supper He was preparing. They disregarded His commandments. They turned to false gods over and over again and to every form of wickedness and injustice imaginable. But the remnant, the leftover handful of believers, held onto God’s promise to prepare a supper for them, yet not only for them, but for the Gentiles, too.

Then the time finally came, when Christ was born of a woman, born under the Law to redeem those who were under the Law. The supper was ready. And John the Baptist went out to herald His arrival in Israel. Repent! John was sent out mainly to preach the Law, to expose the sins of the people of Israel to the people of Israel, so that they could realize how needy they were of the supper of reconciliation that God was about to provide. “You think you’re a good person? You’re not good enough. Repent! You know you’re bad? You aren’t wrong. But still there is hope! Repent!” Then Jesus came along and proclaimed the Gospel: The kingdom of God is at hand. Come to the supper! Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest! And so the Gospel was preached first to the Jews.

And you know how it went. The parable paints the sad picture for us even as it was happening. One after another, they all began to excuse themselves. “I bought some land, I bought some oxen, I just got married. I can’t come. Please excuse me.” It’s shocking, really. God had been preparing that supper—the giving of His own Son into the world to die for sinners—and had carried the people of Israel as a father, carried them on eagles’ wings. And now, as He offers them this free gift, they have better things to do. Most of the “good people” thought they were doing fine on their own. Most of the “bad people” wanted to keep being bad people.

The man who prepared the supper was angry, Jesus says. God was angry with the Jews who turned down His invitation and His supper. Now, there was also sadness in God when the Jews rejected His grace. We see that side of God as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. But there was not only sadness. There was also anger. Righteous anger. Controlled anger (not like the anger that takes people over and turns them into animals). But still anger, anger that caused Him to reject Israel and turn away from them, to “chop off those natural olive branches,” as Paul describes in Romans.

And yet they were chopped off only so that others could be brought in.

What does the master of the house say next to his servant, after becoming angry at the ones who refused to come to his supper? Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring the poor, and the crippled, and the lame, and the blind in here. God was going to create a family, in spite of the rejection of the Jews, a family of believers that would not be made up of powerful people or prestigious people, but entirely of “poor and crippled” people, people who didn’t deserve the invitation, much less the supper itself. And that happened already with the prostitutes and tax collectors and public sinners whom Jesus called and they did repent. They did believe. They did receive the forgiveness of sins from Jesus. They did come to His supper of grace and became sons and daughters of God, even as they became true brothers and sisters of one another. The servant told his master, Lord, what you have commanded has been done.

And there is still room, the servant said. So the lord wanted more. Go out into the highways and hedges, and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. And so Jesus foretells what the next two thousand years (and counting) will be all about: sending His messengers out, to leave the confines of Israel and to take His invitation out into all the world, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to keep all things that He has commanded them. The Gentiles—the pagans, the sexually immoral, the roughest people on the face of the earth—were to be invited to the supper, based not on their worthiness, but on God’s grace; based not on ethnicity, but on grace; based not on social or economic status, but on grace and they would come. Not all of them, but a good number. The Gentiles would be grafted into the olive tree as wild branches, made sons and daughters of God, made brothers and sisters of one another, no matter what their original tribe or race or culture may have been.

But as for the Jews who stubbornly resisted God’s Spirit and God’s grace, the verdict is pronounced at the end of the Gospel: For I say to you that none of those men who were invited will taste my supper. Now, if it’s just any fancy supper, that’s no big deal. You missed out on it. Oh well. Life goes on. But if you miss out on this supper, life does not go on. This is your one chance at life, eternal life, the life that is truly life, as Jesus once called it. This is your chance to be reconciled with God so that you have Him for a Father, so that you have Jesus for a Brother, so that you have Christians from around the world as your brothers and sisters instead of the alternative. The only alternative to having God as your Father, through faith in Christ, is having the devil as your father and hell as your eternal home.

So, as I said before, there is great comfort in this Gospel, because God’s grace extends to everyone in His gracious invitation, Come to My supper! Come to Jesus and be saved! But there is also a grave warning, which the writer to the Hebrews captured in chapter 3: Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ” Beware, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.

The Gospel invitation goes out in every generation, and every generation must hear. If you hear these words in this sermon and determine that you have better things to do than to come to God’s supper of reconciliation in Christ, if you think it’s boring or irrelevant or a waste of time, think again. Before it’s too late. God wants His home filled with guests, filled by grace. But there will come a time when the invitation is withdrawn, and the house will be full, but you won’t be in it, if you turn away.

So here. Here is the invitation once more. You get to hear it! Others? Already others do not. The invitation has gone out to all nations, but most are not here, or anywhere where the Gospel is still being preached. But you’re here. You heard the invitation and were baptized; you came to the supper. You heard the invitation and have come to church, with your brothers and sisters here; you keep coming to the supper. You know you need to keep hearing the invitation here in this world so that you can remain at the supper by faith. And you also know that you have been given an actual Supper—the Lord’s Supper—as a means of “grace,” as a means of God, in His favor, keeping you present at the Lord’s great supper of reconciliation in Christ, even as Christ makes Himself present right here in His Supper, for you. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A supper to which all nations are invited by grace

Faith and love in the rich and poor

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon (audio)
Download Sermon

Service(video)
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/429036134 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 1

1 John 4:16-21  +  Luke 16:19-31

We began the Trinity season last week seeing that the only solution for the problems of mankind is found in the new birth into God’s kingdom that is worked by the blessed Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives new birth through water and the Word. He creates Christians. He creates new people, with new attitudes, thoughts, perspectives, and desires.

Now what? Today’s Gospel about the rich man and poor Lazarus is a fitting continuation to last week’s Gospel. How does the Spirit teach and guide the New Man to live? Very simply He emphasizes two things: faith and love. Both are taught positively in our Gospel through the example of Lazarus; and both are taught negatively in the example of the rich man. But it could have easily been the other way around. So no matter where you fall on the economic spectrum, learn the Gospel’s lesson today about faith and love in the rich and poor.

Consider first the faith of Lazarus. Now, we aren’t told much about Lazarus. The fact that we’re told his name at all (and not the rich man’s name) says something. This man mattered to God. Everyone “matters,” of course, and God knows everyone’s name. But this man’s name was special to God as a son’s name is precious to his father. His life mattered.

How can you tell that Lazarus’ life mattered to God? Not by looking at external things. There are two ways. First—and this is always the main way to know what God thinks and what God wills—you can tell that Lazarus’ life mattered because the Holy Scriptures said that it mattered, and God does not lie. Where do they say that his life mattered? Let’s focus on just one verse from Genesis 17, where God ratified His covenant with Abraham, sealed with the sign of circumcision, God said, And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. There’s a reason why Jesus says that Lazarus was carried by the angels to “Abraham’s bosom.” Because he was a son of Abraham, a Jew, living in Israel, circumcised on the eighth day like all baby boys in Israel. That brought him into the covenant God made with Abraham two millennia earlier, including all the promises God made to Abraham’s descendants to love them, to be their God, and to save them through faith in the coming Christ.

Second, you can tell that Lazarus mattered to God because of what happened to him after he died. That’s not something we can usually know about someone with this degree of certainty, but here Jesus reveals it. Lazarus was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. Not only had Lazarus been circumcised externally, but he also persevered in faith until the end, even through all the earthly trials and scarcity he had to endure. How do we know he held onto faith in God? Because it is by faith alone that anyone enters the kingdom of God. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. The righteous will live by faith, Scripture says. Faith united Lazarus to Christ, and whether or not Lazarus had heard about Jesus as the Christ, he clearly had faith in God’s promise to send the Christ as the One who would make atonement for the sins of all. Faith in Christ, the true Seed of Abraham, made Lazarus a spiritual descendant of Abraham, who had a faith like Abraham’s. Faith made Lazarus a precious, adopted child of God.

But you couldn’t tell that from Lazarus’ circumstances, could you? He was poor, and not just poor, but unemployed, with no money at all, a beggar, and a sick beggar on top of it, full of sores. And as we consider the fact that God never rescued him during his earthly life from that miserable lot in life, we learn an important lesson about God: He can care very much about a person, without giving that person a comfortable life on earth. We all live in a world that remains under His curse because of sin, which means there will always be inequality among people, there will always be suffering, there will always be death, and it isn’t necessarily the fault of anyone except for the devil, except for the common fault we all bear of being sinners, who must live out our earthly life in a world that has been justly cursed by God.

Now, Lazarus could have grown bitter about his miserable lot in life. He could have cursed God for it, could have blamed God for it, could have blamed the rich man for it or resented the rich man for it, could have tried to steal from the rich man or bring him harm. But he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, even as he longed for a better life, longed to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, he avoided or at least fought against the deadly sins of covetousness and bitterness and hatred. He persevered in faith toward God and in love toward his neighbor, the rich man.

And in the end, he died, as all people eventually die, both the rich and the poor, the hungry and the well-fed, the chronically ill and the generally healthy. All die. So did he. But then all the sorrow and suffering of this relatively short life was over, and the peace and love and comfort of Paradise began for Lazarus, where Abraham says that he is comforted. And that’s a comfort and joy and peace that never ends, where all the momentary sufferings here are replaced with everlasting happiness. As Paul wrote to the Romans, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

So much for the poor man’s faith and love and end result. Now let’s look at the unnamed rich man.

The rich man in the Gospel did not have faith. And that is also clearly shown in two ways. First, by where he ended up when he died, being tormented in the flames of hell. That is and will be the fate of everyone, rich or poor, who does not flee for refuge to the cross of Christ, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

But the rich man’s unbelief is also clear from his own words to Abraham, spoken from amidst the flames. What is his cry? Does he say, “O God, I trusted in you! Why am I suffering here?” No. He doesn’t even try to pray to God. He prays to Abraham, and not for forgiveness—it’s too late to pray for forgiveness after this life—but just for a little comfort from Lazarus, for a few drops of cool water to lessen the torment. And later, when he shows some concern for his brothers who are still on earth and Abraham says that Moses and the Prophets are all they need, he shows his disregard for the Word of God. “No, they won’t listen to those outdated, dull, irrelevant words. But if someone were to go to them from the dead, they would repent.” What a horrible belief! “The Word of God is worthless for saving sinners. Only impressive miracles will work!” Of course, Abraham upholds and praises the Word of God instead. If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, then they will not be persuaded, even if someone were to rise from the dead. And so the rich man’s lack of faith is exposed.

His lack of love during his earthly life also reveals his lack of faith. We have to be careful there, because we never know anyone’s complete story, or the motivations of their heart, or the reasons behind their actions. But here we’re safe to make that judgment because of all that’s revealed in the rest of the account. If the rich man had had faith, if he had known the love of God, he would not have thoroughly ignored the beggar who lay right there at his gate. While he lived luxuriously every day—not very different from how you and I live every day in America—He offered no comfort for Lazarus at all, his fellow countryman, his fellow Jew, his fellow church member, his neighbor in every sense of the word. Remember, your neighbor is the person “next to” you, the one whom God has placed in your path to help. That doesn’t include everyone on earth. You’re in no position to help everyone or even to care about everyone on earth in a meaningful way. The rich  man could not have been expected to help every poor beggar in Israel. But this one was unquestionably his neighbor. Yet he showed no concern for Lazarus whatsoever, not even having one of his servants carry the crumbs from his table out to the poor man at his gate. As John said in today’s Epistle, If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? You don’t have to passionately hate your brother in order to hate your brother. Failing to show love to him is a form of hating him, as God judges things.

Now, it could have easily gone differently for the rich man; he had God’s Word. He had the Spirit through the Word calling him to faith and then to love. But being well off and not having to face many earthly struggles led him away from God and away from caring about his neighbor, as being well off often does. In the same way, it could have gone differently for the poor man; he could have grown bitter about his circumstances and fallen away from faith and from love. That often happens, too, among people who face many earthly struggles.

So learn from these two men in our Gospel. Learn positively from the poor man; learn negatively from the rich man. Learn to hear Moses and the Prophets, and the Apostles, too. Learn to recognize where you have fallen short in faith or love and repent daily, no matter what your position in life. Learn to turn to Christ for forgiveness that is full and free. And then learn to watch out for the temptations that are common to the different stations in life, so that, whether rich or poor or somewhere in between, you may continue to look away from yourself, looking instead to Christ Jesus in faith, and looking toward your neighbor in love. Amen.

 

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Faith and love in the rich and poor

Born again by the working of the Blessed Trinity

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon (audio)
Download Sermon

Service(video)
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/426774434 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

Thankfully, we’re almost halfway done with 2020. What a year it’s been so far! As if the whole debacle around the impeachment of the president hadn’t been bad enough, as if the pandemic itself hasn’t been bad enough, as if the tyranny of local and state governments during the pandemic hasn’t been bad enough, as if the job losses because of that tyranny haven’t been bad enough, we’re now seeing our country being literally torn apart by riots, fires, looting, shutting down of streets, violence and threats of more violence, local governments failing to stop the violence, the stoking of racial tension and some cases of actual racism, widespread police-bashing and some cases of actual police brutality. What is the solution?

You could say the solution—at least, to most of it—would be justice. “No justice, no peace,” as the chant goes. The only problem is, you know and I know (because God has told us so) that this earth is not the home of justice, the home of righteousness. It never will be. Justice has been absent from the world for 6,000 years, since the days of Cain and Abel. People have always been mistreating people, of every race. Power corrupts. Whoever gets power tends to abuse it. The kingdom of the world is not and has never been a kingdom where justice reigns, because the devil is the prince of this world and always will be, until he and the world are destroyed. So there really is only one solution that will work; it won’t fix the world, but it will enable you to deal with life in this world and it will have a positive influence on the world. The solution is another kingdom, a different kingdom, the kingdom of God, the reign of God in human hearts which begins here in this life and will be perfected in the life to come, both inwardly and outwardly. And the only way to see that kingdom, as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, is to be born again, born again by the working of the blessed Trinity.

Nicodemus was the name of the man from the Pharisees who approached Jesus in our Gospel. We heard about him on Good Friday as one of those who helped to bury Jesus after He died. That was the end, when he finally had the faith to be openly associated with Jesus. This is the beginning, when he still doesn’t. He chooses a nighttime meeting with Jesus, a secret meeting. He doesn’t yet believe in Jesus as the Son of God. But he does admit that 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.

Then Nicodemus gets his first very direct teaching from the Teacher: Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. What’s He saying there? He’s saying that a person’s first birth isn’t good enough to get a person into God’s kingdom. No matter who you are, no matter what race or ethnicity you are, no matter how good a person you think you are. A person’s first birth still leaves him outside the kingdom of God, still leaves him a subject of the devil’s kingdom, the kingdom of the world that is filled with injustice, that is going to perish in fire one day, together with all who belong to it—the eternal fire of eternal punishment. A person’s first birth still leaves him under God’s wrath and condemnation. The only solution, according to Jesus, is to be born again, to be remade entirely new.

That means, you are not just flawed by nature. You’re ruined. There isn’t just a thin crack in the glass. It has been shattered, like so many store windows in cities across America. Looted and emptied and left in shambles. That’s you, by nature, how you were born. That’s what the devil has done to our race—to our human race. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, Jesus says. Your first birth leaves you dead in sins, empty, without the Spirit of God. So everyone is born in the same shape. Everyone. Everyone has to be made entirely new, born again as a completely new person, with new thoughts, new attitudes, new perspectives, new desires.

How does that new birth take place? Nicodemus was baffled. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he really enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? He was thinking only of a physical rebirth, which is impossible. But Jesus was talking about a spiritual rebirth. Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The Spirit of God has to give birth to a person by water, by Baptism. First, even before Baptism, the Spirit comes in the preaching of the Law and convinces you that you’re not good enough as you are, that you’ve sinned against God, that by nature you’re thoughtless, careless, condescending, you’re godless, faithless, an enemy of God, and loveless toward your fellow man. You stand under God’s condemnation; you’re on your way to hell; and you can’t blame anyone else for it. No matter how badly you’ve been mistreated by others, no matter how wretched a place in life you’ve been assigned by God, you are responsible for your own actions, for your own thoughts and attitudes and desires, for your own sins against others, for your own bitterness, your own anger and hatred when others sin against you. And the Spirit of God works sorrow—contrition—in your heart, and fear of the wrath of God that you’ve brought on yourself.

Then the Spirit of God comes in the preaching of the Gospel and shows you Jesus. 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. It’s the Spirit who first painted the picture in the Old Testament of the serpent in the wilderness being lifted up by Moses on a pole, so that all the Israelites who were bitten by poisonous serpents for their grumbling against God might look up at it and be healed. Now the same Spirit of God holds that image before our eyes in the Gospel, of Jesus lifted up on the cross, suffering for the sins of the world, so that whoever looks to Him in faith stands forgiven before God the Father.

Then the Spirit of God seals that forgiveness with water that is not plain water, but the water included in God’s command and connected to God’s word, the water of Holy Baptism, which is the washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, as Paul writes in Titus chapter 3. And so God, in whose name a person is baptized—the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the blessed Trinity—works a new birth, forgives you your sins, and brings you into the kingdom of God, where the Spirit of God rules in your heart.

And guess what happens for all who are born again in this way? They’re all united. They’re all brought together as one people. Men and women, of every race, of every economic and social status and background, are made into children of God, children of one family. Even more, they’re all brought together into one person, into one Son—into the Son of God, Jesus Christ, so that, no matter who you are, if you have been born again by water and the Spirit, God the Father sees Jesus when He looks at you.

And guess what else happens if you’re born again? The old is gone. The new has come. That doesn’t mean the old is gone in the sense that it disappears. The Old Man sticks around, still self-centered, still living for himself, still focused on how other people mistreat him, abuse him, make it hard for him. But the one who is born again as a New Man doesn’t let that Old Man rule his thoughts and guide his actions anymore. The one who is born again is led, must be led, by the Spirit of God, the same Spirit who gave birth to him in that new birth of water and the Spirit.

And where does the Spirit lead? He leads to daily contrition and repentance. He leads to humility. He leads to patience, both with difficult situations and with difficult people. He leads to self-sacrifice. He leads, not to color-blindness when you look at other people, but to kind attitudes and fair treatment of other people, no matter their color. He leads to justice. He leads to courage. He leads to faith, He leads to hope, He leads to love.

Now, some of that you see in another person, some of it you don’t. The wind (same words as “Spirit”) 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 a person’s new birth. You can’t see what the Spirit has done and is doing on the inside. His work is invisible, spiritual, a new birth on the inside, followed by a new life that is lived on the outside.

It isn’t perfect yet. It won’t be perfect here in this sinful world. And the world around you may still be just as crooked and hate-filled as always. But you Christians have been born again by the working of the blessed Trinity. You have been brought into the kingdom of God, with God the Father who loves you, with God the Son who redeemed you by His blood, with God the Holy Spirit who called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, and continues to sanctify in love all to whom He has given new birth. And through the Word and through the Sacraments, He will continue to hold you up, to keep you strong, to fill you with joy and with the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding. Whatever hope remains for this world, it lies in Christians living as faithful, faith-filled citizens of God’s kingdom and spreading the Gospel of God’s kingdom, into which you have been reborn, into which all are invited to be reborn as citizens with you of a better kingdom than anything you see here, a kingdom of love that will last. Amen.

 

 

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Born again by the working of the Blessed Trinity

The holy fire of the Holy Spirit

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon (audio)
Download Sermon

Service(video)
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/424566166 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

Toward the beginning of Holy Week, Jesus said: I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is finished! We’ve certainly seen fire kindled in our country in the past few days. Our cities are burning with an unholy fire. Burning with fire. Burning with anger and rage. Burning with hatred and rebellion and violence. That’s not the fire Jesus came to send. We’ve seen the fire of disease spreading through the earth, and the fire of injustice, and the fire of tyranny, and the fire of persecution. But that’s not the fire Jesus came to send, either. Those are the unholy fires that flow from sin and are fanned and fueled by the devil until they destroy our human race.

Jesus, on the other hand, came to send a fire that He was eager to see kindled, a holy fire that would blaze after His own baptism in blood, His own blood which He would shed as the payment for the sins of the world, so that all sinners, any sinner from the beginning of the world till its end, of any color, of any race, can plead the blood of Christ before the throne of God and be saved. As of Good Friday, it is finished. As of the third day, Easter Sunday, Christ rose from the dead. And as of the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the resurrection, the fire Jesus was so eager to send was finally sent, the holy fire of the Holy Spirit.

It was a different kind of fire, of course, not the kind that burns up forests or buildings, but the kind that burns through the human heart, convicting of sin and kindling faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, where and when it pleases the Spirit of God. That fire has now been sent and kindled in every corner of the earth. But just as a wildfire that covers thousands of acres grows from one small fire in one place, so the holy fire of the Holy Spirit began as a small fire kindled in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.

The Day of Pentecost that we Christians commemorate wasn’t the first Pentecost. Pentecost means “fiftieth,” the fiftieth day, or seven weeks + 1 day after the beginning of Passover, which is why it was called the Feast of Weeks. Since the days of Moses, the people of Israel were required by God to come to God’s temple three times a year: for Passover, for the Feast of Weeks, and for the Feast of Tabernacles. Just as the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, changed the significance of the Passover forever, so the coming of the Holy Spirit changed the significance of Pentecost. It used to be celebrated as a harvest festival, and in celebration of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, 50 days after the first Passover. Now it is celebrated by Christians for the harvest of souls that began 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection, and in celebration of the giving of the Gospel of Christ, who has fulfilled the Law of Moses for us.

Let’s consider first the three miraculous signs that occurred on the Day of Pentecost. The disciples of Jesus were all together in one place, in Jerusalem, where Jesus had commanded them ten days earlier to remain until they received the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.

Sign #1: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting

Remember, the word for “spirit” in Greek and Hebrew is related to the word for “wind.” Jesus had promised to send His Holy Spirit from heaven. And now there comes this sound from heaven of a mighty, rushing wind. The sign for the disciples was clear: this is it, what Jesus promised, the sending of the Spirit.

But there was no destruction involved with this mighty, rushing wind, no visible movement at all, just the sound of the wind. So the Spirit, too, would blow through the world mightily, not visibly, but audibly, through the preaching of the Gospel.

Sign #2: There appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

Here is the fire Jesus promised to send. And it’s just like Jesus to send it in this way. He speaks of fire, and immediately men imagine some spectacular wildfire burning through the earth, or fireballs raining down from heaven. And there will be that kind of fire destroying the world on the Day of Judgment. But on the Day of Pentecost, the fire was only visible for a moment, not a raging fire, not a scary fire, not a fire to destroy Jerusalem for having crucified the Christ who was sent to them, but a fire that looked like tongues, hovering over the heads of Jesus’ disciples. This was a sign that the Spirit of God would fill the speech of Jesus’ disciples and would work mightily through the Word they would proclaim. Like a fire spreads through the earth, so the Holy Spirit would go through the earth in connection with the preaching of the Word of God.  As God once said through the prophet Jeremiah, “Is not My Word like fire?” Always working through the Word, the Spirit would convict the world of sin, and would kindle faith throughout the earth.

Sign #3: And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.

The disciples were suddenly able to speak in tongues, in foreign languages they had never learned before. In fact, they probably weren’t even able to understand what they were saying. But the crowds of Jerusalem did! The crowds of Jerusalem were attracted by all the commotion in the house where the disciples were, and the crowds who were visiting Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks from all the foreign countries in that part of the world heard the wonderful works of God being proclaimed in their own native tongues.

And so God’s Spirit confirmed the word Jesus had already spoken to His disciples: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” “Go and make disciples of all nations.” “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

We’ve talked about the signs of Pentecost and their meaning. Now let’s consider the ongoing meaning of the Holy Spirit’s coming.

The Word of Christ has gone out from Jerusalem, just as the Old Testament prophets had prophesied that it would. No longer are people directed to seek God in His temple in Jerusalem. Now God the Holy Spirit has gone out from Jerusalem seeking to build God’s temple—God’s Church—in every place, even turning human hearts into temples of God, as the apostle Paul says to the Church in Corinth, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?”

See what the Holy Spirit has done! You don’t see the Spirit of God, just as you don’t see the wind. But you see the effects of the wind. So also with the Spirit. You see His works, His effects on the world. We call the Spirit’s work “sanctification,” that is, the act of setting people apart for God as holy people, as saints. And there are two parts to sanctification: regeneration and renewal.

Regeneration means causing a person to be born again. It’s what the Spirit does through preaching and through Baptism as He convicts people of sin and brings them to faith in Christ. Regeneration is how the Holy Spirit brings people into the Holy Catholic, Christian, Apostolic Church. Some 3,000 people were regenerated on the Day of Pentecost, and that work has been continuing ever since.

These times in which we live are not the mass-expansion days of the Church. They are not the brightly blazing fire days of the Church, either. We live in the glowing embers days of the Church, the last days, where the Church of Christ seems like it could be snuffed out with a puff of air. And yet, see how the Word of God is still being proclaimed in various places, how sinners, one by one, are still being converted from unbelief to faith, still being baptized, still coming into the Church, still being changed from hating Christ to loving Christ. Here, too, in this place, the wonderful works of God are now being proclaimed in our midst, because the Spirit’s fire has spread to us, too, and has caused us to be born again. The Spirit’s work of regeneration is also called “justification,” or “the forgiveness of sins.” And it’s something He will continue to do until Christ returns, whether on a grand scale or a miniature scale, bringing more people into the Church by giving them a new, spiritual birth. This is the fire that the Holy Spirit spreads.

The other part of sanctification is called renewal. As Jesus said in the Gospel, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make a home with him. First the Spirit regenerates a person and brings him to love and trust in Jesus. Then the Spirit continually works on the reborn so that we keep the Word of Jesus. He sustains us in faith. He increases our love for God and for our neighbor. He sets us apart from the sinful world, brings us the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of sins, strengthens, guides, and molds us into the image of Christ. And He does all this work of renewal, as the signs of Pentecost teach us, through tongues, through the preaching of the Word of God, through the Means of Grace.

Do you wonder what makes Christians ready to be burned alive or have their heads cut off rather than deny Christ? Do you wonder what makes Christians ready and willing to accept heavy fines, or to lose their friends, or to lose their jobs, or to go to jail rather than renounce Christ and His truth? Do you wonder what makes Christians willing to show love to their enemies and to their friends alike? Do you wonder what makes Christians able to endure hardship and suffering with patience and with joy? Do you wonder what makes Christians able to face sickness and death with confidence? It’s all the work of God’s Holy Spirit in us, sanctifying us, renewing us and keeping us with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. This, too, is the holy fire that the Holy Spirit spreads.

And so on this Festival of Pentecost we give thanks to God for the invaluable, fire-spreading, life-giving work of His Holy Spirit. And we pray that the Spirit of God would make us wise to understand the Word of Christ, bold to confess the name of Christ, and eager to walk in love every day, no matter how much hatred and unholy fire surrounds us, until Christ comes again to save His holy people from this unholy world. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The holy fire of the Holy Spirit

Armed with the testimony of the Spirit and apostles

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon (audio)
Download Sermon

Service(video)
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/422212292 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Exaudi – Sunday after the Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

Today is that odd Sunday between Ascension Day last Thursday and Pentecost next Sunday, a sort of in-between time, not really Easter, not yet anything else. Just imagine how strange that in-between time was for the eleven apostles. Jesus ascended on Thursday. He told them they had to wait in Jerusalem for “not many days,” but they didn’t know exactly how many “not many” would be. (As we know, it turned out to be 10 days). They weren’t idle during that time. Acts tells us that the eleven stayed in that famous upper room in Jerusalem, praying. The faithful women, and Jesus’ mother and brothers were also there. About 120 disciples were left in Jerusalem at that time (hardly the multitudes that once followed Jesus), and they also gathered with the eleven during those in-between days. Matthias was also chosen at that time to replace Judas, so that there would still be 12 apostles, 12 witnesses who could fulfill the office or the ministry Jesus had given them of testifying before the world about Him and about His resurrection.

We hear Jesus talking about that testimony in today’s Gospel, again from Maundy Thursday evening, speaking about the apostles’ testimony, and how the world would react to their testimony, which is what would make the testimony of the Holy Spirit, also mentioned by Jesus in today’s Gospel, that much more important.

First Jesus speaks about the testimony of the Spirit. But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. Again, the titles of the Holy Spirit are important. “Comforter” or Encourager or Counselor. He will give you comfort and courage, encouragement and counsel. Also, “Spirit of truth,” that is, the Spirit who guides you to know and to believe and to stand on the truth with courage. Jesus promises to send this Comforter, this Spirit of truth, to His apostles after He has gone to the Father.

This verse is also where we get some of the Trinitarian language of our creeds. The Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” That’s the image we’re given of the relationship between the person of the Father and the person of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit proceeds. He goes forth from the Father, not entirely unlike the breath that goes forth from a man, except that the Breath of God is alive, is a person, is able to testify. But Jesus, as the ruler at the Father’s right hand, is the one who sends the Spirit from the Father, and so the Spirit is also said (at least in our Western churches) to proceed from the Son. Just as the Spirit once brought Jesus to the world as the Holy Spirit overshadowed the virgin Mary, so now, after the work of Christ is done in the world, He promises to send the Spirit.

He will testify about Me, Jesus says. The Spirit is called by Jesus as a witness, to give testimony about Jesus. A witness tells what he has seen or heard firsthand. So the Spirit tells what He has seen and knows about Jesus. He testifies. His first testimony was given in the words of the Old Testament, given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That testimony about God, about Christ in particular, is written so that anyone and everyone can hear it. But in this New Testament era, the Spirit does his testifying also in the hearts of those to whom He is given. St. Paul writes in Romans 8, For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

The Spirit’s reveals facts; He revealed to the apostles, and to us through the apostles, the truth about who Jesus is—not just the man they had come to know over three years, but the very Son of God whose origins are from eternity and who now reigns at God’s right hand. The Spirit’s testimony also enlightens as He continually gives the gift of faith, convincing the apostles, and now us, that Jesus is trustworthy, that we should flee to Him for refuge in the judgment, and that we will find safety in His wounded hands and side. The Spirit’s testimony also enlightens as He gives God’s children wisdom and patience and comfort and courage, making us certain that Jesus is who He says He is, has done what the Bible says He has done, and will do for all who believe in Him what He has said He will do, namely, forgive us our sins, prepare a place for us in heaven, and guard and guide us through this world until we reach that place.

The Spirit will testify about Me, Jesus promised, but you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. Notice, these words are clearly spoken, not to you and me directly, but to the eleven apostles who were “with Jesus from the beginning.” Even when they chose Matthias to replace Judas, they narrowed down their choice to just two men who had been with them from the beginning. The apostles were specially chosen to give their firsthand witness of what they had seen and heard from Christ, from His teachings and His miracles to His death and resurrection. They were eyewitnesses. Nothing less would do to form the foundation of Christ’s Church, which is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.

We talked on Thursday evening about the content of their witness, which centered on Jesus and this simple promise which they heard directly from Jesus’ lips: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. They were to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name.

But Jesus told them ahead of time how it would go for the witnesses. 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. The Jews, the ones who should have been the first to welcome their own Messiah, would instead be the first to reject and to persecute the witnesses sent by the Messiah, and they would do it “in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” They would do it thinking that they were worshiping the God of Israel. That’s a sobering thought. It reminds us that sincerity in one’s faith isn’t a virtue in and of itself. With great sincerity of faith the Jews persecuted the apostles and the early church, just as with great sincerity of faith the Muslims would do the same centuries later, just as with great sincerity of faith the Roman Church would persecute the Christians who separated from the pope at the time of the Reformation, just as with great sincerity of faith people still attack Christians to this very day, thinking they’re serving God, or at least thinking they’re doing what is right. But the result for those being attacked and condemned and even killed is the same.

Why? Why do they do this? And these things they will do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. The god who is worshiped by the Jews who reject Jesus as the Christ, the god who is worshiped by Muslims, the god who is worshiped by those who would excommunicate or kill the true preachers of Christ—that god is not God the Father, or Jesus His Son, no matter what they claim. They show by their rejection of the witnesses that they haven’t known the true God. As Jesus said to His apostles on another occasion, He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.

Still, the testimony of the apostles was not silenced, even by their deaths. It was believed by many and spread throughout the world, so that their own written testimony has come down to us in the New Testament, and the proof of their testimony still stands in the little flock, in the remnant that holds to it throughout the world.

Now, armed with the testimony of the Spirit and of the apostles, you Christians have your own testimony to give in the world. You have seen Christ’s baptism applied to yourself and to others. You have the read the primary source of Holy Scripture and you have it to cite and to share. You have the Holy Spirit’s own testimony with your spirit that, yes, you are a child of God, because you not only acknowledge your sins and unworthiness before God, but you also know Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and from death.

Armed with the testimony of the Spirit and of the apostles, live each day as Christians, as witnesses in the world according to your vocations. Your church membership is part of your witness. Your attendance at church is part of it, too. Your words and deeds in your home and in society give a testimony to the world. Make sure it’s the testimony you want to give, the testimony God wants you to give. You can’t change the witness given by others. You can’t do anything about it when other people tarnish the name of Christ. And you can’t get rid of the world’s darkness. All you can do is be a little light, shining where you are. And I promise you, no matter how the devil rages, no matter how the world gnashes its teeth, no one can put out that light. And somehow, according to the design of the One who reigns at the right hand of God, the combined light of the testimony of all the tiny little lights shining throughout the world, will be enough to sustain and to build His Church until He comes again, so that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Armed with the testimony of the Spirit and apostles