The things that went into God’s choosing

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 20

Ephesians 5:15-21  +  Matthew 22:1-14

This is the day of the Church Year when we consider the doctrine of election or predestination, God’s decree, made before the foundations of the earth were laid, to bring certain people from among the sinful human race into the eternal glory of everlasting life. It’s a teaching of Scripture that some people avoid, because they think it’s too hard to understand, while other people think too much and too deeply about it, causing them to go beyond Scripture and usually against some other teaching of Scripture. But why would we avoid anything the Lord has taught, especially when He has taught it for our salvation? As for going too deep, that’s what today’s parable of the marriage feast helps us to prevent, if we stick with its simple teaching. Many are called, but few are chosen. Few are “elected.” Let’s consider the parable and see the things that went into God’s choosing.

A king arranged a marriage for his son. God arranged a “wedding” for His Son. We often think of Christ as the Bridegroom, and the Church as the Bride. But here in the parable, the guests at the wedding are the members of the Church. Now, it may be that here, as in the parable of the Ten Virgins, the Bride is understood as the Church collectively, while also dealing with individual members of the Church separately. Or it may be that the “wedding” that’s referred to here is not Christ’s marriage with the Church, but the uniting of the two natures, divine and human, in the Person of Christ. And that’s more likely, I think, because the events of this parable begin at Christ’s first coming, whereas the parable of the Ten Virgins deals with His second coming.

It’s certainly a Scriptural teaching that the eternal Word, the only-begotten Son of God, was “wed” to human flesh at the time of the incarnation, when He was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary. We call it the “personal union.” The divine nature of the Word united with the human nature in one Person who is Christ. One Person who is both true God and true Man.

That “wedding” was certainly something worth celebrating. God had not only entered our world, but our very race as human beings. And He did it, because God saw in eternity, even before the world was made, that the human race would fall into sin and separate itself from God. Adam and Eve would fall, and so all their children would be born under the curse of sin. And so, in eternity, God in His purpose and counsel ordained the following, first of all (from the Formula of Concord:Solid Declaration, Article XI):

  1. That the human race should be truly redeemed and reconciled with God through Christ, who, by His faultless obedience, suffering, and death, has merited for us the righteousness that helps us before God and also merits eternal life.

In order to redeem and reconcile the human race, the Son of God had to be wedded to our race. And then He had to work as a man to live a life of obedience, to suffer for our sins, to die for our sins, to merit or to earn for us the righteousness that helps us before God and eternal life. The first coming of Christ, from His incarnation to the resurrection, is the wedding, and the marriage feast is a place with Him in His holy Church, redeemed, washed, cleansed, forgiven people of God.

The King sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding. The Jews had been invited long before. God had announced the coming and the work of the Messiah in the Old Testament. The invitations had been sent out by the Prophets. Many had been called. So when Christ came, God sent His angels on the night of Jesus’ birth to call the shepherds. Later, He sent John the Baptist, and then the Apostles to tell the people of Israel, “The kingdom of God is hand! Come to the marriage feast!” Truly, many were called!

This was the second part of God’s decree of election: 2. That such merit and benefits of Christ be presented, offered, and distributed to us through His Word and Sacraments.

But they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.

You see, the Jews made much of their “election.” They were God’s “chosen” people, after all. They thought, we’re already God’s elect people because of our descent from Abraham. And our obedience to the Law of Moses proves our election. We have no need of this Jesus! So many simply disregarded the call and went on with their business. Others were so angry at receiving the invitation that they persecuted God’s servants, God’s messengers.

And we wonder, why were they so angry at receiving such a gracious invitation? The answer is that with the invitation came an accusation. You’re not fine on your own. You’re not fine as you are. You’re sinners, excluded by nature from God’s holy presence. You can’t stay where you are, who you are, and be saved. You don’t deserve it. You can’t earn it. Instead, repent of your sins and receive God’s free gift of salvation in Christ!

To those who refused, to those who wanted to consider themselves among God’s elect without turning to Christ for salvation, the king showed no mercy. When the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. No, you aren’t among the elect if you stubbornly resist the Gospel invitation to come to the marriage feast, to seek forgiveness in Christ, to be a part of His Holy Christian Church. You can tell that God is serious about that invitation, serious about wanting all those invited guests to actually show up at the feast, by how angry He is at their refusal. And God did send armies against Jerusalem, twice over the next hundred years, to destroy those who persistently rejected the Gospel invitation. He often sends temporal, earthly punishments to such people, in addition to the eternal punishment that awaits.

But the King was not willing to cancel the marriage feast because of those who turned down the invitation. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.

The Gospel continues to go out, in spite of all those who have rejected the invitation. And the wedding hall is being filled and will keep being filled until the Last Day. The Holy Spirit will keep working through the Gospel call, and some will be brought to faith. This is the third and fourth part of God’s election decree: 3. That by His Holy Spirit, through the Word, when it is preached, heard, and pondered, Christ will be effective and active in us, will convert hearts to true repentance and preserve them in the true faith. 4. That the Spirit will justify all those who in true repentance receive Christ by a true faith. He will receive them into grace, the adoption of sons, and the inheritance of eternal life.

But our parable ends on a sad note. When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Along with a place at the table in the marriage feast of God comes a wedding garment: the righteousness of Christ. His righteousness, credited to our account by faith, justifies us before God. But in those who have been justified, His righteousness also has an effect on our lives, so that we are to become more and more like Him in this life, though never perfectly and always mingled with great weakness and many stumblings on our part. We often refer to it as sanctification in the narrow sense, the Holy Spirit’s work of renewing Christians day by day, molding us into the image of Christ. And the tools He uses to mold us and to renew us and to keep us in the faith are the Means of Grace, the gifts He has promised to continue to provide for His people always, so that we’re never left alone, never on our own to maintain our own faith or salvation. So a man without the wedding garment is a person who has either entered the membership of the Church under false pretenses in the first place, never actually having put on the garment of the righteousness of Christ by faith, or it’s a person who wears it for a while, but grows tired of it and takes it off, stops hearing the Word and receiving the Sacraments or stops listening to what he hears, gets wrapped up in the cares and pleasures of this life, no longer prays diligently, and no longer wears the righteousness of Christ, either in faith or in action.

For many are called, but few are chosen. Who are the called? They’re all those whom the Gospel invitation has reached. “Repent and believe the Good News! He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Whoever does not believe will be condemned. Most of the people on earth at this time are among the called. But who are the chosen? They are the ones who end up remaining forever at the marriage feast of God, those who will ultimately live forever with Him in His kingdom. Jesus’ parable reveals to us that the ones who dwell with God forever aren’t there by chance or because of their own worthiness or works. They were chosen by Him before the time of creation. But the parable also reveals how that choosing works, so that no one should say, “Well, I’m chosen, no matter whether or not I hear and ponder God’s Word, no matter whether or not I believe in Christ or become part of His holy Church, no matter whether or not I continue to use His gifts, grow in grace, fight against the devil and temptation or pray.” No, it doesn’t work that way. At the same time, no one should say, “Maybe I’m not chosen, even if I do hear God’s Word, even if I do believe in Christ, and use the Means of Grace, and pray diligently, and struggle against the flesh.” No, it doesn’t work that way, either.

God’s decree of election covers everything from His desire that all men should be saved, to His sending of Christ to make atonement for all, to His sending of the Means of Grace, the working of His Spirit in those Means, the justification of believers, the sanctification of the justified, and the preservation of Christians—a preservation which He carries out, not automatically, but through the ministry of the Word, through the Means of Grace, through hearing our prayers, through providing the help we need at every moment to remain faithful until the end. God’s decree of election includes steps 5-8 just as much as it includes steps 1-4: 5. That He will also sanctify in love those who are justified, as St. Paul says (Eph. 1:4). 6. That He also will protect them in their great weakness against the devil, the world, and the flesh. He will rule and lead them in His ways, raise them again when they stumble, comfort them under the cross and in temptation, and preserve them for life eternal. 7. That He will also strengthen, increase, and support to the end the good work that He has begun in them, if they cling to God’s Word, pray diligently, abide in God’s goodness, and faithfully use the gifts they received. 8. Finally, that He will eternally save and glorify in life eternal those whom He has elected, called, and justified. Those are the things that went into God’s choosing.

Jesus preached today’s parable primarily as a warning against those who take His election for granted. But for those who take His warning to heart, for those who use the help He gives, it serves as a great comfort. How do you know you’re among the elect? Believe the Gospel call! And then pay attention to all the other things we discussed today, the things that went into God’s choosing. As Peter writes, Be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

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A man who stood. A Church that stands.

Posted on October 27, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation

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

The festival of the Reformation must be pretty important. It’s the only festival in the entire Church Year that has been added to our liturgical calendar of festivals, the only “new” festival in well over a thousand years, celebrated already in the 1560’s in some parts of Germany, and it’s become an annual celebration for Lutherans ever since.

And what are we celebrating? Well, we’re celebrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as we do every Sunday. But specifically, we’re celebrating how that Gospel was proclaimed by a man who stood, and by a church that stands.

But let’s back up for a moment and consider the words of today’s Gospel from Matthew 11 and see how it applies to this celebration.

John the Baptist was in prison for preaching God’s Word. He had sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus was the Christ who was to come. We’ll look at that part of Matthew 11 in just a few weeks, during the season of Advent. John, you recall, had been a forceful preacher of repentance. He stood against the Jewish religious leaders who had strayed from the right understanding of the Law of Moses. He stood against King Herod, who had married his brother’s wife while his brother still lived. He stood against his own disciples when they wanted him to keep his popularity even after Christ came on the scene. He stood, not on human reason, not on the decrees of any councils, but solely on God’s Word. He said what needed to be said, no matter what the consequences may be.

In our Gospel, Jesus says, If you are willing to receive it, he—John—is Elijah who is to come. We can see the similarities between John and Elijah. Elijah was also a forceful preacher of repentance. He stood against the idolatry of the northern kingdom of Israel. He stood against the powerful rulers of his day—wicked King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel. He stood against the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel as the lone preacher of the LORD God of Israel.

But what does Jesus mean, “Elijah who is to come”? Remember the prophecy at the end of the book of Malachi: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. God promised to send “Elijah” before the coming of the day of the LORD. Many of the Jews thought that God would literally send the man Elijah from heaven back down to earth, but Jesus explains that “Elijah” was to be understood figuratively, about a man who would come and preach like Elijah once preached, who would stand like Elijah once stood. John was the promised man who stood for the true God in the face of much opposition, as Elijah had once done.

And, you recall, Elijah eventually had to flee for his life as Jezebel sought to destroy him. He ran away to a mountain where God spoke to him and comforted him, much as Jesus did with John in the words just before our Gospel. And there on the mountain, God revealed to Elijah that, for as alone as he felt, God had preserved a remnant—7,000 in Israel—whose knees had not bowed to the false god Baal.

In the same way, partially through John’s preaching, God had preserved a remnant in Israel at the time of Jesus. He had turned the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, as Malachi prophesied. Many people in Israel were repenting, being baptized, and turning to Christ. Hear again what Jesus said: From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. “Suffers violence” is a possible translation. But here I favor the old NIV’s translation: From the days of John the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. In other words, through John’s forceful stand for the truth, God had raised up forceful men who were laying hold of that truth and rushing into the kingdom of heaven, daring to confess their sins, daring to be baptized, daring to put their faith in Jesus as the Christ, daring to stake their soul’s eternal salvation, not on human reason, not on the popular teachings of the Church at that time, but solely on the Word of God which centers on God’s mercy in Christ Jesus. God was raising up for Himself a Church that stood on the Gospel.

Now, how does all that apply to this celebration of the Reformation of the Church?

We’ve chosen October 31st as the actual date for celebrating the Reformation because of what Luther did on that day in 1517, nailing his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. But it’s not the Theses themselves that we celebrate. Don’t get me wrong. They were good and well-reasoned. They touched on important questions that would affect the Church for centuries to come: How far does papal authority actually reach? Does it reach beyond the city of Rome? All the way to Germany? All the way to purgatory? What good are the indulgences that the pope signs? How can he claim to forgive the penalties imposed by others? Worse, how can he charge money for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God?

Still, it wasn’t so much the issues discussed in the 95 Theses that were so striking, but the simple fact that a lowly priest, in that 16th century environment—not unlike the environment that John the Baptist faced in early first century Israel—should question the status quo or even try to discuss doctrinal inconsistencies in the Catholic Church. The pope and the leading men of the Roman Church were to be supported and believed, not questioned—certainly not publicly! —and not doubted.

But there stood Luther, defying pope and emperor, insisting that the Holy Scriptures must be the source and the arbiter of all our doctrine. There stood Luther, convinced by Holy Scripture that the penalties paid by Christ on the cross are the sufficient and only price of mankind’s redemption and reconciliation with God. There stood Luther, pointing to Jesus as the one Mediator between God and man. There stood Luther, pointing to faith in Christ Jesus as that by which alone God justifies any and every sinner.

We can and should thank God for what He accomplished for His Church through Martin Luther, as through a divinely sent messenger or “angel,” like the one we heard about in today’s Epistle from Revelation 14, whom many Lutheran theologians have applied to Luther himself: an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.”

Now, if Martin Luther had stood alone, all by himself, on the truth of God’s Word, then the world might still be filled with nothing but the deviant version of Christianity which was being taught by the Roman Church of the 16th century, with countless souls still cowering for fear before the righteous God, still putting their hope in the Virgin Mary and in the other saints, still living in fear of purgatory, still following the superstitions of monkery and relics and manmade forms of worship. But because Luther stood, God was able to use him to bring the light of the Gospel to countless others, to free them from the superstitions of Rome, to put the Bible into their hands so that they could read it for themselves and allow the Scriptures to interpret the Scriptures instead of relying only on the pope to interpret it for them. Forceful men laid hold of the kingdom of God, refusing to be bullied by Rome or by the emperor, refusing to be silenced by those who claimed to be wise, but whose opinions were built on nothing but human doctrine. And so, although the Roman Church continued to oppose Luther until the day he died, the Holy Catholic Church stood by him and stands by him still.

That’s what we celebrate today. The man who stood on God’s Word, and the Church that stands on it, too. Not that we give the glory or the credit to Luther or even to the Church. No, to God alone be the glory. But Christians through the ages who have stood firm on the Gospel of Christ Jesus have been God’s tools and instruments to bring the Gospel to us, pure and untainted by the doctrines of men.

What will you do with it? What will you do with this gift of the pure Gospel of Christ, handed down by the apostles, preached in the Church throughout the ages, obscured by human errors and abuses but then magnificently restored through Luther and men like him? We’ve seen the pure Gospel obscured again since Luther’s time, both by Protestant groups and by many who claim the Lutheran title. We’ve seen people abandon the Lutheran faith for the sake of apathy, for pride, for convenience, for persecution and ridicule, for love of this life and the trappings of the bigger church. What will you do with the Gospel?

Will you be meek with it? Timid? Will you treat is as of minor importance in your life? Will you be ashamed of it? Will you toss it away when the weight of the cross becomes heavier than you wish to bear? Far be it! Far be it from you who have been cleansed, from you who have been washed in Christ’s blood, from you who have received, from the pure grace of God, the everlasting Gospel in the purest form in which it exists on earth! Far be it from you to be intimidated by those who mix truth with error or by those who don’t know the truth at all! Far be it from you, who are truly faith-ful, to behave as those who live by sight and not by faith!

Instead, recognize the treasure you have been given, the comfort of a faith founded on the immovable rock of Holy Scripture, on the sure and certain Means of Grace, the Gospel in Word and Sacraments, on the actual, historical, apostolic faith once delivered to the saints. Give thanks for it! Treasure it! And then stand! Stand on the truth of Christ! Stand on it against the devil, against the world, and against your sinful flesh. Stand on it in the face of error. Stand on it in the face of despair. Stand on it in such a way that the world around you knows where you stand.

Stand on it, together with the true Holy Catholic Church of all times. Stand on it with Luther, and let his words before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms become your own words: “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.”

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The commandments & the promises

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 18

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

The Old Testament is an interesting place. It’s largely historical narrative, from the beginning of the world, to the worldwide flood, to the scattering of the nations, to the formation of the Hebrew people and the recounting of their 2,000-year history, from Abraham to Christ. But within that history are embedded two main teachings: the commandments and the promises, the Law and the Gospel. When I say ‘promises,’ I mean the promises of grace that didn’t depend on the people’s obedience. There were also promises of the Law, of course: If you obey, then you will receive such-and-such a reward. But the promises of grace were different. They were things God promised to do for His people, not because of their obedience, but usually in spite of their disobedience, things He promised to do “for free,” because He is gracious, kind, and good.

The commandments and promises are there throughout the Old Testament, starting in the Garden of Eden, where there was the command not to eat from the one tree. And attached to the commands were usually also punishments, like, “or you will surely die.” But then there was also the promise, after Adam and Eve disobeyed, God’s promise to send the Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head, God’s promise to be the God of Israel, to bring captive Israel back from captivity, to establish a New Covenant of the forgiveness of sins. Even in the Law of Moses, the commandments existed alongside the promises, and sometimes the promises were wrapped up inside the commandments. For example, there were many commandments surrounding the sacrifices the Israelites were to bring. But within those sacrifices were also found the promises of forgiveness and grace in the blood of the coming Christ.

Still, there was a heavy emphasis in the Old Testament on the Law, the commandments, what Israel was to do. They were a heavy “yoke” that God imposed on the people of Israel, to weigh them down with works and with sins, to hammer into them the reality of their sinfulness and uncleanness. The commandments were a “tutor,” as St. Paul called them, to lead them to Christ, so that, by the time He came, they would be yearning to be set free.

But by the time of Jesus, the Jews were so caught up in working at keeping the commandments that it was as if blinders had been slipped onto their faces, so that all they could see were the commandments, the commandments, obedience, obedience, do, do, do, do, earn, earn, earn, earn God’s acceptance and a place at His heavenly banquet. That’s one of the main reasons why the Pharisees hated Jesus so much. It’s not that He denied the commandments. It’s not even that He didn’t often repeat the commandments. But He kept going back to that other part of the Old Testament, to the promises, as if there were an entirely different way of entering into God’s favor: not by keeping the commandments, not by doing, but by believing in the promises.

One of the Pharisees in our Gospel wanted to keep the focus on the commandments. He put the question to Jesus: Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Not an easy question. There were lots of laws. 613 of them, by some people’s count. Civil laws, concerning crimes and punishments in Jewish society; ceremonial laws—which foods they had to avoid, clothing they couldn’t wear, festivals they had to attend, ceremonies they had to observe, tithes they had to offer; and moral laws, governing right and wrong behavior, like the Ten Commandments, for the most part. In any case, there are hundreds of commandments. Which would Jesus choose as the greatest?

Not surprisingly, Jesus placed a commandment from the moral law at the top of the commandments, since the moral law applies to all people of all times, while the civil and ceremonial laws applied only to Old Testament Israel. He answered, You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. Obedience has to start with the right attitude of the heart, with a full and complete devotion to God, with everything that is in you, so that every act of obedience is done, not to gain something for yourself, but purely out of love for obeying God. And then Jesus goes beyond what the scribe asked for. He adds the second greatest commandment, also from the moral law: The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

We should note, this isn’t “love” as the world defines it. First, it isn’t a feeling. A lot of people claim to love God, deeply, sincerely, and then they proceed to do whatever they want, regardless of what God says, all the while fooling themselves into thinking that they truly love God, because they feel something for Him. That isn’t love. St. John writes, This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. In other words, if you love God enough, then you’ll do all that He says; you’ll keep all of His commandments. He will come before your mother and your father, before husband or wife, before son or daughter or grandchildren, before boyfriend or girlfriend, before your pleasures and desires, before your own life. His Word and His Sacraments will be more important to you than your reputation, more important than sleep, more important than the football game. And, if you love your neighbor enough, you’ll never do anything that harms him and will always do everything in your power to help him, just as you would do for yourself or have other people do to you.

Second, “love” isn’t in conflict with the other commandments. My son once had a conversation with a friend. The topic of homosexuality came up, and my son pointed out that it’s a sin. His friend—a member of a Christian church—replied, “How can you say that? The Bible says to love your neighbor!” You see, the world thinks that love means to ignore all of God’s other commandments and to celebrate whatever makes your neighbor happy, and sadly, many Christians have swallowed that diabolical lie as well. No, love doesn’t trump the other commandments; it’s part of all the other commandments. It starts with the attitude of the heart and follows all the way through to the action, in keeping with all the commandments.

On these two commandments, Jesus says, hang all the Law and the Prophets. Every commandment given in the Old Testament has its source in these two. No commandment given in the Old Testament can be obeyed without simultaneously obeying these two.

But the commandments to love God and neighbor come with a catch. Attached to the commandments is the corresponding punishment for disobedience. The wages of sin is death. If you disobey, if you fail to love, then the same Law commanding love comes after you. Anything less than pure love has to be punished. There’s no getting around it. You can’t say, well yes, but I’ve kept the 5th commandment and the 6th. I’ve given nice big offerings. I’ve stayed away from drugs. I’ve paid my taxes. I pray (sometimes). None of those are the greatest commandments, are they? This is why the Law, for as good and for as beautiful as it actually is, always accuses, always comes after you and chases you right to hell.

But after answering the Pharisee’s question and revealing the heart and the thrust of the Old Testament commandments, Jesus turns their attention to that other teaching of the Old Testament, the one they had too often neglected, the one that had to do, not with the commandments, but with the promises, which were all centered in the Christ.

What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.” Everybody knew that! Easy question! God had promised to send the Christ from David’s line, to rule on David’s throne forever. He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool” ’? If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?”

Interestingly, perhaps shockingly, the scribes and Pharisees seemed not to have spent much time at all considering the promises related to the Christ. No one could even answer the question of “how can this be?” They hadn’t even considered it. Their hyper-focus on the commandments had blinded them to the Gospel-part of the Old Testament, to the promises centered around the coming Christ, who would be both true Man—David’s Son, according to His human nature—and true God—David’s Lord, according to His divine nature.

But where is the promise in Psalm 110? The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool. Where is the Gospel here? And who are His “enemies,” after all? Is it those who have disobeyed the great commandments? For the answer, Jesus would send those who listened—and who are listening now—to the rest of the promises of the Christ in the Old Testament. Why did He come from David’s line? Why did the eternal Lord enter our race? To give us new laws? To give us new commandments? To condemn the sinful world? No. There were plenty of commandments in the Old Testament, including the two great commandments, and plenty of condemnation to go around. The Son of David came, not to condemn, but to be condemned that the world through Him might be saved. He came, not to command us to do and to obey, but so that He might do and obey, and then still suffer and pay the penalties for a disobedience that wasn’t His, and so win for us a kingdom and an eternal inheritance that wasn’t ours, the forgiveness of sins and a place in God’s family, which He will give to us free of charge, not because of how greatly we have loved, but purely because of how greatly God has loved us in Christ Jesus. That’s His promise, to all who believe.

Understanding the promises in this way, we can see the Gospel promise also in the Psalm verse, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool. After Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, He did sit down at the right hand of the Lord. Why? To rule over all things for the good of His Church. To defend us against all our enemies—the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh—which have now been placed under the feet of David’s Son, and to reign until the final enemy, death itself, is destroyed. To make sure that everything in this insane, wicked, messed up world has to work together for good to those who love Him. That’s God’s promise of what He does and will do for us who believe in Christ Jesus.

Are the commandments important? Of course they are! They show us what is good and right and tell us what we should and shouldn’t do. But at the same time they show us our sins, and that there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves from them. The promises, on the other hand, show us God’s mercy and grace. They show us our Savior, and they offer us the benefits of what Jesus did for us, even the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Repent and believe the good news! And having believed, go back to the great commandments and let them guide you in the new obedience of the children of God. But never lose sight of the promises, because it’s by faith in God’s promises that you stand justified in God’s presence. And having been justified by faith, we’re also given these words of  Paul in today’s Epistle, He will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s a promise! Amen.

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An outward focus for God’s people

Posted on October 13, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 17

Ephesians 4:1-6  +  Luke 14:1-11

When God made Adam and Eve, He made them in His own likeness and image, which means, as you may recall from your catechism classes, that they had true knowledge of God and were truly righteous and holy like God. One of the key components of that righteousness is love, and one of the most basic traits of love is that it focuses outward, away from oneself. Love focuses on God—who He is, what He thinks, what He has said and done, what He wants done. And love focuses on the neighbor—what he or she needs, what would benefit him or her. And if a person spends all of his or her time focused outward, on God and on one’s neighbor, then you realize who doesn’t get the focus of attention: me—what I think, what I want, what I’m suffering, or what I might suffer if I serve God and my neighbor. Love doesn’t waste time dwelling on how great I am, or what a failure I am. It doesn’t have time to dwell on those things. There are too many other people to focus on. What does God say? What would help the people around me? So, as you can see, love is by nature what we call humble. That’s how God made us to be.

But since the fall into sin, it isn’t who we are. One of the main effects of sin on our race is that it has taken that outward focus of love and twisted it inward, so that by nature we spend most of our time worrying about what I think, what I want, what I need, what I’m suffering, what I’m going through, how great I am, or how worthless I am. One of my professors at college used a helpful phrase for this inward focus. He called it, “navel-gazing.” Staring at your own belly button. We’re all prone to navel-gazing. It’s one of the defining characteristics of sinners, in fact.

But Jesus wasn’t—wasn’t a sinner, wasn’t prone to navel-gazing. His focus was ever outward, toward His Father in heaven, and toward the rest of humanity. And He shows us in today’s Gospel the importance of an outward focus for God’s people.

It was a Sabbath Day. Jesus was invited to a meal at the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were notoriously focused on themselves, how obedient they were, how much godlier they were. There was a sick man there, a man who had dropsy. Jesus planned to heal him, but first, He wanted to guide the Pharisees and the other guests to understand this outward focus. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?, He asked. They remained silent. Not a word. They understood the Sabbath to be about themselves, their obedience to God’s commandment to rest on that day, their own rest. They didn’t want to see anyone healed on that day, and they often criticize Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. But they couldn’t come right out and say that, or they would have looked just as mean spirited as they actually were. So they remained silent.

Jesus healed the man and let him go. Then He asked them, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer Him regarding these things. Of course, all of them would have helped their own animal on that day. Not necessarily out of compassion for the animal, but because they would lose out if they’re animal died or were injured. Still, there would at least be some outward focus if they were concerned about their animal in the ditch.

The fact is, God made the Sabbath day to emphasize that outward focus, on God, on His Word, and on the neighbor. The Sabbath rest was not designed so that the Israelites could look at themselves resting, could focus on themselves obeying the commandment, but on their workers who needed a break, on their family members who needed a break from work. My neighbor needs rest! My animals need rest! God’s Word must be heard! The ministry must be used! The needy must be helped! Every other day, the focus was on, My work! My chores! My chores! My needs! But one day a week, they were to focus exclusively on God’s word and their neighbors need. So not only did the Law permit healing on the Sabbath. It actually required it, if healing were in your power.

So Jesus’ kindness and compassion for the man with dropsy show us what true, humble, outward-focused love toward the neighbor looks like, and at the same time it highlighted the self-centeredness and inward focus of the Pharisees.

Then we come to the second part of our Gospel. At the same meal, Jesus noticed how the guests chose the best places for themselves. In their culture, the seating arrangement at a banquet said something about how important or how unimportant a guest was. And all these guests seemed to think of themselves as more important than the rest, as deserving of the best spot available. Again, focused inward, on their own importance.

But where should they have been focused? On the one who invited them! The host of the banquet is the one who gets to decide the relative importance of each of his guests. He’s the one you should be focused on. And since God is the Host of the heavenly banquet, and the King of His kingdom, which is the holy Christian Church, He will determine where each one belongs. And Jesus tells us what pleases Him and what displeases Him.

It displeases God when we exalt ourselves, when we raise ourselves up in His presence, when we put ourselves ahead of others, when we make ourselves the judges of ourselves. Leave that to Me, He says. Leave it to Me to decide. Let Me be the Judge, because I am the Judge and I will determine where each one belongs. As for you, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’

How do you choose the lowest place before God? You admit, as you did in the confession of sins today, that you are a poor miserable sinner who has justly deserved His temporal and eternal punishment. That means you admit that you’re no more worthy of His grace and mercy than anyone else. In fact, you see yourself as “chief of sinners.” That goes contrary to what our sinful nature wants. The most natural thing is to choose a place in the middle. No, I’m not the most deserving out there, but surely I’m not the least deserving! I’ll go over here to the middle and choose a place for myself. But no, Jesus says. That’s wrong, and dangerous, too. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. No, go and sit down in the lowest place. Admit before God and man that you are the least deserving, because you haven’t maintained that outward focus toward God and your neighbor that God demands. Not even close. You’ve spent more than a little time focused on what you need, how you’ve been treated, how you’re suffering, what you deserve, how great you are or how wretched you are. It’s time to let God be the Judge, and that means lowering yourself all the way down to the bottom of the heap before Him.

For those who do, Jesus makes an amazing promise: He who humbles himself will be exalted. There are no if’s or maybe’s about that promise. Admit your unworthiness before God, confess your twisted, inward focus, look to God, not for recognition of how worthy you are, but only for His mercy in Christ Jesus, and God will exalt you. He will lift you up. He will forgive you your sins and give you a place of honor in His kingdom, a good place, the right place, a place of His choosing, a place with Him.

And He’ll do all this, because Jesus, your Substitute, maintained His outward focus on God and on His neighbor for you, in your place. He maintained it all the way through Holy Week and up to the cross, never flinching, never crying out, “What about Me? What about what I deserve?” It was all, every moment of it, every drop of blood, spent yearning to fulfill His Father’s will, yearning to earn mankind’s salvation.

As a new person in Christ, that is the example you have also been called to imitate. Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There it is, the outward focus on your neighbor, and especially on your fellow Christian. It’s hard not to worry about yourself. It’s hard not to focus on your own successes and on your own failures. It’s hard to look up, away from your own belly button. But God, right now, is gently lifting up your head to stop worrying about yourself, to stop complaining, to see only the people around you—your family, your church, your neighbor. And He lifts your head even higher, to see Him, and to know that Christ, your Savior, and God, your Father, is not focused on Himself at all, but on you. One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. You focused on Him, He focused on you with the promise to raise you up and give you all you need—what need do you have to focus on yourself? Amen.

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Jesus interrupts the procession of death

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 16

Ephesians 3:13-21  +  Luke 7:11-17

The 16th Sunday after Trinity is our annual funeral preparation. It’s God’s gift to us ahead of time enabling us to concentrate for a little while on his word and grace before the day comes when we have to face death ourselves or the death of a fellow believer. It’s easier to concentrate now, when you’re not in the midst of grieving. So God sends us these texts now so that we can think about them and prepare ourselves by means of them, so that when death comes, we have something solid to hold on to.

We know all too well that death comes. It came early this morning to our brother in Christ Pastor Chuck Hudson of Richmond, Missouri. The Lord finally took him home to Himself after many months of battling lung cancer. He was 71. But death comes even to young men. Even to only sons. Even to only sons of widows, like the widow in our Gospel who had practically everything taken away from her in an earthly sense. Sooner or later, death always comes.

We may well wonder, Why now?, or Why in this way? But there’s no wondering why. We know why. There’s no place for shaking your fist at God. This is the devil’s fault. This is our first parents’ fault. This is the fault of every person in our ancestral line. And finally, this is our own fault—maybe not for any particular sin, although sometimes it is—but for the fact that we have sinned at all against God’s holy commandments. The wages of sin is death.

Death almost always brings with it sadness and grief, even for the Christian. Don’t imagine that you shouldn’t grieve, or that grieving means your faith isn’t strong enough. Death is not natural—not as God created our nature to be. For human beings, death is the unnatural separation of two things that were never meant to be separated: body and soul. No, death is not good. Death is evil.

But God often takes things that are evil and turns them to His good purposes, and we see that in today’s Gospel.

The widow of Nain was grieving when Jesus came near to her city. The funeral procession was on its way to the tomb where her only son was to be buried. But Jesus interrupts the procession of death.

He has compassion on her. This is God’s reaction to the consequences of sin. He knows we’re guilty. He knows we deserve the consequences. He Himself imposed the consequences. But it’s important to understand, He doesn’t sit back and laugh. He doesn’t shake His finger and tell us how we deserve what we’re getting—at least, not toward those who fear Him and believe in Him. The Psalm puts it this way:  As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. The compassion we see in our text is the compassion that’s always there for those who grieve. We can’t see it on His face or hear it in His voice. But our Gospel gives faith something to cling to, even though our eyes don’t see it.

Do not weep, He says. Not because death isn’t sad. Not because weeping is wrong or because there’s nothing to cry about. But “because I’m going to take away your reason for weeping.”

Then Jesus steps right up to the coffin and lays His hand on it. And He says to the dead boy, Young man, I say to you, arise! And he did! “I say to you.” That only works if the speaker is God, who spoke the universe into being, who gave life in the beginning, who sustains the life of every creature every moment of every day, who imposed the sentence of death on the sinful human race. That One—only that One—has the right and the power to reverse the sentence.

Of course, according to His own counsel and will, in keeping with who He is, God can only reverse the well-deserved sentence of death if the undeserved sentence of death is imposed on someone else, and not just anyone else, but on the God-Man, Jesus Christ. That has now been done. Death was undeservedly imposed—and willingly suffered! —by our Savior, with a single goal in mind: to apply His death to sinners so that He may give His life to sinners.

He applies His death to sinners when He brings us to faith. He applies His death to sinners through Holy Baptism. You Christians have already died, as far as God’s holy Law is concerned. You died with Christ. You died on the cross. Your death sentence was carried out as you lay with Jesus in the tomb. And you also rose with Him from the dead. You rose with Him to new life—a life that you’ve been living every day as believers in Christ. In Scripture, that’s called the “first resurrection.” Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power.

The second death is the death of hell and eternal condemnation, of torment that lasts forever. Those who take part in the first resurrection—by faith in Christ Jesus—may face the death that separates soul from body, if Jesus doesn’t come back first, but they’ll never have to face the second death, and even this “death,” this separation of soul and body, has been turned into a sleep.

There will also be a second resurrection. Jesus will come and speak to the dead, Arise. And the dead will be raised. For those who died in unbelief, the resurrection will not be a resurrection to life, but to suffer eternal death, the second death. For those who die trusting in Christ, the resurrection will be to eternal life. And the dead will be raised incorruptible.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us just a small glimpse of that great day. But even more, the Holy Spirit urges us to stay close to Him who is the Life during this life. He comforts us with the sure knowledge that Jesus has compassion on those who grieve because of death. He wants us to picture Jesus at the death bed as surely as He was at the gates of Nain. He wants us to picture Jesus with us at funeral home, with us at the foot of the coffin, with us at the graveside of our loved one who has fallen asleep in Him. And He wants us to remember that He has already spoken life to that Christian, and to all believers, already raised them from the dead, so that whoever lives and believes in Him will never die, even if they sleep for a little while.

So mix in that sure hope and comfort with the grief you will experience at the funeral of a believer in Christ whom you loved. It’s natural to be sorrowful. But Christians don’t sorrow as those who have no hope. We sorrow, we grieve as those who have a sure hope.

One other thing before we leave this Gospel, though. It’s even harder to deal with this at the time of death, so we should deal with it now. The sure hope and comfort of the first and the second resurrection is for those who have heard and believed the Gospel of Christ in this life and who have persevered to the end of their life in faith. In other words, it’s for those who died as faithful Christians. We have no such hope for those who die in unbelief, which is why it’s impossible to have a Christian funeral for those who die as non-Christians. And by “non-Christians,” I include also those who may have called themselves Christians, but whose life and confession demonstrated that they did not actually trust in Christ Jesus. As Jesus Himself once described such people, They honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.

Well. You can’t believe for someone else. And you can’t force anyone to believe. What you can do—all you can do—is to invite. To warn, which is simply to speak the truth in love, when you have the opportunity. And to pray. To pray that God would have mercy on your unbelieving acquaintance, that He would not give up on them but continue to work on their hearts through His Law and Gospel. Come! Come to church with me! It’s important! I want to have the comfort when you die that you will be raised to life in the second resurrection! Even then, some won’t listen. Some won’t come. And if they come, some won’t believe. The stubbornness of unbelief is strong. But some will come, eventually. Some will listen. Some will believe. For some, it may take years of inviting, years of warning, years of praying. But it will be worth it, in the end, if nothing else, because you have confessed Christ in this world, and because you have held out to others the same hope that God himself holds out to all creation. God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, and His Spirit works tirelessly on them through the Gospel.

And in inviting others to know Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, don’t forget about yourself. Don’t forget to leave a clear and constant confession of your faith for your loved ones, so that when you die, no one has to wonder, did he still believe in Jesus? Did she still trust in Christ? No, by your words and by your life, let the people around you know that, for all your faults, for all your weaknesses, you lived daily in repentance and faith. Let them know that Jesus has already interrupted the procession of death for you, and He’ll do the same for them. And soon, after you’ve slept for a little while, He’ll touch your coffin and say that blessed word, “Arise!” Amen.

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