Understand election in the right order

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 20

Ephesians 5:15-21 + Matthew 22:1-14

It’s been a long time since I’ve tackled math problems. But teachers and students of math are familiar with a concept called “order of operations.” In certain math expressions, you have to multiply before you add. You have to do what’s in parentheses before you multiply by numbers outside the parentheses. You have to divide before you subtract, etc. If you do things out of order, you’re going to come up with the wrong answer.

“Order of operations” also applies when it comes to the doctrine election, which the Holy Spirit has set before us today in the Gospel, in Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet, at the end of which He declares, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” The choosing, the electing of certain people to eternal salvation, took place, from our perspective, before the foundations of the world were laid. The election happened “first,” as we view time, and then everything that was necessary for mankind’s salvation was done and is being done and will still be done. And so we’re tempted to use that “order of operations” to understand God’s plan of salvation, starting with our election, and then going forward from there.

But we make a huge mistake if we approach the doctrine of election in that order. You see, God isn’t bound to any “order of operations,” because His foreknowledge means that He sees all the past, present, and future all at once, including His own operations in history, including each person’s operations and decisions. From God’s perspective, election happened at the same “time” as everything else in history happens, because it all sits before Him in one giant picture—a picture we can’t begin to fathom.

So, we need to follow a different order of operations. We can’t think of our salvation as “starting with” our election. If we do, we’ll mess up the whole thing, because people will inevitably conclude that, since everything has already been decided by God in the past, nothing they do matters. If they were chosen before the earth was made, it doesn’t matter what they do now. They must be safe, no matter what, because they were chosen! If they weren’t chosen before the earth was made, it doesn’t matter what they do now. They can’t be saved, no matter what! What a horrible doctrine that would be! In fact, that’s what makes the doctrine of historic Calvinism so horrible. It makes the fatal error of using the wrong order of operations, starting with election, because that’s the logical, reasonable order. But this is one of those times when human logic and human reason causes nothing but trouble, because the revealed Word of God instructs us to follow a different order of operations.

Does this sound complicated? Let Jesus simplify it for you with the parable of the wedding banquet. If we simply follow the order of operations as it’s outlined for us here by Jesus Himself, we’ll understand the doctrine perfectly well.

In the parable, a king arranges a wedding banquet for his son—clearly a picture of God the Father preparing for His Son, the Lord Jesus, an eternal celebration of salvation in His heavenly kingdom. Already here at the beginning, the focus is on Christ, who is the Book of Life, in whom alone is salvation. The kingdom is His. And so is the celebration.

To this banquet the king invited certain people early on, and then, when the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to invite those pre-invited guests to come to the feast. Well, who were the ones who were specifically invited ahead of time into the kingdom of the coming Christ? They were the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were told specifically throughout the Old Testament that God would send His Messiah to Israel, and that they should be looking for Him, and that they should be ready for Him and listen to Him when He came.

But what happened? The invited guests were unwilling to come. Why? Because the king didn’t want them there in the first place? Or because the king failed to call them when it was time? No, this wasn’t the king’s fault. Not at all. It was the fault of those who refused the invitation. It was the fault of those who refused to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.

Still, the king didn’t give up after just one try. He sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See! I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding!” God sent the prophets long before Jesus was born, to testify about Him. Then He sent shepherds from Bethlehem when Jesus had finally arrived. He sent wise men to Jerusalem, and Simeon and Anna, to tell the Jews the Christ had come. Later, He sent John the Baptist, and some of Jesus’ own disciples, and Jesus Himself, showing from Scripture that Jesus was the promised Christ, pleading with them to recognize this time of their visitation, this crucial moment when the kingdom of heaven was being opened to them, not because they had earned it or deserved it in any way, but because God was faithful to His promise, because God, out of pure mercy and grace, wanted them to come in.

But they disregarded it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The Jews, for the most part, stubbornly turned down God’s invitation to come into His kingdom through Jesus the Christ. Was it because God had failed to elect them in eternity? Was it because God’s invitation wasn’t intended for them? Wasn’t sincere? Had no power? No. The invitation was genuine and heartfelt and powerful. It was the Jews’ own fault for turning it down.

As a result, when the king heard about it, he was angry. And he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. It was Holy Week when Jesus told this parable, almost 40 years before the Roman armies came into Jerusalem and destroyed it. But already during Holy Week Jesus warned the Jews through this parable of what would happen if they continued to reject their Messiah. They weren’t worthy of God’s kingdom, not because God had failed to elect them, but because of their own stubborn rejection of His Word.

But then! Then the king in the parable did something unheard of, unimaginable, really. Instead of calling off the banquet, instead of inviting other good friends, or deserving people, he sent his servants and told them, Go into the streets and invite to the wedding whomever you find. So those servants went out into the streets and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the banquet tables were filled with guests. That’s exactly what God did when He sent out His apostles and said, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Or again, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. That’s what God did when He had Peter announce on the Day of Pentecost, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. Jews, Gentiles, rich, poor, male, female, old, young, bad, and good. Everyone who hears this Gospel invitation to repent and be baptized, to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus is being called by God into His kingdom, because God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world—all people!—might be saved through Him. Truly, as Paul writes to Timothy, God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now, the parable ends with a kind of warning. Because just being there in the wedding hall wasn’t everything. There was a special wedding garment, provided by the host to all the guests, that they were to be wearing when the king arrived. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who was not wearing a wedding garment. And 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, and take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

This “wedding garment” isn’t something you have to buy in the store or knit together on your own. When God brings a person to faith, He recreates the person, giving him new birth and new life. A new man emerges from the waters of Holy Baptism. And that new man is always wearing the robe of Christ’s righteousness. But the Old Man, the sinful nature, doesn’t go away. Old Man struggles with New Man to regain control of the Christian. And if he’s successful, if he’s allowed to smother faith and sin freely, without repentance, if the Christian stops relying on God’s strength, on God’s promises, if the Christian doesn’t use the Means of Grace that God provides, if the Christian fails to pray for God’s help in these life-and-death spiritual battles, then that person returns to a state of unbelief, and the wedding garment, the robe of Christ’s righteousness, is removed. That person will not be eternally saved. That person who didn’t keep wearing the wedding garment, like all those who turned down the invitation in the first place, will not be found among the elect.

You see, here, at the end of the story, is where Jesus teaches us to view election. For many are called, but few are chosen. Yes, our election took place, from our perspective, before the foundations of the world were laid. But that’s not where you go to see if you’re one of the elect, or to make your calling and election sure. You use the order of operations that God teaches in His revealed Word. So let’s lay it out as simply as possible.

God wants all men to be saved. And so God gave His Son into human flesh, to suffer and die for the sins of all people, that all men might be saved through faith in Christ Jesus. God accomplishes this salvation through the preaching of the Gospel, working powerfully through His Word and sincerely calling all people to repentance and faith in Christ, so that all men might be saved. God justifies all those who believe in His Son. God works in those whom He has justified, so that we live according to the New Man that He has created in us. God hears the prayers of His people and continues to provide His Word and His Sacraments to believers, along with His continual help and strength, so that we have all the help and strength we need to finish our race, to keep the faith until the end, at which point we will see that, all along, God had been there, working out this plan of salvation that He made before the foundations of the world were laid, when He first chose us, in Christ, to be eternally saved.

Follow that order of operations, and you won’t despair, nor will you foolishly turn down the Gospel invitation, nor will you slack off in your prayers, or in struggling against temptation, or in using the Means of Grace that God provides for your help. Follow that order of operations, and you will know the comfort that God intended with this doctrine all along, that everything having to do with your salvation, from start to finish, was planned in eternity, and that God has committed Himself to seeing it through, all the way to the end. Amen.

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Blessed because of the blessing that awaits

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Festival of All Saints

Revelation 7:9-17 + Matthew 5:1-12

Our celebration of All Saints’ day (transferred from Nov. 1 to today) always includes the Beatitudes from Matthew 5, which is a wonderful text for such a day, because it prepares us all—all the saints on earth—for what awaits us after, if we remain faithful. And it gives us a picture of what the faithful departed have now begun to experience. I say “have begun to experience” because even the faithful departed, those souls who departed this life in faith, haven’t received it all yet. The full measure of our heavenly inheritance won’t be received until the Last Day, until the Day of Resurrection. But even before then, the souls of the saints in heaven have begun to receive the blessing that made them blessed even here in this life—the same blessing that makes us blessed, if the words that Jesus spoke apply also to us.

“To be blessed” in the context of the Beatitudes here in Jesus’ sermon on the mount means “to have a good reason to be happy.”

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The poor in spirit have a good reason to be happy. We always need to take note here of the “in spirit” part of “poor in spirit.” God has compassion for those who are materially poor and wants us to have compassion for them, too. But they aren’t the ones Jesus calls “blessed.” It’s the “poor in spirit” who have a good reason to be happy. It’s those who are humble before God, who are penitent, contrite, sorry for their sins, those who struggle against their sins, those who are humble before God, those who trust in Him, and not at all in themselves—these are the ones who have good reason to be happy, because the kingdom of heaven doesn’t belong to those who, like the Pharisees, are “rich in spirit” or “proud in spirit,” who think they have something valuable to offer God, their own decency, their own goodness. The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, even now. In other words, it is assured to them, guaranteed to them. No one can take their inheritance in the kingdom of heaven away from them, as long as they remain poor in spirit. And that’s a good reason for them to be happy, even now.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Not all who mourn have good reason to be happy. Unbelievers mourn, too, and they will not be comforted if they remain in their unbelief. But those who mourn as Christians, who mourn with godly sorrow, whether over their own sins, or over the rampant wickedness they see all around them in the world, whether they mourn over the losses they suffer for following Christ or over the losses they suffer just for living in a world so tainted by sin and its consequences, they have good reason to be happy, even as they mourn, because comfort is coming, ushered in by the Holy Spirit of God, now already through the Word of God, and soon when the Lord Jesus returns to take care of every problem that causes Christians to mourn.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

To be meek is to be gentle, like Jesus. To be “meek” is not to be timid or fearful. To be meek is to not take matters into one’s own hands, but to wait for the Lord and to suffer with patience. It means to commit your way to the Lord, to trust in Him and wait patiently for Him, refraining from anger and wrath. Such people have good reason to be happy, because without lifting a finger to save themselves or to “fix the world,” they will inherit the earth, because God will worry about defeating the devil and all the wicked. Christians can remain meek, because we know that our God will fight for us, and because He does, no one can rob us of our inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Notice again, it’s not hunger and thirst for food and water that makes a person blessed. It’s hunger and thirst for righteousness. There are two ways to hunger and thirst for righteousness. You hunger and thirst for righteousness by craving to be righteous in God’s sight by faith alone in Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who died for the unrighteous, that we might become righteous in God’s sight through faith in Him. You have good reason to be happy, if that’s what you crave, because God fills you with Christ’s righteousness even now, and then molds you into righteous people throughout this life, until He will perfect you in righteousness after this life, as the faithful departed have now been perfected.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

You remember the parable of the unmerciful servant. The king forgave him his incredibly large debt, and then he went out and mercilessly mistreated the one who owed him just a little bit. So the king threw that merciless wretch in prison until he could repay everything. God first shows us that kind of great mercy by forgiving our sins and bringing us into His kingdom. But once we have received that mercy, God is serious about wanting us to show mercy to others. And when we do, we have good reason to be happy, because God has promised to keep His mercy coming to us, so that you never have to worry about losing out because you were merciful to someone. God will replace whatever mercy you show to others with mercy of His own toward you.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

David wrote in Psalm 24, Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his salvation. A pure heart is an honest heart that genuinely fears, loves, and trusts in God above all things. Where the Gospel penetrates a heart and brings a person to faith, there the heart has been purified. There the Holy Spirit creates a new heart, from which proceeds a new kind of obedience, with new and pure motives, where the believer genuinely and gladly seeks to please God and to serve our neighbor. Having a pure heart like that isn’t a waste of time. The pure in heart have a good reason to be happy, because, although at the moment they don’t see the God in whom they so genuinely believe, they will see Him and rejoice forever in His presence.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

The opposite of making peace is not just making war, but causing discord and strife, allowing bad feelings to fester and divisions to get wider, refusing to forgive when a brother repents. But God has called us to peace, and to live at peace with people, to the extent that it depends on us, and to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Those who work toward peace, and maintain peace, and who forgive those who trespass against them, have good reason to be happy, because they will be called sons of God, because in doing these things, they are imitating their dear Father in heaven.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You have good reason to be happy…when you are persecuted? That’s what Jesus says. Yes, Blessed are you, when for my sake they insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who came before you.”

Rejoice when people insult you. Be glad when people lie about you. Consider it pure joy when people target you, imprison you, or even kill you. Why would anyone rejoice in the face of such evil? Only because this life isn’t all there is. There is a great reward reserved in heaven for all who suffer for Jesus’ sake. The prophets were persecuted. The apostles were persecuted. Jesus Himself was persecuted, insulted, and put to death. No one at the time of Jesus saw how that worked out well for the prophets. But when Jesus rose from the dead, they did finally see. It’s ok to be insulted. It’s ok to be killed, for the Christian. Because after Christ, our Savior, was insulted and persecuted and put to death, He came back from it and was exalted to the highest place. In Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the believers at that time witnessed the victory that awaited them after following in Jesus’ footsteps. Two thousand years later, you and I haven’t witnessed it. We’re left having to simply take Jesus at His Word that everything we suffer here and sacrifice here will be more than worth it, because of the great reward that awaits.

Will you take Jesus at His Word? Will you believe Him, that you are blessed in all of these circumstances, that you have good reasons to be happy, regardless of whatever else is going on in your life? Our fellow believers did, the ones who are now dressed in white robes, standing before the Lamb of God, with palm branches in their hands and a song of praise on their lips. That doesn’t mean they always experienced that happiness here, just as we don’t always experience it. But those who relied on God’s promises and kept the faith until the end—they did take Jesus at His word and counted themselves happy and blessed, even when it didn’t feel like it. But now, now it’s crystal clear to them, that you Christians, who fit the descriptions given here by Jesus, definitely have good reasons to be happy. Because it will be more than worth it when you finish your race here and see with your eyes what they now see, that living in the presence of this good and gracious God is better than anything that this world ever had to offer. Amen.

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A Reformation about truth and freedom

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation

Galatians 2:16-21 + John 8:31-36

Today we’re celebrating the Reformation here in our beautiful church building. A few weeks ago, some of your fellow members and I celebrated it in a member’s living room on the other side of the country. But it’s a single celebration, among Christians who believe and confess the same truth of the Gospel, who share the same power of the Spirit, and the same Christian love for one another, and who are all determined to hold fast to the Word of God, and, thereby, to grow in faith and in knowledge, together.

As you know, we celebrate the Reformation, not as a way to “new Christianity,” but as the way back to true Christianity. How dare I say that? How dare we call the Christianity of the early Lutheran Church “true” Christianity, implying that there was something false about the Christianity being practiced by the Roman Church of that era? It goes back to what Jesus told us in today’s Gospel, You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. As we apply the Gospel to the Reformation, we’ll see that the Reformation itself was about truth and about freedom.

In the Gospel from John 8, Jesus said to those Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples.” Who, then, are the true disciples of Jesus? Answer: The ones who remain in His word. Who remain in His word. What does that mean? What is “the word” of Jesus? It includes everything, really. Everything Jesus said. Everything Jesus taught. And how do we know what He said and taught? From the Holy-Spirit-inspired Scriptures that God has preserved for us throughout all these centuries in the four Gospels. In fact, the word of Jesus includes also those Holy-Spirit-inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament, and the rest of the Holy-Spirit-inspired words of the New Testament, which we generally call the “epistles.” In short, the word of Jesus is the Bible itself, the Holy Scriptures. Other men have said and written and taught lots of good things over the centuries, based on the word of Jesus. Some have said and written and taught false things, not based on the word of Jesus. We can read and evaluate the writings of any men, but it’s not by following what other men say and teach that makes us or marks us as truly Jesus disciples. If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples.

Yes, but, how do you know that you’re understanding Jesus’ word correctly? Don’t you have to rely on what someone else tells you about them? Don’t you need the witness of the leaders of the Church and the traditions that the Church has commanded you to follow? We honor the witness of the Church. That is, we “give weight” to it. We value it. But, if we compare the witness of the Church over the millennia with the word of Jesus in Holy Scripture, we find that many new things were added by men, such as purgatory or prayers to the saints, that do not come at all from the Spirit-inspired word of Jesus, and we find teachings, like offering the Mass as an atoning sacrifice for the living and the dead, that directly contradict the word of Jesus. Men, popes, and councils have erred, have made errors. But, thankfully, Jesus never once said, “If you remain in the traditions of the Church, you are truly My disciples.” He never said, “All who submit to the Church’s decrees are truly My disciples.” No, He said, “If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples.”

What does it mean to “remain in” His word? It means to know it—everything God says in His holy Word—to know it, in context, to believe it, and to steadfastly hold onto it, to hold onto it, even when powerful men try to move you away from it, when powerful leaders in the Church tell you you have no right or ability to understand Jesus’ words rightly, that the interpretation of this or that gathering or synod of the Church is infallible, even when hundreds of years of tradition try to convince you that the Church herself is just as good a source of truth as the inspired word of Jesus.

But with so many different voices, and denominations each claiming to be telling the truth, what Jesus’ word really means, who is to know? If Jesus keeps His word, then you have your answer: If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth. This leads to one of the most basic Lutheran principles of Bible interpretation. Let Scripture interpret Scripture. Or, put another way, let the Holy Spirit be His own interpreter. That may require study. That may require effort. But the truth can be known.

I think I’ve told you this before. Years ago, when I was struggling to understand the truth about the article of justification, and to determine whether or not UOJ was true, as all the Lutheran synods were teaching, it wasn’t easy. Practically all the Lutheran churches in America insisted that UOJ was true, that it had always been taught by the Christian Church and, specifically, by the Lutheran Church, and that it had to be believed. That’s not as much pressure as Martin Luther experienced 500 years ago, facing the whole Holy Roman Empire, but it was still a lot of pressure. I studied this church father and that church father and found plenty of support there. But you know what finally gave me peace? The only thing that gave me peace and that convinced me of the truth? It was just going through the word of Jesus, passage by passage, that talked about justification. And after being immersed in the word of Jesus, looking at all the passages together, the truth became clear. I knew the truth, just as you have known it.

And that truth, that sinners are justified by faith alone in Christ Jesus, is the other main theme of the Reformation. It was a Reformation about truth, and about freedom, which is directly related to the sinner’s justification.

You will know the truth, Jesus said, and the truth will set you free! The problem was, the unbelieving Jews, the ones who had, up until this point, rejected Jesus’ word as truth, the ones who stood on the traditions of the Jewish Church even more than they stood on the inspired Scriptures, didn’t think, didn’t realize they needed to be set free. The Jews answered him, “We are Abraham’s seed and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” The Jews of Jesus’ day had that idea in common with many Jews still today, that, because they were physically descended from Abraham, they were and must always remain the chosen people of God, enslaved to no one, always acceptable in God’s sight because of who their ancestor was, and because of how obedient they were to the Law of Moses. They concluded that for those two reasons, because of their ancestry and because of their obedience to the Law, they were and would always be free.

Then along comes Jesus and bursts their bubble. He answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. Now, even the self-righteous Pharisees didn’t go around claiming that they never sinned. It takes a special kind of self-delusion for anyone to say, “I don’t sin. I’m sinless and perfect in every way.” But here, Jesus lays down the hard truth: If you commit sin, then you are a slave. A slave of sin, without the ability to work your way out of that slavery, without the free will to choose your way out of that slavery. Slaves don’t have free will to stop being slave, do they? Your ancestry doesn’t help you, if you practice sin. Your obedience doesn’t free you, if you also disobey, at times, if you also sin. There’s only one way to escape this slavery of sin. Now, a slave does not remain in the house forever. In other words, you Jews who practice sin, and put your confidence in your ancestry, or in your obedience, even now you’re only in God’s house as slaves, slaves who will eventually be sent away from God’s house entirely. But a son remains forever. Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Free, not to be dismissed from God’s house, but to remain in God’s house forever, not as slaves, but as sons. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is only one who can free you from the slavery to sin, who can give you the right to become free children of God, who have a permanent place in His home.

He does that “setting free” in two ways. He does it, first, by forgiving us our sins, by setting us free from the guilt of those sins that we commit, when He calls us to repent of our sins and to believe in Him, who has promised to set us free. That’s what justification is, God setting us free, Jesus setting us free from having to pay for our sins, from having to suffer for our sins, from having to work off or make atonement for our sins. He Himself is the Atoner, the Sacrifice of atonement, the Reconciler. His blood was the full price of our freedom. Faith in Him is the means by which He applies that atoning price to our account and sets us free.

But for all who have been set free from the slavery to sin, who have been justified and forgiven and made children of God, permanent members of His household, and heirs of eternal life, Christ’s act of setting us free, of justifying us, is also the beginning of something else. It’s the beginning of a new life of freedom. It’s the beginning of a new kind of obedience, not as slaves to sin anymore, but as slaves to righteousness—an entirely different kind of slavery, a good kind, even as Christ Himself was a willing “slave” or “servant” of His Father in heaven. By setting us free from sin through the forgiveness of sins, through the washing of Holy Baptism, He has freed us to become imitators of Him, the true Servant of God, as He both calls and enables us to walk in step with the Holy Spirit. We call this the freedom of “sanctification.” It’s an ongoing process as we are renewed, day after day, in the image of Christ, as the Holy Spirit guides us and pulls us along toward doing and thinking what is righteous, and good, and loving. It’s not a freedom to go on living in sin. It’s a freedom to serve God in righteousness and holiness that begins here and now, and that will be completed when we reach our heavenly home.

These two issues—the source of truth and our ability to know it; and freedom from sin, what it is and how to achieve it—were at the center of the Lutheran Reformation, and they remain central issues still today. The Roman Church and the Eastern Church, and many who call themselves Lutheran, would have you look to Church Councils and Church Fathers and synods as a source of truth alongside the Word of God. Other churches would have you look inward, at your feelings and opinions about things. Still others would have you look for direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. And many of those same churches would have you seek freedom from sin in your own good works, in your own obedience, or, in the case of the synods, in an imaginary justification of the whole world. But here we are, along with still many in the world, left standing alongside Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521, pressured on all sides to give in: “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture and plain reason… my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

Be content to keep standing here beside Luther, especially on these issues of truth and freedom. It may seem lonely at times, and it will continue to require many sacrifices, on your part and mine, to remain in Jesus’ word, no matter what anyone else demands, and to embrace the freedom of justification by faith alone, no matter what anyone else teaches. Jesus calls these sacrifices “bearing the cross.” And if our dear Lord was willing to bear the cross of shame, suffering, and death for our sins, to free us from slavery, to grant us eternal joy and eternal life, how could we shrink back from bearing the cross that comes from faithfulness to Him? Remain in His Word. Remain in the freedom that comes from the truth. And let us all give thanks to God for bringing us back to true Christianity, and to this blessed fellowship with one another. Amen.

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The greatest commandment is to love Jesus

Posted on October 19, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 18

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

Today’s Gospel touches on the themes of Jewish Law, moral law, love, and the person of Jesus Christ—all of which the world understands wrongly, all of which the Christian faith alone teaches rightly. As we consider together the exchange in today’s Gospel between Jesus and the experts in the Law of Moses, we’ll see how all those themes fit together. We’ll see that the greatest commandment in the Law is to love Jesus.

First, to the Jewish Law. Now, understand that to be “Jewish” can be understood in a purely biological sense, as simple as having a single drop of blood from the genetic line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which probably includes a whole lot of people who don’t even know they’re Jewish and would never define themselves that way, because they have a much greater percentage of some other ethnicity in their family history.

But being a Jew, being considered Jewish, is normally tied to one’s submission to the Law of Moses, whereby God brought the children of Israel into a formal, covenantal relationship with Him—everything from circumcision, to the Ten Commandments, to the rituals and ceremonies outlined in the Law. According to the Law of Moses, anyone who didn’t submit to the Law of Moses, anyone who worshiped other gods, or who willfully disobeyed any part of the Law of Moses, was to be cut off from his people, either by death or by banishment. That’s how important the Law was to the Jewish people, by God’s own command.

Well, by the time our Gospel took place, during the early part of Holy Week, Jesus had been saying and doing some things that those who were considered experts in the Jewish Law found to be unlawful. They could see that His preaching was “threatening” to liberate the Jewish people from the Law of Moses, to graduate them from the Law, which was, as St. Paul once referred to it, a “tutor to lead us to Christ.” By the time Holy Week came around, they felt so threatened by Jesus’ preaching that they were already planning to kill Him. But to make themselves look better, they were trying desperately to trap Jesus in His words, so that they might have a public justification for executing Him. And so one of them asked, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Instead of pointing to Jewish laws concerning Kosher foods, or circumcision, or resting on the Sabbath Day, or the sacrifices they were to make, which were all part of what we call the “ceremonial Law,” Jesus said that the greatest commandments, the ones on which all the rest depend, are not the ceremonial laws, but are what we call the “moral law,” summarized in love for God (the true God) and love for one’s neighbor. The ceremonial Law was given only to Israel under the covenant God made with them through Moses at Mt. Sinai. It wasn’t for any other nation. God wasn’t angry at the Gentiles because they didn’t get circumcised, or because they failed to rest on the Sabbath Day, or because they ate pork. But He did condemn the Gentiles for violating His moral Law, which was for all people of all time. For example, when the Israelites went in to conquer the land of Canaan at the time of Moses, God revealed His anger at those Gentiles in Canaan for violating His moral law: for their idolatry and their witchcraft, which is a failure to love the true God above all things, and for their violence toward one another, which is a failure to love their neighbor. Love for God—the true God, not the false gods of the Gentiles—and love for one’s neighbor. Those are the greatest commandments in the Law.

Now, as you know, “love” is a concept that the devil has completely twisted in the minds of men. “Love,” as most people define it, is attraction. “Love” is doing or saying whatever makes someone else feel good about themselves. And “hate,” by contrast, is doing or saying anything that makes a person feel bad. You see, the devil has taken the moral Law, which God has written into all our hearts by nature, and has (awfully successfully) redefined “love” (and “hate”) in people’s thinking, and, frankly, also in the preaching of that comes from many pulpits that pretend to be Christian. What is love, really?

Love is commitment. Love is devotion. Love is genuine, heartful attachment. The Lord God—the true God who has revealed Himself to us in the Bible—is to be the primary object of our commitment, devotion, and attachment. Nothing is supposed to be more important to us than knowing the Lord God, worshiping the Lord God, serving the Lord God. And since the Lord God has commanded it to come next, after loving Him, our second-place commitment, devotion, and attachment is to be to our neighbor. This is what God expects from every human being.

The Ten Commandments themselves reflect this moral Law, though they also contain some ceremonial laws that were only for the Old Testament people of Israel. How do we know that? Because the Word of God explains it that way. The Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, guide us to understand what love actually looks like, toward God and man.

According to Scripture, it’s love (not hate) to call all unbelievers to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, even though it means hurting their feelings and telling them that they’re not okay as they are, because, as they are, they’re perishing, and our commitment to them doesn’t allow us to remain silent. It’s also love (not hate) to say that abortion is wicked, because God calls it wicked. That homosexuality is wicked, because God calls it wicked. That adultery in all its forms is wicked, because God says it is. That crossing a border illegally is wicked, because God has commanded all people to submit to the governing authorities. Our society embraces all these things and calls those who don’t “loveless” and “hateful.” But that’s because they’ve turned away from God, and His definitions, to make up their own beliefs about right and wrong.

In the same way, it’s love (not hate) to tell a Jewish person—one who rejects Jesus as Lord—that he has forsaken the true God and has gone after an idol who has stolen the identity of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he has no part in the people of God, and that his Christ-less religion is a sham, one that will take him straight to hell, if he doesn’t repent. That’s not anti-Semitism to say that. We denounce every form of true anti-Semitism, where people assume the worst about a person or mistreat a person because of that person’s Jewish heritage. There is no teaching of Christianity that promotes or permits violence, hatred, mistreatment, ridicule, or even arrogance toward anyone, including those who are called Jews. If someone mistreats a Jewish person, in any way, in the name of Christianity, he is liar. Christ does not permit any such thing. But to tell the truth, that the Jews are lost in their current state of unbelief, is not hate. We say it in love, to bring the one who is perishing to repentance and faith in the only true God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But what if the Jews love the Lord their God with all their heart, as commanded in the Law? Ah, but they most certainly don’t. For two reasons.

The first is explained by Jesus Himself in the second part of the Gospel. “What do you think about the Christ?”, Jesus asked the experts in the Law. “Whose Son is he?” They said to him, “The Son of David.” 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, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?”’ Now, if David calls him Lord, how is he David’s Son?”

The experts were speechless. They couldn’t answer. Because they didn’t know the answer. How could David’s Son, the Christ, also be David’s Lord? You see, the kingship in Israel passed down from father to son. The father was king before the son was. The son received his kingship from his father. So the son could never be greater than his father, much less the Lord of his father. The Jews thought that the Christ, as the promised Son of David, would receive His kingship from David, His “father,” his ancestor. And yet here David calls his Son his “Lord.” That’s because the Christ would be both descended from David, according to His human nature, and eternally descended from God the Father, according to His divine nature, making Him Lord of all. The Christ was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him. Without Him, nothing was made that has been made. And the Christ is Jesus. Jesus is Lord, of David, and of everyone.

That means that, when the greatest commandment says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” Jesus is included in “the Lord.” The Lord includes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the experts in the Law most certainly didn’t love Jesus as their Lord. So they were doomed from the start.

But there’s a second reason why we can say that the Jews didn’t love the Lord their God with all their heart: Because no one does. That’s the problem with the Law of Moses. It’s the problem with the moral Law. It commands perfect love for God and man, God-defined love, but because of the weakness of our sinful nature, the twisted nature we inherited from our parents and they from theirs, the Law is unable to save anyone or to point anyone to a path that leads to salvation. “Oh, well, you just have to love God with your whole heart, and love your neighbor!” Thanks a lot. I haven’t done that, and even if I could start doing it from now on, that doesn’t make up for all the selfishness I’ve indulged in up until now, or all the meanness, or all the laziness, or any of the sins I’ve committed. The Law reveals and commands love, which is good and right. But the Jews were sinners, as are we all.

That’s why we need Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of David. He, the Lord God whom we were to love with all our heart, but didn’t, took on human flesh in order to fulfill the law of love in our place, to suffer on the cross for our failure to love Him and our neighbor, as His Law demands. Jesus’ love for us, for all people, led Him to the cross, so that we might put our faith in Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins. And now that He has risen from the dead, His love still leads Him to send forth His mighty Word, to expose our natural lovelessness so that we don’t perish in it, to call us to repentance and faith in Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

The greatest commandment in the Law has always been to love God, which means also to love Jesus. And the beauty of it is that it was our very failure to keep that greatest commandment that gave God the opportunity to show His love for us in the most unimaginable way possible, by giving His Son into death for His enemies, in order that we might finally love Him as we ought. As St. John writes, In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also should love one another. Amen.

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The sending of the seventy and beyond

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Feast of St. Luke

2 Timothy 4:5-15 + Luke 10:1-9

Our celebration of St. Luke is really just another opportunity to hear and consider the Word of God that has been chosen for this festival, which is the sending of the 70, recorded in Luke 10.

Most Greek manuscripts say 70, but there are some that say 72 were sent out on this occasion. There’s no way to know for sure, but it doesn’t matter at all. The 70 or 72 were sent out two by two ahead of Jesus, into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Who were these men? They are never named in Scripture. We simply notice that they were chosen from among all of the multitudes who had been following Jesus. Not everyone was sent. Only certain men were sent, and given a message to preach, and miraculous power to use, and instructions for how they were to go about their mission.

It’s important that we separate the parts of this sending that were specific to these 70 men on this specific mission from the general principles that apply beyond the 70.

For example, He sent them two by two ahead of Him. Does that mean that every mission must include two missionaries or preachers? No. And yet, the practice of not sending a man alone into a new mission field has been recognized in the Church since the beginning. As St. Paul was sent to new mission fields, where no Christian churches had yet been established, remember how even he, an apostle directly chosen by Jesus, was not sent alone. He was sent, first, with Barnabas, and then with Silas on his other missionary journeys, sometimes accompanied by others. There is wisdom in that, wisdom that came from Jesus as He sent out the 70.

Something very specific about this mission was that Jesus Himself was going to follow these men, was going to appear in all the cities where they would go, making them the heralds of His arrival. That, obviously, is not how men are sent out today. And yet, there is a sense in which it is true. Because part of our preaching is that Jesus is coming soon, not to this city or that one, but to the whole world at once, to judge the world in righteousness. In that sense, Jesus will soon come, both here, and everywhere where His messengers preach His word.

He said to the 70, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” The harvest was truly great in that first century AD, when practically no one in the world had heard the Gospel of Jesus, when the Church was poised to explode in her membership, and baptisms would be performed by the thousands. God knows where His Gospel will be believed. God sees those who will be converted by it, baptized into His name, and harvested into His holy Christian Church. At various times and at various places in history, the harvest has been truly great. At other times, in other places, it has been small, just as a harvest of crops can have good years and bad. But you can be absolutely sure that a harvest still remains, because that’s the only thing preventing Jesus from returning, the only thing that’s still postponing the day of resurrection and the day of judgment.

But just as true today as it was back then, the laborers are few, especially the laborers who are committed to teaching the whole truth of God’s Word, to preaching the Gospel purely and to administering the Sacraments rightly. So the Lord’s command to pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest remains just as urgent today as it was back then. We include it in our general prayer almost every Sunday, and you can certainly include it more often than that in your personal prayers.

Of course, sometimes, some of the men who pray for laborers to be sent out will become the fulfillment of their own prayers. Go!, Jesus said to the 70. Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Lambs among wolves. Harmless, meek, non-aggressive animals being sent out among vicious, blood-thirsty, aggressive animals. Prey being sent out to live openly among the predators. Is that really what mission work is like? That’s how Jesus describes it, isn’t it? And He was talking, most directly, about what His Jewish missionaries would encounter among their Jewish neighbors in the neighboring cities! Such strong opposition from their own countrymen! How is that possible?

It’s possible because, for as much as Christians may look like and share things in common with unbelievers, we are, in fact, as different as night and day when it comes to our spirit, when it comes to our allegiances, our spiritual beliefs, and our eternal destinies. Believers in Christ are alive. Unbelievers are dead. Believers in Christ are beloved children of God. Unbelievers are still hostile to God, and that often spills over into hostility for the children of God. In the first three hundred years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, both Jews and Gentiles persecuted and killed men like the 70 whom Jesus sent out. In parts of the world still today, Christians are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands, as in Nigeria, where Muslims are the wolves slaying Jesus’ lambs.

And yet, did any of the 70 hear this and say, “No, Lord! If that’s the case, I’m staying home!”? No, not one. Because even if they had been killed for Jesus’ sake, which none of them were, on this occasion, they knew that Jesus held the keys to a kingdom that outlasts this life, and they lived not for peace and comfort here, but for the peace, comfort, and joy of that life beyond this life.

Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. This command was very specific to the mission of the 70. They were to go quickly, because Jesus would be right behind them, and His time on earth was short. They were not to take any provisions or possessions of their own, because, as we’ll see below, they were to rely on God to provide for them through the people to whom they would preach. And, remember, He wasn’t sending them to foreign countries. He was sending them to their fellow Israelites, who were all their fellow church members, too. So this isn’t a permanent prohibition for ministers to own property. It’s a temporary instruction for these Israelites who were to visit their fellow Israelites with tremendous news, and with the expectation that their fellow Israelites would support them in their preaching.

But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. It appears that, two by two, the 70 were to arrive in the cities and villages, explain the reason for their arrival in the public square, and look for a family that was willing to take them in. Jesus gives them, not just a nice saying, but a divine blessing to pronounce upon such a house, “Peace to this house.” God promised to bless that family with His peace and providence, but only if the people of the house welcomed not only the messengers but the message they preached. If they didn’t believe the message, then God’s peace would not rest upon them, because peace with God only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. There are some specific commands here. The missionaries were to stay in someone else’s home until their mission trip was completed. They were to receive their food from what the house provided, and they were not supposed to go door to door, looking for a new place to stay every night. But there is a general principle established here: The laborer is worthy of his wages. St. Paul actually cites this very saying of Jesus when he writes to Timothy in 1 Tim. 5, The laborer is worthy of his wages, and again when he writes to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 9: The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. St. Paul makes clear that this applies to every minister of the Gospel, and to every family or congregation that benefits from a pastor’s preaching, that the hearers should support the preachers, even as you have always done here so willingly for me.

Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. That’s not only a command for the hearers to provide. It’s also a command for the minister to be satisfied with what he’s given.

And heal the sick there. Again, a very specific, limited power, not given to all ministers of all time, but given to the 12 apostles, and also to these 70, to perform miraculous healing in Jesus’ name, and not to be stingy with such healing, but, as Jesus told the 12 when He sent them out, Freely you have received, freely give.

And say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ There’s the message. Just a summary of it, of course, but also the heart of it. The kingdom of God has come near to you. The kingdom of God isn’t a place up there in the sky. It’s every place where God reigns as King. It’s the place where the devil has no more say, no more power. It’s the place where sin and guilt are wiped out, where death is defeated, where God is a Father who cares equally for all the subjects of His kingdom, and where Jesus reigns as King in a person’s heart. It has “come near to you,” the 70 were to say, because the Lord Jesus was right behind them, soon to visit them. And where Jesus is, that’s where the kingdom of God is centered. Where Jesus comes, through His Word and through His Sacraments, where He comes with His righteousness, with His peace, there the Holy Spirit draws people away from stubbornly clinging to sin to repentance, from ignorance of God to the knowledge of God, from unbelief to faith, from death to life.

Now, Jesus was well aware that this message would not be accepted by many. In the following verses, he gives the 70 instructions about how to pronounce a curse upon the towns and cities that wouldn’t receive them. He who rejects you rejects Me, He said. But He also knew that some would receive His messengers, and so He said, He who listens to you listens to Me. When Jesus sends a messenger, a minister, to speak and to act in His name, He will hold the hearers accountable when He comes, for good or for bad.

And how will you know if the messenger was truly sent by God? The 70 had two proofs: the miracles they were enabled to perform, and the fact that their message agreed with the Scriptures. It’s not that much different today. A minister sent by God today has two proofs: the call of Jesus, through the call and ordination of the Church, which can be verified, and the fact that their message agrees with the Scriptures. Where both of these are present, receive them, listen to them, and support them, as you have done and still are doing. And know that, just as Jesus rejoiced when the 70 returned and told Him how many had received them and their preaching, so He will rejoice, and rejoices even now, when sinners are reconciled to God through the ministers whom He has sent, whether it’s the apostle Paul, or St. Luke the Evangelist, or even the one standing before you today. Amen.

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