Learn the Father’s mercy by watching Jesus

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. That’s the summary of the Gospel you heard today, and it really summarizes the whole Christian life of faith and love. Faith in the God who is merciful to us poor sinners; and love for our neighbor, who is a sinner just like us. Faith which is born of hearing God’s word, centered on Christ Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us; and love which is born of faith and seeks to serve our neighbor as Christ has served us.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Those are words for all Christians to live by, words for all fathers to live by, and also words for husbands and wives to live by, so Kami and Claudia, the Lord has a marriage blessing for you in this Gospel, too.

The word for “merciful” that Jesus uses in this Gospel means to show sympathy, compassion, and care toward those who are suffering or needy in any way, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Jesus points out that God the Father is kind to the unthankful and evil.

Where do we see the Father’s compassion and kindness to the unthankful and evil? The very fact that God keeps this world spinning, that He keeps this creation running, in its bondage to corruption, in spite of the fact that all men are born in sin and hostile to Him by nature, is a testimony to God’s mercy. He does not desire the death of the wicked. He does not immediately wipe us out with judgment and condemnation as we come into the world and, in every case, show ourselves to be sinners. It’s not that He overlooks sin or condones sin. He punished it in His Son. He gave His Son into human flesh and gave Him again on the cross, not for good people, but, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” so that all men might know His mercy and compassion, trust in the Son of God who suffered for our sins, and receive the forgiveness of sins as a free gift. In addition to all that, God the Father gives rain and sunshine and crops for all people on earth. He gives medicine for our diseases and beauty to refresh our hearts. These are just a few ways in which Your Father is merciful.

And understand the context of Jesus’ words. He is speaking to His disciples, to His Christians, who have been given the right to become children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. He is speaking to those who have been adopted through Holy Baptism, who have received grace and the forgiveness of their sins and have God for a Father. Everything that follows is spoken to Christians, who have already been justified by faith and made children of God. He’s not saying anything here about how a person comes into God’s kingdom, but about how God’s children are to live within His kingdom, how the good works of Christians will be witnesses to their faith, and also how a lack of good works in those who call themselves Christians will be evidence that their faith is a sham.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Or as St. Paul puts it to the Ephesians, Be imitators of God as dear children.

How do we imitate our Father? We just considered several examples. But our Father never lived on earth among sinners as we do. Do you want to see how our Father is merciful? Watch Jesus. Jesus did live on earth among sinners as we do. The very next verse in Ephesians 5 goes on, And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Jesus once said, He who has seen Me has seen the Father. So you want to know how to imitate your Father? Watch Jesus. You can’t know God the Father and you can’t know mercy apart from Him.

Jesus says, Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. One of the most misused and twisted passages of the Bible. One of the only sayings of Jesus the wicked reprobates of this world care to learn. Oh, that sounded judgmental didn’t it? It was supposed to. Because Jesus often sounded judgmental. In other words, He plainly identified sin as sin and He did not hesitate to point out people’s sin and to warn impenitent sinners of the judgment and eternal condemnation they would face for their sins. He gave us His Word so that we might judge all things by it, to distinguish correctly between right and wrong, good and evil.

So in what ways did Jesus not judge, not condemn?

First, as we’ve been noting the last two weeks, He accepted everyone into His company: rich and poor, Pharisee and tax collector, men and women, Jews and Gentiles, without showing any partiality or prejudice. He once told His hearers, Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

Second, He was humble and kind in His dealings with others. He never sought to make Himself look better than anyone, even though He was better than everyone. He was known for His mercy, not for how high and mighty He was.

Third, He refused to offer an opinion about things that didn’t concern Him, that weren’t part of His vocation, like when a man came to Him and demanded of Him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me, and Jesus replied, Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?”

And fourth, Jesus’ purpose and motive were constant, even when pointing out sin: the salvation of the sinner was always His goal. As He once cried out to all who would hear, I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. And again, He said, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

There’s your Father in action, in the person of His Son, showing mercy by not judging as the world judges or condemning as the world condemns, but without partiality, in humility, always with sympathy and compassion, so that the sinner might be saved.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven. How does the Father forgive? Watch Jesus. He taught His disciples: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” No matter how much a person had sinned against Jesus and against His Father, He was always ready to forgive those who repented. To the penitent tax collector Zacchaeus, Jesus pronounced forgiveness. To the penitent prostitute whom Simon the Pharisee berated, Jesus pronounced forgiveness. To His disciples who had abandoned Him on the night He was betrayed and to Peter who denied Him three times, He pronounced, “Peace!” And to the crowds in Jerusalem, some of whom had called for His crucifixion, Jesus announced through the Apostle Peter, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

There’s your Father in action, in the person of His Son, showing mercy by forgiving all who repented of their sins.

Give and it will be given to you. How does the Father give? Watch Jesus. Always giving, never taking. He gave literally everything He had, without receiving payment for it and often without receiving thanks for it, and sometimes even receiving abuse for it. He gave His time. His care. His concern. His counsel and instruction. Healing diseases, providing bread for the hungry, taking up collections for the poor. And, of course, giving His life for the world, giving His blood on the cross for us.

There’s your Father in action, in the person of His Son, showing mercy by giving all He had for those who loved Him and for those who hated Him, freely, gladly, dependably.

Can you be like that? It depends on who your teacher is. If you look within yourself for mercy, you’ll be like the blind leading the blind and falling into a ditch. If you are taught by your own sinful flesh, you’ll constantly be focusing on the faults of others, without ever realizing that your sin is far worse. First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

In other words, you can’t help anyone or be of any use to anyone unless you first repent. Recognize your utter sinfulness before God, your corruption that goes down to the core of your being. You don’t know mercy by nature. By nature, you know only how to judge and condemn in the worst way. You don’t know how to forgive or how to give freely or unselfishly. So seek help from Jesus. Seek help from Jesus, not to make you a better person, but to make you a new person, to crucify and put to death your old self, and to raise up a new creation. That begins with the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, as a new person is born. And it continues for the rest of your life as you are continually forgiven and strengthened through Word and Sacrament, guided by the Holy Spirit and molded into the image of Your heavenly Father, which is also the image of Jesus.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Christian fathers, learn mercy from Jesus. Learn it for yourselves first, because you know you need it! And then keep learning from Christ to show mercy to your children and to teach mercy to your children. Christian husbands and wives, learn mercy from Jesus, so that you can do the hard work of fulfilling your important vocations in your homes. All of you Christians, learn mercy from Jesus. And learn to put it into practice every day, so that, whenever you speak, whatever you do, everyone around you hears Jesus speaking, sees Jesus doing, and so comes to know our Father in heaven, whose mercies are new every morning. Amen.

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The Father’s compassion goes out to His fallen children

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for the week of Trinity 3

Micah 7:18-20  +  Luke 15:11-32 + The Lord’s Prayer, Fourth Petition

The words of the two lessons you heard tonight deal most directly with God the Father’s compassion toward His children who have fallen into sin.

By “His children,” I don’t mean all people on earth. Yes, God is the Father of all people—and of all things! — because He created them all. But in the context of these texts, God is referring specifically to those who have been born again and brought into His house by covenant relationship: OT Israel, through the Old Covenant God made with Abraham, and NT Christians, through Holy Baptism, which is the seal of the New Covenant. Obviously these texts also have applications to those who have never known the true God, as God teaches all men here about His goodness and mercy in Christ, calling out to sinners to enter His kingdom and His family also for the first time. But primarily and directly, these lessons apply to fallen or “lapsed” Israelites at that time, or Christians in our time.

And by “falling into sin,” I don’t just mean the sins that all of us sadly commit every day. We daily sin much and always have need of repentance. As the Apostle John says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. No, I mean falling into sin and staying there, living in impenitence, committing mortal sin, as it’s called, that is, knowingly sinning against God and refusing to repent. That kind of sin drives out the Holy Spirit and separates a person from God’s kingdom of grace. A believer turns into an unbeliever again, and a child of God goes back to being the devil’s slave.

That happened all throughout the history of Old Testament Israel, right up to the time of Christ. Many Israelites fell away from the faith, including tens of thousands who escaped from Egypt with Moses, including the tax collectors and public sinners in Jesus’ day who started out as members of the Church of Israel, but wandered away into a life of sin.

The same happens to NT Christians, too. A person is baptized, maybe as a child, but then—often beginning in the teenage years, but it can happen anytime—he or she wanders away from the Father’s house. They turn their focus from God to their earthly life, to concentrate on their studies, or their careers, or their friends, or sports, or even video screens. They buy into the world’s lies about success and pleasure and happiness. They adopt the customs and the philosophies of this world. They go off to indulge their sinful flesh. They abandon the hearing of the Word and the reception of the Sacrament, and their faith dies. They become unbelievers. And none of it was God’s fault.

Then what? They’ve willfully abandoned their Father and His grace and Jesus, who suffered for them and never once betrayed them or lied to them or led them astray. Still, the Father wants to have the sinner back. Always! Now, it’s not the Father’s desire for the prodigal to be saved while he remains in his current state of unbelief and wild living, but to be saved from all that, to have him recognize what a huge mistake he made in ever leaving his Father’s house, to have him recognize that the world with its attractions and temptations was fooling him all along, to have him turn back to his Father in humility and repentance. See the Father’s joy as his son returns. See the Father’s immediate embrace of him who was lost. See the Father’s full forgiveness bestowed on the penitent son, and the celebration that follows.

And recognize that, while the parable depicts the son returning by himself to his Father’s house, in reality, what was it that turned him around? Necessity played a role. He lost all his money. He was left basically homeless and hopeless and hungry. The prodigal was deprived of daily bread for a time, that he might repent and return to his father, who was kind and good and provided daily bread even for the servants in his house.

So, too, God often uses earthly necessity and even tragedy to show people that they have a problem, that they can’t save themselves, that they need saving. Lack of daily bread, loneliness, despair, destitution, a ruined life—those things sometimes make fallen Christians recognize their sinful mistakes, even as God’s use of wicked men and pagan nations throughout the Old Testament to bring devastation and destruction on Israel were often His external means of causing them to recognize their transgressions.

What else caused the prodigal son’s repentance? The knowledge he already had of his Father’s mercy and kindness and goodness, which he witnessed every day while he was still living in his Father’s house but failed to appreciate it.

So, too, God sends His Word out and reaches many lapsed Christians with it, who once heard the Gospel and knew God’s love in Christ Jesus, but then left the Church or were even excommunicated for their impenitence. To them the Father calls out by His Spirit, reminding them that He is good and compassionate and will forgive them for the sake of Christ. That Word is the very thing that turns their hearts and brings them back, even though you can’t see the Word doing it; it seems like they’re returning alone along the path. But in reality, Christ Jesus is there, sending His Spirit to work repentance and to convert them again from unbelief to faith. And when that happens, the sinner is received again into the Father’s embrace, redeemed, restored, and forgiven.

Finally, we see in Jesus’ parable that it’s far better to be the son who falls away and then returns to his Father’s house than to be the other son who never physically left the house, but who despised the mercy and goodness of his Father all along and begrudged his brother the opportunity to return and be accepted back. That son has become prodigal without even knowing it.

So we are warned by Jesus as members of His Holy Church that there is more than one way to leave God’s kingdom of grace. A person can physically abandon the Church and leave. But a person can also remain an outward member of the Church, even as his heart turns evil toward his neighbor and faith in Christ disappears, so that his membership in the Church is nothing more than an outward show, his Christianity an empty shell.

The remedy against that, as well as the remedy for those who have fallen away and the remedy for those who still need to be brought into God’s kingdom for the first time, is the preaching of Jesus, the Word of God that depicts Him as a God who pardons and forgives, as the God who gave His Son into death, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. As the prophet Micah wrote, Who is a God like our God? Amen.

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Christ never sends away any who come to Him

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

Last week you heard of Jesus eating with the Pharisees at a Pharisee’s house. They were known as the good people in town, the law-abiding citizens, and Jesus was always happy to accept their invitations to associate with them, to dine with them, to talk with them, to teach them, even though their invitations were often traps, and at the end of the day, most of them didn’t believe Jesus’ words or want Him for a Savior. No matter. He came into the world to call them to repentance, so that they might recognize that they were sinners, too, so that they might be saved by faith in Him.

Jesus was also happy to have the well-known, open sinners in His company, including thieving tax collectors and notorious prostitutes, to associate with them, to dine with them, to talk with them, to teach them. His message to the open sinners was essentially the same as His message to the righteous-looking Pharisees. None of you are actually righteous before God. None of your works can make you acceptable to Him. You haven’t been good enough to earn His favor, and you can’t be good enough to earn His favor, because you’re all sinners. And because you’re all sinners, you stand condemned before God’s holy Law. Repent and believe the good news, that I have come to save you from your sins—both the public ones and the private ones, both the ones that the whole country knows about, and the ones that only you and God know about, and even the ones that you don’t know about, but God does. I have come to help you! To offer you a daily clean slate before God, the sure hope of eternal life in heaven, and the beginning of a holy life here on earth! Believe in Me!

And many of them did believe in Jesus. At very least, many of them were drawn to Jesus’ word and kept coming to Him, wanting to hear more. And He never sent away any who came to Him.

When the Pharisees saw Jesus surrounded by these tax collectors and well-known sinners, they grumbled and complained. This Man receives sinners and eats with them. You have to understand why this bothered them so much. The Pharisees had nothing to offer thieving tax collectors and prostitutes and wretched sinners. They believed that the path to salvation was paved with good works and a good life. It was too late for people who had messed up so badly. They didn’t even want such people to be saved. They didn’t believe in a God who would allow such sinners into His house.

So Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

A shepherd has a hundred sheep, one goes missing, so he leaves the 99 in the pasture to go search for the one that was lost. Any shepherd would do this, as they all knew. No shepherd would be content to let a sheep wander off without searching for it.

So also God says through the Prophet Ezekiel that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. God, unlike the Pharisees, does not easily give up on those who wander away from His sheepfold, who turn away from Him to their idols, who indulge their sinful desires, who act wickedly toward their neighbor, who wallow in the mud of their sins. On the contrary, He sent His Word to the holy prophets to call the wicked in Israel to “turn from their ways and live.” He sent His Son into the world to search for sinners and to preach the same word of repentance to them, and more than that, to suffer and die for their sins so that they should be forgiven and saved by faith in Him.

And now He still searches for His lost sheep through the preaching of the Gospel in all the world. And this is the message: Turn from your sins and take refuge in Christ Jesus, who suffered for you. Believe in Him and so be clothed with His perfect righteousness before God. Learn from Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. In Him you will find full and free forgiveness, as He promised long ago through the Prophet Isaiah: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. For Christ’s sake you will find a loving Father in heaven who knows all the evil you have done and still will take you back and make you holy in His sight through faith in Christ.

When the shepherd finds his sheep, he puts it up on his shoulders, carries it home rejoicing, and celebrates. So also God’s chief purpose in sending His Son into the world was not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And when a sinner repents and believes in Christ, God doesn’t grudgingly take him or her into His house. He rejoices. He celebrates. He is thrilled to have the sinner back. And all the holy angels, and all the saints and true members of the Church rejoice together with Him, to the praise of God’s glorious grace.

But the Pharisees weren’t rejoicing with Jesus when the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Him. They wanted to believe that heaven was only for righteous people, like them, who “had no need of repentance.” But Jesus tells them the hard truth: I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. You who think you are just and righteous, you who pretend that you need no repentance, and that God should be happy to have people like you in heaven—you’re the ones who are fooling yourselves. You’re the ones who bring no joy to heaven at all.

The second parable is similar to the first one—the woman who had ten silver coins and lost one. Here Jesus makes it clear that no one is worth more or less than another. Every soul is valuable to God. Everyone is worth saving. Christ shed His blood for everyone, and He has His Gospel preached to everyone, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What Christ has done for sinners is actually much more than the shepherd or the woman in the parables did. The shepherd took time and effort to find the lost sheep, and the woman took time and effort to sweep the house in search of the lost coin. But Christ Jesus took on human flesh, became Man, spent His entirely earthly life serving lost sinners, sacrificed His own life on the cross for lost sinners, and now spends the rest of this earthly age ruling at God’s right hand and sending the light of His Gospel out into the world, searching, sweeping the earth, until He finds another lost soul whom the Holy Spirit will enlighten with His gifts, another lost soul who will turn in faith to Christ and be found.

You see in both parables today how serious God is about the sinner’s salvation. He doesn’t cast anyone away who comes to Him and wants to hear Him. At the same time, He isn’t looking for mere onlookers. It won’t do anyone any good in the end to remain on the fringes of Christ’s kingdom. Christ is searching for participants in His Church, for people who will value Him highly enough to follow Him into His kingdom, to cling to Him above all things. He’s looking for those who will “faithfully conform all their life to the rule of the divine Word, to be diligent in the use of the means of grace, to walk in a way that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to the Triune God, even to death.”

Natalie, Andrew, Vanessa, that is exactly what you are about to confess before this Christian congregation that you are ready to do. You were baptized into Christ, but then wandered away from His Word and Sacrament for a time. Now you have been drawn back to Christ by the word of His Gospel, and He hasn’t sent you away. Instead, His Holy Spirit has worked powerfully in you so that you’re ready to confess Him publicly, with one voice, together with all the members of this congregation. And what the Pharisees said of Christ in derision, you will gladly and thankfully confess for all eternity, together with us: This Man receives sinners and eats with them. More than that, this Man, Christ Jesus, is also true God, who gives His very body and blood for sinners to eat and to drink in the Sacrament of the Altar, a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins that He purchased with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. Heaven rejoices over you today, and so do we. May God’s Holy Spirit preserve us all in daily contrition and repentance, clinging to Christ in faith, until He carries us on His shoulders safely into life everlasting. Amen.

 

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The price of admission to God’s kingdom

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

You heard in the Gospel of a great supper to which many were invited. Jesus told that parable while He Himself was having supper, sitting at a table in a Pharisee’s house, surrounded by a bunch of Pharisees who were watching Him carefully, critiquing Him, perhaps even hoping to catch Him in a violation of the Law. Jesus was a novelty to them, and also a threat. Because the main purpose of the Pharisees was to do such a good job at keeping the Law of God that they could earn a place for themselves in the kingdom of God. And their second main purpose was to teach others to do the same, to be like them, so that all those who were good enough and righteous enough could work their way into the Great Supper in the kingdom of God, together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But Jesus got in the way of all that. He taught a different way into God’s kingdom—the very way to which the Old Testament Law itself pointed. He kept insisting that these Pharisees stop pretending that they were more worthy than other people of God’s favor. He told them another parable right before the one you heard in the Gospel, in which He urged them to stop picking the highest place for themselves at these banquets, and more importantly, to humble themselves before God and before men, trusting in God to raise them up out of His own goodness and generosity, without any merit or worthiness on their part.

But humility was not a virtue that the Pharisees esteemed. One of them sitting at the table with Jesus piped up and preached his own little sermon after Jesus told that parable. Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God! The parable of the great supper that you heard today was Jesus’ response to him, pointing out to the Pharisees that God’s dining room was already filling up with people, while the Pharisees sat outside, refusing to enter, waiting for some other feast that was never going to happen.

Let’s look at the parable. A certain man gave a great supper. The man represents God, and the supper stands for the benefit of coming into God’s grace, God’s house, the Holy Church, the kingdom of heaven, which is now open for all nations, for all men to enter through faith in Christ and Holy Baptism.

The man invited many. These are the Old Testament people of Israel. Ever since the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God had been telling the people of Israel about the coming of His Son to be their Redeemer, their Savior. Through the holy prophets, He had been inviting the Israelites to wait expectantly for this good Savior to come and crush the devil’s head. Be ready when Christ comes! Be looking for Him! Listen to Him when He comes! And put your faith in Him!

He sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ This is John the Baptist, and Christ Himself, and the Apostles after Him, who announced the arrival of the kingdom of God in the coming of Christ. Now God has taken on human flesh in order to redeem fallen mankind from sin. Now the Son of Man will lay down His life for sinners. Now all men are called to repent of their sins and believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.

But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’

We often hear of the thousands of people who followed Jesus at various points in His earthly ministry. But there were tens of thousands in Israel, probably hundreds of thousands, who never listened to Him, who never followed Him, who wanted nothing to do with Him. Among those were the majority of the Pharisees, including the ones who were sitting at the table with Jesus as He told this parable. They all had their reasons, their earthly excuses. Too busy. Too much to do. Family matters to attend to.

In the end, it was simply unbelief that kept them away. The Pharisees thought they didn’t need a Savior from sin. Many sinners in Israel were happy enough to go on sinning and not worry about the consequences that might follow in the afterlife. The rich were too busy enjoying their riches. And even most of those who followed Jesus for a while stopped following Him when they realized that, to be a disciple of Jesus means being ready to leave everything else, even your own life, behind. As Jesus says in the verses right after our Gospel: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Few people in Israel thought that Jesus was worth that much. Few people in Israel wanted to attend the Great Supper, if it meant they had to suffer earthly loss.

So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry…Notice the man’s reaction—God’s reaction to Israel’s indifference toward Jesus, which is indifference toward God. Sometimes Jesus pictures God weeping over Israel’s unbelief. That’s a valid picture. But so is this one! God is angered when men—especially His chosen people of Israel—reject His Son, their Savior. So what did He do?

He said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’

These are the tax collectors and public sinners in Israel, and the simple folk, fishermen, women, children. The high and mighty in Israel had turned down the invitation to the Supper, but many of these people were glad to learn that Jesus had come to save them, were glad to follow Him and quick to believe in Him.

And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

This stands for Christ’s command to His apostles to go and teach all nations, to preach the Gospel to every creature, Jews and Gentiles, down through the ages, you and me, anyone and everyone—all are invited, through the preaching ministry, to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus, to be baptized in His name and to gather in His house, the Holy Church, where He feeds us with His Word, with His body, and with His blood, where we “daily obtain nothing but the forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs,” as Luther wrote in the Large Catechism.

For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

God wants all men to be saved. But He wants them to be saved through faith in Christ Jesus, and in no other way. If men refuse that gift, then God’s will is for them to be locked out of His grace and His kingdom forever. There is no such thing as salvation apart from faith in Christ, or worshiping God without worshiping Christ, or praying to God without praying in Jesus’ name. These words from Jesus’ parable are just another way of saying, outside of the Christian Church (or the Church catholic, if you will) there is no salvation.

This parable of Jesus highlights some very important things for us. Above all, it shows us what the price of admission is into God’s kingdom. It’s free, isn’t it? And the invitation is universal. The invitation to the Great Supper went out to rich and poor, to good and bad, to healthy and sick. No one had to do anything or pay anything to earn the invitation or to earn a place at the Supper. The invitation goes out by God’s grace alone, and a person enters by faith alone in Christ Jesus.

In other words, the “price of admission” is Jesus. You have to enter by trusting in God’s grace for the sake of Christ. You can’t enter by trusting in your own works. You can’t enter by refusing to repent of your sins. You can’t enter by trying to bypass Jesus. It has to be through Him that you enter.

What a great gift God has given you, both in sending His Son to die for your sins and in calling you to faith and Holy Baptism, where you now taste and see that the Lord is good! Don’t be discouraged when you see countless people turning down this invitation, not caring about the Word of Christ, even mocking Him and those who come to this Supper. And don’t imagine for a moment that the problem is with the invitation or with how the invitation is being announced. Remember that Jesus Himself once sat at the table with a bunch of people who received the invitation to God’s kingdom directly from His lips and still made excuses why they didn’t want the Supper He was offering, who still longed to enter God’s kingdom in some other way than by faith in Christ. The problem is never with the invitation. It’s always with man’s stubborn unbelief.

It’s a great miracle of God’s Holy Spirit that you or that anyone should believe the Gospel, and it seems like fewer and fewer people do. But until Christ comes again in glory, you can know for sure that there still is room in God’s house, that this Gospel will reach more people along the highways and hedges, and that the Holy Spirit will still work powerfully through it, bringing men to faith in Christ, where and when it pleases Him. Just tell people the truth about God and His Son Jesus Christ. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Amen.

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Why you’re here on this earth

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


Right Click to Save

Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity

1 John 4:16-21  +  Luke 16:19-31

What happens to the soul when a person dies? Is there a heaven or a hell? And, if so, what are they like? And who goes where? Jesus’ story about the rich man and poor Lazarus gives us some answers to these questions—answers that are also found elsewhere in the Scriptures, but that really paint the picture for us vividly.

Is there a heaven or a hell?  Absolutely! What happens when a person dies? The body, as we already know, is laid in the ground to decay. But the soul—the soul is taken immediately either to heaven or to hell.

What’s heaven like? Jesus describes it as a place of rest and peace and comfort for the soul, which is carried to “Abraham’s bosom.” Picture Abraham embracing Lazarus with a big hug after the hard and painful life Lazarus had just left behind. It’s Abraham whom Jesus mentions from the Old Testament, because God had promised an eternal inheritance and place of rest to Abraham’s seed, to Abraham’s descendants, the children of Israel. So of course heaven is pictured with father Abraham there, receiving his children into his embrace.

What’s hell like? Jesus describes it as a place of fire and torment and despair. And there is no crossing back and forth between heaven and hell. A permanent gulf or chasm separates the two. Once you’re there, in either place, you’re there for good.

Now the even more important question: who goes where? What is it that grants a person access into heavenly rest or that sends a person to hellish torment? And, ultimately, why are you here on this earth in the first place?

Consider, first, what doesn’t get a person into heaven. Riches, wealth. That won’t do it. The rich man in Jesus’ story had all the riches anyone could ever want. He went to hell. Poverty, being poor. That won’t do it, either. Yes, Lazarus was poor. But Abraham was one of the richest men in the land of Canaan during his earthly lifetime. So poverty is no ticket to eternal life. Earthly sickness or suffering? No. Again, Abraham didn’t suffer greatly, as Lazarus did, and he was in heaven. Eating well! Wearing fine clothes! No, the rich man ate well every day, and still went to hell. Genetics? Having the right genes, the right family history? Well, both the rich man and Lazarus were physical descendants of Abraham. But one went to heaven, and the other went to hell.

Good works, then! It must be doing good works that makes the difference. The rich man was evil! Lazarus was good! Well, Jesus tells us of no great evil that the rich man did, nor does He mention a single good thing that Lazarus ever did.

So what’s the answer? It comes toward the end of the story, where the rich man pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus back to the land of the living, to the five brothers of the rich man who were still alive and who, he knew, were on the same path he was on, to end up there in hell. What does father Abraham reveal to the rich man in hell that his brothers on earth need in order to escape the torments of hell and reach the comfort of heaven? Only one thing could possibly help them: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

Now, the rich man didn’t believe Abraham. There must be something else they need, he thought, because he had Moses and the prophets during his lifetime, too, and he didn’t repent. And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ” Hearing Moses and the prophets, that is, what we know as the Old Testament Scriptures, is all that anyone needs to be “persuaded to repent,” in order to escape hell and enter heaven when they die.

And what do those Scriptures teach? For one, they certainly teach the Law, the Ten Commandments, summed up like this: You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And, The man who does all these things shall live by them. And the soul who sins shall die. To hear Moses and the prophets is to hear these commandments and these threats of God, to take them to heart, and then to be very afraid, because there is no one who does not sin, and God threatens eternal death in hell to the one who sins, to the one who fails to love God and his neighbor at all times, with a perfect, unselfish love.

Then there is that other word that is found throughout Moses and the prophets, the word of the Gospel. What does Moses say about Abraham? How was Abraham justified before God so that he was accepted into heaven when he died? Moses writes (and St. Paul repeats it in his Epistle to the Romans): Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham was justified by faith alone, apart from works. And what did the prophets write? They wrote especially about the coming of the Christ, who would be Israel’s Redeemer from sin, who would make atonement for the sins of Israel, even for the sins of the whole world. They wrote about faith in the coming Christ as the only way to live eternally, the only way to escape the just punishment for sins that sinners are condemned by the Law to receive in hell.

Now look back at Jesus’ parable. What do we see in Lazarus and what must we assume about Lazarus? Well, we see no works of love toward his neighbor in Jesus’ story. He wasn’t in a position to do much, except, perhaps, to pray for his neighbor. But since the Law condemned Lazarus with the rest of mankind, he clearly committed his cause to the merciful God. As a true son of Abraham, he believed in God’s promise of salvation, in spite of the difficult life he was forced to lead on earth. He continued to trust in God and to bear his afflictions patiently. That’s trust that comes only from hearing God’s Word. That’s love for God. Lazarus was poor in possessions, but rich in faith, even though the rich man ignored him, even though it appeared that God was ignoring him. But as the angels carried his soul to Abraham’s bosom, the truth was revealed. God hadn’t been ignoring him. God had accepted him as a beloved son through faith, and had been sustaining his faith and preparing to receive him into heavenly glory and peace and rest.

There is great comfort here for Christians who are suffering, whether you’re suffering at the hands of men or are abandoned by men or whether you’re poor or sick, and even when it seems that God has forgotten you, too. Christians suffer here on earth and sometimes look to be the most wretched of men. But the fact remains that God sent His Son to be your Redeemer from sin. He made (or will make!) you His beloved child through Holy Baptism, and after the hardships and injustices of this life are passed, your soul will most certainly be carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, too.

Back to the rich man in the Gospel. The rich man, as a Jew, heard the word of the Law from Moses and the prophets during his earthly life. But he didn’t listen. He didn’t repent. He didn’t think about God or his neighbor or his sins or his need for salvation. He had a fine life on earth without bothering himself with such things. So he also paid no attention to that other word from Moses and the prophets, the word of the Gospel. He had no faith, no trust in God for redemption and for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, maybe the rich man deluded himself during his life, thinking, “I’m an Israelite, a son of Abraham. Of course I love God!” But what did St. John say in our Epistle? If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? The rich man may object, “I didn’t hate Lazarus!” But God doesn’t necessarily define “hate” as having strong negative feelings toward someone. To hate your neighbor is to not love him, to refuse your opportunities to show love to him.

And so we see the rich man showing no love for his neighbor, Lazarus, lying at his gate every day, yearning to be filled by the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Love for God and love for our neighbor go hand in hand, and they both flow from faith in the God who loved us first, when we didn’t deserve to be loved at all. Where there is no faith, there is no love, because love is the product of faith and the testimony of faith.

So examine your heart and your actions today. This Gospel doesn’t warn us about mistreating our neighbor. It warns us about getting caught up in our earthly life, to the point that we take our salvation for granted, to the point that we stop hearing and paying attention to the preaching of God’s Word and neglect His Holy Sacrament, to the point that we lose saving faith in Christ and become apathetic toward our neighbor, which is a symptom of apathy toward God.

You’re not here on this earth to get rich, to live it up, to make money, or to live comfortably and to die at a ripe old age. You’re here to hear Moses and the prophets—the Word of God, to be brought to a knowledge of your sins and your constant need before God, and then to be brought to a knowledge of Christ as your Redeemer from sin, as your refuge from wrath and condemnation, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then, as a believer, to grow in love and service to your neighbor.

And if God allows you to live it up a little bit while you do that, to make some money, to live comfortably and to die at a ripe old age, fine! Thanks be to God! Abraham enjoyed those things on earth. Lazarus didn’t. The important thing is that God loved them both, and they both knew and believed that and put their trust in God their Savior. And after a brief time on earth, both Abraham and Lazarus ended up with the same reward of grace: eternal comfort and peace and rest in the presence of God. The same awaits you, who hear God’s Word, repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus, and “abide in love.” That’s why you’re here on this earth. Amen.

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