God’s faithfulness inspires our thankfulness

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for midweek of Trinity 9

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

God is faithful, Paul wrote to the Corinthians. That’s our hope, our strength, and our comfort in the face of every trial and temptation, as long as we’re standing on God’s faithfulness and not our own strength. When God’s faithfulness doesn’t inspire faithfulness on someone’s part, as in Jesus’ parable about the unjust steward from Sunday’s Gospel, who grew lazy and negligent in his stewardship of his master’s things, that’s a sure sign that such a person has taken his eyes off of God’s faithfulness. Because when a person is clinging to God’s faithfulness, then His faithfulness also inspires faithfulness on our part.

That’s what had happened toward the end of King David’s reign, when he spoke the prayer recorded for us in tonight’s First Lesson. God had faithfully delivered David from all his enemies and had made him king over Israel. God, through David, and, sometimes, through direct and miraculous means, had delivered Israel from all their enemies. He had given them the covenant of His acceptance, of His blessing, of His forgiveness to be earned by the coming Son of David, and He had faithfully kept His word to them. And now, as Solomon, the immediate son of David, is about to take over for his father, the Lord has also provided the plans and designs for the temple that would house the ark of His covenant and the ministry of His priests, and He has given Solomon the wisdom to oversee the building of it. And then, inspired by God’s great faithfulness to them, the leaders of Israel, including King David himself, donated the equivalent of about $15 billion worth of gold, silver, and other precious materials, all of which was necessary to make God’s temple the one-of-a-kind, glorious place it was supposed to be. God’s faithfulness inspired that kind of faithfulness in His people, when they relied on God’s faithfulness.

St. Paul, too, inspired by God’s faithfulness, had conducted his ministry faithfully and was nearing the end of his days on earth when he wrote his second epistle to Timothy, including the words you heard tonight from the Second Lesson. But before he finishes his race, he writes this letter to Timothy to inspire him, likewise, to faithfulness in the ministry God had given him.

In the same way, our faithful God urges us to focus on His faithfulness, and in so doing, to be inspired to faithfulness in the tasks and with the things He had entrusted to us, whatever they may be. Because whatever those things are, they all come from Him. And faithfulness to God begins and ends with recognizing that very fact, with thanksgiving. In fact, faithfulness to God is a form of thanksgiving.

The faithful thanksgiving offering on the part of the leaders of Israel for the building of the temple inspired the prayer of thanksgiving that David spoke to the LORD, Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, And You are exalted as head over all.

As we’ve mentioned before, when God blesses man, it means to bestow favor and kindness. When man blesses God, or declares God to be “blessed,” it means to acknowledge God as the source of all blessings, the Giver of all favor and kindness, worthy of all praise. He is the Lord Yahweh, whose very name implies faithfulness to His word and promises. David addresses Him as “our Father,” just as Jesus teaches us to do in the Lord’s Prayer. And maybe you noticed that this verse is a very close paraphrase of the doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, “For Thine (or Yours) is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.” David uses the same words here: “Blessed are You, our Father, forever and ever. Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the power and the glory.”

David acknowledges something else in this verse. All that is in heaven and in earth is Yours. That includes all you have, all you’ve ever had. It includes your wealth, your possessions, your opportunities, your safety, your family, your body, your soul. It includes you. You, and all you have, and all you are, and all you’ll ever be, belong to the Lord, Yahweh, our Father. And David blesses God for it, for being the Owner of all things, and for graciously entrusting David, and all of us, with so many wonderful things to manage, to practice stewardship over. He acknowledges God’s ownership of himself and of all things, not with bitterness, but with thankfulness.

Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.

Having riches, having wealth, having honor isn’t evil. But thinking that it comes from you—that’s evil. Thinking that God owed it to you—that’s evil. Thinking that your times are in your own hands—that’s evil. But that’s not how prosperous, rich, wealthy, honorable King David thought. He recognized, as must we, that not only does God own all things, but He also is the Giver of all things, who loans them to us for a little while, so that we may manage them faithfully. And so David teaches us to view our lives with great humility, to look at all we have, and then to look up to our Father in heaven as the One who gave it.

Now therefore, our God, we thank You and praise Your glorious name.

Again, God’s faithfulness toward David inspired David’s faithfulness toward God, which, in turn, inspired the faithfulness of all Israel to God, which broke out immediately in thanksgiving. Faithful service to God begins with recognizing, and relying on, God’s faithfulness, which leads immediately to thankfulness in the heart. And notice: not only was David thankful, but he went a step further: he actually said so, out loud—to God, but also in the presence of the church that was gathered around him.

Learn from David to bless the Lord, too, for all His faithfulness to His Church, and to you—to bless our Father, above all, for sending His only-begotten Son into the flesh to redeem those who were enslaved to sin and bound for temporal and eternal death. And then bless Him for reaching out to you in time, bringing you into His kingdom, making you part of His beloved Church, for daily bread, for daily forgiveness, and for so much more. And as you bless Him in your heart, bless Him also with your mouth, both here among friends in the Church and out in the world, wherever you have the opportunity to tell the lost who this God really is, because they do not know Him rightly. And then be sure also to bless God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—by faithfully carrying out the tasks He gives you from day to day. Make it your daily commitment to respond to God’s faithfulness with faithfulness, surrounded, always, by thankfulness. Amen.

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Stand on God’s faithfulness, not on your strength

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13 + Luke 16:1-9

A haughty spirit had invaded the Christian church in Corinth. It was tempting believers to think, with pride, “I’m a Christian. I’m part of God’s church. I’ve been baptized into Christ. I partake of the Lord’s Supper. Therefore, nothing can move me. Nothing can harm me. I’m free to do anything. Once saved, always saved.”

Jesus was actually addressing a similar problem in today’s Gospel, which is why He told the parable of the unjust steward. Some of the “sons of light,” the citizens of God’s kingdom, didn’t think it mattered how careful they were in their stewardship or management of the wealth God had placed into their hands. Some were beginning to take their salvation, and their place in God’s service, for granted, like the unjust steward in the parable, becoming lazy and indifferent in their service to God, squandering the very things they were supposed to be managing, ignoring the good they could have been doing for their fellow Christians with the wealth God had entrusted to their care.

Could anything similar happen among God’s people today? Among God’s people here? Of course it could! You and I are just as human, and, therefore, just as susceptible to the influence of the sinful flesh as all believers have ever been, including those whose lives are on display for us in the Old and New Testaments. So let’s focus today on God’s inspired words to the Corinthian Christians, so that, by His Holy Spirit, He may keep us from falling when we begin to imagine, with sinful indifference and pride, that we’re standing firm on our own.

In the first five verses of 1 Corinthians 10, Paul reminds the stumbling Corinthians how much they had in common with the Old Testament Israelites who were led out of Egypt by Moses. Without any works on their part, without any worthiness or merit, those Israelites were counted among God’s holy people. They were redeemed from slavery in Egypt, rescued by God’s mighty hand. They were led safely on dry ground through the parted waters of the Red Sea, where Paul says that they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. In other words, just as Christians pass through baptismal waters into the kingdom of Christ, who leads us through the wilderness of this world into our heavenly home, so those Israelites passed through the watery mist of the Red Sea to become joined to Moses as their leader through the wilderness into the Promised Land.

And, Paul says, those Israelites all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. In other words, just as Christians partake of Christ in a special, spiritual way, through faith, and through the actual eating of His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, so the Israelites also had Christ with them in a special, miraculous way, long before He was born as a man, giving them miraculous water to drink and food to eat in the desert. The same Christ was with them, following them and sustaining them. The ancient Israelites and the Christians at the time of Paul were all, outwardly speaking, on equal footing.

But, what happened with those ancient Israelites who had the same Christ, and a similar “baptism,” and a similar meal that God miraculously provided for them? Paul says in v. 5, But with most of them God was not pleased, for they were struck down in the wilderness. Paul’s point is obvious. If God was not pleased with most of them, although they were, outwardly speaking, part of His redeemed people, then you can’t just assume He’s pleased with all of you, although you are, outwardly speaking, part of His redeemed people.

This is where today’s Epistle begins. Paul writes, Now these things took place as examples for us, so that we might not lust after evil things, as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” He’s referring to what happened about 40 days after God thundered down the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. You shall have no other gods, He said. You shall not make a graven image to bow down to it, He said. And yet, there they were, the people who had all been miraculously redeemed from Egypt, and baptized into Moses, and were fed by Christ—there they were, demanding that Aaron craft for them a golden calf, which he did, and which they then bowed down to and worshiped as their god. And as a punishment for their idolatry, at least three thousand people died that day. Being, outwardly, among the people of God, does not inoculate a person from committing idolatry, or from its deadly consequences. So, Paul says, flee from idolatry in all its forms! It is not harmless to the Christian, and if God did not spare His people of Israel, He won’t spare modern church members, either, who refuse to repent of their idolatry.

And let us not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. He’s referring to an incident, recorded in the book of Numbers, toward the end of the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, as they were finally coming up to enter the Promised Land. The people of Moab sought to defeat the Israelite armies, not by military force, but by having their women seduce the Israelite men. And, in a sense, it worked! The men engaged in sexual immorality with the women, and, as a result, God struck down over 23,000 of them. So, Paul says, flee from sexual immorality in all its forms. It is not harmless to the Christian, and if God did not spare His people of Israel, He won’t spare modern church members, either, who refuse to repent of their adultery.

And let us not test Christ, as some of them did, and perished by serpents. And do not grumble, as some of them did and perished by the destroyer. Time and time again, the Israelites grumbled and complained against Moses and against God. They tested God repeatedly and relied on their status as church members to keep them safe. But time and time again, God made it clear to them, through these severe punishments, that true membership in His Church is not only an outward matter, but also an inward one—one that involves a penitent and believing heart. And where such a heart exists, there will also be a willingness—a zeal, even!—to serve God by avoiding sin and by keeping His commandments.

Now, Paul concludes, all these things happened to them as an example, and they are written as a warning for us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. If Christians at the time of Paul, or Christians still today, have any advantage over Old Testament Israel, in addition to knowing Christ Jesus in the flesh, it’s this: God has graciously provided them to us, in these last days, as an example for us to learn from. They had to learn by painful experience. We have the benefit of getting to learn from their experience, from their often-negative example, so that we don’t have to make the same mistakes, so that history doesn’t have to repeat itself in our lives. Where they doubted, let us trust. Where they grew haughty, let us remain humble. Where they were negligent, let us be diligent. Where they faltered, let us stand firm.

But standing is not something we can do by ourselves, and it’s especially dangerous to do as the Israelites did: to imagine that we stand automatically, because of who we are, because of our past, because of any number of external things, apart from repentance and a living faith in Christ Jesus. So then, Paul writes, if anyone thinks he stands, let him take care not to fall. You think you stand in God’s favor? You think you stand in safety from the wrath and judgment of God that are coming on the world? Well, there’s only one way to stand, only one way to be safe. Turn from your sins and flee to Christ for refuge! Trust in the Lord Jesus, who suffered and died for all the sins of all men, and who invites and calls you to find free forgiveness in Him. But don’t only do that once, or once in a while. Let that be your daily, continual exercise of repentance and faith. And as you do that, then also take into account the warnings God has given to His people, often in the form of examples from the Holy Scriptures of people who thought they stood, but, in reality, they were standing, not on God and His promises, not on God and His strength, but on the assumption that all was well, no matter what they did, no matter how much they disobeyed.

Paul goes on, No temptation has come upon you except for those that are common to mankind. When you’re tempted, or “tested” or “tried” (it’s the same word in Greek), it often feels like this temptation is unique to you. “Nobody else struggles with this. Only me. Nobody else is bothered by this, or attracted by this, or prone to give in to this like I am. Nobody else has ever faced the challenges that I’m facing.” Not true, Paul assures us. If you struggle with some burden, with some temptation, with some kind of sin, you can be assured that you are not alone. Maybe not everyone experiences the exact same temptations, but the things you’re tempted with are common-enough temptations, things that believers everywhere have struggled with since mankind first fell into sin. On the one hand, that’s comforting, knowing that your struggles are not unique. On the other hand, it’s a reminder that you have no unique excuse for giving into sin, either.

What’s the solution to temptation? What’s the secret to standing firm against it? Paul gives it in the final verse of our text. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation he will also make a way out, so that you are able to bear up under it. God’s faithfulness is our hope, is our strength, is our comfort—His faithfulness to those who are bound to Him through Holy Baptism, who are called by His name, who have been made children of God and heirs of eternal life. God is faithful to His people. And in His faithfulness, He does not remove trials and temptations from our earthly lives. Instead, He governs and restrains the temptations so that they’re allowed to test or to tempt only so far, never beyond what you can bear. And even then, you aren’t expected to bear it alone. He promises to make a way out for you, so that you are able to bear up under it without being crushed or overwhelmed by it.

Cling to that promise, when you are tempted or tried! God is faithful. He won’t give you up. He won’t let you go. You want some proof? You want some examples? Paul gave the Corinthians some negative examples from the Bible as a warning. But look at all the times when believers in the Bible did rely on God in their times of trouble, when they refused to sin, like Joseph, when they turned to God’s Word for strength, like David, when they called out to Him in faith for help when they were sinking, like Peter. Every single time, God delivered them, in just the right way, at just the right time. He will do the same for you. Because He is faithful to all who rely on His faithfulness, to save and deliver them from every evil. If it’s His Word and His faithfulness that you’re relying on instead of yourself, if your spirit is humble before God instead of haughty, then you can truly claim, in humility, what the Corinthians were falsely claiming, in pride: “I’m a Christian. I’m part of God’s church. I’ve been baptized into Christ. I partake of the Lord’s Supper. Therefore, nothing can move me. Nothing can harm me.” Not because Christians are free to live in sin, not because Christians are “once saved, always saved,” but because no one can fall while he is relying on Christ, the faithful God, for strength. Amen.

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Elders/Shepherds/Bishops preaching repentance and faith

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 8

Acts 20:17-38

Last week, we heard about some of the violence and persecution Paul suffered during his first missionary journey, all for the sake of the Gospel, and for the sake of the saints who believed the Gospel he proclaimed. In the lesson from Acts 20 that you heard this evening, it’s a few years later, on the tail end of Paul’s third missionary journey, and he has more violence and persecution waiting for him in Jerusalem. He knows that for a fact; the Holy Spirit has revealed it to him. But on his way to Jerusalem, he has an important stop to make. He has some final instructions for the ministers of the churches in Ephesus, instructions that apply to all ministers everywhere, and to the flocks that they serve.

Paul decides not to visit Ephesus, since he’s trying to hurry back to Jerusalem, and he knows that he’ll get sidetracked if he tries to meet with all the saints there. No, he goes to Miletus, “down the road” from Ephesus, and sends only for the “elders” of the church to come and meet with him.

Those of you who spent some time in the Lutheran synods surely grew up hearing about “elders” in your churches. They were not pastors. They were respected laymen who were put in charge of all sorts of functions within the church, both spiritual and mundane. But in the New Testament Scriptures, “elders” were not laymen. They were ordained clergymen, the ministers of the churches, as today’s reading makes clear. For that reason, I think it’s rather confusing to use the same term with a different meaning in our churches today, which is why we don’t use it here at all.

In Paul’s day the elders weren’t always “elderly,” but they were men who showed the wisdom that often comes with age, especially wisdom and maturity in spiritual things. Just as those who are older are supposed to teach and be models for those who are younger, so the elders in the Church were supposed to teach and be models for the saints entrusted to their care.

Paul says to these elders, Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. And there we see references to two other titles that also apply to ministers: shepherd, that is, “pastor,” and “overseer,” or “supervisor,” from the Greek episcopus, from which we get the words “episcopal” and also “bishop.” Elders, pastors, and bishops were all terms for the men whom the Holy Spirit had appointed (through the call of the Church) over the precious flock that God purchased with His own blood. (And, yes, this is one of those passages that refers to the Lord Jesus as “God.”)

“Elder” emphasizes the wisdom, maturity, and instruction given by the minister, “pastor” emphasizes the minister’s role as a shepherd who feeds, cares for, and protects his sheep, and “bishop” emphasizes the minister’s role as the overseer or supervisor of his congregation, who looks out over it and sees to it that the Word is being preached correctly, the Sacraments are being administered rightly, and the members of the congregation are leading lives that are consistent with the Christian faith they have confessed.

Paul himself is, in many ways, a role model for all ministers. He was thoroughly committed to preaching the Gospel. He was filled with joy as he preached, and thanksgiving to God, and love for the saints. He endured hardship patiently. His heart was set on the heavenly prize he would eventually receive, on “finishing his race with joy.” He also taught extensively. As he says here, he did not hesitate to proclaim to them the whole counsel of God. In fact, the last time he was in Ephesus, he taught the people well into the evening, until a man fell asleep and fell down from the upper-story window where he had been sitting. And then, if you recall, Paul raised him from the dead, and then kept right on teaching until morning.

But here in Acts 20, Paul summarizes everything he taught: Repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And he refers to this “repentance and faith” as “the gospel of the grace of God.” Jesus had used practically those same words when He told His apostles that “repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached in His name to all nations.” Throughout Paul’s writings and his preaching recorded in the book of Acts, we see the clear teaching of both repentance and faith, repentance and the forgiveness of sins, earned by the Lord Jesus through His death on the cross, and given to us through faith alone in Christ Jesus.

Over the centuries, and already at Paul’s time, those two basic teachings—repentance and faith, Law and Gospel, sin and grace—have been distorted, often by overemphasizing and distorting the one, while underemphasizing the other. During the Middle Ages, leading up to the Reformation, repentance and sin were overemphasized and distorted, while faith and grace were almost absent from the ministers’ preaching. Luther and those with him restored the balance. Today, it’s mostly the opposite. The preaching of repentance is rare, and grace has been overemphasized and distorted, with most people thinking that everyone is already forgiven, already headed for heaven, regardless of what sins they still cling to, regardless of any repentance.

And that’s just the kind of thing Paul warned the Ephesian elders about. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch! It’s just like Jesus said in Sunday’s Gospel: Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Jesus knew what He was talking about (of course). So did Paul. People always come along and try to distort the teaching of repentance and faith, along with the other teachings of God’s Word. So ministers, especially, need to be vigilant, and, as part of their preaching and teaching and shepherding, need to warn their flock about the wolves.

And the task is not in vain. Paul’s message to the Ephesian elders is his message to elders / pastors / bishops, and to all Christians still today: I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who have been sanctified. The Ephesians didn’t need Paul to return to them in person, or any minister in particular. As long as they had God, and the word of God’s grace being preached to them, as Paul himself would later write to them the beautiful epistle to the Ephesians that we’re still reading and studying today, they had all they needed—you have all you need!—to be built up in faith, sanctified in your lives, warned against false teaching, strengthened under the cross, and comforted in every adversity, until you are given the inheritance among the saints that is already yours, as dearly loved children of God. Amen.

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Test the preachers who claim to speak for Christ

Posted on August 10, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 8

Romans 8:12-17 + Matthew 7:15-23

For the last several weeks, the Sunday Gospels have been showing us some of the tasks we are to be performing on a regular basis as forgiven children of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus highlights a task that a lot of Christians have been shirking, neglecting, failing to do. It’s the task of testing the preachers who claim to speak for Christ.

As I said, many Christians fail to do this. If they grow up in a certain church, in a certain “tradition,” they never question it, never actually test their preachers, because they would never consider leaving their family church. Others celebrate the diversity of doctrines that their preachers embrace. Others look for a church that’s going to tell them what they want to hear, or that gives them the kind of worship “experience” they’re looking for. They don’t test the teaching. Instead, they test the format, the atmosphere, the music. But the most important factor, by far, in choosing a church is the doctrine that is taught and practiced in that church, regardless of any external trappings. Why is it so important? Because of whose doctrine it is. It’s Christ’s doctrine, Christ’s teaching. And if we love Him, then we must also love what He teaches—and that means everything He teaches.

Of course, if you’re hearing the Word of Christ directly from the mouth of Christ, then you don’t have to worry about testing the preacher, do you? But that’s not the situation we find ourselves in. Jesus never intended to stay on earth and preach and teach until the end of time. It was always His intention to call His sheep and to feed His sheep through the preaching and teaching of ministers whom He would send to preach and teach in His name until He comes again. But He also knew that many, many preachers would come along, claiming to speak for Christ, who would go out into the world spreading lies in His name. And so He issues this stern warning to His disciples, as one of the most basic tasks Christians are to be doing, regularly: Watch out for false prophets.

Why? Because they won’t come to you with a big sign on their chest saying, “False prophet.” On the contrary, they will claim that they’re speaking to you in Jesus’ name, that they’re telling you the truth about God, about Jesus, about what it means to be a Christian. That’s what it means to come in “sheep’s clothing”—innocent, harmless, likeable, believable, looking like a true follower of Jesus. But inwardly they are ravenous wolves. If they get you to believe lies about yourself, lies about God and His Word, lies about how anyone can be saved from death and from eternal condemnation, then they have devoured you. They have robbed you of salvation. They have led you to believe in a fake Jesus, and a fake Jesus can’t save anyone.

How do you watch out for them? You test them. You don’t test them based on how they look, or by how educated they are by worldly standards, or by their personality, their charisma, or their sense of humor. You don’t test them by the mere fact that they claim Jesus as Lord or wave a Bible around. You test them by examining their “fruits.” By their fruits you will know them, Jesus says. Now, two things are included in a preacher’s fruits: his doctrine, and his life. In other words, whether he does the will of my Father in heaven in what he teaches and in how he lives.

How do you test a preacher’s doctrine? How do you “test the spirits,” as St. John writes in chapter 4 of his first epistle, “whether they are of God”? Well, there’s only one way. You have to do as the Bereans did in Acts 17 when the apostle Paul came to them claiming to speak for God. What did they do? They “searched the Scriptures” to find out if what Paul was saying was true. They only had the Old Testament Scriptures at that time. You now also have the New Testament Scriptures. You have to use them in order to do what Jesus tells you here. You have to know your Bible, study your Bible. There’s no way around it. It’s the only infallible source of truth—unchanging, unwavering truth, the inspired Word of God that remains forever.

It’s a big book, but not overly big. It’s knowable. We’ve also broken down its teachings and summarized them in six chief parts, as you know if you’re familiar with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, which is tremendously helpful for testing a Christian preacher’s doctrine.

For example, does his doctrine line up with the Ten Commandments? Does he point you to the Lord God alone as the only God and Savior, to worship Him alone, to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things? Does he teach you to honor God’s name and God’s Word? To honor your parents and those in authority over you? To guard your neighbor’s life, including the lives of the children waiting to be born? Does he teach you to honor marriage—the lifelong union between one man and one woman—to keep the marriage bed pure, and to avoid all sexual immorality, including homosexuality? Does he teach you not to steal, not to give false testimony against your neighbor, not to covet what your neighbor has, but to be content with what God has given you? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.

Does his doctrine line up with the Apostles’ Creed? Does he teach that the one God, who is three Persons, created all things in six days by His almighty Word? Does he teach that Christ is true God from eternity, and true Man, born of the virgin Mary? Does he teach that Christ has redeemed mankind from sin, death, and the power of the devil with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death? Does he teach that Christ rose bodily from the dead on the third day and lives and rules eternally at the right hand of God, and will return on the last day (and not before!) to raise all the dead and to give eternal life to all who have believed in Him? Does he teach that the Spirit of God is the one who, through the preaching of the Gospel, calls poor sinners from every race, tribe, language, and people, who brings people to faith through the message that is preached, and justifies them by faith alone in Christ and in no other way, that it is the Spirit who gathers His Church and preserves it through the means of grace—through preaching and the Sacraments? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.

Does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Lord’s Prayer, teaching you to pray to no one in heaven except for our Father in heaven, how to pray with dignity and with reverence, to seek the glory of God’s name and His kingdom, and to look to Him as the Provider of all you need, from daily bread, to the forgiveness of sins, to strength to resist temptation, to deliverance from all evil? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.

Does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Bible’s teaching of Holy Baptism, that it’s intended for “all nations,” including little children, that it is a water of life, rich in grace, and a washing of rebirth in the Holy Spirit, that it works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.

Does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Bible’s teaching about the office of the holy ministry? Does he teach that Christ calls men (and not women), through the call of the Church, to be His ministers, to use the keys of the kingdom of heaven in His name, to forgive sins to the penitent in the stead of Christ and to deny forgiveness to the impenitent, to administer Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in Jesus’ name? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.

Finally, does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Bible’s teaching about the Sacrament of the Altar? Does he teach that the bread and wine of Holy Communion are the true body and blood of Christ, and that Christ’s body and blood are truly received by all communicants—for the forgiveness of sins to those who believe, and for judgment to those who disbelieve? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.

If a preacher’s fruit—his doctrine—is good, if it lines up with, not just some, but all of these teachings of Scripture, then receive him and believe him. If it’s bad, then “avoid him,” as Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 16.

Then you also have the preacher’s life as part of his fruit, how he behaves, what he does. It’s important, but secondary, because it’s knowing Christ rightly and trusting in Him that will save you, not the preacher’s life. And we know that every preacher is sinful, so don’t waste your time looking for a one who never sins. You won’t find one. But do look for someone who practices what he preaches, which includes repenting when he sins. Test his life with mercy. Test him with love. But do test his life to see if he fulfills the requirements St. Paul set forth for preachers in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus chapter 1. For example, if, while preaching against stealing, he helps himself to a portion of the offerings, that’s obviously bad fruit! If, while preaching against adultery, he becomes an adulterer, that’s bad fruit! If he preaches mercy but doesn’t know how to show mercy himself, that’s bad fruit! If he preaches that the doctrine of Christ is all-important, but is willing to compromise it by remaining in fellowship with false teachers, or by allowing people to commune together at the Lord’s altar without first making sure that their confession of faith lines up entirely with the truth of God’s Word, that’s bad fruit!

In the last part of today’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that none of this is a question of a preacher’s sincerity. These false prophets against whom Jesus warns think they’re serving the Lord Christ. They call Him, “Lord! Lord!” And they’re shocked and horrified on the last day when the Lord rejects them, saying, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you evildoers! They thought they knew Jesus, and they preached the Jesus they thought they knew. Some even did miracles, (supposedly) in Jesus’ name. But it turns out they didn’t know Him, and so the Jesus they preached was a false one. They allowed themselves to be led away and deceived by Satan and his doctrines of demons, which they then echoed in their preaching. It was Satan’s power behind their miracles, even as Scripture says that in the last days the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.

So don’t test a preacher based on his sincerity or even by miracles he performs. Test him by his fruit—by his doctrine and his life. It’s one of the most basic tasks given to Christians by Christ, and it’s why we often include it in our General Prayer. Because you don’t want to arrive at the day of your death or at judgment day and only then find out that you didn’t actually know the real Jesus. He doesn’t want that to happen, either! That’s why He has given you His dependable Word, and His warning, but also His Holy Spirit in the Word to “guide you into all truth,” as He promised His disciples, to guide you and to teach you, and to keep you from being deceived. And when you have tested and found that a Christian preacher is actually bringing you the Word of Christ, then use his ministry. Hear him, believe him, and put the Word of Christ that he preaches into practice. Then you will be, as Jesus says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, like the wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain came down, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Amen.

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Through many tribulations

Posted on August 6, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for midweek of Trinity 7

Acts 14:8-23

Sunday’s Gospel about the feeding of the four thousand gave us a much-needed reminder that God’s compassion always extends to those who believe in Him, and that He will always provide for His people, and that, yes, He uses His ministers to do it. That reminder is much-needed, because God’s providence is often accompanied by a strong dose of pain. And if we focus too much on the pain, then we’ll miss the glorious providence that accompanies it.

No one knew this to be true more than the apostle Paul. The Lord provided so bountifully through his ministry! Through him, as a “jar of clay,” the treasure of the Gospel was handed out to entire continents, and through his epistles, that treasure has been handed out to the whole Christian Church on earth. But where the Gospel was preached, there pain inevitably followed, as we heard in tonight’s lesson from Acts 14. And yet, Paul never let himself be deterred by the pain. He always turned Jesus’ disciples away from the pain toward what God had provided for them in Christ.

Acts 14 recounts Paul’s First Missionary Journey, with Barnabas as his faithful companion and fellow apostle. (Yes, Barnabas is one of the few ministers outside of the Twelve and the apostle Paul who is also referred to occasionally as an apostle, partly because the Holy Spirit chose him directly to be Paul’s coworker on this journey). They set out from Antioch in Syria and sailed to Cyprus, then up to Asia Minor, where they visited the cities of Perga, Pisidian Antioch, and Iconium. In each of those cities, Paul and Barnabas went first to the Jewish synagogue and proclaimed to their fellow Jews how God had fulfilled His Old Testament promises to Israel in sending Jesus the Messiah. They preached that God’s forgiveness comes through this Man who was crucified but whom God raised from the dead. In practically every instance, a number of the Jews believed, but most didn’t, so the Christ-believing Jews would end up leaving the synagogue with the apostles, who would then take the Gospel to the Gentiles. Meanwhile, the Christ-hating Jews would insult the apostles, tell lies about them, and rile up the citizens in each city, not only to reject the apostles’ message, but often to attack them and try to imprison or kill them. The triumph of the Gospel in each place was accompanied by its share of pain.

After leaving Iconium, where the Jews had tried but failed to stone Paul to death, the apostles arrived in Lystra, and you heard a while ago how things went there. They may have gone first to the synagogue, but our text has them speaking primarily to the Gentiles. And one of them who was listening was crippled in his feet. But he believed Paul’s message, and as the hand of the Lord’s providence, Paul healed the man on the spot. But when the crowds saw the miracle, they didn’t give praise to God, the Father of the Lord Jesus. No, they had always been pagans and were still pagans, worshiping the Greek gods. They thought that Zeus and Hermes had come down to them in the form of these men named Barnabas and Paul, and their pagan priests hurried away to bring in some animals so that they could offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas.

Now, if Paul had been seeking fame and recognition for himself, he might have accepted those sacrifices. If he had been worried about offending the people, worried about driving them away, he might have just let them go through with it, figuring he would straighten out their false beliefs later on. But, no, he told them to stop it, to stop what they were doing, not to dare offer sacrifices to them. These are the very practices that the true God hates and that He will not tolerate any longer. Yes, he risked offending them. He risked having them walk away from the Gospel, because Paul was unwilling to let them blend their pagan practices with the truth of Christ.

And that’s exactly how it has to be. The truth of the Gospel is destroyed if it is mixed together with pagan ideas or practices. The truth of the Gospel, the truth of God’s Word is not just “a” truth, but “the” truth. Our world might tolerate Christianity if Christianity would admit that it’s just one good religious option among many. The truth is, most of modern Christianity does make that claim. But true Christianity is what St. Paul practiced in tonight’s reading. It claims to be “the” truth, and it rejects every other religion and religious practice.

That includes the religion of Christ-hating Judaism. And the Jews in Lystra understood that. They understood that the preaching of Jesus as the Christ would upend their religion. Christ claimed to have fulfilled the Old Testament that God had made with Israel through Moses. Christ claimed to have instituted a New Testament in His own blood. And the apostles insisted that the religion of the Old Testament, in order to continue as a valid religion, as a true religion, had to transition into a New Testament, Christian Church, or else become an abomination. The Christ-hating Jews understood that and fought with all their might to prevent the transitioning of their religion to Christianity.

The Jews who tried to have Paul stoned to death in Antioch and in Iconium followed him down to Lystra. They weren’t content to let him move on to another city. No, they had to stamp out his preaching and the Christian religion he was spreading. And in Lystra, they were successful (sort of)! They got the Gentiles to turn against Paul to the point that they picked up stones and stoned him to death for preaching Jesus as the Christ.

Or so they thought. They thought he was dead when they left him. But he wasn’t. He must have been horribly cut and bruised. But, after they left, he got up and went into the city with those who had become disciples of Jesus. And then went on to the next city, to repeat the cycle all over again. Preaching, accompanied by pain, but focusing still on God’s providence.

Bruised and battered as he was, Paul made many disciples in the next city, Derbe. They saw his battered body and must have heard how it happened, and must have been so astounded that Paul was not only willing to keep preaching about this Jesus, but even rejoiced as he did it. He, the bruised and battered one, comforted them. It says that he strengthened the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

That’s the reality. We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. Entering the kingdom is worth all the tribulations we have to bear in this world. Suffering for the name of Christ, who suffered so much for us, is an honor. So we might as well suffer with patience. We might as well endure the world’s hatred and violence with rejoicing. We might as well go on doing what is good and speaking what is right, without complaining, and moaning, and groaning about it, and without clamoring for the government to swoop in and give us justice. God knows well how to preserve His people in this world, and how to allow us, sometimes, to endure shame and violence at the hands of evildoers. Pain inevitably accompanies God’s providence in this world. But God’s providence also accompanies the pain and is far greater than the pain will ever be, because His providence isn’t temporary, like the pain is. His providence stretches into eternity, into the true and perfect kingdom that awaits us above. So set your sights on that kingdom, and on the King who came down into this kingdom of toil and tribulations, to win for us that kingdom above that is free of all suffering and pain. Amen.

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