Why you’re here on this earth

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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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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Blessed be the Holy Trinity

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Festival of the Holy Trinity

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

If you grew up (or are growing up) as a Christian, you may not think twice when you hear the word “Trinity.” You know what we mean by that word. It’s so fundamental to the Christian faith. Everything we believe as Christians begins with this simple truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures. There is one God. He is the Creator of all things. He exists eternally. He has no beginning. He was not created. Everything that is not God was created. It has a beginning. It was brought into existence. This God who created all things exists eternally as three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the same Person as the Son. The Son is not the same Person as the Holy Spirit. Each of the three Persons is God. Yet they are not three Gods, but one God. One in essence. One in will. One in purpose. And that purpose, above all, is the salvation of the human race.

One of the key aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity is that we know God the Father only through God the Son. As Jesus said, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” And we only truly know the Son through God the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “He (the Holy Spirit) will testify about Me.” And “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit reveals the Son to us through preaching. So hear now how the Spirit reveals Christ to us in today’s Gospel, and how Christ, in turn, reveals the Father to us.

Nicodemus came to Jesus at night looking for answers. He got some. But he didn’t fully understand them at the time. Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. The signs, the miracles that Jesus was doing did what they were supposed to do. They made it clear to everyone who cared to notice that the things Jesus was teaching were authorized by God and approved by God. The miracles were God’s way of confirming His approval. That’s what Nicodemus meant when he said, “unless God is with him.”

He was right. God was with Jesus. The Apostle Peter would later preach about Jesus: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

God was with Jesus. Notice how the Scriptures sometimes use the word “God” to refer specifically to the Father. God, as in, God the Father, was with Jesus. The Apostle John does the same thing. In chapter 1 of His Gospel, he writes, In the beginning was the Word (that is, the Son of God), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. So the Son of God is also called God. He was with God the Father in the beginning. And God, as in, God the Father, was with Jesus during His earthly life. And it’s also true that God, as in, God the Holy Spirit, was with Jesus, who once applied these words of the prophet Isaiah to Himself: The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, for He has anointed Me. So you see the Trinitarian nature of one of the names given to Jesus in Holy Scripture: Immanuel—God with us.

Nicodemus, of course, didn’t understand all that. He thought Jesus was just a man—a great teacher approved by God, but still just a man. Then Jesus goes on to reveal much more to him.

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Remember, Nicodemus was a Jewish Pharisee. Even more than the rest of the Jews, they put their faith in their birth according to the flesh, their birth according to their human ancestry going back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To them, the Jews were members of the kingdom of God by birth. But even being born as a Jew wasn’t enough for them. It also took obedience to the Law of Moses—human obedience, obedience to the Law, obedience according to the flesh.

Jesus destroys all that with one sentence. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Your first birth, your birth according to the flesh and your obedience according to the flesh, counts for nothing in God’s kingdom. Contrary to popular belief, people are not born into God’s kingdom. Not all people are children of God. Not all people are going to heaven when they die. You have to be born again.

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Nicodemus is still thinking in terms of the flesh. He knows it isn’t physically possible to have a second physical birth. That’s foolish! But this is what the Apostle John said back in chapter 1, He—the Son of God—came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

A new birth—a spiritual birth—is necessary to see the kingdom of God, a birth connected with believing in Jesus, the Son of God.

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Again, it’s not your natural birth, your “blood birth,” that makes you a child of God and an heir of His kingdom. A spiritual birth is required, a birth that takes place by “water and the Spirit,” which we call Holy Baptism, which the Apostle Paul refers to as a “washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

But someone will say, “No, Baptism doesn’t give new birth. Baptism doesn’t save. Only faith saves.” But it’s not an “either/or,” according to Scripture, either Baptism or faith. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Faith—believing in Christ Jesus, true God and true Man—saves and gives new birth. Baptism saves and gives new birth. The Holy Spirit saves and gives new birth. The Word of God saves and gives new birth, as St. Peter also wrote: “You have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” Spirit, water, word, and faith—these all belong together.

Notice what doesn’t go together with these: human works, human obedience, human ancestry. In other words, “the flesh.”

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Human ancestry, obedience, and works are all meaningless before God. What we inherit by birth from our parents, and they from theirs, is not membership in God’s kingdom, but sin and shame, and a nature that is thoroughly corrupt and inclined toward evil. What we earn by our works is condemnation, because they are imperfect and impure. Spiritual rebirth is essential for every human being—a rebirth that takes place as God, through His Word, calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus, true God and true Man, for the forgiveness of sins, and as His Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts. See the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—always working for our salvation!

Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Regeneration (rebirth) into God’s kingdom is spiritual, not physical. You can see a physical birth. You can tell when a person is going to be born and you can trace a person’s ancestry by DNA. But you can’t measure the work of the Spirit that way, just as you can’t see the wind. You can’t see a person being brought to faith. You can’t see the inner rebirth or a person’s conversion from unbeliever to believer. What you can see is the effect of the wind, as it blows the trees—or the dust, in our case. What you can see is a person being baptized for the remission of sins, confessing faith in the Holy Trinity, gathering faithfully with his fellow confessors around Word and Sacrament, and bearing the fruits of the Spirit in his life—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

There’s far more in today’s Gospel than we can cover in one sermon. That’s what next year is for, right? In conclusion today, let me just point you to the last two verses. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

The Son of God, the Word, who was with God in the beginning and who was God, became flesh for one purpose: to be lifted up on the cross—true Man in order to suffer and die in the place of man, true God so that His sacrifice would be worth enough to purchase the forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all men. God the Father gave His Son for this purpose. God the Son willingly came for this purpose and carried it out. God the Holy Spirit fills the world with the preaching of God the Son, brings sinners to faith in Him and seals eternal life to them in Holy Baptism, so that we may be rescued from this world that is perishing and spend eternity with the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is how we know the Holy Trinity, and this is why we gladly confess Him before the world. Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity! Amen.

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The work of the Helper in and through His Church

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

Today we celebrate the fulfillment of yet one more promise of Jesus, His promise to send His Holy Spirit from heaven after He ascended into heaven. That promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, which we will now consider.

Pentecost means 50. It’s 50 days after Easter, which was also the Jewish Passover. In the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites to go to Jerusalem and celebrate this “Feast of Weeks” every year, seven weeks after Passover, as a festival of firstfruits, a festival of thanksgiving to God for bringing Israel safely into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, where He would provide for them abundantly, as long as the Old Testament endured.

Pentecost was also celebrated among the Jews as the commemoration of the giving of the Law through Moses on Mt. Sinai, because it was roughly (or maybe exactly) 50 days after the first Passover that God spoke the Ten Commandments to Israel, after they had arrived at Mt. Sinai.

But the Old Testament had been fulfilled by Jesus, as the heir of that Testament. And before He died, He instituted the New Testament in His blood. The Law of Moses had been perfectly fulfilled by Jesus, the old Passover done away with, because Jesus, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. Now Christians don’t celebrate the old Passover; we celebrate the new one: Easter, the resurrection of our Passover Lamb. Likewise, Christians no longer celebrate the Old Testament Pentecost. Now we celebrate the new one, which the prophet Isaiah foretold: Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

A new law has gone out from Jerusalem since the day of Pentecost, a new word. Not a law of slavery, but of freedom, God’s promise of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ, and the continual renewal of God’s people as we are transformed into people who truly keep God’s commandments, not by force or compulsion, but gladly and willingly.

All of that—the preaching of the word that went out from Jerusalem and continues to go out today, faith, and the ongoing renewal of Christians—is the work of the Holy Spirit.

You heard of the signs that marked the Holy Spirit’s outpouring on Jesus’ disciples who were gathered together in Jerusalem: the loud sound of a rushing wind, the appearance of little flames of fire in the shape of human tongues, and the proclamation of the wonders of God in many different languages that the disciples themselves didn’t know or speak. Those particular signs only happened once; they were never again repeated, because this was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church of Christ. The only sign that happened again occasionally was the speaking in different languages, as a confirmation that the Holy Spirit was still being given as a gift through the preaching of the Gospel after the Day of Pentecost.

What did those miraculous signs mean? First, they showed all the crowds of Jerusalem that these disciples of Jesus were from God and were approved by God. Which means that Jesus Himself was also from God and approved by God, that Jesus was indeed the Christ sent from God to Israel, whom they had crucified, but whom God had raised from the dead.

The flames of fire on the disciples’ heads were a sign that God, the Holy Spirit, was descending upon His disciples, just as it says in Exodus 19 that Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire.

The “tongues” of fire and the loud sound of rushing wind were a sign of how the Holy Spirit would blow through the world like wind, how He would work in the world: through the tongues of men, through the sound of preaching.

And the many different languages were a sign that the Gospel of Christ—the law of the New Testament—is not only for Israel, but for all nations. The blood of Christ was shed for all the nations of the earth. All nations should repent of their sins. All nations should believe in Christ and be baptized for the remission of sins. All nations would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now listen as I read to you the rest of the words that the Holy Spirit inspired in the Apostle Peter, and that He inspired St. Luke to record for us concerning the Day of Pentecost and what happened immediately afterward:

14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. 15 For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. 21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.’ 22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; 24 whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. 25 For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. 27 For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. 28 You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’ 29 “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. 34 “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, 35 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” ’ 36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” 37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” 38 Then Peter said to them, “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. 39 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.” 40 And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” 41 Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. 42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43 Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, 45 and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. 46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

Luke’s account tells the whole story very plainly. Just a brief word yet about the effects of the Holy Spirit’s coming from the words you just heard.

You see the understanding that St. Peter finally displays here about who Jesus is and the significance of His life, death, and resurrection. Things finally clicked for him and the other disciples. That was the Holy Spirit’s doing as He “taught them all things, and brought to their remembrance all things that Jesus said to them,” as He promised in today’s Gospel.

You see the boldness and confidence of Peter and the other apostles. Before, they were timid and afraid, in hiding from the Jews. Now they’re preaching boldly to all Jerusalem and ready to be recognized as Christians, no matter what the consequences might be.

You see the effects of the Holy Spirit as He worked on the crowds through Peter’s preaching. Three thousand people that day repented, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and were baptized for the remission of their sins that day.

And then you see how the Holy Spirit continued to renew them in love and conform them to the image of Christ: they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. They kept gathering together around Word and Sacrament. They shared what they had with one another. They rejoiced in God’s salvation. And they acted in love toward their neighbor.

All of this was the Holy Spirit’s work. All of this is what the Holy Spirit has continued to do through His Church for two millennia. And all of this is what the Holy Spirit will continue to do in you and through you: He will teach you and give you understanding of Christ and His Word. He will fill you with boldness to confess Christ before the world, and with joy to persevere under the cross. He will bring more unbelievers to repent of their sins and to believe in Christ Jesus by the power of the Gospel, when and where He pleases. And He will continually sanctify and renew believers in love.

This is what we celebrate today and, really, every Sunday. Christ has sent the Helper, the Comforter, to us. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Amen.

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Faith, its confession, and the cross

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Sunday after Christ’s Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

There is no sugar-coating Christianity, not if it’s true Christianity. Jesus certainly doesn’t sugar-coat being His disciple in today’s Gospel. He knew how hard it would be for His apostles—and later, for you and me—after His ascension. He knew every obstacle they and we would face, both physical and spiritual. He knew that, just as the world had hated Him, so also it would hate all who follow Him. He knew that, just as He was about to bear a cross for the sins of the world, so also His disciples would bear their own cross for their confession of Him. But He also knew exactly what He would do to help us, so that we can we remain steadfast in faith, and steadfast in the confession of faith, even as we are made to suffer under the blessed cross.

But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

True faith in the heart requires the testimony of the Holy Spirit, the Helper who proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son, both to create it and to sustain it. As Luther says, “Faith is in vain where it does not continue steadfast to the end.” But the apostles were too weak to keep believing in Jesus once He was taken up from them into heaven. You and I are even worse off. We’ve never seen Jesus. We’ve never heard Him. We were born hostile to God, as all men are by nature, with no true fear of God or faith in God or love for God. And that sinful nature, that sinful flesh clings to us all the time, turning our minds and hearts away from God and turned onto ourselves and this earthly life, making up gods of our own, making up our own standards of right and wrong, making up our own visions of who God is and what God demands. We cannot, by our own reason or strength believe in the Lord Jesus or come to Him—or remain in Him, either. We need help!

Jesus knew that. He promised to send the Helper, the Spirit of truth who keeps holding the truth up before our eyes. And that truth is summarized in the person of Jesus. “He will testify of Me,” Jesus said. You are not God. Jesus is God. You are not righteous. Jesus is righteous. Your sins have earned you a place in hell. But Jesus’ sinless sacrifice on the cross has earned you a place in heaven. You deserve death. But Jesus suffered death for you and rose from the dead and gives you eternal life as a gift. The Holy Spirit’s work is essential if anyone is to be converted to faith in Christ and remain steadfast in the faith until the end.

And you who have heard the Word and believe it do have the same Spirit of God and His testimony dwelling within you. Paul writes to the Romans, For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

But don’t imagine that the Holy Spirit does this work of testifying directly on anyone’s heart, with some inner testimony that is divorced from the spoken Word. He works through preaching and the administration of the Sacraments. You don’t come to church or Bible class just to be reminded of things you already knew about Jesus. You come to have the Holy Spirit testify to you about Jesus through the Word that is preached. And He works powerfully through that preaching to create and sustain faith in your heart.

And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. You see, it’s not as if the Spirit does His testifying about Jesus over here, and then the apostles do their testifying over here, as if they were separate testimonies. No one can say, “Bah, I don’t need the Spirit’s testimony, because I have the apostles’ testimony.” Or, “Bah, I don’t need the apostles’ testimony, because I have the Spirit’s testimony.” That’s the error that so many churches around us fall into, as if you can get in touch directly with God’s Spirit so that He testifies directly to you, without all that doctrine stuff, without all that preaching stuff. The apostles who were with Jesus from the beginning received the testimony of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, which we’ll celebrate next Sunday, and you who have heard the testimony of the apostles through the Word of God that has been preached to you have also received the testimony of the Spirit, not apart from that preaching, but through it.

But Jesus’ words here about bearing witness also apply to all Christians. Paul writes to the Romans, The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

It’s not enough to believe in your heart. You must also confess with your mouth. Or to put it another way, true faith in the heart cannot exist together with silence about Christ. True faith in the heart cannot help but confess Him before men. That doesn’t mean everyone preaches. It certainly doesn’t mean anyone gets up in church to give a moving testimonial. It means that in your vocations, you Christians bear witness about Christ with your mouth. Godly mothers bear witness about Christ to their children—as do godly fathers, of course. Children with their friends and classmates. Workers with their coworkers, neighbors with their neighbors, as God gives opportunity. The confession of faith is everything we believe about God as revealed in His Holy Word, from the six-day creation of the universe to God’s institution of holy matrimony, to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Holy Sacrament. But it can also be as simple as confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus died for our sins and rose again, that we’re saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

You’d think that confession would be harmless enough and even pleasant for all men to hear. But the reality is, that confession stirs up the hatred of the devil and men and will turn those who confess it into targets.

These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.

The confession of the Christian faith is intolerant, that is, it does not tolerate any other “truth” to stand except for the Truth as taught in Holy Scripture. It does not tolerate any other confession but that of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. That means that, in a world that values tolerance about all things, the Christian faith has to be the most hateful thing of all. It doesn’t allow men the luxury of worshiping their own gods. It condemns as sinful everything that doesn’t flow from faith in the one true God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

That doesn’t mean we force our confession on anyone or use force of any kind to make people believe or to make people obey the will of God. The confession of the Christian faith is entirely a matter of words and preaching. But Jesus teaches us to expect to be hated, persecuted, and even killed for our words, and history has not proven Him wrong.

That includes being hated and persecuted by atheists, but, as Jesus says, it also includes being hated and persecuted by those who think they are serving God in the process, whether by the synagogues of the first century or by the “Christian” churches of the 16th century or the 21st century. We live in the times of the great apostasy, the great falling away of the majority of Christians, so that those who claim to be believers in Christ may be the very ones who condemn and persecute the steadfast confessors of the faith with the most vitriol. The heaviest cross may be imposed by those who are supposed to be on our side.

But see, this shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus told us ahead of time. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. Jesus has not tricked us into believing in Him or confessing His name before men. He has been completely honest with us about how hard it will be. But that means He also has a plan to help us and rescue us from this wicked world.

That brings us right back to the Helper, the Holy Spirit. He will help us to keep believing, to keep confessing, and to bear up under the cross. And if God is for us, who can be against us? In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and teach

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for the Ascension of Our Lord

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

This Ascension Day couldn’t have come at a better time. As you know all too well and as I often point out, the world has gone mad. The news is one horror story after another. As of this week, there isn’t a single person of integrity and character left in the presidential race—at least, not in the two major parties—so we’re probably looking at four to eight more years of the executive branch here in America promoting even more lawlessness, even more social and moral decline, not to mention a teetering global economy and a national security in jeopardy. The prospects for our future, for our children, are dismal. The schools are a mess. The universities are a mess. Families are a mess. The churches are a mess. And truth and virtue—and facts themselves! —matter to fewer and fewer people. Not to mention your own sinful flesh, which continues to war against your spirit and drag you away from Christ.

In the midst of this mess, in the midst of this world’s death-spiral, St. Luke’s words in the Book of Acts still ring out today in churches around the world, The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up.

How is that helpful?

First, there is an account of the doing and the teaching of the Man named Jesus. That account is known as the Gospel according to St. Luke (not to exclude Matthew, Mark, and John, of course). What comfort for us is there in that account as we live in a crumbling world? You know what Luke’s Gospel proclaims. How the God who made this world sent His Son into it, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. Why? For what purpose? To make it a nicer place to live? To set up an earthly kingdom where justice and honor prevail? Not at all. This world was doomed from the first sin of Adam and is destined for fire and destruction. The history of mankind is not one of evolution or progression upward toward a better and brighter world. On the contrary, the whole history of mankind is a history of violence and immorality, of regression and decay. Sin and death are the defining qualities of mankind, not justice and righteousness and peace.

No, Christ came into this world to reveal God to us in person. The real God. Not a God who fixes man’s sin or ignores man’s sin. But a God who suffers for it Himself, who pays for it with His own blood, who makes atonement for it by His own death and offers sinners a refuge against the judgment and condemnation that their sins have earned for them. That refuge is Christ Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, crucified, dead, buried, descended into hell, and risen again on the third day, now ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of God. Faith in Christ and the blood He shed for us reconciles sinners to God, brings us back together with Him, places us in His good graces and guarantees us a future life that is far better than this present one. That’s what St. Luke’s Gospel account was all about.

But did you hear what else St. Luke said? “Of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.” The whole earthly life of Jesus, which St. Luke chronicles for us in his Gospel, from His birth all the way up to His ascension, was just the beginning, what He began both to do and teach. The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and to teach. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is the record of the continued doing and teaching of Jesus after His ascension into heaven. It was Christ who sent out the apostles and has been sending out their successors ever since. It was Christ who first sent His Spirit on Pentecost and who worked through the preaching of His apostles to spread His word and to build up His Holy Church. As you heard Mark record at the end of his Gospel, they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them.

The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and teach. Only now He does and teaches from His throne at the right hand of God from where He reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Everything that happens in the world, everything that happens in the Church is under the supervision and control of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Paul wrote this to the Ephesians, I pray that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The kingdom of God isn’t stagnant, isn’t dead, isn’t failing. It’s conquering the devil and the world, even now, with Christ as the King on His throne.

But you don’t see that, not really. The reign of Christ at God’s right hand is a matter of faith, not sight. You don’t see how Christ is governing the affairs of this world, or know the reasons behind what He does. You can’t see the Holy Spirit’s plans or predict when Christ will come back in glory on a cloud.

His disciples wanted to see, they wanted to know. “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” What did they mean by that question? If they were thinking about Jesus setting up an earthly kingdom, then it was a foolish question. If they were thinking about Jesus making the physical nation of Israel into a prominent nation, then it was a foolish question—a foolish belief that is still held by many Evangelicals today as they imagine that the physical nation of Israel has some special meaning, as they imagine that Christ will come and set up an earthly kingdom for a thousand years or rapture believers up into heaven while the earth goes on in its mess. All of that is foolish talk.

Or were Jesus’ disciples only thinking of the restoration of the kingdom to the spiritual Israel, that is, the Holy Christian Church, made up of people from every nation, tribe, language and people—all who believe and are baptized, when Christ will come and rescue His Church from this world and reign visibly over it forever in the new heavens and the new earth? If that was what they meant, then their understanding was exactly right. But their timing—their timing and their desire to know the timing was way off.

It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. God has reserved for Himself the knowledge of when He will finally come and crush the kingdoms of this earth under His feet and remove His Church from this dying world. That time was not yet at the time of the apostles—they had much to do, and much to suffer first. And it has not yet come for us, either. God knows the work He still has to do with this world. That’s the very reason Christ ascended, to do that work for as long as it takes, according to the times and seasons known to the Father, until His whole Church is completely built and the world has had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.

For now, the ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and to teach. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Here we are, at the end of the earth, from where Jesus spoke those words, gathered together 2,000 years later in the name of Him whom we have not seen, and yet have believed, gathered together—preacher and hearers, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, hearing and honoring His Word, ready to receive His Sacrament of the New Testament, receiving the forgiveness of our sins, committed to living lives of love according to God’s commandments, committed to confessing the name of Christ Jesus in Las Cruces, in all Dona Ana county and New Mexico, and to the end of the earth, as the ascended Lord Jesus gives us strength and opportunity. Where did we Christians come from? Where did our faith and our confession of it come from? It came from Christ Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as He has continued to send forth His Spirit in Word and Sacrament, as He has continued to give pastors and teachers to His Holy Church, as He has seen to it that the Gospel has been preached and continues to be preached among us.

No matter what the world does around us, no matter how it rages against Christ and His Church and wallows in its filth, no matter how much lawlessness abounds and the love of many grows cold, Christ Jesus has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, which is not far away from us, but very close to us, hidden, but real, where all things have been placed under His feet, where He continues both to do and teach through His Holy Spirit, in His Holy Church, preaching sin and grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins until He comes again to judge the living and the dead.

Rejoice in the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus, all you Christians! Turn to Him, all you ends of the earth, and be saved! He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. Amen.

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