Old Jerusalem fell so that New Jerusalem might arise

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 10

Jeremiah 7:1-7  +  1 Corinthians 12:1-11  +  Luke 19:41-48

Today is a joy-filled day, as is every Sunday when we are blessed to gather together with Jesus as He comes to us in Word and Sacrament with His teaching, with His love, and with His forgiveness. It’s an especially joy-filled day as we celebrate this morning with the Holguin family the baptism of their little girl.

It was, in many respects, a joy-filled Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and heard the praises of the multitudes, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

But not everyone was singing praise to Jesus on that day. St. Luke tells us that the Pharisees scolded Jesus for accepting the praises of the people. Sadly, the unbelief of the Pharisees was characteristic of the unbelief of Jerusalem as a whole, which is why there wasn’t much joy in the Gospel you heard this morning. Instead, there was weeping on the part of Jesus, a prophecy of destruction, and an angry overturning of tables in the temple.

Jerusalem was the city of God, the place where God chose to dwell among men. He attached Himself to this city, and specifically to the temple, to the altar of sacrifice, to the holy place and the most holy place.  This was God’s self-chosen “home” on earth. Not a home because He needed a place to live, but because mankind needed a place to dwell with God. That temple was to be, as Jesus says, quoting from the Old Testament, “a house of prayer for all nations.”

Jerusalem was the home of God’s people Israel, the capital city of the Church on earth, the very symbol of the Old Testament Church of God. It was where the people of God dwelled, His covenant people, the ones to whom He had revealed Himself, the ones with whom He had made a covenant of salvation through the sacramental sacrifices, through circumcision, through His holy law.

Jesus had been to Jerusalem many times. He had spent much of His three-year ministry in and around the city. He had taught in the Temple day after day. But as He entered on Palm Sunday, He couldn’t help but weep for His city. If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

What did Jesus mean by, “in this your day”? He meant that for a thousand years, since the founding of Jerusalem as the capital city of Judah, all of Jerusalem’s history had been leading up to the arrival of God’s own Son in the flesh at Jerusalem’s gates, her Messiah, her King riding in with salvation.

And what were those things that made for Jerusalem’s peace? The righteousness of Christ and the precious blood of Christ that would soon be shed on the cross; the New Testament in His blood that He would give to His disciples; the holy Baptism by which He would forgive sins and save His people from sin, death, and the devil.

But Jesus foresaw what would happen—not only His crucifixion at the hands of the Jews. They could have been forgiven for that, and thousands of them were forgiven for that on the Day of Pentecost when they were baptized. No, Jesus foresaw that, even after His resurrection from the dead, even after His apostles would preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins on the Day of Pentecost, the vast majority of Jerusalem would continue in unbelief and would even go on to persecute His Christians, killing some and driving the rest out of Jerusalem, until all the Christians had to flee the city.

So Jesus wept, not for Himself or for His Christians who would be persecuted. He wept for those who would do the persecuting, because they were the ones who would be destroyed for their own unbelief. They were the ones who would answer before God for all their sins, for their idolatry and for their violence. They were the ones who would suffer God’s wrath, even though, all along, Jesus held out His arms toward them, pleading with them to trust in Him, to take shelter behind Him and His cross, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But they were not willing.

And so the destruction of Jerusalem would certainly take place, some forty years from that day. Utterly wiped out by the terrible decree of God, working through the Roman armies to destroy those who chose to remain in their sins, who wanted nothing to do with Jesus, who did not believe in Jesus the Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead. Notice that God didn’t call upon His Christians to wipe out unbelieving Jerusalem, nor were they at all responsible for its destruction. Instead, God ordered history in such a way that the pagan Romans carried out His will and His judgment against Jerusalem, so that those who rejected Christ and persecuted His Christians would be judged by God without mercy. And yet, even still, even though it was God’s will to destroy unbelieving Jerusalem, Jesus’ tears for the city reveal that God didn’t originally want to destroy Jerusalem, but that Jerusalem should repent and be saved.

But not all the Jews would reject Christ. Some would be converted. Some would repent and believe in Jesus, some sooner, like those on the Day of Pentecost, some later, like the Apostle Paul, who started out as the persecutor named Saul. How would they be converted? Only by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God as it was preached, and working through Baptism as it was administered.

And so Jesus went into the city to preach and teach the Word of God with every day He had left before His crucifixion. He went to the place that was designed for such teaching, to the house of God, to the Temple. And what did He find? He found the Temple to be a marketplace, full of buyers and sellers, full of merchandise, full of noise, and devoid of the worship of God for which it was intended. So He overturned the tables and chairs of the money changers and drove them out. He rebuked those who were buying and selling and wouldn’t let them carry their wares through the house of God, where the people were to hear, see, learn, and pray. If any would be saved from their sins and brought to faith, it would only happen through the preaching of the Word of God, so Jesus cleared away all the manmade obstacles to His teaching, and then spent the rest of the week teaching those who would listen.

My fellow Christians, the Jews of Jerusalem were destroyed for their unbelief. The Apostle Paul compares the Jews to natural branches of a cultivated olive tree that were chopped off, and now salvation has come to us Gentiles; we have been grafted into that tree like wild olive branches, grafted in by hearing the Gospel, by being brought to repentance and faith and Holy Baptism, fed and nourished in the olive tree by the body and blood of Christ and by the preaching of His holy Word.

But there is a warning for us here, as Paul writes to the Romans: You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

God’s wrath against Jerusalem should not make us proud, but very humble. God’s rejection of His covenant people of Israel should inspire us to praise the grace of God all the more, who has called us to faith purely by grace, by free divine favor and mercy for the sake of Christ. And it should also inspire us to pray for the conversion of all people, Jews and Gentiles alike. Old Jerusalem fell so that a New Jerusalem might arise, the City of God, the Church of Christ, made up of people from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue, who enter God’s City, not by works, by only by faith in Christ Jesus.

Praise God for His gracious gift of Holy Baptism by which all of you have entered His New Jerusalem, grafted into the tree of life which is Christ Jesus our Lord, just like little Kamila was this morning. Be assured that Jesus desires your salvation every bit as much as He desired the salvation of Old Jerusalem. They didn’t fall because they sinned too much. They fell because they refused to repent of their sins and believe in Christ. You stand by faith. Now go forth and live each day in contrition and repentance, letting your old Adam, with his evil desires, be drowned and die each day, so that a New Man may daily arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Amen.

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Be wise with your Father’s wealth

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Chronicles 29:10-13  +  1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

Before we talk about today’s Gospel from Luke 16 and Jesus’ parable of the unjust steward, it’s important that we keep it in context with Luke 15. Luke 15 is the “lost” chapter where Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep, and the lost coin, and the lost (or prodigal) son. Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth to seek lost sinners. He gave everything, even His own precious blood, so that sinners could be reconciled with God in His blood. He pictures Himself as this shepherd who cares deeply for each lost sheep and rejoices greatly when sinners repent, and again as a woman who drops everything and frantically searches until she finds her lost coin. He pictures His Father as a man whose son took off and squandered his father’s wealth, but whose only desire was for that unjust son to return to his house, where the father was waiting to run out to him, to embrace him, to forgive him, and to hold a banquet in his honor. That’s the picture Jesus paints of His Father, and of Himself. And it’s His Holy Spirit who works in sinners’ hearts through Jesus’ words so that you repent of your sinfulness and trust in this good God who gave everything so that you could be adopted into His family, so that you come home to your Father through faith and Holy baptism, feed on the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion, and take comfort in your Father’s faithful love, here in time, and there in eternity.

This is what life is all about: lost sinners hearing the Gospel, being brought into Christ’s holy Church, and persevering in the Church until Christ comes again. Life isn’t about our brief stay here on this earth. It’s not about accumulating things and enjoying the things that money can buy—even though you may very well accumulate things and enjoy them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But above all, you have to remember that you, as children of God, as sons of light, are strangers and pilgrims here. Your citizenship is in heaven, so you are to live with an eye toward heaven, and with a zeal to serve your neighbor for his good.

But even the children of light are sorely tempted still by earthly things. The devil, the world, and your sinful flesh do not want you to hallow God’s name or to live as children of light or to sacrifice anything in order to serve your neighbor. You and I live in real danger of these enemies, and one of their most successful methods is to attack Christians in the wallet.

Israel is a perfect example children of light who fall into temptation. You heard the apostle Paul’s earnest warning in today’s Epistle, how the Israelites were severely punished by God and struck down for their many idolatries and forms of disobedience. Like you, they had seen God’s salvation. They had been rescued from slavery in Egypt, baptized into Moses, fed by God in the wilderness. And yet they still bowed down to an idol. They still complained that God hadn’t given them enough. Throughout their history they broke the Sabbath day out of greed, so that they could get more money by working on the Sabbath, and they became famous for not providing for the widow and the fatherless and for taking advantage of the poor. That’s the history of the Old Testament. And Paul says it was written as a warning for us, written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

The area that Christ addresses today where you could fall is the area of stewardship, specifically the management of the earthly goods and money that God has entrusted you with during this earthly life.

God is the owner of everything in heaven and on earth, which means He also owns your house, your bank accounts, your mutual funds, your clothes, your food. Even your own body is not your own; it belongs to God—twice, because He created it, and then He even bought it again at the price of Jesus’ blood. So both as your Creator and as your Redeemer, God has every right to expect that you, His reconciled children, will take care to manage what He has placed in your hands, not only to provide for your needs, but also to serve your neighbor.

So Jesus tells this parable of a rich landowner, a lender, who had many servants, including a steward, a financial manager who was accused of squandering the rich man’s wealth. He was called in by his master to give an account. But he had just a little time before that meeting. So he cooked the books a little bit, not to give himself more money, but to reduce the debts of some of the debtors. Why? So that they would appreciate his kindness and maybe repay it after he lost his job. It was shrewd. It was smart. He needed friends, so with the little time he had left in his office, he used the money at his disposal to buy some good favor for himself, not from his master, but from other people. Even so, he was actually commended by the rich man for acting shrewdly.

What’s the point? Jesus makes it clear: For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.

The sons of this world, the unbelieving, the wicked, the lost, often show themselves to be smart when it comes to using wealth. They know how to wine and dine their customers in order to gain their favor. They know how to give discounts that will ensure customer loyalty. They even know how to give to charities in order to get attention and look good, so that people like them.

But the sons of light, says Jesus, are not always so shrewd when it comes to how they treat their own fellow believers in Christ. Sometimes greed gets in the way, so that you don’t want to give generously to your fellow Christian in need. But it’s not always greed. Sometimes it’s just plain laziness. Never getting around to that budget, not quite sure where all the money goes each month, never stopping to think, how can I use my wealth—I mean, God’s wealth—to help my neighbor? Helping your neighbor with your (God’s) wealth may be a nice idea in theory, but sometimes it never goes beyond that. It doesn’t become a priority. Christians can easily fall into this kind of sinful laziness, because, “hey, you know, we’re saved by God’s grace, not by doing good works, so I don’t have to think too long and hard about doing those good works or going out of my way to serve my neighbor. I have God. I don’t really need friends.”

But that’s not what Jesus says, is it? And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.

Let’s understand this well. God is the one who decides who gets to enter that everlasting home. And He has told us the requirements: either enter by your own perfect record of good works (which is impossible), or enter without any of your works, by faith alone in Christ and His record of good works. No one is justified by his works. Faith alone justifies, and being justified means you get to live forever with God, in the presence of Christ, in the everlasting home that He is preparing for you.

But true faith in Christ says, “I am God’s steward. And God, my Father, loves my neighbor as much as He loves me. And He has charged me with managing His wealth for the good of my neighbor. So I must be a faithful steward. I have only a little time left on this earth. How will I use my wealth to help my neighbor?”

Then the Tempter comes along and tries to lull you to sleep, to apathy, to indifference toward your neighbor. “Here, enjoy your wealth. You’ve earned it. Eat, drink, and be merry. You’ll get around to making that budget. You’ll get around to helping your neighbor…sometime.” And the temptation is to hold onto the idea of faith, even as you fall away from it in your heart and become self-centered and callous toward your neighbor. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

But when you act shrewdly, lovingly, when you give to your neighbor, your works of love demonstrate your faith, and those who receive your generosity are the witnesses of your faith. You can’t go wrong helping your fellow Christian. On the contrary, you can be the reason why your fellow Christian praises God. You can be the hand of God who shows mercy and kindness to your neighbor.

I’m aware of the generosity our congregation as a whole has shown, to me as your pastor, and to your fellow members in their time of need. That’s good! Now, make sure that what’s true of the whole is true of each individual Christian as well, as each one has received a certain amount of God’s wealth to manage. Don’t grow weary in doing good. Don’t let today’s zeal become tomorrow’s indifference. There’s a reason why Jesus had St. Luke record the parable in today’s Gospel, and why the Church chose to have it read every year in the pericope. Sin and temptation are always creeping around, and the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. You are His dear children, after all, who once were lost, but now have been brought back to your Father’s house, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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False prophets hide the glory of Christ and terrorize consciences

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Trinity 8

Jeremiah 15:19-21  +  Romans 8:12-17  +  Matthew 7:15-23

Toward the beginning of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, He warned His Christians not to judge. But as we learned several weeks ago, that wasn’t a blanket statement prohibiting every form of judgment. Today, toward the end of the same Sermon on the Mount, Christ specifically calls upon His Christians to make a judgment. Not a judgment condemning people to hell or raising them up to heaven. But a judgment about whether a prophet—a pastor, preacher, or teacher—is a true prophet speaking God’s words, or a false prophet speaking falsehood in God’s name. It’s a very simple warning, actually, but it’s very distasteful to many people—especially to the false prophets themselves, but also to those who like to listen to them. And even you who love the doctrine of Christ may find it hard to put into practice because of your sinful flesh.

There are several reasons why Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel are hard to hear in our time and place in history. (1) If you’re not sure you have the truth, you can’t be sure that someone else is speaking something false, can you? And (2) combined with that is our modern world’s insistence that there is no such thing as absolute truth, just different perspectives that are all valid, just different interpretations that might all be right in the end, so, how arrogant do you have to be to label someone as a false prophet? (3) Some Christians are genuinely cautious about falling into sinful pride or speaking the truth without love, but then they buy into the world’s definition of love, which means accepting everyone and never saying anything negative about anyone. (4) You may have friends and family who adhere to some false doctrine, and you don’t want to even think about those areas that could cause conflicts with them. (5) You may have fallen into the trap of listening to false prophets in the past, so you may have a favorite false prophet out there somewhere whom you respect or to whom you like to listen, and you don’t want anything negative said about someone whom you admire or appreciate. (6) There are so many people in the world who are openly opposed to Christ, so many non-Christian enemies of the Church. Why waste time squabbling with other Christians? And related to that is, (7) some people fall into the Fundamentalist error that there are only a handful of “fundamental” doctrines that “really matter,” and that we should just agree to disagree on the rest.

But here’s the thing, the answer to all of those objections: We have a command from Jesus to “watch out for, to beware of false prophets.” There’s no getting around it. Every bit as much as God commands you to honor your father and mother and not to murder, so He also commands you to watch out, to beware. That doesn’t mean that every day, every week, all the time we spend our time pointing out falsehood. We do not. We point it out as it arises, as we are confronted with it. There’s no need to go out into the far reaches of the world, though, in order to find it. There are false prophets in every city of America, in the majority of “Christian” pulpits in every city, whose books line every bookstore in America, and who broadcast their false doctrine on websites and TV channels and radio stations that have the capacity to enter every single home and every single web-enabled device of every single Christian in our country. And if, somehow, you are not encountering these false teachers in your day-to-day life, your neighbor or your fellow member may be encountering them, and you will all encounter them at some point. So we obey Jesus to beware.

What’s more, look at what happens to false prophets in the end! Listen to Jesus’ warning. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness! It doesn’t get more serious than that. As you see printed on the last line of your service folder on the back, that line from one of our confessional statements talking about false prophets: So they hide Christ’s glory and rob consciences of firm consolation. So as a warning to those false prophets, we stand on the true doctrine and we make our stance known both in our written confessions and in the confession of our actions—what we believe and also what we condemn.

Now, if false prophets run the risk of being shut out of Christ’s eternal kingdom, what will their hearers do who followed them and believed their falsehoods? Remember, false prophets hide Christ’s glory and rob consciences of firm consolation. So we watch out for false prophets, not out of pride, but out of love for all men, that they may not be deceived by lies, but may come to know the truth of Christ and be preserved in the truth of Christ.

Beware of false prophets. Notice that we’re talking about “Christian” false prophets, those who say to Jesus, “Lord! Lord!”, who preach and teach and even claim to do miracles “in the name of Christ.” We’re not bothering here with the so-called prophet Muhammed, or the Dalai Lama, or Jewish Rabbis, or atheist spokesmen. We’re not told to watch out for them, because Jesus is talking to Christians, and Christians all know better than to listen to the teaching of someone who openly denies Christ. Right?

And we’re talking, not about the average person on the street, but about false teachers, those who claim to speak for God, those who pretend to teach people what Christ teaches and who do it wrongly, who teach things that aren’t true about Jesus and about His word.

Jesus warns us that it won’t be easy, on the surface, to identify a false prophet. Why? Because they dress themselves up like sheep. Innocent. Harmless. Friendly. Engaging. Don’t be deceived, Jesus warns us. Don’t be fooled by appearances or charisma or sincerity. False prophets say lots of good things, lots of true things. It’s part of the masquerade they’re trying to pull off. But inwardly they are ravenous wolves. They want to tear you away from Christ and His word, and they will do you harm, if you listen to them.

By their fruits you will know them. Notice, though, how Jesus talks about a person’s fruit. Not as if there’s some good and some bad, so watch out for the bad and hold onto the good. It’s all or nothing. He’s either a grapevine or a thornbush, a fig tree or a thistle. A good tree produces good fruit. Period. A bad tree produces bad fruit. Period. You see, Christ views His doctrine, His Gospel, as a unit, as a single piece of fruit. If a prophet’s teaching, as a whole, is good, then you know the prophet is good. If the teaching, as a whole, contains falsehood, then you know he’s a false prophet.

That’s why the pope or the Baptist preacher or the nominally Lutheran pastor can teach many things that are true and say many things that are right, and yet still be a false prophet of whom you are to beware, because the falsehood that is part of his confession of faith makes his entire teaching corrupt. So in the end you aren’t judging the man (or the woman). You’re judging his fruit, his teaching, his doctrine, as Jesus tells you to do.

But how do you judge the fruit? How do you evaluate a person’s teaching? You test it like crazy. You test it against God’s inspired and inerrant Word, which means you have to study God’s Word, too. And since we here have concluded together that the Lutheran Confessions properly and accurately represent the doctrine of Christ drawn from His Word, you would do well to study and learn them, too, so that you can always test Christian teachers by them, not only the ones you encounter outside of these walls, but also the one who is preaching to you now.

Now, there are as many false doctrines out there as there are different communions that call themselves Christian. We do not have time in a sermon to consider even a fraction of them. But I want you to consider three of the most basic false teachings that surround us today so that you can constantly be on guard against them.

First, there are the direct attacks on God’s Word itself. It is preached from thousands of pulpits in our country that the Bible is not reliable, that it isn’t historically accurate, and that its meaning must change to fit with scientific discoveries and with societal “progress.” It’s this core false doctrine that gives us the teaching of evolution in the Church, women pastors, gay marriage, support for abortion, open Communion, and any number of other abominations, because once you remove God’s Word from its place of authority, then man can do whatever is right in his own sinful eyes. To mess with God’s Word is to hide the glory of Christ and rob consciences of firm consolation. Beware!

Then there are the false doctrines that attack some aspect of the Gospel itself, that all are sinners, and that sinners are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone. Some deny that all people, by nature, are dead in sins and trespasses. Others add human works to grace, so that we have to earn God’s favor by doing good works. Others teach a justification that is not by faith. And still others turn faith into a human work that you have to choose for yourself or produce in yourself. To mess with the Gospel is to hide the glory of Christ and rob consciences of firm consolation. Beware!

Third—and last for today—, there are the very common attacks on how God deals with us and how God’s grace comes to us and is applied to us: through the means of grace. They are false teachers who say the bread of Holy Communion is not the body of Christ that we eat, and that the wine is not the blood of Christ that we all drink. They are false teachers who deny that God’s Holy Spirit gives forgiveness of sins, life and salvation through the rebirth of Holy Baptism. And they are false teachers who teach that God deals with us and forgives our sins in some other way than through the external means of Word and Sacrament. To mess with the means of grace is to hide the glory of Christ and rob consciences of firm consolation. Beware!

These bad fruits are all around us, and consuming them is as deadly as consuming thorns and thistles. That’s why Jesus warns us to beware. But Christ has not left us alone. He has given us His dependable Word, and with it, His all-powerful Spirit to lead us and help us. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. Amen.

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Jesus will not disappoint you

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 7

Jeremiah 31:25-27  +  Romans 6:19-23  +  Mark 8:1-9

Everything’s going to be all right. It doesn’t always seem that way, does it? But it will. Everything’s going to be all right, if you stay with Jesus. He won’t disappoint you.

We learn that simple lesson in today’s Gospel (and also in the Epistle!). Four thousand people left their homes and their businesses to go hear Jesus, and not just for “one whole hour.” They spent three days with Him just listening, learning. They hadn’t expected to stay quite that long, or they would have brought more food along with them. But there they were, out in the wilderness. Jesus hadn’t sent them away or anything, so they just stayed.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? What could be more important than sitting at the feet of God-in-the-flesh?

But now what? Did they stay with Jesus, only to starve to death because they did? Did they stay with Him, only to be abandoned by Him and left to fend for themselves out in the wilderness? Of course not. Everything would be all right. They were with Jesus.

And with Jesus there is compassion. I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. When Jesus calls you to repent and be baptized in His name for the forgiveness of sins, He doesn’t then wash His hands of you and move on to someone else. He isn’t done with you once you enter His Church, while He goes off to do “more important things.” He has compassion on His people. Always. He doesn’t need to be told what your needs are. He doesn’t wait until you pester Him long enough with your complaints. He loves to show mercy. That’s why the crowds followed Him out to the wilderness in the first place, because they had learned that Jesus was good and merciful and kind to all who come to Him. So they followed Him. They stayed with Him. And their faithful following was not overlooked.

Jesus’ disciples didn’t know how to help all those people, how to provide for them there in the wilderness. They certainly couldn’t solve the food problem. Seven loaves of bread and a few fish wouldn’t feed four thousand people. But Jesus took these little pieces of God’s good creation and miraculously multiplied them until everyone had received his daily bread, from the hand of Jesus, by the hand of His apostles. Compassion. Providence. Sustenance. Everything turned out all right for those multitudes who had left their homes to follow Jesus and then faithfully stayed with Him.

What might it look like today to follow Jesus and to stay with Him? First, it means recognizing that you have sinned against God and deserve His wrath and punishment. But the Gospel calls you to repent and believe in the merciful Lord Christ who died on the cross for your sins and rose again from the dead. By faith in Christ, you’re forgiven and justified. By faith and Holy Baptism, you have entered Christ’s kingdom.

Now, as baptized believers in Christ, faithfulness looks like setting aside time to hear His Word and receive His Sacraments every Sunday, and maybe in between. Because the people of Christ yearn to be where Christ offers Himself in Word and Sacrament. For some, that might mean driving long distances to gather with those who confess the faith rightly. For others, it may mean it’s too far to drive very often, so you do the best you can, watching or listening to the service, reading and studying the Scriptures on your own. In those cases, faithfulness and staying with Jesus means you don’t just settle by joining a church that’s the “closest thing available” to ours. In every case, our church and churches like ours will never be huge or rich or glorious in an earthly way, and we won’t have all the things that bigger, false-teaching churches have. It’s a bit like taking a trip out into the wilderness, actually. And that can be quite a sacrifice.

Following Christ and staying with Him means giving a generous percentage of your income as an offering, so that the ministry of the Word can continue in our midst and around the world.

Following Christ and staying with Him means standing against the world and its godlessness and vain human reason. It would be easier to go along to get along, when so many voices all around you are telling you how foolish you are to stay with Jesus, and to believe everything He says in Holy Scripture. But Christians are called to live differently, to shine as lights in a dark world, lights that reflect both God’s truth and God’s love, without ever compromising either.

Following Christ and staying with Him means a constant battle with your flesh, a battle you never really get to be done with here on this earth. Because you were once slaves to sin, and at that time, as St. Paul says to the Romans, you were free from righteousness. You went right along with the cravings and the desires of this depraved world. But no longer. Now you are slaves to righteousness. Now you have come to Christ. So stay with Christ and live each day walking in His footsteps, saying “no” to sin and “yes” to righteousness, sacrificing one earthly comfort after another, refusing one sinful pleasure after another, all to follow Christ and to stay with Him.

How will that go for you? How will it end up? Everything is going to be all right. Jesus will not disappoint you. Here you are, out in the wilderness, having left behind many of the comfortable things of this world. You’ve come to follow Jesus, to hear Him, and to stay with Him. Everything will be all right. Because the same Jesus who had compassion on the multitudes in our Gospel has compassion on you, at all times. He knows your needs. He knows what you’ve lost, what you’ve given up, what you continue to struggle with. And as He did in our Gospel, He’ll supply your need, according to His good will and purpose for you.

He supplies you with a constant source of forgiveness and strength in His preaching and in His Sacrament. He supplies you with the constant gift of His Holy Spirit. And as you live as slaves, not of sin, but of God, Paul says that you have your fruit to holiness.

What does that mean? Well, Paul points out that, when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? What was the result when you followed your sinful cravings and indulged your sinful flesh? As Christians looking back on the sins you’ve committed in the past, you see plenty of bad results, don’t you? When you were disobedient, when you mistreated your own body or the body of someone else, when you didn’t honor marriage or when you coveted something you didn’t have, looking back, you can see how that life resulted in ugliness, how it produced rotten fruit.

But when you serve God as willing slaves, who have been redeemed from slavery to sin and purchased for God, you may not have all the pleasures and the comforts that the unbelievers have. But there is good fruit, there is a good result in leading a godly life. For as much as the world mocks it, holiness is a good thing.

And the end of it, Paul says, is everlasting life. That’s what waiting at the end of your time in the wilderness. That’s what God has in store for you who have followed Jesus and stayed with Him. No matter how gloomy things might appear in this world, everything will be all right. Jesus will not disappoint you. As David says in the 23rd Psalm, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever. Amen.

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Don’t turn to Jesus for self-help

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for midweek of Trinity 6

Ephesians 2:4-10  +  Matthew 19:16-30

The Gospel you heard a moment ago ties in perfectly with the Gospel from this past Sunday. We talked about the Ten Commandments and how obedience to the commandments can be used like a key to enter the kingdom of heaven—a key that will never work for sinners, because only perfect obedience turns the lock.

The rich young man who came to Jesus thought he had been obedient to the commandments. But he also had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t enough, that there was some aspect of “goodness” he was still missing.

He was right. There was. He was missing the most basic part of goodness that there is: he was missing love for God, devotion to God, trust in God.

He called Jesus, “Good Teacher.” Not because he recognized Jesus as the Son of God; he didn’t. But “good” because he thought it was entirely possible for a human being to be “good,” that is, truly good, like God Himself, and thus worthy of gaining eternal life. And he thought that Jesus was just such a good man. And that Jesus, as a good man, could let him in on the secret to being good.

What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? Oh, what a tragic mistake—to turn to Jesus for self-help, to attempt to approach God apart from His grace, on the basis of one’s own merits.

Jesus puts a question to the rich man: Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. The rich man seems to have forgotten all those Old Testament passages that lump all people together under sin, all those passages that teach Original Sin, making it impossible for anyone descended from sinful Adam and Eve in the natural way to be good. As the Psalmist said, “There is none who does good, no, not one.” So, if the rich man believed Jesus to be anyone but God, he should not have called Him “good.” And if the rich man believed the Old Testament, then he shouldn’t have imagined that there was any good thing he could do to become good himself. No one gains eternal life by being good, because all are sinners, and sinners, by definition, are not good.

Maybe we should be careful, even in our speech, about calling people “good,” at least, not without further explanation. “He’s a good man. She’s a good woman. They’re good kids.” Maybe we should be ready to use such phrases, when we hear them, as opportunities to do what Jesus did with the rich young man.

Jesus explains for the young man what “good thing” he should do. He tells him to “keep the commandments.” That is the good thing you should do. Keep them. But remember what James says: For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

Which commandments shall I keep?, asked the young man. So Jesus lists a few of the Ten Commandments: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then the summary of the Law: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Notice, Jesus chose to list only commandments from the Second Table of the Law, the commandments that tell you how you must deal with your neighbor. There’s a reason for that: those are the easy ones. Don’t even worry for the moment about loving God, whom you don’t see. Here, just love your neighbor. That’s all. See if you can do that. Unselfishly, sacrificially, from the heart. Love your neighbor—including your neighbor who’s a jerk, including your neighbor who hates you, including your neighbor whom you barely know. Live to serve your neighbor.

“I do live for my neighbor!”, replied the young man. “I have, since my youth.” I’ve kept those commandments!

Jesus doesn’t even argue with him or dig deeper into the man’s history. He doesn’t have to. He points out one glaring flaw: If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. Here’s how you can become good, Jesus tells the man. Give up your riches for the sake of the poor, for your neighbor, whom you claim to love as yourself. Give up your earthly comfort. Give up your livelihood, your home, your safety. Give up your life. In its place, take up the cross. And follow Me.

What is Jesus saying here? That by doing that good but difficult work of giving all you have to the poor, you will atone for all your sins, become a truly good person, and thus earn eternal life from God? No. What Jesus does here is to expose the rich man’s true sin: his idolatry. What matters most to you in your life? Is it your house? Your family? Your reputation? Your comfort? Your health? Your riches? The person you love? What won’t you give up, if the Son of God says, “Leave it behind and come follow me”? That thing is your idol. That thing is truly your god. And so you prove that you haven’t kept even the First Commandment, much less the others.

The more you have, the more you want, the more your heart becomes attached to it, and the harder it is to leave it all behind, to give it up, to give it away, if God calls on you to give it away. That’s usually how it is, isn’t it? That’s why Jesus said that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

That, of course, sounds like an impossible thing. And for man, it is. But for God, nothing is impossible. Let’s remember Abraham for a moment, shall we? He was a rich man. God never called on him to sell all his possessions and give it to the poor. Instead, God called on him to give up something even dearer to him: his beloved son, Isaac. And not just to give him up, but to kill him with his own hand. And Abraham was prepared to do it. Not because he was so good. But because God had worked that faith in Abraham’s heart, which then produced in Abraham a love for God that was greater than his love for his own son.

Or consider Job. Another rich man. God never called on him to sell all his possessions. Instead, God allowed Satan to destroy all his possessions, and even to kill all his children. The rich man in our Gospel would have cursed God for that. But what did Job say? Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD. Again, Job’s faith in God was counted for righteousness in God’s sight, and it produced in Job a contentment with God that seems impossible. But with God nothing is impossible.

Or consider Jesus’ disciples. They weren’t rich, as far as we know, but they had a life. They had possessions. Some of them had fishing boats and a fishing business. When Jesus called them to “Come, follow Me,” what did they do? As we heard just a couple of Sundays ago, they left all and followed Him, even leaving their fishing boats and fishing nets and the large catch of fish they had taken. That’s Spirit-worked faith. Faith in Jesus as their Savior. Faith by which they were counted righteous before God, counted “good.” Not because they did the good work of leaving all behind. But because they valued Jesus and His salvation above all else.

Faith led Jesus’ disciples to give up everything, when Jesus called on them to do it, to leave behind an existence where getting ahead in this world is the first priority. So, “What about us, Jesus?” We have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?” The answer? Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. You aren’t welcomed into eternal life because you’re good. You’re welcomed in because Jesus is good, and you have been brought to trust in Him. Trusting in Jesus does require being prepared to leave behind everything on earth. But then there is the promise and the sure hope of far greater rewards in heaven. Not many people are willing to give up what they have on earth in the hope of future glory. Most people are like the rich young man; they walk away sad because they are unwilling to part with their earthly comfort. They walk away sad, because they don’t value Christ or think He is a Savior worth giving up earthly comfort for.

But we know better, don’t we? Because God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So stop pretending that you can ever do some good thing to gain eternal life. Don’t turn to Jesus for instructions on how to help yourself. Turn to Him to save you, and to give you eternal life as a gift. And then, trusting in Him, take up your cross and follow Him. Because nothing on earth compares to what He will give to those who love Him. Amen.

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