Justified only by faith in the God of mercy

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

right-click to save

Sermon for Trinity 11

2 Samuel 22:21-29  +  1 Corinthians 15:1-10  +  Luke 18:9-14

I hope that, by now, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is firmly rooted in your hearts. We hear it year after year in the Gospel for this Sunday and it summarizes the Christian faith so simply that any child can understand it. In fact, children understand it far better than great theologians and pastors and synodical officials, as another Lutheran pastor is in the midst of finding out (we prayed for him by name last Sunday). Some people are justified before God; some are not. Who are the ones who are justified—considered and declared by God to be righteous and innocent in His sight? And who are not? That’s the subject of Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

He tells this parable in the first place because some of the Jews who were following Him still didn’t get it. Luke tells us that Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. I hope you can see, right at the outset, how devastating that is and why Jesus had to attack it with this pride-shattering parable. To trust in yourself, to have faith in yourself, that you are good enough, that you have done enough to earn God’s favor and forgiveness—that’s a fatal mistake, a mistake that will forever keep you from being justified before God, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.

Jesus gives us an example of a man who exalted himself, before God and before men: the Pharisee in the parable. Now, in the world’s eyes, he may have had every reason to exalt himself—to lift himself up in his own eyes. As the Pharisee stands in the temple and prays, he sounds like a model citizen. He is no murderer, no thief, no adulterer. He’s also very religious; he fasts twice a week—a sign of devotion to God; he gives ten percent of his income to God, as God told the people of Israel to do. His works looked good enough for him to be justified before God.

But his heart was bad; Jesus reveals that to us. The Pharisee lifted himself up before God, as if he had earned God’s favor because of the good life he had led. He lifted himself up above other men, and certainly above the tax collector standing across the room. Indeed, he lifted himself up above all the saints—above Adam, above Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, above Moses, above David and all the prophets. Because all of them acknowledged their sin before God. All of them humbled themselves before God and looked to God, not for praise, but for forgiveness. All of them relied only on God’s mercy for their justification. As the Scripture says, for example, about Abraham: He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Or as David wrote in Psalm 32: Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit. But there was deceit in the Pharisee’s spirit. He was deceiving himself, that he was righteous because of the good things he did. The truth is, even the good things he did weren’t good in God’s sight, because they didn’t flow from faith in God’s mercy. By exalting himself, the Pharisee was actually rejecting God’s Word that accused him of being a sinner. By exalting himself, the Pharisee was actually despising, hating the true God, who is a God of mercy and compassion toward sinners, not a God who pats sinners on the back and praises them for being such good people. As Jesus says, the Pharisee went down to his house not justified.

Then Jesus gives us an example of a man who humbled himself before God and before men: the tax collector who stood in the distance, beat his chest and simply prayed, God, be merciful to me a sinner! This was no mere show of humility. It was genuine. The tax collectors had a reputation of being swindlers, taking advantage of their neighbor and loving money more than God. Most of them probably never set foot in the temple, for fear that lightning would strike them because they were such bad people. Now, this tax collector may have done just as many bad things as his fellow tax collectors, but he was different; he did go up to the temple. Why? Because he recognized his sins and sought forgiveness. He trusted in the God of mercy, which means he must have heard the Gospel, because no one trusts in the God of mercy by nature. No one comes to repent of his sins and trust in God’s mercy toward sinners on his own, but only by hearing the Word. So he must have heard the word that God is merciful and that God will forgive all who confess their sins to him. That’s not surprising, because the Word of God was certainly preached in Israel, even in the very sacrifices that were offered in the temple itself, each one crying out, “God will provide a sacrifice to make atonement for sins. God will forgive the one who trusts in the blood of the sacrifice!” So he dared to go up to the temple. He dared to pray. He humbled himself before God, and God exalted him. God lifted him up. The tax collector went down to his house justified.

Dear Christians, you and I know that God has now, once and for all, provided the sacrifice that makes atonement for sins. He has given His Son, who shed His holy, precious blood on the cross so that all who have sinned may wash their filthy robes and make them white in the blood of Christ. In other words, so that sinners may approach the God of mercy in faith and receive forgiveness for all their sins. We approach the God of mercy, the Throne of Grace, first in Holy Baptism, and then continually in the pastor’s absolution and in the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. Here is where God has promised to be merciful, and that promise inspires and creates faith. Paul reminded the Corinthians of that Gospel in today’s Epistle: I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

Like the Corinthians, you have received that Gospel, too. You were baptized into it. You confess it here every week. You know that you have been justified by faith in Christ Jesus, and that faith is the only means by which sinners are justified, because your works aren’t good enough. You aren’t good enough. But God doesn’t justify those who are good enough. He justifies those who humble themselves and rely only on His mercy for the sake of Christ.

Now, is that a license to go out and keep on sinning? Of course not! You’ve died to sin. How could you live in it any longer? No, those who trust in the God of mercy are pleasing to God by faith. They are good trees that bear good fruit. They are branches in the vine that is Christ. And as Christ says, He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

So being justified by faith doesn’t mean you don’t do good works or that God doesn’t expect you to do good works. It means that you don’t rely on those works to be justified. It means that you always and only approach God on the basis of His mercy in Christ and never because you think you have been righteous enough to earn His favor. That’s why David could pray as you heard him pray in the First Lesson today: The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God…I was also blameless before Him, And I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness in His eyes. At first, that sounds kind of like the Pharisee’s prayer in Jesus’ parable, where he speaks of his own righteousness before God. But there’s a night and day difference between the two, and it lies in the heart. As the Scriptures reveal about David, he didn’t rely on his own record of righteousness as if it earned God’s favor, like the Pharisee, as if he didn’t first need God’s forgiveness to be righteous before God. No, David confesses over and over his need for God’s mercy. But as a believer in God, David did act righteously when he went up against his enemies, including King Saul who wickedly kept trying to kill David. And so God lifted David up above his enemies and gave him the victory. David was righteous by faith, and for that reason he sought to live a righteous life before the God in whom he trusted.

There’s a warning in today’s Gospel that we all need to hear, because even though we’ve been born again by water and the Spirit in the new life of faith in the God of mercy, our natural tendency is to revert to our natural state of trusting in ourselves and our righteousness. The devil would soon have you convinced that you are saved because you are so much better than others, to have you pray like the Pharisee: “God, I thank you that I do not support abortion, or practice homosexuality, or defend illegal immigration. I give generous offerings to church and I loudly proclaim that ‘all lives matter.’ I thank you, God, that I am not like other men—immoral, indecent, liberal.” Watch out for that natural tendency. You stand by faith and only by faith, not by being so much better than the next guy.

But there is great comfort in the Gospel for you who, like the tax collector, recognize that you have no reason to stand before God except that God has revealed Himself as merciful and forgiving for the sake of Christ. You are the ones who confess your sins, who plead, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” You are the ones who receive the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And so you can be confident that you are the ones who will go home, again today, justified. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Justified only by faith in the God of mercy

Old Jerusalem fell so that New Jerusalem might arise

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

right-click to save, or push Play

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.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Old Jerusalem fell so that New Jerusalem might arise

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.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Be wise with your Father’s wealth

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.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on False prophets hide the glory of Christ and terrorize consciences

Jesus will not disappoint you

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

right-click to save, or push Play

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.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Jesus will not disappoint you