The Christian life, a life of prayer

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Midweek of Reminiscere

James 5:13-20  +  Mark 9:17-29

Tonight, in both of our Scripture readings, God turns our attention to prayer. Prayer, Jesus says, is the only way to deal with certain afflictions, like the demon possession He dealt with in the reading from Mark. Not for Jesus—He is God; He didn’t need to pray or fast to cast out that demon. But his disciples need to pray. We need to pray. And this time of Lent is an ideal time to recommit ourselves to an active, daily practice of prayer.

In fact, James paints a broad picture of the Christian life in his epistle as a life prayer.

First, he speaks to Christians in their day to day life, both in times of sorrow and in times of joy. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Simple advice. Advice that every Christian knows to follow. But the sinful flesh doesn’t like to pray, even in times of trouble. The flesh turns to other remedies or other coping mechanisms when you’re suffering in some way: to drinking, to eating, to self-medicating in some other way, to complaining and worrying and arguing and fighting and figuring it out all on your own. And all the while, your Father, the Almighty ruler of the universe, stands ready, 24/7, to listen and to keep listening, and to help in just the right way. Pray. Pray without ceasing. And trust that your prayers mean something to God, who has called you into communion with His own dear Son. Trust that He will hear and act. Deliver us from evil!

Or, in times of joy, again James says, “Let him sing psalms.” James isn’t referring to humming a little tune, or singing along to the radio, but to the specific kind of singing that we find in the Book of Psalms, songs that are, really, prayers to God, prayers of thanksgiving and praise. Because if you have your daily bread and your heart is glad for it, that came from God. Sing or say a prayer of thanksgiving! It will not go unheard.

Christians can pray those prayers at any time, wherever you are, all by yourself. The Lord’s Prayer is a model for such prayers.

There is another kind of prayer that James refers to that you can’t pray on your own. Instead, he instructs Christians to go seek the “elders of the church.” And throughout the New Testament, when it says, “elders,” it’s always referring to pastors, to those who have been called and ordained to preach the Word of God and administer His Sacraments. He’s directing Christians to the ministry of the Word.

James says, Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

What is he talking about there? There are two things, really. When Jesus sent out His apostles, He gave them special, miraculous gifts, including healing the sick. In Mark 6, it says that they went out and preached that people should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them. This anointing with oil was an outward sign that accompanied the special gift of healing in the early Church. So James is instructing the Christians at his time to make use of this gift and how to make use of it: by going to the pastors when they were sick, having the pastors pray over them and anoint them with oil, as the apostles did when they healed the sick.

But that gift of healing wouldn’t last forever. The miraculous signs that accompanied the preaching of the apostles came to an end after the age of the apostles. Speaking in tongues, prophesying future events, healing miracles—they all ceased in the Church after the Gospel was confirmed. We have no permanent command from God to anoint with oil, and we have no permanent promise from God that He will miraculously heal when the pastor prays over you.

Incidentally, this is where the papists get their “extreme unction,” which they call a sacrament, where they perform the “last rites” and anoint the dying person with “holy oil,” as if this offered some special forgiveness that you couldn’t get until you’re on your deathbed. Nowhere in the context of James is this applied to last rites for the dying. On the contrary, James says that the sick person will get better!

But not everything James discusses here has passed away. On the contrary, outward sickness is always a reminder of the sin that infects everyone in this world, and Christians still have the instruction to go to their pastors, confess their sins, pray in faith for God to forgive them, and hear the preaching of the Word. Pastors still have the instruction to pray for the sinners who come to them, to teach God’s Word and to speak absolution to the penitent. And God still promises to forgive sins through the ministry of the Word and to hear the prayer of faith. Going to church is still an essential part of the prayer life of the Christian.

Finally, James gives instructions about how Christians are to deal with one another. Confess your trespasses to one another, he says, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. Confess your trespasses to one another. Jesus put it another way. He said, “If you remember that your brother has something against you…go and be reconciled to your brother.” That’s a command from Jesus. If you know that you hurt your fellow Christian—parent, spouse, brother, sister, pastor, fellow member—you are instructed to go and confess your trespasses to that person. And, if you are the one who was sinned against, then, if your brother comes and repents, you are commanded by Jesus to forgive him. And then, pray for one another. It’s so simple, really, but it’s something that Christians are sometimes slow to do. Instead, we let Satan persuade us to live in discord and disharmony, with bitterness and anger and with offenses that we let fester instead of dealing with them. That path leads to death, because refusing to say you’re sorry to your fellow Christian or refusing to forgive the one who repents drives out faith and the Holy Spirit.

As we deal with our fellow Christians, James has one last encouragement in our text: Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. This is yet another part of the Christian life that is “hard.” Approaching a brother who sins and “wanders from the truth.” Our culture tells us not to “judge.” But God expects us to judge if someone has wandered from the truth, and James highlights the immeasurable blessing of a Christian who turns back the wandering brother to the truth of Christ and to repentance. Not as if you have the power to make someone repent or return. Only the Holy Spirit has that power. But you have the power to speak to those whom you know to be wandering, to point out their error and to plead with them to return.

And above all, you most certainly have the power and the privilege to pray for them, as we pray often in our General Prayer for “those who have erred and gone astray from the faith of their Baptism,” or as we pray in the Litany, “to bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived.”

Are such prayers good for anything? Are your prayers when you’re suffering or when you’re giving thanks valuable? Are your prayers of faith for forgiveness useful and do your pastor’s prayers do anything for you? Yes, James says! The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

This is the Christian life. A life filled with suffering, and yet with reasons to rejoice. A life in which sin will always be present, but so will repentance and faith and the ministry of the Word and forgiveness. A life in which we will always have needs, but also a life in which our heavenly Father has invited us to pray to Him in every situation, in every need. Let us all, young and old, learn to pray more and more, and to make prayer as much a part of our life as breathing. The Christian life is a life of prayer. Amen.

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The model of faith, a little beggar dog

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Reminiscere – Lent 2

Isaiah 45:20-25  +  1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

The Holy Spirit holds up to us today one of the greatest role models in Holy Scripture: The Canaanite woman who begged before Jesus like a little dog. Jesus calls her faith “great.” That’s something He said about only two people in the entire Bible, this Gentile woman and another Gentile, the centurion who sent to Jesus for help. Over and over in the Gospels Jesus admonishes the Jews for their lack of faith, and He repeatedly rebukes His disciples for their “little” faith.  This Gentile beggar-woman gets higher praise from Jesus than all of them.

That’s ironic, because the world hears this Gospel and can only think, “Boy, was Jesus mean to that woman.” That’s the voice of human reason talking, the voice of the devil, really, repeating his old, old lie, “God is not good. You deserve better than what He has given.” Now, believers in Christ may not understand everything Jesus does and may wonder why He didn’t help her right away, but faith’s response to that lack of understanding is to admit that the problem lies with us, not with Jesus or His Holy Spirit. And so faith looks to God’s Word for understanding and cries out to God in prayer for guidance and for wisdom. And He will give it. As He promises through James in his epistle, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” So let’s ask God today in faith, not in doubt, “Grant us wisdom to understand your actions in this Gospel—and in our lives, that our faith may be preserved and grow into the great faith your Holy Spirit wants to give.”

Let’s look at our text. Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon are not in Israel. They’re regions to the north of Israel. That’s important, and it will help us to make sense of something Jesus says later.

What happened in this Gentile region? A woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” A woman of Canaan—a descendant of the cursed people, the people whom God had told Israel to completely wipe out 1500 years earlier because of how wicked they had become. But Israel didn’t obey God back then, so the Canaanite peoples continued to live as Israel’s neighbors. Aren’t her words striking, though? “Lord, Son of David!” This woman had nothing to do, biologically or socially or politically, with David or with David’s kingdom. And yet she does have something in common with David spiritually. She had heard about the Christ, the Son of David. She had heard of Jesus and His power and His great mercy and she believed in Him as the Christ. She believed that He had come to help her, too. And so when the Christ left Israel to come into her region, she jumped at the chance to seek His help on behalf of her demon-tormented daughter.

But that help was not given immediately. Her cries for help were not even acknowledged immediately. And so her faith was tested. We discussed this on Wednesday evening, how God tests faith. He doesn’t test faith like a cruel villain poking an injured animal to see how it will react. He tests faith as a master Teacher and Trainer, in order to exercise it, to grow it and strengthen it and mold it into a faith that perseveres, not just for a moment, but for a lifetime.

But the testing of faith always involves some sort of hardship. The woman already had the hardship of her daughter being afflicted by a demon. Now Jesus adds another test, another hardship: She begins to call out to Him for mercy, and He answers her not a word. When it seems like God is ignoring your cries for help—that’s a hardship. Human reason says, He doesn’t care. The sinful flesh says, I deserve to be helped! Right now! That’s the entitlement mentality of our flesh. Somehow, in spite of all our sins and rebellion against God, our flesh still thinks God owes us something. But in fact, He owes us only what we confess at the beginning of the service: that we have “justly deserved His temporal and eternal punishment.” Faith acknowledges that and doesn’t deny it at all, but it still is bold to approach Jesus for help, based, not on what we deserve, but only on His great mercy revealed in His Word, AND on His promises, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you!” Or His promise taken from the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil!” He doesn’t say how or how quickly He will deliver you, but He says He will, so you should believe Him.

The Canaanite woman did believe Him. She kept calling out to Jesus, even though He wasn’t answering. His disciples asked Him to send her away rather than let her go on humiliating herself. But Jesus added another test, another hardship. He says, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Human reason would have answered, “Well, then. I might as well despair, because I am a Canaanite woman. What do I have to do with the house of Israel?” But faith doesn’t let go so easily. Faith knows that it has a merciful and loving Father only for Christ’s sake, not for the sake of one’s bloodlines or one’s ancestry. And there are plenty of Old Testament promises that say just that. You heard one today from Isaiah 45, where God says: Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other…To Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath.  To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him.  In the LORD all the descendants of Israel Shall be justified, and shall glory.’ You see? First God invites all the ends of the earth to look to Him and be saved. Then He says that “all the descendants of Israel” shall be justified. It’s true that most people in the world are not physically descended from Israel. But here God opens up the door to Israel, so that all the ends of the earth can be part of Israel in a spiritual way, by faith in the God of Israel who sent His Son, the Christ, to save mankind.

So the woman continues to pray, “Deliver us from evil!” “Lord, help me!” And then Jesus adds the third and final test of her faith. He answers: It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs. He refers to the children of Israel as the children who get to sit at the table and eat bread, and He refers to the non-Israelites as “the little dogs.” Human reason can’t put up with a statement like that. There’s too much pride in our nature, too much entitlement, too much self-righteousness. The flesh wants to reply, “Fine! Go back to your precious land of Israel, Jesus! You’re not so good and loving after all. I give up.”

But that’s not what the woman did. She found an opportunity. She found the open door in Jesus’ words that He left open for her. Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. What a beautiful confession of faith! Utter humility, complete recognition that she deserves nothing from her master, even as the little dogs don’t deserve anything that falls from the table. And yet, the master, in His goodness, allows the little dogs to have those crumbs. But the crumbs of God’s grace are more than enough to satisfy every need of every sinner. He gave His Son into death for His enemies, for us. As Paul says to the Romans, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? So the Canaanite woman claimed her place at the Master’s table, her place as a little dog. That’s fine. That’s more than enough. I’m satisfied with a few crumbs. Please just give me that.

This is what prompted Jesus’ response: O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire. She puts to shame the Jews who thought they were entitled to God’s grace based on their heritage. She puts to shame those who think they’re somehow entitled to God’s help and grace based on their own goodness, their own works. And through her, God puts to shame all those who refuse to acknowledge their own neediness before God because of sin, all those who, for whatever reason, refuse to come to Christ for help in their need, including all those who continually find better things to do than come to church to seek help and mercy from Jesus where has commanded that His help should be sought, in the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

Lord, help me! That simple prayer of the Canaanite woman is what describes our Divine Service. Lord, help me! That’s what we’re here to cry out. And in His absolution, and in His Gospel, and in His body and blood, He gives that help. He forgives sins. He strengthens faith. And He teaches you in His Word to rely on Him at all times, even when it seems like He’s ignoring you, even when it seems like you’re not included in the group of people who receive help from Him. He isn’t ignoring you. And you are included in that group of people, because you, too, have been baptized into Christ. And as Paul says, As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Is your faith being tested? I certainly hope so. Because that’s what God does for all His children. But remember this: The Lord knows how far your faith can stretch and needs to be stretched, and He won’t stretch it beyond that point. That’s His promise. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; 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. Trust in the faithful God who gave His Son into death in order to help you. He won’t abandon you now. Seek His help, and keep seeking it until it comes. As the Holy Spirit has shown us in the Canaanite woman, you won’t be disappointed. Amen.

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Enduring Trials and Temptations

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Midweek of Invocavit

James 1:2-15  +  Luke 22:24-32

This evening we pick up the theme that we considered on Sunday—the theme of temptation, focusing on the lesson you heard from James. Trials and temptations, actually. The word used in the New Testament for temptation is the same word used for trials or testing. A trial or a test is a hardship that has to be endured, resulting in divine approval and blessing. You might think of Abraham, how God tested his faith by telling him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. That was certainly a hardship that God had Abraham endure, and when Abraham endured, his faith was approved and He was greatly blessed. Jesus, too, was tested. You heard Him in the second lesson tonight as He spoke to His disciples: But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. Jesus’ trials began in earnest when He was fasting in the wilderness. It was a hardship for Him to go forty days and nights without food, a trial of His faith in His dear Father and a testing of His obedience.

But a trial can also turn into a temptation. Let’s define a temptation this way: A temptation is the enticement to fulfill one’s desires apart from God’s will. For example, God had given Adam and Eve a very small test, the tiniest possible trial, the smallest hardship that can barely be called a hardship: don’t eat from this one tree. That wasn’t a temptation; it was a test. But then the devil came along and magnified that tiny hardship for Eve, deceiving her into thinking it was a really big hardship. (Has he ever done that with you—fool you into dwelling on a little hardship until it appears as big as a mountain, until you’re good and worried about it?) The devil did that with Eve, and then cunningly played on Eve’s godly desire for knowledge and wisdom. He used that desire and then tempted Eve, enticed Eve to find knowledge and wisdom in the fruit of the tree where God had said not to go looking for knowledge and wisdom. She listened to the devil. She saw that the tree was desirable to make one wise, and so allowed the devil to lead her astray from God’s will, to fulfill her desire where God told her not to fulfill it.

On Sunday we saw Jesus’ trial in the wilderness. His trial of hunger at the end of forty days of fasting was also turned into a temptation by the devil, who tried to entice Jesus to fulfill His desire for food in a way that God hadn’t given. But as we learned on Sunday, the devil was unable to entice Jesus away from faith in God and love for God and obedience to God.

Just to be clear on the difference between trial and temptation, let’s go to what James says at the end of tonight’s lesson and see how he talks about “temptation.” Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Here James shows us how temptation works. It plays to our desires, which may be innocent enough on their own, but temptation turns those desires in directions that God’s Word doesn’t allow, and that gives birth to sin, and sin, if left unchecked, leads to death.

James says that God tempts no one. He does “test” His children, as He did with Abraham and with Jesus. But He doesn’t tempt anyone to sin. And why does He test faith? James gives us a reason in our lesson: My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. “Patience” can also be translated “endurance” or “perseverance.” St. Paul said the same thing in similar words in Rom. 5:  We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Peter, too, speaks of God’s good purpose in testing our faith: Now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

So James urges us to rejoice in trials, because faith and perseverance in the faith are the most precious things God gives in this life. Without faith in Christ, we’re lost forever. With faith in Christ, you have God’s favor. You have everything, so you can lose everything here on this earth. As we sing in the hymn, And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, let these all be gone. They yet have nothing won. The kingdom ours remaineth. So God works on our faith with tests and trials in order to exercise it, to keep driving us back to Him and His Word alone.

What trials have you faced in the past and endured? What trials are you now facing that require you to shut your eyes and simply trust? How have you fallen into temptation in the past? How is Satan tugging on your desires even now to get you to serve yourself and to turn away from God and His Word? Listen to God’s Holy Spirit through the words of James. Know that trials for the baptized are not signs of God’s disfavor, but of His fatherly care. And even the temptations that come from the devil, the world, or our own sinful flesh are used by God for our good. This life is a constant battlefield, full of trials and temptations. If you have fallen into temptation—and there is no one who doesn’t fall, Christ is here to pick you up again with His forgiveness and mercy. And now, as you go forth with His forgiveness, go forth more committed than you were before to endure hardship, trials and temptations, with Christ Jesus in your sights as both your Savior and your example of patient endurance. As James says, Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Amen.

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Tempted to be unhappy with God

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Invocavit – Lent 1

Genesis 3:1-24  +  2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

The theme of temptation in today’s Scriptures readings is inescapable. Soon after the creation of the world, soon after the fall of the evil angels, there was the tempter, the devil, that ancient serpent, in the Garden of Eden with our first parents. And what was his temptation, really? It was a temptation to disbelieve the Word of God, and a temptation to be unhappy with the life God had given them. There they were in paradise. They were the rulers of the world. They had food all around them, and the love of God surrounding them, perfect health, perfect unity, perfect peace. And still the devil was able to get Eve to change her mind and conclude, “It’s not enough. I need more than what God has given.” And Adam, when he saw that his wife had taken the plunge into disobedience, instead of refusing the fruit she offered, changed his mind and concluded, “Life would be meaningless without my precious Eve. I must join her in disobedience. God’s love is just not enough.”

We are their children. All of us. Every human being who has ever been, born of a father and a mother—we are children of Adam and Eve. We inherit from them, not just the genes that make up our bodies, but also the spiritual genes that make up our souls. Their very being, their very nature was twisted into something ugly, something diseased, something sinful and damnable when they fell into sin, and that is what we inherit from them. Not just the corruption of our bodies that eventually leads to death, but also the corruption of our souls, of our nature, so that sin is with us all the time, so that nothing good can come from us, by nature. Only evil.

Those are the ravages of original sin, that complete corruption of our nature into something sinful. It’s why no one, by nature, loves God, or has true fear of God or trust in God. On the contrary, we are people who are naturally unhappy with God and the things He provides. Dissatisfied with Him. Discontented with our life. And naturally distrustful of His Word.

This original sin is so bad that it goes beyond our understanding. We don’t even realize how thoroughly corrupted we are. Only God’s Word can reveal it. We don’t even need the tempter to come and tempt us, as he did with Adam and Eve, because we are already fallen creatures. That’s true of every human being ever born, every human being descended from Adam.

Until Jesus came, born, not of a man and a woman, but of a woman only. The fact of His virgin-birth, combined with the fact of His conception by the working of the Holy Spirit, meant that Jesus was fully human, like us, but without the corruption to His nature. In that way, He was like Adam was when Adam was first created, before he fell into sin. That’s why we sometimes refer to Jesus as the Second Adam.

Well, when He was about 30 years old, the Second Adam was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, not to wash away His sins, but to step forward and be inaugurated as our Savior and Substitute, so that, just as all who are descended from Adam inherit his sin and the resulting condemnation, so all who are descended from Christ by a spiritual rebirth, through Baptism and faith, inherit His righteousness and the resulting justification.

And so, as soon as Christ, the Second Adam was baptized, He was led out—or as St. Mark puts it, driven out! —into the desert, into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit “to be tempted.” Part of that temptation would come as a result of the forty day fast that God the Father imposed on His Son. Not that Christ was unwilling to do it, but when we consider that it was the Holy Spirit who drove Him out into the wilderness and kept Him there, where there was no food, we see that this forty day fast wasn’t just something Jesus decided on His own to do. It was His Father’s will that He stay out there in the desert for forty days with nothing to eat.

Now, today’s Gospel mentions three of the temptations that Jesus faced. All three temptations are similar to the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden—and similar to the temptations that affect us—because they all have to do with a lack of contentment with what God has given.

First, Matthew tells us of the temptation to be unhappy about the lack of food the Father had provided. If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. Here the devil isn’t trying to make Jesus doubt who He was. Jesus knew that perfectly well and displayed it already at the age of 12 when He asked His parents, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” No, this was a temptation for the Son of God to be dissatisfied with His Father’s decision to withhold food from His Son when His Son was hungry. If Your Father doesn’t provide you with what You want or with what You think you need, then forget about Him and take care of Yourself!

But Jesus opened up the Scriptures and threw back in the devil’s face the Word of God that was spoken through Moses: It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ Jesus remained content, happy with what His Father had provided, because, even though there was no food in the wilderness, Jesus had the words and promises of God to sustain Him. That was enough.

Then there was the temptation to jump from the pinnacle of the temple—another temptation to be dissatisfied with God. After all, He hasn’t demonstrated His love for you nearly often enough, has He, Jesus? You should go out of Your way to make Him prove that His Word is true. Make Him prove that He loves you. The Son of God surely deserves to have guardian angels keeping Him safe from all harm! It even says so in the Bible!

But again Jesus referred back to the Scriptures in their proper context: It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’ For Jesus, there was no need to go out of His way to try to force God to keep His Word or prove His love. He was already completely satisfied with God’s love and content with God’s promises, no matter what.

Finally, there was the temptation in which the devil took Jesus up to that high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world with their glory. All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me. But, didn’t all the kingdoms of the world already belong to Jesus? As God, yes. But as Man, no. Not yet. The kingdoms of the earth and their glory had to be earned by the Man Christ Jesus—earned by a life of humble obedience to His Father, earned by fulfilling His God-given mission, earned by suffering abuse and crucifixion and death. That’s the future Jesus’ Father had given Him, and Jesus knew it. So here was the devil, offering Jesus an alternate path to greatness, an easy path, a painless one, one without the cross. It was a lie, of course, a deception, but then, so is every temptation of the devil. He’s always lying, trying to get us to be dissatisfied with what God has given, promising something that he cannot give.

Adam and Eve bought into the lie. You have bought into the lie over and over again. But Jesus never wavered. Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ The Second Adam overcame the devil, and His victory becomes your victory when you are grafted into Him by faith. When you were baptized into Christ, you were baptized into His victory over sin and temptation and the devil.

That’s your only safety from the devil’s accusations, because he can rightly accuse you of many things before God. Every sin you commit is the result of dissatisfaction with God and what He has given. The devil tempts you to be unhappy with your life, unhappy with your spouse or with your lack of a spouse, unhappy with your children or with your lack of children, unhappy with your body, with your income, with your friends and family, unhappy with your grades, you’re your talents and abilities, unhappy with your past, your present or your future, unhappy with your church, unhappy with God’s Word. That unhappiness is sinful in itself, and it leads to all kinds of other sins as you try to correct or change the things you’re unhappy with. All the strife and discord in the world exists because human beings refuse to be content with what God has given, and so they rebel against God. We rebel against God.

See, then, how important Baptism is? It links you to Christ. It paints His perfection onto you before God. It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promise of God declare. And it signifies that the Old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man, in turn, should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

A new man should daily emerge and arise… Our flesh, our sinful nature is never satisfied with God. But when the Holy Spirit brings us to faith in Christ Jesus, He creates a new man in us who is satisfied with God, because God gave His only Son to do battle against the devil for us, to bruise the serpent’s head for us and to rescue us from the devil’s dominion. That new man needs to be fed and nurtured and strengthened each day to do battle against the Old Adam in us, because the devil is always at work with his lies and temptations, pointing you to those things that make you unhappy with God. The only remedy against the devil is faith in Christ, and the only remedy for our natural dissatisfaction with God is hearing God’s Word and receiving the body and blood of our Savior. Here, in Word and Sacrament, we learn to be content with what God has given, because He has given His Son for us. Hasn’t He proven that He is good? And if we think anything is still lacking, then we learn from Christ to turn to God in prayer and to look to God’s Word for guidance, not to resort to our own devices or rely on our own wisdom or strength.

God’s grace is revealed in today’s Gospel in the Second Adam who stood strong against Satan for you. When you are tempted to be unhappy with God, remember Jesus. Remember Him first as your Savior who defeated the devil for you and saved you from condemnation. And then, remember Him, too, for strength to fight against the devil and to resist his temptations. God is good and gracious, and what He gives is always enough. Don’t let the devil deceive you into believing otherwise! Amen.

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The true fast of repentance

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Jonah 3:1-10  +  Joel 2:12-19  +  Matthew 6:16-21

We call today Ash Wednesday because ashes are an Old Testament sign of sorrow, and in the New Testament Church the practice arose of having those Christians who fell into grave public sin wear ashes on their heads during the Lenten season as a sign of their repentance—their sorrow over the sins they had committed—so that they could then be welcomed back into the Church after their time of public repentance was fulfilled. At some point, the practice was extended, not just to public sinners, but to any and all Christians. I can’t say that I find any usefulness in that in our time, nor did the Lutherans at the time of the Reformation.

Then there is the tradition of fasting during the Lenten season, and that may be somewhat more useful, if carried out in the right spirit and for the right reasons. Jesus spoke of the usefulness of that kind of fast in our Gospel this evening.

In any case, we learn from the Scriptures this evening about the great usefulness—or rather, our the urgent need—of repentance and sorrow over sin, but only when that sorrow over sin is followed by faith in God’s tender mercies for Christ’s sake. Because to be sorry or sorrowful over something you did wrong does no one any good if it isn’t combined with faith in God’s grace and mercy to blot out your transgressions.

We saw the king of Nineveh sitting in ashes and proclaiming a fast in his city after the prophet Jonah announced that the Lord was giving them forty days before He would destroy them for their violence and their unbelief. And the Lord saw that the ashes and the fasting were signs of genuine humility, indications of true repentance and sorrow over their wickedness, signs that they were determined to turn from their sins in the hope that God would relent. And He did relent; He didn’t destroy them, because He is gracious and merciful and does not desire the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn back from their sins and turn toward the merciful Lord God for forgiveness.

We heard the prophet Joel calling on the rebellious people of Israel to repent, to turn to the Lord with all their heart, “with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” Unlike the heathen people of Nineveh, the Israelites had a covenant relationship with the true God and yet still had turned away from Him in their hearts, putting their trust in false gods, putting their trust in themselves, living in whatever sins they wanted, and figuring that God would let it go, that God would put up with it, because, after all, they were His people, His Church. Oh, no, says Joel. All have sinned, and a day of vengeance and punishment is coming on all who will not sorrow over their sins. Return to the Lord, not with outward gestures of repentance, but with hearts that are truly broken and contrite. Why? What’s the point? Because God is “gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.”

The people of Nineveh fasted in repentance. The people of Israel were called on to fast in repentance. Then there’s that other group of Jews, the Pharisees, who were famous for fasting. They fasted all the time, and made sure everyone knew it and could see it on their faces, so that they would be praised for their great “humility.” But their fasting wasn’t good enough. Their fasting wasn’t done in sorrow over sin, but as a sign of their pride in how “practically sinless” they were.

But they weren’t sinless. No one is sinless. In fact, the Scriptures lump all of our works together under sin. God says, repent of all of it. Sorrow over all of it. Not a single deed you’ve ever done is good enough to earn God’s favor. You can’t hold up a single work of yours to the light of God’s Law and say, “Now this was a perfect work, untainted by sin.”

What you can do, what you must do, is to sorrow over your utter sinfulness, and then immediately hold up to God the treasure that He Himself has given you, the treasure that is Christ Jesus. Here! Here is perfection! Here is a life of perfect righteousness and love and humility. Here, O Lord God! Judge me, not by anything I’ve done, but by the precious blood of Your dear Son. And there is where God’s mercy and forgiveness are always found. The blood of Christ is always precious enough to cover your sins. The merits of Christ are always good enough to earn God’s favor for you and for everyone who has ever lived on earth or who will ever live. To repent is to sorrow over your complete failure before God, and then at once to rejoice in faith in the complete success of Jesus, who earned God’s favor for you.

Christ is the treasure that matters, that lasts. And so, He says, don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Here, moth and rust destroy. Here, thieves break in and steal; stock markets crash; wars erupt and currency becomes worthless overnight. Here, the favor of your friends and even of your family is fickle, and with one mistake, on your part or theirs, you can lose it all. So why live for these things? Why order your life around getting more things and gaining more favor here on earth? It will all be gone, and probably sooner than you think. Worse still, you have sins that need dealing with, and there’s nothing here on earth that can do it.

Instead, by the Means of Grace you have been given access to heavenly things, heavenly benefits. Christ has shed His blood for your sins, and now, in Word and Sacrament, He gives you the heavenly benefits of forgiveness, life and salvation. Earthly wisdom fails and perishes. But the heavenly wisdom of God’s Holy Spirit never fails and never perishes. Works done to get ahead in this life will be forgotten. But the works done by believers in faith toward God and in love toward your neighbor will follow you into eternal life.

So I won’t put ashes on your forehead tonight, and I won’t tell you to fast in this Lenten season. And I don’t want to know about it, even if you do fast; let it be between you and God, and let it serve as a reminder that your soul needs the treasure of Christ even more than your body needs food. I will tell you over the next forty days to live in repentance—sorrow over sin and faith in Christ, and not to neglect the state of your soul. And I will tell you to be ardent in prayer and diligent in hearing the Word of God, in struggling against sin and the temptations that come both from the devil and from your own flesh, and in producing fruit worthy of repentance, improving your life, with the help and support of God’s Holy Spirit, so that you are more loving tomorrow than you were today, ever growing into the image of Christ. As we confess with Luther in the Smalcald Articles:

In Christians, this repentance continues until death. For through one’s entire life, repentance contends with the sin remaining in the flesh. Paul testifies that he wars with the law in his members (Romans 7:14–25) not by his own powers, but by the gift of the Holy Spirit that follows the forgiveness of sins. This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out the remaining sins and works to make a person truly pure and holy.

Amen.

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