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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The Commandments of God for the people of God

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 6

Exodus 20:1-17  +  Romans 6:3-11  +  Matthew 5:50-26

After God had performed His ten plagues against the Egyptians, after He had spared the Israelites from the destruction of the firstborn by providing the blood of the Passover Lamb to keep them safe, after the Lord God had led the nation of Israel safely through the parted waters of the Red Sea, He addressed the children of Israel from the fire and smoke of Mount Sinai and said to them: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Then He spoke the words of the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments were the terms of entry into God’s kingdom. There they stood, posted over the gates. This is the deal, God said. You must agree to observe all these commandments with all your heart and to walk in them all your days. Then you can come in. Then I will be your God and you will be My holy people. And you will be a kingdom of priests before Me. And all the people said, “Amen! All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient.”  To seal this covenant between God and Israel, God told Moses to take the blood of an animal and to sprinkle it on the people. So he did. And he said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.”

Ah, but it wasn’t as easy as the people imagined it would be. It’s easy to say you’ll go right ahead and keep the Ten Commandments. But to actually do it? To put them into practice every day? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, as the first table of the Law especially requires? To love your neighbor as yourself, as the second table of the Law especially requires? No, that’s not so easy. In fact, it’s impossible.

Still, the scribes and Pharisees tried. They tried to be righteous enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. But in order to make it feasible for themselves, they had to dumb down the Ten Commandments. Ah, they said. It says you shall not murder. We’ll interpret that to mean that as long as we don’t kill another human being with our own hands, we’re keeping the Fifth Commandment. Likewise, it says you shall not commit adultery. We’ll interpret that to mean that, as long as a husband doesn’t have another woman on the side while he’s married, we’re keeping the Sixth Commandment. As long as we don’t walk too far on Saturday’s, we’re keeping the Third Commandment. As long as we give big offerings to the Temple, we’re keeping the Seventh Commandment, and so on.

But then Jesus comes along and warns His disciples: I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Righteousness is absolutely required by God in order for a person to enter His kingdom. And it has to be a better righteousness than what the scribes and Pharisees were providing. You don’t only break God’s Fifth Commandment by killing someone. You break it by getting angry with your brother or by hating your brother. You break it by saying really hateful words to your brother, and also by carelessly unkind words that harm your brother’s reputation. Likewise, in the section that follows our Gospel and in other parts of Scripture, Jesus explains that you don’t only break the Sixth Commandment by being unfaithful to your spouse, but by all sexual encounters outside of marriage, by unscriptural divorce, by all crude sexual jokes and filthy language, and by all lustful thoughts. In fact, keeping the commandments is more than just avoiding all the bad things you’re not supposed to do. It’s also doing all the good things, helping your neighbor in his bodily needs, defending him, honoring marriage, honoring God and loving your neighbor from the heart. If you understand that, then you understand that you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments show you your sin and convict all people as lawbreakers.

There is a righteousness, a keeping of the Ten Commandments, by which a person enters the kingdom of heaven. But it isn’t a righteousness that comes from within us or that is performed by us. It is the righteousness performed by Christ Jesus Himself. He was the promised seed of Abraham and the true Heir of the first Testament that was sealed by Moses with the blood of animals. His righteousness is the key that satisfies the requirements of the Law and unlocks the gates of the kingdom of heaven. His blood, shed on the cross, is the price that has been paid, once for all, for the sinner’s disobedience to God’s commandments.

And so we speak of the righteousness of faith as that righteousness by which sinners enter the kingdom of God. Instead of doing righteous things to satisfy the commandments, God calls on all people to recognize and to repent of their sins committed against the Ten Commandments and to believe in Christ, who promises free admittance into God’s kingdom to all who believe. This faith God counts for righteousness in His sight, because it clings to Jesus. That’s the only way into God’s kingdom, and it’s a sure and certain way: giving up on your own obedience to the Ten Commandments as the key that will get you in the door, and clinging instead to Christ’s obedience for you, using that as the key to open the gates.

This is the New Testament in the blood of Christ, the promise of the forgiveness of sins by faith. It’s sealed with blood, just like the first Testament was—blood that was shed on the cross and now given to believers to drink in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, together with the body of Christ, sacrificed for our sins.

For those who have been brought into this New Testament, for those who have been united with the death of Christ through Holy Baptism and have thus entered the kingdom of God, for those who have been made partakers of the blood of Christ in the Sacraments, we are no longer under the law like slaves under a slave driver. But the Ten Commandments do still hang above the door on the inside of God’s kingdom and still serve an important purpose in a New Testament light. Three purposes, actually.

First, the Ten Commandments act like a curb for our sinful flesh. Our New Man wants to keep the commandments, but our flesh whispers, “Don’t worry about it! Nothing will happen if you sin. There is no punishment to fear.” But then the commandments come in with their threat, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children who hate me to the third and fourth generation.” The Law warns us and threatens us not to fall into temptation, impenitence, mortal sin and unbelief. And so our flesh thinks twice about going out and getting drunk, or committing adultery, or stealing, or skipping church, because there is the threat of punishment. And our New Man rejoices in that, because the godly part of us doesn’t want to commit those sins in the first place. We’re glad to have our flesh restrained by the curb of the Law.

Second, the Ten Commandments continue to act like a mirror, showing us our sins as Christians, so that we continue to live each day in repentance, so that we never become proud or begin to rely on ourselves, but always keep fleeing to Christ in faith and never for a moment imagine that we can stand on our own before God’s holy Law without the covering of Jesus’ blood.

Thirdly, the Ten Commandments serve as a guide for Christians, to teach us what the good and gracious will of God is, how He would have us give thanks to Him, how we are to love Him and love our neighbor, how we are to behave as children of God and as saints in His house. No longer does God say to us, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now He says to His baptized children. “I am the LORD your God, who gave My Son into death for your sins and brought you out of the kingdom of darkness, out of the slavery to sin. Now keep My commandments.”

So, does murder have a place among saints? Of course not! What about anger? Getting ticked off at other people? Getting back at those who have hurt you? Not at all. What about putting other people down, whether it’s in person or online or behind their backs? What about yelling at people? What about the silent treatment intended to shame them into misery? Of course not! What if you have sinned against someone? Jesus says, before you do anything else, even before you bring your offering to God’s altar, go and apologize to the one you’ve wronged and seek his forgiveness, and be ready and willing to forgive the one who has sinned against you.

The Ten Commandments still demand your obedience as Christians; they remain the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions. No longer in an Old Testament light, but in a New Testament light. So learn them! Study them! And daily think about how you will put them into practice. And when you find that you cannot do what they require, then pray earnestly to God for Him to change you, for Him to create a clean heart within you. Do you think God has no power to change you? Remember the power of the resurrection. Remember that He has already raised you from the dead and brought you to life with Christ Jesus. He has already freed you from slavery to sin and created a new person within you and has given you new birth and adoption into His family through Holy Baptism and faith. His Word and the Sacrament of the Altar are an endless source, not only of the forgiveness of sins, but of power to be renewed by the Holy Spirit of God so that, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Amen.

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The Gospel is preached, the catch continues

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 5

Jeremiah 16:14-21  +  1 Peter 3:8-15  +  Luke 5:1-11

It’s a memorable scene that we have before us today in the Gospel: Jesus, standing in Peter’s boat, pushed out a little way from the lake shore, preaching the Word of God to the multitude who were gathered there on the beach. Then Peter and his companions go out into deep water, with Jesus, at Jesus’ command, let down their nets, and catch so many fish that the nets begin to tear, and two boats working together can hardly haul them into shore.

What does that catch of fish teach us? What does it represent? It represents the catch of men into the kingdom of God, even as Jesus tells Peter at the end of the Gospel, From now on you will catch men. It’s the same theme and the same picture-language you heard the Lord use through the prophet Jeremiah in today’s first Lesson. The people of Israel were about to be scattered away from Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah, into exile in Babylon. But God promised to bring them back. Not only to bring Israel back from captivity into the land of Judah, but spiritually to bring lost sinners throughout the world to the spiritual Jerusalem, to the Christian Church, to the kingdom of heaven where the Messiah reigns. “I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”

This drawing of people into the Kingdom of heaven is always and only done by Jesus. Apart from Jesus’ presence and power, no one is brought into the kingdom of God, and no one remains in the kingdom of God except by the power of His Holy Spirit, working through the Word. There are people today who think of themselves as Christians, but who don’t want to hear what Jesus actually says. Or they want to hear some things that Jesus says while rejecting other things that He says, or things that His chosen prophets or apostles have said. No, only those who hear the Word of God as it has been inspired by the Holy Spirit in the Holy Scriptures enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who don’t want to hear the whole counsel of God have no part in His kingdom.

It’s Jesus who draws men to Himself through preaching. But His plan was never to remain on earth preaching for very long as He did on the shores of Lake Gennesaret.  His plan, as revealed in the Old Testament Lesson, His plan as revealed in the Gospel, has always been to draw people into His kingdom through the preaching of sinful men, like Peter—sinful men whom He would call to preach in His name and whom He Himself would personally accompany as they preach.

You can picture Jesus sitting in Peter’s boat just off the lakeshore. There Peter sits next to Him watching, listening, learning.  After teaching the multitudes for awhile from Peter’s boat, Jesus asks Peter to set out for the deep waters and to let down the net for a catch. The request seems strange to Peter, almost pointless, because, as he informs Jesus, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. Well, God had a reason for them coming up empty the night before. It was part of the lesson God wanted them to learn, and that He wants you to learn this morning. When it comes to drawing people into God’s kingdom, you can work as hard as you can, with all your might. You can be the nicest person in the world. You can cater to people. You can bribe people. You can schmooze people. You can reason with people and have the best arguments in the world for why they should come into Christ’s kingdom, into His Church. But nothing you do will bring in a single soul. Nothing you do can bring a sinner from unbelief to faith, from spiritual death to spiritual life. Only God can do it. Only the Father can draw men to Himself in the Person of Jesus, by the power of His Spirit. The Holy Trinity is responsible for any and every catch of men into the boat of His kingdom.

How He does it, how He draws them in and catches them, is by means of the net being let down into the water. That’s nothing else than the preaching of the Word of God. The same kind of preaching that Jesus Himself was doing on the lakeshore He now calls upon sinful men to do. He says here, “Let down your nets for a catch.” That’s the picture Jesus uses for what the disciples would eventually be doing. Later, Jesus would speak plainly to His disciples in Mark 16: Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. Or again in Matthew 28: All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. There it is in both passages. What does it mean to let down the nets for a catch? Preach the Gospel. Baptize those who believe the Gospel. Teach them to observe, not some things, but all things that I have commanded you. Whenever and wherever you do these things, from now until the end of the age, I am with you, says Jesus, just as I was with Peter in the boat that day on the Sea of Galilee.

And what is the Christian Gospel by which the Holy Spirit draws men into Messiah’s kingdom? It’s worth spelling it out, every Sunday. Because the people of the world hear the word “Gospel” and imagine one of two things. Some think the Christian Gospel is, obey the 10 Commandments and don’t sin. Become do-gooders. Run a food bank. Give to charity. Make the world a better place. Others think the Christian Gospel is, “love” all people. And when they think of “love,” what they really mean is, be so super nice and cuddly toward all people that you would never dare to tell them they’re wrong about anything. Accept people’s vilest behavior and be sure to tell them God accepts them, too, “just as they are,” all in the name of “love.” That’s what Jesus did, isn’t it?!?

Wrong on both counts. These twisted versions of the Gospel are lies that the devil tells. He’ll do everything he can to keep the true Gospel hidden from people so that they never hear it. And if they do hear it, he’ll do everything he can to convince them it isn’t true.

The true Gospel is pictured for us, first, as Peter falls down in fear and terror at Jesus’ knees and confesses, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! The Gospel doesn’t deny our sinfulness; it declares it. Peter was no murderer, no adulterer. But he was still sinful. Sinful from birth and sinful in his thoughts and words and deeds, just like all people everywhere. The proper reaction to that sin is not to deny it, or to defend it, or to excuse it, but to own it, to sorrow over it, and to confess it—to confess it, not just to anyone, but to Christ the Lord. Then, the Gospel is summarized in the words of Jesus to penitent Peter, “Do not be afraid.” That’s the Christian Gospel, Christ proclaiming to the penitent sinner, “Do not be afraid.” Why not be afraid? Because Christ came to save sinners. Christ came to bear the punishment for all sins. He shed His blood and died, leaving behind this “pool of blood,” as it were, in which sinners may wash their filthy robes and make them white. The Gospel proclaims that this blood has been provided so that all sinners might be cleansed by it and forgiven by it so that you don’t have to be afraid anymore because of your sinfulness. You don’t have to worry or wonder if you’re good enough to avoid hell or to gain heaven. Christ has gained heaven for you. Trust in Him, and heaven is yours as a gift.

Only then does the Gospel go on to proclaim to those who have been brought to faith in Christ and washed clean in Holy Baptism: Do good. Keep the commandments. Love God. Love your neighbor. Spend your days on earth fighting against the sin that so easily ensnares you. Do good, in all the ways Peter urges us to do good in the Epistle you heard today, and even be willing to suffer as Christians for doing good. After Jesus told Peter not to be afraid, He gave Him work to do in His kingdom. “From now on you will catch men.” So, too, you who have been drawn into God’s kingdom through the Gospel and Holy Baptism have been given work to do: To lead godly lives among the ungodly so that they may see your behavior and know that you have hope in Christ. And, as Peter also admonishes in the Epistle, always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. Not with pride or condescension, but “with meekness and fear,” because you know that you, too, once lived in darkness, outside of the kingdom of Christ. But His Gospel reached your ears. His net enclosed around you and drew you away from judgment, into the safety of His Church. The Gospel was preached, and you were caught up in the net for your eternal salvation. The catch continues, every time the Gospel is preached, and the Lord has given us a small part in it, here in Las Cruces, as God’s people gather weekly around Word and Sacrament, as God’s people support the preaching of the Gospel with offerings and prayers and participation, and as God’s people walk out of these church doors to behave as Christians in the world. May the Lord Christ accompany us as we go out for a catch, in His name. Amen.

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A blessed Visitation

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for the Visitation

Isaiah 11:1-5  +  Luke 1:39-56

The timing of our celebration of the Visitation, July 2nd, coincides with the 9th day after the nativity of John the Baptist, which is celebrated on June 24th, according to the ecclesiastical calendar, six months before we celebrate the birth of Christ. Because Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, was six months pregnant with John when Gabriel made his announcement to Mary. Gabriel himself informed Mary of that. Then we’re told that Mary went to Elizabeth and stayed with her for three months—until the end of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, so she left Elizabeth’s house about the time John was born. We figure that she waited until after John’s circumcision, which took place on the 8th day after his birth, July 1st on the church calendar. So the next day, July 2nd, properly marks the end of Mary’s visitation with Elizabeth.

But the Gospel for today’s festival tells about the beginning of the visitation, Mary’s arrival at Zacharias’ and Elizabeth’s house, when baby John was about six months in his mother’s womb and baby Jesus was newly conceived in Mary’s womb. The Holy Spirit teaches us many things by the word and example of these two pregnant saints.

First, see how Mary goes immediately and makes the rather lengthy journey from Nazareth to Judah to help her elderly relative during the last three months of her pregnancy. That speaks to Mary’s character, of her love and concern for Elizabeth, and probably also of her desire to have someone to talk to about her own miraculous pregnancy and what the Lord was about to accomplish through each of them as mothers of two very special children.

We learn several things from Elizabeth’s words as she was “filled with the Holy Spirit” after hearing Mary’s greeting. “Blessed are you among women,” she said, echoing the angel Gabriel’s own words to Mary. Mary was one of a kind in human history, the only virgin to conceive, the one whose womb gave a human body to Him who was in the beginning with God and who was God. Mary’s DNA was the Holy Spirit’s raw material for crafting a human body and soul for Jesus that were taken up into the divine nature.

And “blessed is the fruit of your womb.” It’s ironic, isn’t it?, that the human race fell when a woman sinfully ate from the fruit of a tree, and now, the human race’s hope and salvation is wrapped up in the fruit of Mary’s womb. If Mary was one of a kind because of how she conceived, how much more her Son Jesus, because of how He was conceived, and because of His divine and human nature, brought together into one Man, the Savior of mankind. Mary was blessed as the recipient of God’s blessing. The fruit of Mary’s womb is the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen!

Even Elizabeth’s unborn child perceived the presence of Christ through the word Mary spoke. He leaped in his mother’s womb for joy when he heard her greeting. That, by the way, shows us clearly that both John, at six months of gestation, and Jesus, newly conceived, were not clumps of cells or inhuman blobs in their mothers’ wombs, but that both of them were real human persons, able to believe in God, able to rejoice in God.

Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord. It’s really miraculous that Mary did believe Gabriel’s words. She was blessed with a great faith—a faith that serves as a model and example for us every bit as much as Abraham’s great faith does. And again, we marvel at the contrast between Mary and our first mother, Eve, in the Garden of Eden. Eve disbelieved God’s word about the fruit of the tree. But Mary believed God’s word about the fruit of her womb. Eve distrusted God, in spite of all the evidence she could see with her eyes. But Mary trusted God, in spite of the lack of evidence that she could conceive a child as a virgin and give birth to the Son of God. Blessed is she, and blessed are we, too, if we believe God’s promises.

We learn many things from Mary’s words, too, her famous song that we sing regularly: the Magnificat. We only have time to scratch the surface of them this evening.

First, Mary recognizes God’s great goodness and mercy to her personally in raising her up from her lowly estate and granting her honor in the eyes of believers of all times, because she was privileged to carry the Savior—the world’s Savior and hers. She doesn’t magnify herself or make herself into some great person. Instead, she magnifies the Lord and Him alone. My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.

Then Mary expands her praise to include how God deals with all people. He has mercy on those who fear Him From generation to generation. God is merciful. He is a God who forgives. He is kind and good to those who are miserable and sinful. As it says in Psalm 130. With You there is forgiveness. Therefore You are feared. Because God is merciful for Christ’s sake, we fear Him. In other words, we trust in Him. And He shows mercy to those who trust in Him, who fear Him. He exalts the lowly. He fills the hungry with good things.

But those who are proud, He scatters. Those who exalt themselves He casts down. Those who boast in their riches, He sends away empty. How many times didn’t Jesus say something similar? The first shall be last and the last first. God humbles the proud, but exalts the lowly. He gives sight to the blind, but blinds those who boast that they can see. He makes the foolish wise and the wise foolish.

All of this teaches us to repent of our sinful pride, to humble ourselves, to confess our misery before God because of our sins, because those sinners who recognize their sins and look to God for mercy are just the ones who receive mercy from God and every good thing, as Mary teaches us in her song.

Finally, Mary praises God for His faithfulness, because in sending the Christ to be born in the fullness of time, through her, a daughter of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, God was keeping an ancient promise, keeping His Word to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Israel. Mary drives us back to the Old Testament to see the Christ foretold there, to see all of history as the story of God’s faithfulness in sending the promised Savior.

As we celebrate the Visitation today and learn from these two holy women, Elizabeth and Mary, rejoice together with them. Whatever problems there are going on in your life, whatever turmoil this world is facing, whatever sins you have been dealing with, the message of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is the message of God’s gracious visitation to us in the midst of our misery. Rejoice with Elizabeth. Because Christ has come to you to visit you with His greeting of peace. And rejoice with Mary. Because God has given you the body and blood of His Son, too, to live in you and to dwell in you and to save you from your sins. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Living as children of light in a godless world

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 4

Isaiah 58:6-12  +  Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

As our members know, we don’t preach politics here at Emmanuel. We don’t concern ourselves overly much with what the secular government is or isn’t doing right, because we are not called by Christ to set up or to seek out a godly society or a glorious earthly kingdom in which to live. We are called to be godly citizens in the midst of a depraved society, to, as St. Paul writes to the Philippians, do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life.

That Word of life does speak to the things going on around us. It does, for example, address the depravity and perversion of men pretending to marry other men or women pretending to marry other women. And it does address the lawlessness of rulers and of judges who pervert justice, as several of our Supreme Court justices did this past week. And it does address the perversion of a world that calls good evil and that calls evil good and that celebrates the evil in which it wallows. Part of our shining as lights in the world is to reveal the light of God’s judgment against such things. As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

But there’s a difference between revealing God’s judgment and passing your own judgment. There’s a difference between announcing God’s condemnation against all sins for the purpose of bringing the sinner to repentance and pronouncing your own condemnation on certain cherry-picked sins for the purpose of making you feel good about how righteous you are because you don’t think you commit those particular sins. There’s a difference between speaking to your neighbor out of mercy and speaking out of self-righteous arrogance and spite. In our Gospel today Jesus issues some earnest instructions to those who follow Him: Divine instruction for children of light living in a godless world.

Therefore, our Gospel begins, be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. “Therefore.” Wherefore? Why should we be merciful? We search the context, we go back one verse, and we find this: You are sons of the Most High. And your Father is kind to the unthankful and the evil. So, if you are sons of God the Father, children of light, then be “like Father, like son.” Imitate your Father’s mercy.

How is God the Father merciful? How has He displayed His mercy to the unthankful and the evil? First, He is merciful in His providence. He makes His sun shine on the evil and the good. He provides food and nourishment, crops and harvest, rain and shelter, health and necessary skills to all people everywhere, even to those who don’t acknowledge Him or worship Him or thank Him. He does it out of mercy, because without His providence, we would all perish.

How else is the Father merciful to all? He has sent out His truth to all men: His truth in nature and His truth in His Word. God is merciful in revealing, both biologically and Scripturally, that marriage is to be between a man and a woman, that the family is to be composed of a father and a mother and children. God is merciful in proclaiming His holy Law, His Ten Commandments, because there is great benefit in keeping them. God is also merciful when He, in His Word, explains what sin is and when He accuses and charges all of men with sin, because it’s only by acknowledging our sins that we can ever be saved from them.

Thirdly, the Father’s mercy is shown in sacrifice—His sacrifice, the sacrifice of His only begotten Son on the cross for the sins of all men, even for the unthankful and the evil. That sacrifice was made out of pure mercy and grace, out of God’s desire to reconcile sinful men with Himself through the cross of His Son, because God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

That is what your heavenly Father is like. Out of pure fatherly mercy and grace He provides for all. He is truthful to all. He sacrificed His Son for all and now calls all men to repent. Be merciful like that, Jesus says.

And then He gives some specific instruction about how to put that kind of mercy into practice. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Believe it or not, this verse from the Bible is the only verse from the Bible that some people know or want to know. Just try referring to certain things as sins that God’s Word refers to as sins. And you will hear from those who practice those sins, “The Bible says, ‘Do not judge,’ so you’re sinning by telling me that I’m sinning.” You might reply, “So, you’re judging me for judging you? I thought you weren’t supposed to do that.” But in reality, those who use the Word of God this way are blind to the truth and want to remain blind. Their condemnation is deserved.

Of course, the same Bible says, “You shall…” and “You shall not…” Or, “If your brother sins, rebuke him.” Or, “Watch out for false prophets.” Or “He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” But all of that requires a certain kind of judgment. You can and must judge between right and wrong. But you must only do it on the basis of God’s Word, not on the basis of your personal feelings. You must only do it on the basis of fact and knowing all the facts, not on the basis of some snippet of information you think you know. You must only do it with the goal of turning a sinner from the error of his way. And you must only do it as one who recognizes himself or herself as a sinful human being who deserves nothing but judgment and condemnation from God.

In addition, certain vocations require a certain kind of judging and condemning. God Himself most certainly judges. A human judge in a courtroom is supposed to judge and, often, condemn. A policeman sometimes has to make an on-the-spot judgment on someone—to shoot or not to shoot, as does a soldier on the battlefield. Fathers and mothers are called to judge and sometimes punish their children. And pastors and bishops are called by God to exercise and to pronounce spiritual judgment in His name, to forgive sins or to retain sins. Imagine what the world would be like if Jesus’ words, “Judge not!”, meant that all forms of judging were to cease.

But there is a form of judging that is evil. People do it all the time. It’s all over the media, the internet, and it grows very naturally in the corrupt human heart. It comes from pride or hatred, not from mercy. It’s when you pretend to know another person’s heart. It’s when you set yourself up in your heart as righteous and as the model of perfection, and then look down your nose at all the people around you who don’t live up to your standards. It’s the “pointing of the finger” that Isaiah referred to in today’s first Lesson and the “speaking of wickedness.” That has no place among the children of the light.

Instead, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.” That’s just another form of being merciful. Children of light, children of God are to be characterized by a spirit of generosity and by a readiness to forgive. Because that’s what our Father is like, and we have been born again to this Father by His Holy Spirit, who works in us to mold us into the image of our Father, which is the image of our Brother, Jesus. Here in God’s kingdom there is no room for greediness, or for stinginess, or for grudges.

To spur us on, Jesus even adds a promise: Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. Let that serve as an encouragement to you. Everything you have has been given to you from above as a solemn trust, to be used as your Father directs you to use it. That includes giving to those in need, and giving generously. But your Father promises that you won’t run out, you won’t be lacking. He sees His Spirit working in His children to produce good works that flow from faith, and He will see to it that you are rewarded for it.

How does a Christian continue to be merciful in a world that is so wicked and that hates us so much? Only by continually remembering that we, too, by our deeds, have earned God’s wrath and punishment, and that it was only the grace of God that moved Him to send His Son for us, to be hated by the world and crucified for us. It is only the grace of God that has cured us of our blindness and brought us into His kingdom of light by giving us the gift of faith. As Jesus said, If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. The world may hate you, but your Father loves you and has chosen you out of the world to be His dear children. Let that be your inspiration to confess God’s truth boldly, no matter what the consequences in this world may be. Let it also be your inspiration for living as children of light in this godless world, to be merciful as your Father is merciful. Amen.

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