No judgment in the things God has left free

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 4

Romans 14:7-17 (ESV)

Do not judge, we heard Jesus say on Sunday. And we gave some examples of what sinful judging looks like, as opposed to the good, God-pleasing judging that Christians are supposed to do all the time, judging between right and wrong, good and bad, wise and unwise. Judging is good and right, as long as it flows from a heart of mercy, and as long as it is “righteous,” that is, as long as it is in line with the teachings of God’s Word.

And that’s exactly what Paul was writing to the Romans about in the Second Lesson you heard this evening. Christians may well have to judge other Christians in matters of right and wrong, where God’s Word has taught us that certain things are right and others are wrong, that certain things are commanded by God whereas other things are forbidden. Where God’s Word has spoken, judgment can and should be made. We’ll use the example of Chip and Joanna Gaines. For over a decade they’ve hosted a Fixer Upper show on TV, all the while promoting themselves as active Christians. This week, it came out that they’ve produced a new series that includes a family made up of “married” gay men and two children that these men acquired through surrogacy, something that’s clearly unrighteous, according to God’s Word. When Christians began to call out their sinful behavior, they complained, like clockwork, that these Christians were “judging” them. Yes, we are, because God’s Word has spoken on this issue. We judge rightly where God Himself judges.

But where God’s Word has not spoken, where God has not commanded or forbidden something, in such cases, Christians are not to pass judgment on one another.

The specific examples set forth in Romans 14 are the examples of eating or not eating certain foods, observing or not observing certain days as sacred. Let me read for you the verses that come before the verses you heard earlier: As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. Here Paul calls it a “weakness” in someone’s faith to believe that God only permits him to eat vegetables. It’s a weakness in faith, because it’s a belief that’s not based on God’s Word. It’s a made-up opinion. The truth is, God has permitted mankind to eat meat as well as vegetables. All foods are “clean” under the New Testament.

But, just because it’s permissible to eat meat doesn’t mean that God has commanded all people to eat meat. He hasn’t. So, if a person has such a weak faith, thinking that he would be sinning against God if he eats meat, and, therefore, eats only vegetables, because he’s convinced that God permits him to eat vegetables, so what? Those who know better, that God permits us to eat all kinds of food, have no business passing judgment on the one who only eats vegetables, just as the one who only eats vegetables has no business passing judgment on those who eat meat, because this is an area that God has left free. In matters that are free, neither one is to judge the other.

Or, in a second example, Paul writes: One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. Under the Old Testament, God commanded Israel to consider the Sabbath Day as sacred. Under the New Testament, that’s no longer the case. Neither Saturday, nor Sunday, nor any other day of the week or year is more sacred in God’s eyes. This also applies to days like Christmas or Easter or any other holiday that we’ve chosen to observe. God doesn’t command us to observe those days—nor does He forbid us from observing those days. In fact, it’s a weakness in a person’s faith to imagine that a certain day of the week or month or year is actually holy in God’s sight. Sundays, Wednesdays, Christmas and Easter—these days are not holy of themselves. They’re simply the days that we’ve decided together, in Christian freedom, when we’re going to gather to hear God’s Word and receive His Sacraments, which He has commanded us to keep doing.

But what if someone does consider Sunday to be more sacred than another day, and chooses not only to worship on that day, without fail, but to avoid work on that day as well, and to fast on Sundays, and other such things? What if someone is convinced that God wants him in church on every feast day in the Christian calendar, and so he faithfully attends? He’s not harming anyone. No one should judge him for that, just as he shouldn’t judge those who don’t worship on all the same days in the calendar that he does.

For none of us Christians, Paul writes, lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Here the Apostle redirects our thinking, reminding us that each believer lives to please God, and even dies to please God. There’s no use trying to nitpick the service that other Christians render to God. On the last day, God will call each Christian to give an account to God, not of his brother, but of himself. That’s a sobering reminder, isn’t it? It’s a reminder to turn away from all sin, including the sin of sinful judging, and to take refuge in the cross of Christ, so that, when we give an account of ourselves to God, we won’t have to answer for our sins, because Christ, in whom we believed, has already answered for them for us. We certainly don’t want to add to our sins by judging—or by despising!—our brother for whom Christ died.

Finally, Paul writes: Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The things we’re not supposed to be judging other Christians about—like what they eat or drink, or other things that have nothing to do with God’s commandments about right and wrong—are just distractions from the important things, like walking in love, and true righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. If we let God define love for us, if we let God define righteousness in His Word, instead of defining them based on our own opinions or ideas, or worse, the world’s opinions and ideas, then we won’t waste our time criticizing and passing judgment over the things that don’t matter, because those things aren’t related to love or to righteousness. Focus on love, which may involve pointing out things that are actually sins, out of love for the sinner. But it may also involve modifying your own behavior, in things that are free, because love’s highest goal is not to “do whatever you want” or to exercise maximum freedom at all times. No, love’s highest goal is to honor God in all things and to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ, just as Christ so selflessly served us, so that, instead of grieving them or causing them to stumble, we help one another along in this life, until, together, we reach our Father’s home. Amen.

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Becoming like our merciful Father in heaven

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 4

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

Last week we focused on God’s burning desire to find the lost, bring them to repentance, and forgive them. God delights in pardoning iniquity. He celebrates over each sinner whom He brings back into His house. Now, some people, who think of themselves as very loving, very Gospel-oriented, very evangelical Christians, would like to leave it there. “Free forgiveness in Christ! That means you no longer need to hear any instruction from Jesus about how God wants you to behave! You’re free from the law!”

But they’re confused about what that means. Yes, believers in Christ have been freed from the control and condemnation of the Law, from the accusations of the Law, from being “under the Law,” as in, being justified by keeping the Law. But to say that there is no Law in God’s house, no pattern of behavior that He expects of His children, is ridiculous, and unscriptural. The Law, given by God, has its place in bringing people to repentance, as it convicts people of their sin and of their need for Jesus as a Savior from their sin. And it also still has a place in the life of the forgiven. It serves as a constant reminder of why we will always need Jesus. And it also serves as a divinely given, Spirit-inspired guide for behavior within God’s house.

You know that the Law is often summarized with love for God and love for one’s neighbor. Well, in today’s Gospel, Jesus summarizes it this way: Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. “Be merciful.” Is that really “the Law”? Yes, every time God commands you to do something, or to not do something, or to be or not be a certain way, that’s called “the Law.” The fact that no one is, by nature, merciful just like God is merciful is the reason why we deserve God’s condemnation in the first place. No one is justified by keeping the Law, because the Law reveals, first and foremost, how far short all people fall of God’s standard of goodness. No one is justified by keeping the Law, because no one can earn God’s forgiveness, God’s favor, or a place in His kingdom, just as a child doesn’t earn his status as a son or daughter by doing all his chores around the house. First you have to become a child in God’s house through repentance and faith in Jesus. And just as chores are expected of children, so it is in God’s house, where the “chores” are really nothing more and nothing less than doing the very things your Father does, imitating your Father in heaven, becoming like your Brother, Jesus. Remember, Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” Or as St. Paul put it to the Ephesians in chapter 5, Be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. God, as the perfect Father, is the perfect role-model for His children. So imitate God. Love others as Christ has loved you. Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. That’s the chief “rule” in God’s house.

Then Jesus goes on to describe what that mercy looks like in practice. It doesn’t look like judging others or condemning others. It does look like forgiving people, and giving generously to others.

First, Jesus says, Do not judge, and you will not be judged. “Judgment” is not a bad thing. It’s a necessary thing. God expects us to judge all the time, between right and wrong, wise and unwise, good and bad. The kind of judging He forbids is the kind that doesn’t come from mercy, or compassion, or love. You judge another person sinfully when you make yourself the judge of your neighbor’s heart, when you assume his motives to be evil, when you assume him to be lying, although there is no evidence of a lie, when you interpret his words or actions in the unkindest possible way. You judge other people when you nitpick their behavior, or when you make assumptions about them based on incomplete information. You judge other people when you place yourself above them, as their superior, as their “judge,” as the Pharisees often did with their fellow Jews and even with Jesus Himself. There is no mercy involved with such behavior. Do not judge, Jesus says, and you will not be judged. In this case, God, as a wise and loving Father, would teach you the way that is right by promising (or even threatening) to treat you the way you treat others. It’s simply a different way of saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Treat your neighbor as you yourself would be treated, by your neighbor, and by God.

In the same way, Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. There are enough people in the world, condemning this person and condemning that person, all day long. Sometimes social media is nothing but one condemnation after another, not only declaring someone to be wrong, but demonizing them for it, writing them off because of it. Again, the Pharisees are an example for us of what Jesus tells us not to do. They condemned the tax collectors and sinners, wrote them off, wanted nothing more to do with them, spoke unkindly and condescendingly about them, and surely also made fun of them, as they condemned Jesus and ridiculed Jesus Himself. That isn’t mercy, is it? That’s not the way your Father in heaven behaves, nor is it the way you want Him to behave toward you, is it? Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.

That doesn’t mean you don’t speak against wicked behavior. Jesus certainly did that! But there was never a time when mercy was absent from Jesus’ heart. There was never a time when He walked around with His nose up in the air, looking down on those dirty sinners. There was never a time when He didn’t want to show mercy to someone, when He delighted in a person’s condemnation. No, remember how Jesus wept over Jerusalem and over the condemnation Jerusalem would receive for the people’s impenitence and unbelief. If you have a heart like that toward your neighbor, a heart of mercy, then, even when you point out their sin, it won’t be for the purpose of judging or condemning, but of leading them to God.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven. We’ve talked about the pattern of forgiveness before. Our forgiveness is supposed to mimic God’s forgiveness. He delights in forgiveness. He’s eager to forgive. That doesn’t mean that He forgives where there is no repentance. But where there is repentance, He is quick, not slow, to forgive. He expects His children to imitate Him. And He even adds this extra incentive, that when we, as believers in Jesus, forgive others, God will continue to forgive us, whereas, if we deny the mercy of forgiveness to others, we show ourselves not to be children of God at all.

Give, and it will be given to you—a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be placed into your lap. For with the same measure you use it will be measured back to you. Not only has God already given us all things. He promises to give far more when we imitate Him in giving! What greater incentive could He possibly give His children to turn away from all the stinginess that comes so naturally to our sinful nature and to practice the mercy of generosity toward your neighbor? You never have to worry about wasting a gift. You never have to worry about giving too much. Because you have God’s promise that everything you give away will be given back to you in spades, probably not in the same form, but always in great abundance.

Jesus has one more lesson to teach about mercy in the Gospel, a specific way of showing mercy: by leading others in the way they should go, by teaching others something they need to know, by helping to correct a problem you notice in other people. This would be especially important for His disciples who would be teaching others in the future, but also for parents and for all Christians as they seek to live out the Gospel in their lives. But in order to do these things in a godly way, you have to watch out for certain pitfalls.

He told them a parable. “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a ditch?” It’s foolish to try to lead someone if you yourself can’t see where you’re going. If you don’t know God rightly, how will you lead someone else to know Him? If you don’t know God’s teaching of right and wrong, how will you lead someone else to the right? If you don’t know God’s mercy, how will you be able to show mercy? So hearing and meditating on God’s Word, studying it, and praying for the Spirit’s enlightenment are essential, so that you yourself aren’t blind as you try to lead those who are truly blind to the things of God.

A disciple is not above his teacher. But everyone who is thoroughly trained will be like his teacher. It’s remarkable how many people, including pastors, try to go beyond what Jesus taught, try to improve on His teaching. Some of them end up trying to be more evangelical than Jesus. That’s foolishness. If He is the teacher, then don’t imagine you can teach better. But do strive, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to be like your Teacher, in what He teaches, in how He teaches, and in how He treats those around Him. To accomplish that, you need to use the training God provides in the Scriptures and in the ministry He has established for this very purpose, to help build the body of Christ into the image of Christ.

And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck in your eye, when you yourself fail to see the beam in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” This is a warning we all need to take to heart. Before you would become the teacher of others, before you try to correct a flaw in your brother’s thinking or behavior, you have to start by soberly evaluating yourself, to make sure you don’t have an even bigger problem in your thinking or behavior. This requires humility, and a willingness to honestly hold yourself up to the mirror of God’s Law and God’s teaching, especially His teaching about being merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful, and, if you find a glaring discrepancy, to approach it with humility, and repentance, and to accept God’s correction.

These are Jesus’ instructions for those who live in His Father’s house. But the ability to do all this, and the motivation to carry it out, flows from the Gospel itself. Because, again, God is not teaching us about mercy so that we can earn a place in heaven by doing it correctly. God is teaching us about mercy, because He first showed such great mercy toward us in sending His Son to pay for our sins by His death on the cross, and in seeking us out with His Gospel, promising free forgiveness to all who believe. Now, as forgiven members of Christ’s body, as beloved children in our Father’s house, let us seek to become more and more like our merciful God, in everything we think, and say, and do. Amen.

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Who is a God like our God, so eager to forgive?

Posted on July 9, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 3

Micah 7:18-20

On Sunday, the Holy Spirit highlighted for us God’s deep desire that the lost should be found, that the sinner should be saved. We learned about the importance of repentance, whereby God carries out His heartfelt purpose of granting forgiveness of sins and eternal life to the one who is brought to turn from his sins and to seek refuge in God’s promise of forgiveness through Christ.

In tonight’s Old Testament reading, Micah also wrote about God’s forgiveness. He stood in awe before God, even as his name implies. Micah in Hebrew is short for Micahiah, which means, “Who is like Yah? Who is like Yahweh? Who is like the LORD?” The answer is, no one. No one is like Him, in any way, but especially in His awesome determination to pardon those who have sinned against Him.

Who is a God like You, Micah asks. He’s spent most of his seven-chapter book railing against Israel for their rebellion against God and for their stubborn impenitence, foretelling (like Isaiah, his contemporary) the desolation that would come upon Jerusalem and her people. Most of the book is bad news for Israel. But, here and there, we see glimmers of light, of hope, in the coming of the Messiah, who would be born in Bethlehem—meaning that, after the destruction of Israel, after their captivity in a foreign land, they would most certainly return to their land, so that the Messiah could be born. And when He came, Israel would finally repent of their rebellion against God. Not all Israel, but a remnant within Israel, a small, leftover bunch of sinners, like the tax collectors and prostitutes, who would repent and turn to the Lord and to His Christ.

And what would the Lord do for this remnant? What did He wish to do for all Israel, and for all sinners everywhere? Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? Our God doesn’t ignore sin. He pardons it. He doesn’t condone wickedness. He “passes over” it. That is, instead of targeting people for the wicked things they’ve done, He targeted His Son on the cross, enabling Him to pass over the transgressions of those who believe in Jesus, who look to the Son of God in faith. Justice would require Him to punish us for our sins, but divine justice found another way to deal with them, by punishing Jesus, our Brother, in our place, and offering us a place of refuge under the cross of Christ, who shelters us from the punishment we deserved for our sins.

Again, this pardoning of iniquity, this passing over of transgression, is done for the remnant of His heritage. For that small, leftover portion of Israel who would actually receive their Messiah, like the tax collectors and sinners did. But that remnant also extends beyond the borders of Israel, to all who hear the Gospel and look to God for pardon through Christ, and through Him alone, not for any other reason, not through any other savior, but only in the name of Jesus, where God promises to be merciful.

He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. Sometimes God allowed Israel to be oppressed for decades because of the hardness of their hearts. Sometimes He allowed them to go years without rain, because they just wouldn’t turn back to His Word and His teaching. But it’s not because He delighted in punishing them. On the contrary, what delights Him is to show mercy. And even after years of disobedience, years of rebellion and wickedness, years of impenitence, God’s desire is still to call sinners and to bring sinners to repentance, so that He can accomplish what He truly wants to accomplish, which is not punishment, but restoration.

He will again have compassion on us, and will tread our iniquities under foot. Micah, as a Spirit-inspired prophet, knew that Israel would again experience God’s compassion. He knew that the coming captivity in Babylon wouldn’t be forever, that the remnant of Israel would be brought to repentance in captivity. He knew that God would stomp on their iniquities and sins and rescue them from sin, death, and the devil. That promise is good, not only for Israel, but for all people, as long as the world endures. There will come a time when the promise of God’s compassion will expire, when Christ comes again in judgment. Until then, there is still time for sinners to repent. And when they do, God doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. He doesn’t keep digging up the past and throwing it in a sinner’s face. He will “tread our iniquities under foot.”

Or, to put it another way, You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. In other words, when God pardons, when God absolves, when God forgives, when you confess your sins in our Sunday service and I absolve you, that means that God casts your sins away from you and buries them so deep that no one can ever dredge them up again. They are forgiven, intentionally forgotten, and can never hurt you again. God chooses to see you as sinless and guiltless, as long as you stay close to Jesus, who bore your sins and your guilt.

You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from days of old.

To give truth to Jacob means to be faithfulness to the promises God made to Jacob, to Israel. To give mercy to Abraham means to fulfill the merciful promise God made to accept Abraham’s children as His own and to give them an eternal inheritance. We sing about this same thing every time we sing Mary’s Magnificat. But this faithfulness and mercy go far beyond the nation of Israel or any sort of earthly inheritance. What God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was to send the Messiah to their earthly children, and to count all believers in that Messiah as children of Abraham and heirs of an eternal inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth that God will create when the days of this earth are through. That means that you and I and all Christians are part of the fulfillment of this promise. We have been given as children to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as part of God’s faithfulness and mercy to them, even as many of their biological children have been cast out because of their stubborn refusal to repent.

Still, for all the impenitence of man, for all the wickedness that fills the world, God continues to send out His Word, for the moment. The Shepherd is still seeking the lost who may be found, because God is still eager to pardon, eager to add more children to Abraham’s family, eager to bring more sinners into fellowship with His beloved Son. We look at the world, and we may wish that God would just quit, quit putting up with all the wickedness, quit sending all the natural disasters, quit allowing men to get away with so much evil. We may wish that He had quit a long time ago and brought justice to the world. The day will come when He does quit, when He gives up on this world and brings an end to man’s time of grace. But you dare not begrudge the Lord His patience. Because it’s His patience with you that has kept the world going long enough for Him to find you when you were lost. And the fact that the world still turns means that God knows there are still more to find, more wicked people to call, more sinners who will believe in Jesus, more condemned people whom He will get to pardon. That’s why He keep the world turning, in spite of all the evil that’s done here and that happens here, all for the sake of the lost sheep who must still be found. Stand in awe of His grace, and of His determination to forgive. Yes, who is a God like our God, so eager to forgive? Amen.

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The vital role of entire-life repentance

Posted on July 6, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 3

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

It’s so good to be back with you again today after being gone for two weeks. Being away from worship—from the gathering of God’s people around Word and Sacrament—comes with certain challenges, even risks. I’ll use a campfire as an example. We built several fires during our stay up north. As you know, once you get a good fire going, with plenty of wood, it can burn for hours. But if you want to go to bed, it isn’t hard to put the fire out. You don’t even need to douse it with water. All you have to do is separate the burning logs and the glowing embers from one another, spread them out in the fire pit so that they’re no longer touching one another, fueling one another. Do that, and you can watch as the flames go out and the burning coals grow dimmer and dimmer, and soon the fire is extinguished. So it is with our faith. Where two or three are gathered together in My name, says the Lord Jesus, there I am in the midst of them. To be gathered in Jesus’ name means to be gathered together for sacred purposes: to worship Him, to hear His Word, to receive His Sacraments, to carry out His will, to pray, not as individuals, but as the gathered Church, coming together as the body of Christ, in the name of Christ, even if it’s only a few Christians at a time, like the (relatively) few of you who have gathered here today, like those of you who have gathered together in other places, with a few other Christians, to watch the service, to hear the Word, and add your prayers to ours. Church members are like fire embers. Together, by the power of the Holy Spirit, working through the Word, our faith will keep burning. Apart for too long, and what happens to the embers will happen to the members.

And so, together, we turn our thoughts to the Gospel, to the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, praying that the Holy Spirit will stoke the flames of faith in us as we meditate on Jesus’ words. Here in this Gospel we learn a vital lesson about one of the most basic teachings of the Christian faith: the vital role of repentance in the life of God’s people.

To whom did Jesus originally address these parables of the lost? Luke tells us: He spoke these parables to two groups of people who were gathering around Him. To the tax collectors and sinners, and, more directly, to the Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling and murmuring among themselves, This man Jesus receives sinners and eats with them. Remember who the Pharisees and scribes were. They were “God’s people,” as were all the people of Israel, technically, members of the one and only true Church on earth, the one established by God Himself through Abraham and later through Moses. The Pharisees and scribes were what you might call the active members of the Church. They gathered regularly for worship. They knew the Word of God. And, outwardly, they obeyed the commandments, too.

On the other hand, the tax collectors and sinners in Israel were what we might call inactive members. They probably didn’t attend synagogue and most certainly weren’t living according to God’s commandments. Their sins were public and well-known, and people like the scribes and Pharisees thought that such sinners should be permanently shunned.

But Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, He preached in such a way that the tax collectors and sinners heard, not only about their sins against God, not only about God’s anger and the punishment they deserved because of their sins, but also about a God who was willing—even eager—to have them back in His house, a God who was willing to forgive them, wipe the slate clean, for free, about a God who had come searching for them, because He loved them and didn’t want to see them burn in hell. That message was drawing them to Jesus, bringing them to recognize that God was right (about everything) and they were wrong, bringing them to acknowledge their sins, to fear God’s wrath, to trust in Jesus for forgiveness and reconciliation with God, and to turn away from the sinful lives they had been living. In other words, the message of Jesus was bringing them to repentance.

But, as we learn in today’s Gospel, that same message of Jesus, and His willingness to receive sinners, through repentance, was what made the Pharisees and scribes so angry. Their goal wasn’t the repentance of sinners but the destruction of those whom they regarded as sinners. Their goal was to be praised, by God and man, for being such good Church members themselves—for being men who, in their minds, needed no repentance.

So Jesus told them, first, the parable of the lost sheep. Like a shepherd who cares for each one of his sheep, the Lord cares for each one of His members. The Jewish tax collectors and sinners, as Israelites, had been sheep in God’s sheepfold from an early age, practically from birth, but, like sheep, had gone astray. And God cared. So He sent His Son into the world to go looking for them. And when He found them, He didn’t condemn them. He converted them. He brought them to repentance. He forgave them, freely, without their having to do a thing to earn it. And He put them up on His shoulders and began to carry them home to His Father.

Or, in the analogy of the second parable of the lost coin, God saw His people as precious, valuable coins—all, by the way, of the same denomination. In other words, just as ten silver coins are all worth the same, so God views His people as all being worth the same. So when one goes lost, He doesn’t say to Himself, “Well, that one wasn’t worth very much anyway.” No, the worth of the one who goes astray is the same as the worth of all the rest. Nor does He say, “Well, too bad, I lost one coin, but at least I still have nine. I’ll be content with that.” No, He leaves behind the 99 sheep, He leaves behind the 9 silver coins, to go looking for the one sheep, or the one coin, that was lost.

And when the shepherd finds the sheep, when the woman finds the coin, when God finds the sinner and brings him to repentance, God rejoices. And those who love Him, His friends, both human and angelic, rejoice right along with Him.

What does it mean, then, when people like the Pharisees and scribes don’t rejoice along with Jesus when the sinners are brought to repentance? It means that they don’t love Him, which means that they don’t love God, which means that they themselves have gone astray. They themselves have been cut off from God’s kingdom. They themselves, although they are outwardly obedient to God’s commandments and worship God with their lips, are in a worse state than the repenting tax collectors and sinners, because while the sinners have been brought to repentance and are finding a place prepared for them in the kingdom of God, the scribes and Pharisees think they have no need of repentance, and, therefore, no need of Jesus, or of His Father in heaven. Having fallen away from faith in God, they are the ones who have truly become lost, who will spend eternity burning in hell, because of their impenitence.

One of the most profound and useful statements in Martin Luther’s 95 Theses was the very first one: When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. Repentance means a rethinking about one’s sins, no longer regarding them as good things or fun things or as “the right thing,” but now regarding them as terrible mistakes, as something you never should have done, and as something you intend to stop doing. It also means a rethinking about God, no longer regarding Him as an unjust tyrant, but as the One who deserves your worship and obedience, and, most importantly, as the One who has given His Son into death for your sins so that you might be reconciled to Him through faith alone in Christ alone. Such repentance needs to happen when a person has been separated from God through sin and impenitence. And it also needs to happen continually, throughout the entire life of believers, so that, each and every day, you turn away from sin in your heart, turn toward God for mercy and forgiveness, and recommit to changing your life into a holy one, with the mighty help of God the Holy Spirit.

Such repentance, such rethinking about sin and about God, comes about through the preaching of the Gospel. That’s what brought the tax collectors and sinners to recognize that they had ruined their lives and turned against their God and Creator. It brought them to see the truth, that God is good, so good that He would send His Son into the world to seek and to save what was lost, at great expense to Himself. Who wouldn’t want to be reconciled to a God like this? Who wouldn’t want to leave behind the slavery to sin, to flee for refuge to the Lord Jesus and find a Father’s welcome through Him? Who wouldn’t wish to spend all his days serving this God, listening to His Word, and keeping it?

Sadly, there are many. Most, even, who choose destruction and permanent alienation from this God, because, like the devil, they want to believe their own way and do things their own way. And most tragically of all, that number includes many who were once believing Christians, but who have now fallen into impenitence, even as they delude themselves, as the Pharisees and scribes did, into thinking they’re still on the path to eternal life.

You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it, too many times. People who were raised as Christians but then allow themselves to be dragged away into willful sin, whether it’s sleeping with someone you’re not married to, or speaking cruel, hurtful words that you refuse to take back, or holding onto a grudge instead of forgiving as you ought. As the writer to the Hebrews says, If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries… For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That is, it is a fearful thing to stand before God’s judgment in impenitence, holding onto sin, refusing to take refuge in Jesus’ sacrifice. In repentance and faith, there is safety from God’s wrath. Without repentance, no one is safe, for there is no one on earth who needs no repentance.

So imitate the tax collectors and sinners in today’s Gospel! Imitate them by recognizing, daily, that you have sinned against God and deserve only His wrath and punishment, but also imitate them by hearing the Word of Jesus and by being amazed at the love of God for sinners like you and me, that He would send His Son to go looking for you, to give His life into death for you, and to carry you back to Him with rejoicing. And, whatever you do, don’t imitate the Pharisees and scribes, who refused to repent because they foolishly believed they had no need of it. We all have need of it. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each one has turned to his own way. But the Lord has laid on Him, on Christ Jesus, our Savior, the iniquity of us all. May God, by His mighty Spirit, keep you in daily contrition and repentance, and in the forgiveness which He first gave to you in Holy Baptism, so that your entire life may be one of repentance, leading to life. Amen.

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Three Persons, one God, one way of salvation

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

We celebrate today as Trinity Sunday. As you know, the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. Therefore, some people argue, neither is the teaching about the Trinity in the Bible. Or, as other people argue, we believe in the doctrine about the Trinity even though the word Trinity isn’t in the Bible, and, therefore, we should also believe all sorts of other doctrines that aren’t in the Bible. Both arguments are flawed.

The word “trinity” itself is actually nothing special, nor was it invented by the Christian Church. It comes from a Latin word that simply means, “threeness,” just as the word “unity” means “oneness.” The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t as mysterious as people make it out to be. The Bible speaks, in very simple terms, about our God having a Threeness quality, and a Oneness quality—a threeness of Persons and a oneness of Essence or Being. God isn’t three Beings working together as one, nor is He one Being split into multiple parts. He’s one undivided essence. One God, not three Gods, with one mind, one will, one purpose. But there is also a threeness quality to this one God, a threeness of Persons, clearly revealed in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Both qualities of our God describe who He is, and so it’s vitally important that we know and confess both His oneness of essence and His threeness of Persons, always keeping both qualities in view.

The threeness or “trinity” of God is presented to us very simply today in the Gospel you heard from John chapter 3. Like the rest of the Bible, these verses don’t use the word “Trinity” even once. And yet, the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed there—specifically, how the three Persons of the Holy Threeness have an integral part in the salvation of sinners.

If you were here on Wednesday evening, you heard the verses that come right after today’s Gospel, John 3:16-21. Today you heard the context of those verses. Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, came to Jesus at night to have a quiet conversation with Him. Rabbi, he said, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. Now, Nicodemus wasn’t speaking for all the Jews, and certainly not for all the Pharisees, who concluded that the signs, the miracles, Jesus was performing proved that He was in league with Beelzebub, with the devil! But for his part, and speaking for at least a few others, Nicodemus drew the right conclusion from Jesus’ miracles. They proved that He had come from God.

But Nicodemus didn’t realize just how right he was, that Jesus had “come from God.” He thought that Jesus had come from God like the other prophets who were sent by God. The prophets “came from God” in the sense that, at some point in their life, God called them to speak to Israel on His behalf. But the Person of the Son of God wasn’t called at some point in His life. He existed already in the beginning with God the Father. He is the “only begotten” Son of the Father, born of the Father in eternity as light is born of the sun. He was in heaven with the Father, and then He literally came from the Father’s side, as a Man, into the world. As Jesus says later, No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, namely, the Son of Man.

But Jesus doesn’t spend any time explaining how He had come from God, or anything about His relationship with God except to state that He is the Son of God, and the Son of Man. What He focuses on is how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work to bring about man’s salvation. How can a person be saved? How can a person escape eternal condemnation? How can a person enter the kingdom of God?

Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, many people today are so ignorant of the truth, so far removed from the Christian religion, that they don’t even believe there is a kingdom of God, much less care to see it. But the truth is, seeing or entering the kingdom of God is the goal of human existence. It’s God’s ultimate purpose for mankind, after mankind was banished from the kingdom of God because of our sin, because of Adam and Eve’s choice to rebel against their Creator. To enter the kingdom of God is to be reconciled to God, to be accepted by Him again into His house, into His family, into His kingdom. To enter the kingdom of God is to escape from the devil’s kingdom and from everlasting death. Only two possibilities exist: either one is a subject of the devil’s kingdom, or of God’s kingdom.

And the only way to see the kingdom of God, Jesus says, is to be born again. Born a second time. That’s because, your first birth wasn’t good enough. You aren’t good enough just as you are. Apologists for homosexuality like to point out that they’re “born that way.” Well, that’s the problem—a problem that all people share. The way you were born is unacceptable. Why? Because “flesh gives birth to flesh.” And that flesh, that sinful nature that we’ve inherited from our parents, and they from theirs, isn’t clean, isn’t pretty, isn’t innocent, isn’t even neutral. It’s wicked, twisted, and corrupt. By nature, everyone hates the true God—the One who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, Jesus says, you have to be remade, become an entirely new person in order to see the kingdom of God. And that new life can’t come from you, as little as a tiny baby can give life or give birth to him or herself.

Nicodemus didn’t understand that Jesus was talking about a spiritual rebirth. He thought Jesus was talking nonsense, as if a person had to go back into his mother’s womb and be born again. But Jesus explains: Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Those who have been born of the flesh have to be born again of the Spirit. “Water and the Spirit,” a reference to one of the primary tools the Holy Spirit uses to give that new life and new birth, Holy Baptism, which is, as St. Paul calls it, a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, the washing of water by the Word. The Person of the Holy Spirit is the one who works faith in our hearts through the Word, as it’s preached by itself, and as it’s connected to water in Holy Baptism. The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. Yes, the Spirit gives life through the Word, but Jesus connects that word with water, emphasizing the great gift that the Holy Spirit gives in Baptism. Baptism comes with the promise of rebirth, the forgiveness of sins, being clothed with Christ, the promise of resurrection to a new, spiritual life now, and the promise of a future resurrection to life everlasting.

But what is it exactly that the Spirit draws us to, turns the eyes of our hearts to, brings us to trust in? To what does Baptism connect us? Jesus explains that to Nicodemus: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is why God the Father sent God the Son into the world. This is what God the Holy Spirit was teaching Israel all along in the Old Testament Scriptures and what He now preaches to our hearts through the Word of the Gospel: Just as Moses long ago made a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a pole, at God’s command, so that the Israelites who had been bitten by venomous snakes (as a punishment for their grumbling against God) might look up at it and be mercifully healed by God from the venom that was killing them, so Jesus, the Son of Man, had to be lifted up on a cross, so that all those who were destined for eternal death might look to Him in faith and be saved—look to Him, no longer hanging on a cross, but preached in the world as the One who was crucified, who gave His life on the cross, preached in the world as the One whose death on the cross we are connected to, in the eyes of God, through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, where the name of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is placed on the baptized, where the one who once was lost in Satan’s kingdom is rescued and given entrance into the kingdom of God by a new spiritual birth.

And that’s the goal of our one God, who is three Persons. That’s what the whole history of the world has been about. It’s why the world hasn’t been destroyed yet, in spite of people’s multiple attempts to bring the wrath of God down upon themselves with their godless behavior and their endless idolatry, with their refusal to believe the Word and to amend their sinful lives. God the Father knows that He has children who have yet to be born, and to be born again of water and Spirit, sinners who will become His children, by the work of God the Spirit, who will bring them to the knowledge of God the Son, that they may not perish but have everlasting life. And there we see the Trinity in all its simplicity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit diligently carrying out the plan of our salvation.

Don’t try to comprehend the Holy Trinity. Instead, believe what the Scriptures have revealed about our God, and rejoice that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have granted you the blessing of Baptism, the blessing of faith, and the new birth into His kingdom. And just as God’s goal and purpose for mankind is our eternal salvation, so let it also be the goal of your life, to enter, and then to remain in His kingdom until Christ comes again, living in love as holy children of God within His kingdom even now, and urging the lost to enter His kingdom, too, to know and believe in the one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

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