Emmanuel Lutheran Church

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Sermon for Trinity 5

1 Peter 3:8-15 + Luke 5:1-11

These Sundays in the Trinity season give us a little taste of different aspects of the Christian life. Two weeks ago, we saw how zealously God seeks the lost, brings them to repentance, and forgives them their sins. Last week, we saw how He instructs the forgiven to walk in the ways of His mercy. Today, we see the Lord giving certain tasks to the forgiven, so that, through us, He might build up His beloved Church, the precious body of Christ. The Gospel emphasizes one task that is given to some within the Church, for building up the Church, while the Epistle focuses on other tasks that are given to all Christians, also for the building up of the Church.

Let’s start with the Gospel, the account of how Jesus’ first disciples were called, there by the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

This wasn’t their first encounter with Jesus. John’s Gospel helps us to understand that. John the Baptist had introduced them to Jesus some time before this, and they had followed Him up to Cana, where He had performed His first miracle. After that, it seems that they went back to their regular jobs as fishermen for a little while, because Jesus hadn’t yet called them to full-time following. But that would change after today.

There they were, Peter and Andrew by their boat, mending their nets after catching nothing at all the night before. James and John were doing the same thing by their boat, a little way down the beach. Jesus stepped into Peter’s boat and used it as a makeshift pulpit so that He could preach to the large crowds. But preaching wasn’t His only reason for being there that day. He was about to do something momentous. He was about to call the first four of the men whom we now know as the twelve apostles. And the way He did it was a real teaching moment, for them and for the Church throughout the ages.

Jesus asked Peter to put out toward the deep water and to let down their nets for a catch. Peter was skeptical. They had worked all night and had caught nothing. The fish just weren’t there. But he had already heard and seen enough from Jesus to know that he shouldn’t refuse, so he said, Master, we have toiled throughout the night and have caught nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets. And as soon as he did, such a great number of fish flooded into those nets that they began to tear. James and John came over with their boat and, even with the two boats, they could barely bring the fish to the shore. This was no ordinary catch. They all knew it. They were amazed. So much so that Peter got down on his knees in utter fear in the presence of this powerful Man, this holy Man who had divine power over the sea and the creatures that live in it. Depart from me, Lord, he said, for I am a sinful man!

If only all people had that kind of genuine humility and fear in the presence of the holy God! Today, it seems that most people want to joke around or play around in the presence of God, but Peter knew better, like the prophet Isaiah did, who, when confronted with God’s presence, cried out, Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. That’s the right initial response of all men in the presence of the holy God. But God didn’t destroy Isaiah. Instead, He called him to be a prophet. In the same way, Jesus didn’t depart from Peter, much less destroy him. Instead, He called him, along with Andrew, James and John: Follow Me, and I will make you into fishers of men.

We learn several things from this account. First, the apostles didn’t go seeking to become apostles. Jesus came to them, and called them, selecting them out of all His other followers to work together with Him—to work together, not in bearing the sins of the world, not in redeeming mankind—only Jesus could do that. But to work together with Him in building His Church, in reconciling the world to God, in bringing sinners to repentance, and to faith in Christ Jesus, the world’s Redeemer, thereby bringing them out of the vast ocean of those who are perishing into the safety, into the peace, into the everlasting joy of His holy Christian Church. That’s what it means to be “fishers of men,” or, as we often call them, ministers of the Gospel.

And the means of bringing people into the boat? It isn’t a hook. It isn’t a lure. It’s just nets. It’s the means of grace. It’s the preaching of the Gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. No gimmicks. No deceit. No false promises. Just the powerful promise of the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ and the atonement He made for sins on the cross. Just the promise of the forgiveness of sins through the Baptism that Christ instituted, where He promises to wash away a person’s sins and adopt him or her into God’s family. Just the continual promise of the forgiveness of sins through the Sacrament of the Altar, where Christ hands out His body and blood, the price He paid for our atonement. These are the nets that God calls some men to let down, so that many people, both men and women, may call upon the name of Jesus, so that many may be brought into His boat, so that the Church of Christ may be built up.

But, as Paul points out to the Romans in chapter 10, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Who does that sending? It’s always Jesus. He did it directly with Peter, Andrew, James, and John in today’s Gospel, as He did with the rest of the apostles, including St. Paul. But He isn’t done sending men to be fishers of men.

After He ascended into heaven, Christ continued to send, but no longer directly (except for St. Paul). As we’ve been studying in Ephesians, Christ gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors & teachers. These are examples of job descriptions within what we call the office of the holy ministry, the ministry of preaching the Word and administering the Sacraments, the ministry of letting down the Gospel nets for a catch. “Christ gave” and continues to give men to His Church for this ministry. But He now shares that task of sending with the whole Church. This is why we say that the divine call into the office of the ministry is Christ’s call, through the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Church.

That means that Christ has assigned the task to all of you, as Christians, of calling, of sending and supporting the men who carry out the fishing expedition of preaching the Gospel in the world, even as this congregation called me many years ago and continues to support the ministry I carry out among you in Jesus’ name. In a similar way, it’s the God-given task of all Christians, once they’ve received Baptism, to hear and adhere to the teaching that Christ provides, through His ministers, to gather, whenever possible, to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another, to encourage one another as we ride together in this boat, in this ship of the Christian Church, now that we’ve been “caught” and brought into it by the Gospel nets. It’s the God-given task of all Christians to hold one another accountable in this Christian faith, and to show genuine love for one another as we ride toward the heavenly shores.

Peter spoke about this in today’s Epistle as well. All of you, he says, be of one mind. Be sympathetic. Show brotherly love. Be compassionate. Be friendly. Do not repay evil with evil or insults with insults, but on the contrary, pronounce a blessing, knowing that you were called to this. In other words, you were called to be imitators of God, imitators of Jesus, called to walk according to God’s commandments, called to live a life of love, as God defines love in His Word. And when you carry out that calling, in the various vocations to which God has called you, you not only bring glory to the name of our Father in heaven. You do your part in building up the Church. When you show kindness and compassion to those outside the Church, when you suffer wrong without wronging others in return, when you give an answer to those who ask you for an explanation of the hope that is in you, with gentleness and respect, you’re making the Church look good, like a place they might want to be, with a message they might just want to hear. (Of course, the opposite is also true, if you fail to behave like an imitator of God.) Likewise, when you show kindness and compassion to those inside the Church, showing patience and love toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, that goes a long way to building up your fellow Christians and to preserving the unity and the peace we have in the Church of Christ.

And that’s what we have to understand. Everything Jesus does is for the sake of building up His beloved bride, His holy Church, whether it’s sending ministers of the Word to preach and teach and administer the Sacraments, or whether it’s working in the lives of His sons and daughters as each one carries out his or her God-given tasks in the world, both to bring new people into the Church and to preserve and encourage those whom He has already brought in. Everything God does—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is for the building up of His beloved Church. And thanks be to God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—that He has both brought us into it, and has given you and me these blessed tasks to carry out within it, granting us the grace of sharing in this all-important work of building up the Church of Christ, a work in which God Himself delights. Amen.

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.

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.