Like Father, like son, when it comes to mercy

Posted on June 28, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 4

Romans 8:18-23 + Luke 6:36-42

“Like father, like son,” they say. And I’ve found, it’s true in many ways. A son naturally inherits certain traits and abilities from his father. More than that, certain behaviors or ways of thinking, or talking, tend to rub off almost unintentionally from father to son. And beyond that, a son who admires his father will often choose, intentionally, to become more and more like his father.

The same is true for the Christian. How did you become a Christian? You were “born again” of water and Spirit, through Baptism, through the word of truth, the word about Jesus, the Son of God, who was sent by God the Father in order to give every believer the right to become a child of God, the right to call God your Father. As Paul says in Galatians 3, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.”

Well, if that’s true, if you have been born of God, then the saying “like Father, like son” will also apply to you in a spiritual way. Every Christian is remade in the image of God from the moment he is born again, with a New Man who naturally inherits certain traits from his Father. But the Christian must, at the same time, as he grows and matures, strive to become more and more like his heavenly Father, being molded into the image of Christ, who is, by nature, the very image of the Father.

The primary trait of God that is, and that must be passed on to all His children is highlighted for us in today’s Gospel, where Jesus says to His disciples, Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Mercy. Compassion for the one who is miserable or in need. To be merciful is to be moved to compassion by someone’s neediness or misery. And that describes our heavenly Father perfectly. Even before He created the world, He foresaw man’s misery, all the misery of mankind, which has all been caused by Adam and Eve’s fall into sin, and by the natural corruption of the soul that has passed down to all their descendants, making us hostile to God by nature, making us self-centered and unbelieving. Our sinful nature, and our sinful choices, and our sinful actions are the cause of human misery—not necessarily the direct cause of every hardship, but the overall cause. God foresaw the misery, just as He foresaw the corrupt character of our souls, and all the rebellious and loveless thoughts and actions that we would be guilty of. Not only that, He foresaw the eternal punishment that awaited us all for rebelling against our Creator. And instead of throwing up His hands and saying, “Why bother? Why bother creating these creatures who will rebel against Me? And if I create them, why bother redeeming them from the misery they deserve?”—instead of that, God was moved to compassion by our misery, even though it was our own fault, and, in His mercy, He planned out our salvation, which centers in His beloved Son being born as a man and dying for the sins of mankind, that all might believe in Him and be rescued from all our misery. That’s mercy, which is one of the defining characteristics of our Father in heaven, and of our Savior Jesus Christ.

If you have come to know God rightly, then you know His mercy. And if you have truly been brought to believe in that merciful God, then you have been on the receiving end of His mercy, and you have already been transformed by it, so that you have inherited a new character, a new attitude of mercy, like that of your Father. You have been made new as merciful people, who are moved to compassion toward those who are suffering, or in need, whether their suffering is their own fault, or not.

But the Christian also, at the same time, carries around an old attitude, an old character of mercilessness, that looks on the misery of your neighbor and says with smugness, “Why should I care? They’re getting exactly what they deserve!”

It’s because of that old, sinful nature that dwells in all Christians, even as it reigns completely in all non-believers, that Jesus has to remind and encourage His disciples to be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

And so He does. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.

You know that our godless, wretched society has latched onto that “Do not judge” command and tried to use it against you whenever you bring up certain sins that people are committing, as if those who hate God had the right to lecture the children of God, as if God forbade His children from recognizing anything as sinful, or from pointing out anyone’s sins to them. There are many ways to answer such unserious people, but sometimes the best answer is just to double down and say, “Oh, I absolutely judge you and condemn you. I have no choice but to agree with God’s word, which reveals your actions as sinful. But it’s God’s judgment you’ll have to deal with on the Last Day if you do not repent.”

It’s not all judging and condemning that Jesus tells His disciples not to engage in. It’s malicious, merciless judging and condemning that He forbids, beginning in the heart, and then extending to the lips. It’s criticizing your fellow Christian, when there’s no need to criticize, especially without taking into account how your words may do more harm than good. It’s taking his words and actions in the unkindest possible way. It’s sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. It’s assuming sinful motives or actions, or jumping to conclusions about something he or she said or did. It’s harboring hatred and malice in your heart toward your neighbor, and especially toward your fellow Christian. And it can also happen when you think someone else is sinfully judging and condemning you; you might turn around and sinfully judge and condemn them right back, because you assume that they were judging you first! But this is not how your Father in heaven behaves. And, therefore, such merciless judging and condemning is out of character for a child of God the Father. And yet, it’s all too common for our sinful nature to engage in it.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven. He doesn’t mean, forgive the impenitent. He does mean, have a heart of mercy toward the one who has sinned against you, and always be ready and willing to forgive, without requiring that atonement be made, because you were forgiven freely, without having to pay for your sins. So when your brother or sister comes to you in repentance, you must do as your Father has done for you, or else you will forfeit the forgiveness that you were freely given.

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. He doesn’t mean, give anything and everything that anyone might ever ask of you. He does mean, have a heart of mercy toward the one who is asking you, and always be ready and willing to give generously, if it’s within your power, if it will actually benefit the one who asks, just as your Father does for you. If you’re generous toward your neighbor, God will be generous with you. But if you’re stingy and close your heart to your brother in need, you have to expect that God will be stingy toward you also.

To illustrate how all this comes back to imitating our merciful God and Father, Jesus tells a little parable. “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher. But everyone who is thoroughly trained will be like his teacher. 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.”

In other words, no matter how much you may think is wrong with someone else, no matter how much you may want to help, you’re useless to him, until you get help for yourself first—the help of addressing your own sins, the help of learning mercy from Jesus’ own example, the help of dealing with your own blind spots, your own heart that is not merciful by nature, but merciless, and self-absorbed, and self-aggrandizing. Your new nature as a reborn Christian is like your merciful Father in heaven, but your old nature is the opposite and so constantly needs to be confronted, and dealt with, and, in fact, put to death, daily, so that your new nature, born from God’s mercy, might arise, daily, to approach your brother in mercy, the mercy you know that you yourself have received from God, and then deal with your neighbor from a position of mercy, not from a position of superiority. Then you will be able to see clearly. Then you will be of use to those around you, the more you appreciate God’s mercy toward you, the more you reflect the mercy of God in the world.

Like Father, like son, when it comes to mercy. So it is already for every Christian, and so it must be as we grow into the image of our merciful Father in heaven, who is merciful and kind not only to the righteous, but also, as Jesus says, to the unthankful and the evil. May God the Holy Spirit grant us grace, that we may become ever more like God the Father, who, in His mercy, has forgiven us all our sins and has made us into His very own sons and daughters, through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John: The Lord is gracious

Posted on June 24, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Isaiah 40:1-5 + Luke 1:57-80

On this Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, you won’t see a holiday aisle at Walmart or at the Home Depot. No colorful lights adorning streets and houses; no trees with presents under them to remind us of the gift of John’s birth. In the same way, when John was born, there were no herald angels singing, no wise men bringing gifts from afar, no guiding star to lead anyone to his house.

And that’s the way it should be. John the Baptist was not the Christ, as he himself freely admitted. John was the forerunner sent by God to run ahead of Jesus and announce to the Jews that the Christ was right behind him. And once Christ appeared, several months after John appeared, John told his disciples, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” So it’s just as well that the Nativity of Christ gets all the attention. John would have wanted it that way.

But it’s also good and right to pause today on June 24th, six months before that greater Nativity celebration, and give thanks to God for John the Baptist, who was just six months older than Jesus, as the angel Gabriel had announced to Mary that her elderly relative, Elizabeth, the wife of the priest named Zacharias, was already six months pregnant when she herself heard the angel’s announcement.

You may remember how that all happened, how Gabriel appeared to Zacharias while he was ministering in the Temple and announced to him that he and his wife, Elizabeth, even though they had been unable to have children and were now old, were finally going to have a son who would be the prophet of the Most High God and would prepare the way for the Messiah. But Zacharias didn’t believe the angel, and so the angel told him that he would be unable to speak until the child was born.

Well, the child was conceived, and then, nine months later, he was born. That’s where today’s Gospel picks up the story. And then one week later, it was time for him to be circumcised and given his name. Their friends and relatives wanted to call the child “Zacharias,” after his father, but Elizabeth and Zacharias obeyed, instead, the angel’s words and gave him the name “John,” “Yo-hanan,” “The Lord—Yahweh—is gracious.”

The people present for the celebration were amazed and asked, “What then will this child be?” But they already had their answer. His name is “John,” the one who proclaims that the Lord has been gracious in finally sending the Christ into the world.

Well, didn’t all the prophets preach about God’s grace, and the apostles, too? Of course they did. Grace is one of those attributes of God that make up the definition of who He is, a God whose love doesn’t depend at all on a person’s worthiness or goodness. It goes out to all, freely, unearned, because that’s who God is. As He said to Moses, The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.

John, when he grew up, certainly did also preach about that other truth about God that Moses recorded, that He will by no means clear the guilty, that He visits the iniquity—the sin—of the fathers on the children. John never minced words. He gathered up the whole people of Israel under sin, and showed them their guilt, and warned them about the coming wrath of God. “Repent!” was John’s message in the wilderness. Repent, for even if you are a good and decent person compared to your neighbor, you are guilty before God, and God will by no means clear the guilty, but visits their iniquity upon them.

But what did Zacharias sing in his Spirit-inspired song? “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited and redeemed His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of His servant David.” God’s wrath is being visited against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But God has also visited and redeemed His people and provided the shelter from His wrath. Where? “In the house of His servant David.”

Now, John, Zacharias’ son, was not from the house of David, but from the house of Levi. Zacharias was not singing about his own son, but about the baby who had been growing for three months now in the virgin Mary’s womb, the virgin Mary of the house of David, who had been staying with them for three months.

So just as John’s father pointed to Jesus on the day his son was circumcised, so his son would point to Jesus in his future ministry and preach how the grace of God had visited the Jews in the person of Jesus Christ, how God, in His grace, had sent the Redeemer into the world, to redeem Israel, to redeem all who would put their trust in Him. All of God’s goodness and promises were wrapped up in that one Person, wrapped up so tightly that there is no grace of God anywhere else. Only in His Son Jesus Christ.

And so Zacharias’s song continues, That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us, To perform the mercy promised to our fathers And to remember His holy covenant. This is what John would preach—that in Christ there is salvation from our enemies—salvation from sin, salvation from death, salvation from the devil. That in Christ God has shown mercy and continues to show mercy. That this mercy was promised long ago to the people of Israel, in the holy covenant He made with Abraham, to bless all the families of the earth through the Son of Abraham, the promised Christ.

Jesus was the Heir of that covenant. And then He Himself established a new covenant in His blood, in which God continually and fully and freely forgives all the sins of the one who is part of this new covenant. You enter this new covenant through baptism and through faith in Christ, because by His blood Jesus has paid for the sins of the world. And so God invites all people to repent and find forgiveness of their sins in Jesus.

But God doesn’t do that inviting silently or secretly. He doesn’t do that inviting with whispers in your ear, or with trumpets sounding from heaven, or with a burden pressing down on your heart. He calls people to faith in Jesus through the spoken word. That’s the task to which John was appointed from birth, to be a preacher of grace, the last of the Old Testament prophets who would herald the Christ, standing right there at the door. That’s what Zacharias sang, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, To give knowledge of salvation to His people By the remission of their sins.

But again, God doesn’t just throw His grace, life, and forgiveness up in the air, to be scattered on the wind for us to go chasing after, trying to find it, trying to catch it. God locates His grace, His life, His forgiveness in the spoken word, and in water that is connected with that word. John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

What John started 2000 years ago is what every preacher of grace has been doing since—showing secure sinners their sins and pointing penitent sinners to Jesus as the location of God’s grace, and bringing Jesus to sinners, with all His grace, with all His forgiveness, in the spoken word and in Holy Baptism, and now, also in the Holy Supper of the forgiveness of sins, the Meal of the New Covenant.

Now pastors are the preachers of grace God sends to His people, to walk in the footsteps of John the Baptist and point people to Christ. John is the chief role model for every preacher, so it’s for good reason we bring him into our Divine Service each and every week. There’s the Baptist, pointing us again to our Baptism in the Invocation, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” John’s there in the Gloria where his own words are quoted, “Lord God, Lamb of God, who takes the sin of the world, have mercy upon us!” He’s there directing us to Jesus’ body and blood on the altar as we sing his words again in the Agnus Dei, “O Christ, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us!” Eleison! “Have mercy!” Or another translation would be, “Be gracious to us!” And then there’s John, the preacher of grace, one last time, every week, in the Benediction, “The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.”

Yes, the Lord is gracious, and has been gracious to us in sending His Son, the Lord Jesus, who is, as Zacharias so joyfully sang, the Dayspring from on high who has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen.

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Let there be joy over each sinner who repents

Posted on June 21, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 3

1 Peter 5:6-11 + Luke 15:1-10

Sometimes, during Jesus’ ministry, multitudes of people followed Him and listened to Him. Of course, sometimes, as in the verses that come right before today’s Gospel, Jesus turned to those multitudes and said things to them that ended up driving many of them away. How could He do that? Wasn’t it Jesus’ goal to have as many people following Him as possible? Well, if we’re talking about God’s ultimate purpose, it’s for all mankind to be saved, all the billions of souls that exist. But He wants to save them in a certain way: by bringing them, one by one, to repentance and faith in Him. So, in practice, His goals aren’t accomplished when multitudes are saved. As we learn in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ goals, the goals of God, are accomplished when one sinner repents.

Let’s define repentance. The first part of repentance is contrition, sorrow over sin, a change of attitude toward sin, no longer seeing it as something worthwhile, but as something that is hateful and offensive to the holy God, something that incurs His wrath, something that must be avoided, and atoned for, if you are to escape the eternal punishment your sin has earned for you. When God reveals His righteous standards in His holy Law, and when His Law reveals that you fall short of those standards, whether in your dealings toward God or with other people, repentance means agreeing with God’s Law that you deserve His wrath and punishment.

But the second part of repentance is equally important, and Jesus is clearly including both parts in today’s Gospel. The second part of repentance is when the sorrowful sinner believes the Gospel, when he trusts in God’s promise to receive sinners, to show mercy to sinners for Jesus’ sake, when he comes to Jesus for the promised forgiveness of sins, when he comes to the baptismal waters to have his sins washed away in the sight of God. So repentance includes both contrition and faith in Christ. And both are produced in the sinner’s heart through the preaching of God’s Word, both Law and Gospel.

That preaching is what was bringing all the tax collectors and sinners to approach Jesus, to hear Him. Now, the tax collectors at that time were practically all thieves and extortioners, and the “sinners” here refers to public, well-known sinners, like prostitutes and adulterers. We aren’t told how many of them had experienced both parts of repentance, but God’s Word was clearly doing its work in them. They were at least beginning to listen, and to reevaluate their sinful lives. And some of them, at least, were coming back into God’s house, through the doorway of forgiveness, because Jesus, through the Gospel, was opening it up to them again.

But you heard how the Pharisees reacted to Jesus’ treatment of those people. The Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” It’s not that He was receiving them in such a way as to condone their sins; He wasn’t. The same Jesus who commands His disciples to love sinners also condemns sin, and the sinners who continue to live in them without repentance. As He later said, through His messenger, the Apostle Paul, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. No, the Pharisees weren’t angry at Jesus for condoning their sins. They were angry with Him for even associating with them, for offering them a way out of their sins, for receiving them at all.

Now, Jesus had every right to blow up at those merciless, stuck-up, self-righteous Pharisees. But look at the tender mercy and compassion of Jesus! He goes on to tell three beautiful parables, to illustrate to the Pharisees, to the sinners, and to everyone else, how eager God is to rescue those sinners from eternal damnation and to have them back in His family.

Jesus puts it in terms his hearers can understand. Most of us here can’t relate directly to the parable of the lost sheep. You’ve probably never tended and cared for a hundred animals in the desert, only to have one of them go astray. What do you do? Well, obviously, you go looking for the one that got lost. And sometimes, tragically, you may not find it. Sometimes it may perish in the desert. But you still go looking. And then, when you actually find it, you’re filled with joy. Jesus pictures the shepherd carrying the lost sheep back on his shoulders, rejoicing, and then calling friends and neighbors to come over and celebrate, because he found what he was so desperately searching for. It was only one out of a hundred—not a big loss in the grand scheme of things, but to the shepherd, that one was worth all the effort on his part. That’s how it is for God when He actually finds a lost soul and brings it to repentance. Every one is immeasurably valuable. He knows that many, many are and will remain lost. But whenever He finds a single soul, He rejoices, and all who love Him rejoice together with Him, precisely because they love Him, and they love to see Him so happy.

Or then there’s the woman, who has only ten silver coins—not very much to live on for long. When one goes missing, that’s a tenth of all she has. So she desperately sweeps the house and searches for it until she finds it, and breathes a sigh of relief, and rejoices together with her friends, because what was lost and useless to her has now been found and has become useful to her again. So it is with God. He is the Owner of all things, including every soul. But He values each soul individually as much as every other. And once He finds a person with His Gospel, once He brings that person to repentance, He is again able to use that person in His service.

In the third parable Jesus told, which isn’t included in today’s Gospel, He told of a father who had two sons. The younger basically rebelled against his father, demanded his inheritance, and then left his father’s house and squandered all he had on reckless living. Then, finally, when he hit rock bottom and had no food and nothing left to live on, he remembered his father’s goodness, and hoped he might be allowed to return to his father’s house as a servant, because even the servants in his father’s house had plenty to eat. And so he returned in humility, to beg. But when his father saw him coming down the road, he ran to him, threw his arms around him, and welcomed him back, not as a servant, but as a beloved son, forgiven for all his past behavior, a son for whom the father threw a party, because he was so happy that his son had returned.

But it’s the ending of that parable that brings the whole lesson full circle. The older son, who had been working hard in his father’s field the whole time, heard that his brother was back, and that his father was throwing him a party, and he became bitter and angry, not only toward his brother, but toward his father. How dare he receive his prodigal son back so easily! How dare he fail to recognize how the older son had earned his keep in his father’s house!

That older son represents the scribes and Pharisees, and all who take offense at God’s goodness in receiving sinners and forgiving sins to the penitent. Don’t let yourself fall into that category. Because while the haters of God are busy grousing about God’s goodness, God, and those who love Him, including the holy angels in heaven, including the saints on earth, are busy rejoicing with Him. Those who love God rejoice with Him in the things He cares about, especially when it cost Him so much to bring those sinners back, when it cost Him the death of His own beloved Son in order to make atonement for their sins.

Yes, this man Jesus, this man who is also God, receives sinners and eats with them. Not sinners as they cling to their sins and invite Jesus to bless their sinful lifestyle, but sinners who are brought to mourn over their sins and seek the forgiveness that Jesus offers.

So look around you. There are no multitudes gathered here to hear the Word of Jesus. Sometimes we’re tempted to let that fact get us down. Don’t let it. Don’t let it. Wherever you see one sinner, just one person, who has been brought to repentance by hearing the Word of God preached, who is gathered with maybe only one or two others to praise God for His forgiveness through Christ, it’s cause for celebration. It’s cause for rejoicing, not for mourning.

Just be very careful that you never begin to count yourself among the ninety-nine “who have no need of repentance,” as Jesus described them. Because there is no one alive for whom that is actually true. There are only those who think they have no need of repentance. They will be left behind by the Shepherd, left to pat themselves on their backs for being so righteous, left to try to save themselves, without Jesus’ help. I have not come to call the righteous, says the Lord, but sinners, to repentance. Be the one coin. Be the one sheep who hears the Savior’s voice and listens. Live in daily contrition and repentance. Ride on the Shepherd’s shoulders, here within His holy Christian Church, all the way to His heavenly home. And in the meantime, be sure to rejoice with your God over every sinner who repents. Amen.

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The supper has to come before everything else

Posted on June 17, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Trinity 2

Isaiah 25:6-9 + Luke 14:25-35

In this evening’s first lesson from the prophet Isaiah, you heard God announcing a great feast, a great supper that He’s preparing for those who love Him. That supper is a picture of a perfect life with God, filled with joy, with the best things. It’s a life that lasts forever, where death itself is defeated and undone. It’s a supper that begins already in this life when sinners are brought into the kingdom of God through faith in Christ Jesus. But it reaches its fulfillment on the Day of Resurrection, and it then lasts into eternity, never to be disturbed by anything bad, ever again.

On Sunday, we heard Jesus telling a parable about the great supper to which a man invited many guests, echoing the image from Isaiah’s prophecy. Do you remember how the invited guests responded when they were told it was time to go to the supper? “Gotta go see my field. Gotta test my oxen. Gotta spend time with my new bride. Sorry. Can’t make it at this time.” In every case, something else took priority over the supper. Something else came first.

As we learn in the continuation of Luke 14, which took place shortly after Jesus told that parable, attending God’s supper—the one He foretold in Isaiah’s prophecy, the one He foreshadowed in the parable—has to come first, before anything else, before everything else. If you love something in this life more than the supper (and the One who is giving it!), then the supper isn’t for you.

You heard those jarring words from Jesus: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. Let those words jar you. Let them confront your sinful flesh that insists on putting your family before God, putting your own life ahead of God, ahead of His kingdom, ahead of the eternal life He promises. Family is one of the chief idols that people worship—not by bowing down to it, but by putting it ahead of God. It’s what causes Christians to change their views on things like sex outside of marriage, or homosexuality, or divorce, or abortion, or closed Communion, or any number of Scriptural issues—because a close family member is affected by those Scriptural beliefs, and holding to them would mean putting a wedge between them and their family member. And so they choose, so, so often, to abandon the beliefs for the sake of keeping peace in the family. Or, maybe it’s not a family member. Maybe it’s your own life that’s at risk if you follow Jesus faithfully. That’s certainly true in other countries where Islam rules, for example, but even here, you may put your job, or your reputation, or your possessions, or your comfort at risk for following Jesus. But Jesus says that anyone who doesn’t hate his family members, even his own life, cannot be His disciple.

Now, what does He mean with that word “hate”? It has nothing to do with emotional animosity, or even a strong dislike. It certainly has nothing to do with wishing evil on anyone. Here, in this context, to hate means to “choose against.” If it’s between following Jesus or keeping your family member close, or saving your own life, anyone who would not “choose against” his family member, who would not choose against his own life, cannot be Jesus’ disciple. Because, if you dare to call Him Lord, you have to mean it.

And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. How many people do you know who think of themselves as “followers of Jesus,” as Christians, as believers, but who, at the same time, can’t even be bothered to forsake their beds on a Sunday morning in order to go and worship Christ and hear His Word? If they won’t bear the cross of giving up their Sunday morning rest to worship the Lord Jesus, how will they bear the much heavier cross of persecution or pain? The cross is not a symbol of comfort, but of pain, suffering, and death. It symbolizes dying to this world so that you can have what Jesus offers you after this world. If a person will not bear it and follow after Jesus, who bore His cross, loaded down with our sins, to reserve us a place at His eternal supper, then that person might as well stop calling himself a Christian. Because he isn’t one.

Now, it’s worth noting that Jesus spoke these words to the “multitudes that had followed Him.” He saw multitudes of people eagerly following after Him. And instead of being content just to have their bodies there, He spoke this hard truth to them, knowing it would drive many of them away. And it did! Because for Jesus, it isn’t about numbers. It isn’t about filling His train, or the chairs in His churches, with lots and lots of people. It’s about having devoted followers who want what He has to offer more than anything else, even if there are only a handful of such followers left at the end of the day.

And so Jesus calls on all who would follow Him to count the cost of such following before going a step farther. Like calculating the costs of building a tower before you start building it. Because if you start it and then realize you can’t finish it, you look ridiculous. Like considering whether you have enough troops to win a war before going to war. Because if you go to war and don’t have what it takes to win, you’ve wasted all those lives for nothing. And so Jesus lays out the cost for all His disciples from the beginning: So likewise, He says, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

So, you see, the supper itself is free. God’s forgiveness, eternal life and joy in His presence, adoption as His beloved children—all of that comes at no cost, to you. It cost Jesus’ everything; it costs you nothing. You never have to suffer for your sins, or earn a place at the supper. You never have to make yourself acceptable to God. Forgiveness of sins and eternal life is a free gift, given to all who seek it through Christ, to all who wish to follow Christ. But Jesus is very upfront about what following Him looks like, what it requires in this life. It requires a readiness, a willingness, to part with everything else, as long as you get to have Christ.

The Psalmist puts it this way in Psalm 73: Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Again, St. Paul puts it this way in Philippians 3.  Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Christ and His righteousness. Resurrection from the dead. A great supper with God, and with all the faithful, that goes on forever and ever. These are the things Jesus offers to those who follow Him. And He tells you plainly, you will have to “choose against” everything in this life in order to follow Him into this supper. Is it worth it? Is He worth it? It is! He is! Don’t let the devil, the world, or your flesh convince you otherwise. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Don’t make any excuses. Choose against everything here, and follow Jesus into eternal life! Amen.

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Only those willing to enter by grace will participate in God’s eternal supper

Posted on June 14, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 2

1 John 3:13-18 + Luke 14:16-24

Who will inherit eternal life? Who will eat bread in the kingdom of God? Last week, we saw, in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, that it was the poor man Lazarus who had a place in Paradise, while the rich man was eternally tormented in hell. Today’s Gospel comes a little before last week’s Gospel, but we see Jesus teaching a similar message. Today, we see Him focusing more on the reason why some are lost and some are saved. Those who are saved are saved because of God’s grace alone, while those who are lost are lost because they despised God’s grace.

The context is critical.If we look back a few verses in Luke 14, Jesus was having Sabbath-Day supper at the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees, who had invited Him. He healed a man of dropsy, and the guests weren’t happy about it, because He dared to help the man on their precious Sabbath Day. Then He noticed how the guests all chose the places of honor for themselves. (We’ll focus on that account a few months from now.)Then our text begins. Then He said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

Do you understand what Jesus was teaching? He wasn’t criticizing the man simply for inviting friends to a supper. There’s nothing sinful about that. But He was teaching the man something about grace. When you invite your friends to supper, when you invite good people, popular people, rich people, worthy people to supper at your house, that’s fine, but it’s not grace. Because those people can turn around and invite you to supper, or return your kindness in some other way. You gave them something, with at least the hope or maybe even the expectation that they’ll give you something in return. And so, in giving this supper to them, you haven’t really given away anything. You’re only exchanging one supper today for another supper tomorrow. In the end, neither one actually gains anything, and neither one actually gives up anything. It’s more like an even trade.

Grace, on the other hand, is to give something away freely and generously, expecting nothing in return. No, more than that. It’s to give something away freely, knowing full well that the recipients of your gift will most certainly never be able to repay you for it. It’s goodness shown for goodness’ sake. It’s about giving away things on the side of the giver, and about receiving gifts on the side of the recipient, which is what would happen if you prepared a feast, as Jesus suggested, for the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. You would be doing all the giving; they would be doing all the receiving. But, Jesus says, there is Another, there is Someone Else who is watching. And He will make sure that you are repaid in the end, at the resurrection of the just—repaid, not by those who received your kindnesses, but by God Himself, because, by giving away free gifts, you show yourself to be truly a child of your heavenly Father, who is the God of grace.

But there was a man sitting there at the table with Jesus who wasn’t interested in all that “grace” talk. He thought he would teach a little lesson of his own to Jesus. He said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” That man clearly thought that he (and surely also his Pharisee friends at the supper with him) would be among those blessed people who will take part in God’s eternal supper in heaven. He was clearly looking forward to it! But who are the ones who actually get to take part in God’s eternal supper? Not everyone! Only those who want to receive it as a free gift. Only those who want to enter by God’s grace. In fact, those who despise God’s grace will most certainly not take part in His supper, but will spend their eternity in hell, like the rich man we saw last week in Jesus’ parable. To illustrate that truth, Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the great supper.

Then he said to him, “A certain man prepared a great supper and invited many people. And he sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come! All things are now ready!’ This is what God did for the Jews, for the people of Israel. Since the time of Abraham, he his descendants after him were invited to come into the kingdom of God through faith in God and in the coming Messiah. They were invited to wait for Christ, and, when Christ would come, to receive Him as their Lord and Christ, and so to enter into God’s supper, even in this life, to receive God’s free gift of salvation from sin and deliverance from death and the devil. It was an invitation of grace from the beginning—God’s grace, to be revealed in the person of Jesus, who was the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And one after another, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I need to go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. Please have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a woman, so I cannot come.’ One excuse after another why the invited guests couldn’t possibly come to the supper. A free gift was being offered to them—had been offered to them since the time of Abraham. But when the gift, who was Christ, finally arrived, they found better things to do.

Why? Because it wasn’t grace, it wasn’t a free gift they wanted. It was recognition the Jews (especially the Pharisees) wanted. It was a reward for their many works that they wanted. They wanted to have the kingdom of God as their wages and as their right for being such good and decent children of Abraham. They didn’t want it on Jesus’ terms, which were (and still are) recognition of and repentance for their badness before God’s holy law, and faith in Him as the One who insisted on (and still insists on) being their righteousness before God.

Is it any different today? Most people want to offer God their terms for entry into heaven, and if He doesn’t like their terms, or if He dares to criticize their works and call out their sins, then He’s not worth their time. They’ll find a different god to worship as they go right on living in their sins and indulging their evil desires. Of course, that god would be a false god. And a false god can’t save anyone from the true God’s wrath that is coming upon all sinners.

The thing is, the true God doesn’t want to pour out wrath on sinners. He sent His Son into the world to save sinners, to save the world, to suffer for our sins and to pay the penalty for them. He offers eternal life as a gift of His grace through faith in Christ Jesus. And He wants all people to take advantage of that gift, to come to Christ and so be counted no longer as sinners but as saints through faith alone in Christ Jesus. We see that in the next part of Jesus’ parable.

“So the servant came and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring the poor, and the crippled, and the lame, and the blind in here.’ And the servant said, ‘Lord, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ Then the lord said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited will taste my supper.’” See, this is how God wants people to enter His kingdom. He does what He told the host at the supper to do: He calls the poor, the lame, the maimed, and the blind. That is, He calls people who are not worthy, who can’t even begin to repay Him, who need His grace, and who will receive it through Christ.

In reality, no one can repay God. He is the Owner of all things. No one is worthy, because all have broken His commandments and His laws. No one, by nature, worships Him with true fear, love and trust. No one gives His name and His word the honor they deserve. No one respects God-given authority as they ought, or protects the life of the innocent, or remains sexually pure, or is content with what he has, or guards his neighbor’s reputation, or keeps his desires and passions in check—not with the holiness that God’s law requires. That’s why everyone needs His grace—grace that is offered to all, the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Christ crucified.

Many despise God’s grace and will not submit to it or listen to what Jesus has to say. They will not taste God’s supper. They will not see eternal life, not because God didn’t want them there, but because He only wants people there who wish to enter by the path of His grace, by the way of His beloved Son. Be among those people! Recognize yourself among the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, who are called and urged to the supper, and then enter, by grace, through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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