The Lord will not forget His people

Posted on July 17, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/986171161 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 7

Isaiah 49:14-26

This evening we restart our walk through Isaiah’s prophecy. Remember, we’re in that middle section, chapters 49-57, that focuses primarily on the deliverance God will provide through the coming Messiah. We pick it up tonight in the second half of chapter 49. In the first half, we saw a very clear prophecy about the Messiah, who is called Israel, but who will be sent to save Israel, and the Gentiles, too.

In this part of the chapter, Isaiah portrays Israel as being skeptical about all these promises of deliverance. It all sounds too good to be true. Isaiah foresees them sitting in captivity in Babylon after several decades have gone by. And they’ve almost given in to despair.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”

I’m sure it felt that way to them. I mean, how long do you have to suffer before you begin to wonder if the Lord has forsaken you? If God is even real at all? Hopefully you’ve never gotten to that point. But if you had been kidnapped and forced to live in a foreign country for 30, 40, 50, 60 years, with no rescue in sight? You might feel abandoned, forsaken. Even the Lord Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

In times like that, the only thing strong enough, sturdy enough to hold onto is a promise of God. It’s what sustained Jesus on the cross, the promise of His eventual deliverance and resurrection from the dead. It’s also what sustained the faithful in Israel through that long captivity, a promise like the one God had been speaking to them through the prophet Isaiah, a promise like the one the follows in our text:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

What a beautiful promise, and one that has sustained, not only Old Testament Israel, but Christians throughout the ages! Some of God’s Old Testament promises apply mainly to Old Testament Israel. But when God describes Himself, His own qualities, His own characteristics, those things never change. And the “you” in these sentences, while it applies directly to Israel, also applies directly to all those to whom God has committed Himself, whom God has adopted as His children, whom He has brought into His house and into His covenant. Under the Old Testament, that was Israel. Now that Christ has come, it’s all the baptized, all who believe in Christ Jesus and have been brought into His Holy Christian Church.

The Lord wants Israel to think about the love and care of a mother for her nursing child. That devotion is practically the highest form of devotion we know, as human beings. But God says here that His devotion to His people goes beyond that devotion of a mother to her little child. Even a mother may forget her little child. But God won’t forget His people, or the promises He has made to them. He wants us to picture Him with our names engraved on the palms of His hands.

Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the LORD, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does.

Your builders are coming, God promises, those who will rebuild your ruined homes, your cities, your streets, your temple that lies in ruin. You will go back to your homeland, O captive Israel, and you will remain there. Forever and ever, no matter what? No, but at least until the coming of the Christ. And after that, earthly property and country and society—what do these really matter anymore? After the Christ comes, your relationship to this world changes. It’s no longer about preserving your earthly things, your earthly home, or even your earthly life. It’s about serving Him in His kingdom and preparing for His return.

“Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land— surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.’

Here the Lord begins to broaden the scope of the promise. Yes, the city of Jerusalem would be rebuilt. Yes, the Jews would live in their homes again, back in the land of Israel. But here Isaiah pictures other residents, living side by side with the Jews. He pictures non-Jews streaming into the territory of Israel, filling it up so much that there’s no room for all the people. The borders of the land of Israel are too narrow. It’s too crowded there for all the people who will come in.

Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?’ ” Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

It’s the Gentiles, streaming into Israel, streaming, that is, into the people of Israel, into the New Testament people of God. This is what the Christ would accomplish. By shedding His blood on the cross, He would redeem all people and offer His salvation to all people. No longer would the Church of God be restricted to one nation on earth. Now it would permeate every nation on earth, and Israel would stop being a geographic location. It would turn into a worldwide fellowship of Christians.

“Kings shall be your foster fathers,” Isaiah writes. In other words, the new people of Israel, made up of both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus, will grow up in many nations, under many kings. The king, or president, doesn’t matter anymore. Because our true citizenship, as people of God, is in heaven. And earthly rulers are simply here to provide us with some measure of safety, so that we can hear the Gospel and come into the kingdom of God. The Lutherans of the 16th and 17th centuries applied that verse specifically to their Christian rulers, trying to convince them that they had a divine responsibility to take care of the Church, based on this verse. But Isaiah isn’t talking to the foreign kings here or giving them instructions. He’s simply giving Israel the good news that the New Israel founded by Christ would be multinational and far bigger than they could imagine.

Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? For thus says the LORD: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the LORD your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Israel had been prey for the Babylonians—easy prey, at that. Their armies were worthless. Their rulers were worthless. The Babylonians had conquered them easily and hadn’t lost any of their strength over the decades. They were the mighty, the tyrants. And yet here the Lord promises that He Himself would fight against the enemies of His people and would see to it that they were rescued, and that their enemies were punished.

That’s exactly what the Lord did when He worked out history to bring in the Medes and Persians at just the right time to defeat the Babylonians. And then He worked among those rulers to release the captive Israelites and allow them to return to their land. The strong men of Babylon were no match for the Stronger One in heaven.

And hopefully that reminds you of what Jesus once said about the strong man and the Stronger Man. Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? Or as Jesus put it, When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. You and I were easy prey for the devil, sinners, like the rest of men. But just as God, who is mightier than the mighty men of Babylon, stepped in to rescue His captive people, so Jesus, who is stronger that the devil in all his strength, stepped in to rescue us and to bring us out of the devil’s kingdom to the safety of His kingdom. And so the rescue of Israel from Babylon pointed ahead to our rescue from the devil. Although we still live in the devil’s territory here on earth, we are no longer members of His kingdom, through faith in Christ Jesus.

Could God now forsake us, the baptized members of His Church, while we still live in the devil’s territory? Could He forget about us here and fail to provide the help and the strength we need to make it to the end? Of course not! Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Amen.

 

Posted in Sermons | Tagged | Comments Off on The Lord will not forget His people

Baptized into the good kind of slavery

Posted on July 14, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/983968979 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 7

Romans 6:19-23  +  Mark 8:1-9

We celebrated a very special baptism today. In our classes together, Yesenia learned what it means to be baptized, and to live as a baptized Christian, and what to expect from God as a baptized Christian. But those are things we all need to keep hearing, over and over again, no matter how long ago we were baptized. And we find them embedded in today’s Scriptures lessons.

Back at the beginning of Romans 6, which we heard last Sunday, the apostle Paul gave us a little summary of what it means to be baptized. As many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death. We were all sinners who deserved to die, to be punished eternally for our sins. But instead of punishing us, God the Father punished His Son Jesus for us. He suffered the punishment we deserved. And Baptism is God’s tool for uniting us sinners to the death of His sinless Son, so that His death for our sins becomes our death for our sins. So what does it mean to be baptized? It means to be united to Christ, to be clothed with Christ, to have one’s sins washed away and forgiven, to be adopted into God’s own family as His beloved child, to be brought into the Holy Christian Church, to be made an heir of everlasting life.

But then the apostle Paul goes on in Romans 6, in the words you heard in today’s Epistle, to explain what it means to live as a baptized Christian, to walk in the new life which Christ has given us. And, while it sounds very strange to the ears of non-Christians, Paul has no problem describing the baptized life as a life of slavery, although it’s the good kind of slavery.

Now, maybe you didn’t know there was a good kind of slavery! But there is. St. Paul described it to you in today’s Epistle. He wasn’t talking about human slavery at all. He was talking about something much bigger, about a slavery that lasts into eternity. The fact is, there are only two ways to live: as slaves to sin, which is the worst kind of slavery, or as slaves to God. That’s hard for some people to hear. They like to think of themselves as free, slaves of no one, serving no one. Doing whatever they want, because they’re “free.” But we’re not free when we’re born. As Jesus Himself once said, Whoever practices sin is a slave to sin. We’re born into the slavery of sin, and most people continue to live under that slavery. Their life on earth reflects it, separated from God, and from His Word, refusing to worship Him as He commands, failing to trust in Him, and living however they want, all the while failing to realize that they’re actually trapped in the sin that they practice, in a kind of slavery that they don’t even recognize. And it won’t end well. As Paul writes, when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

But the Christian Gospel tells us how serious God was about buying us out of that slavery, how He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to suffer and die for us, to redeem us from the slavery to sin and death. He offers us Baptism as the means by which He washes us out of that slavery to sin and into His family. And then, although he calls it a “slavery” into which we’ve been baptized, he explains how good it is, to live no longer as slaves to sin and to shameful thoughts and shameful deeds, but as slaves to righteousness, slaves to goodness, slaves to God.

In other words, the baptized are called to live, not for themselves, but for God, even as Christ lived on earth, not for Himself, but for us. To live as baptized Christians, in the good kind of slavery, means living to do God’s will, as He reveals it in the Bible, not to do your own will. It means to be concerned with God’s words, His teaching, His commandments, to order your life, not so that you can have the happiest, wealthiest, healthiest, most comfortable life here on earth, but to order your life as one whose life no longer belong to you, but to God. Because it does belong to Him. Because He has redeemed us from the slavery to sin and has made us slaves to Him.

And what can God’s baptized slaves expect from Him? Not abuse. Not mistreatment. Not punishment. Not indifference. After all, Jesus received the punishment for our sins, and those who believe in Him are no longer under God’s wrath and condemnation, but are precious and dear to Him. What can we expect from God? Well, St. Paul tells us in the Epistle. Now that you have been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit leading to holiness, and the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That’s the first thing God’s baptized slaves can expect from Him: the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That’s not something we even have to wait for. Jesus says that whoever believes in Him has eternal life and has already crossed over from death to life. What we can expect in the future, though, is that, for the Christian, death becomes nothing more than a sleep, because, at the last day, there will be a resurrection of our bodies and eternal life and joy and peace in the heavenly mansions that Jesus is preparing for His slaves, whom He also calls His brothers, and His sisters, and His friends.

Today’s Gospel may, at first, seem unrelated to all this, but actually it’s a wonderful example of what the baptized can expect from our God. It gives us a little glimpse of who our Master is, the One to whom we’ve joined ourselves, the One in whose slavery we, the baptized, now live. And when we examine this God, in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ, what we see is a God of great love and compassion and goodness. That’s what we can expect from Him. We can expect from Jesus the kind of love and compassion and providence that He showed to the 4,000 people in today’s Gospel.

Now, some months earlier, Jesus had miraculously fed an even larger crowd of over 5,000 people. But the accounts are quite different, and they teach different things. The feeding of the 5,000 took place after only one day that the people spent with Jesus. And we’re told that they spent that day with Him mainly to see all the miracles He would do. They were there for the spectacle. And they weren’t too far from town. They could have gone back and eaten something, but Jesus wanted to teach them a lesson, to show them who He really was, namely, the Son of God, the “Bread” that had come down from heaven to give life to the world. But those crowds showed, at the end of the day, and on the next day, that they really weren’t interested in Jesus’ teaching, or in having Him for a Savior.

With the 4,000 in today’s Gospel, it’s different. These people hadn’t followed Jesus out into the wilderness to see a spectacle, or to get some material thing from Jesus. They didn’t need convincing about who Jesus was. These people had spent three days out in the wilderness with Jesus and would have stayed longer. These people wanted to be taught by Him, because they recognized Him as the great Teacher sent from God the Father, who was promising them the forgiveness of their sins and the free gift of eternal life through God’s mercy, not through their own toil and labor.

When Jesus looks out in our Gospel at the 4,000 people who had traveled far from their homes and had spent the last three days with Him, listening to Him and thankful for His teaching, His heart went out to them. As He told His disciples, I have compassion for the multitude, because they have already stayed with me for three days, and they have nothing to eat. And if I send them away to their homes without eating, they will faint along the way, for some of them have come a long distance. What kind of slave master is this, who cares so deeply about His slaves, who notices their hunger even before they do and who is unwilling to let them faint along the way as they return to their homes? What, is Jesus unaware that these people are sinners? No, He knows their sins, better than they do. But these sinners have come to Him for help. And He will never turn away any who come to Him for help. He will never abandon His own.

This is what the baptized can expect from our God. Dependable care and genuine compassion, yes, for our spiritual needs, for our souls, but also for our bodily needs as we make our way through the rest of this earthly life.

And what does He do about the people’s problem? He doesn’t just care for them. He takes care of them. His disciples have seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. So Jesus blesses them and divides them up and gives them to His disciples to start handing out to the thousands who are gathered there. Seven loaves turned into enough to feed them all, with enough leftover pieces to fill seven baskets.

Dependable care. Genuine compassion. And lifelong providence. These are what baptized Christians, slaves of God, can expect from Him. The providence will rarely be as miraculous as the feeding of the 4,000. But the saying, “The Lord will provide,” is absolutely accurate, in every single need you will encounter in this life, from food and clothing, to family and companionship, to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, whereby the Lord continues to provide for our souls. In His own way, in His own time, according to our needs, the Lord will provide for His people.

That doesn’t mean this life will be without its crosses, though. Jesus has been entirely upfront with us about the burdens and hardships the baptized will have to bear. As He said, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. If we Christians bear the name of Christ, we should expect to be treated in this world as Christ was treated. But even as we bear the mistreatment of the world, we also have this comfort: In the world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

This, dear Christians, this is the God into whose slavery you have been baptized, the good kind of slavery in which your Owner loves you and cares for you and has proven it by giving His Son into death, so that you might belong to Him, not for your harm, but for your good. And if you belong to Him here, in this life, then you have His promise that you will belong to Him for all eternity, and neither death nor the devil will be able to pull you out of His service. So stay close to Him! Stay close to His Word and Sacraments, so that you can both know how to serve Him and receive the strength to do it. Ask Him for whatever you need in this life! And trust that your God, in whose name you have been baptized, at whose pleasure you serve, will always, always care for you, and will always, always provide. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Baptized into the good kind of slavery

The Ten Commandments require further explanation

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/980083257 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 6

Romans 6:3-11  +  Matthew 5:20-26

The Ten Commandments have been in the news again lately. We talked about it a little bit in Bible class. A lot of people seem to think it’s a great idea to post them in elementary school classrooms in the public schools of our country. The thing is, the Ten Commandments require further explanation. Even the Jews in Jesus’ day, who grew up learning the Ten Commandments, didn’t understand them rightly. That’s why Jesus stepped in in today’s Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount and explained the Law further. In order for the Ten Commandments to be used beneficially, they first have to be read correctly, and that requires knowing some other very important things—five things, actually, two of which Jesus addresses in today’s Gospel. The rest we glean from the Epistle and from the rest of the Scriptures.

To read the Ten Commandments beneficially, you have to know, first, the context in which they were originally given. The Ten Commandments were not just dropped down out of heaven. They weren’t delivered from on high to all men. They weren’t even given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were thundered down from Mt. Sinai by God Himself to the people of Israel who were gathered at the foot of the mountain. And how had they gotten there? 430 years earlier God had made a solemn vow to Abraham to rescue his descendants from slavery in a foreign land and to return them to the Promised Land of Canaan. That foreign land turned out to be Egypt. God revealed Himself to Moses and raised up Moses and Aaron to lead the people out of Egypt with great signs and wonders and ten plagues that forced the Egyptians to let the people of Israel go. The Lord God parted the waters of the Red Sea for His people to get to safety. He destroyed the Egyptian armies. He provided food and water for them in the desert on their way to Sinai. And now, 50 days or so after He rescued the Israelites from Egypt, God begins the Ten Commandments with these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. The First Commandment makes no sense at all apart from that context. The Second Commandment—You shall not misuse the name of the Lord—makes no sense unless you know His name, Yahweh, the LORD, He-who-is, the only true God, the God of steadfast love and faithfulness who deserves to be worshiped, not only for who He is, but for the steadfast love He had shown to Israel in bringing them out of the house of bondage.

Second, to read the Ten Commandments beneficially, you have to know which parts applied specifically to Israel under the Old Testament that God established with them there at Mt. Sinai, and which parts reflect the timeless will of God for us Christians and for all people. The Third Commandment, for example, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy, had very specific applications to Old Testament Israel. Under the New Testament, it’s no longer about resting for 24 hours, from Friday evening to Saturday evening. It’s about regularly setting aside time to hear God’s Word and to honor the preaching of it. The Fourth Commandment, Honor your father and mother, has the promise added to it, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you, referring to the land of Canaan that God was giving to Israel, not to the United States of America.

Third, to read the Ten Commandments beneficially, you have to know what it actually means to keep the Ten Commandments. And this is one of the things Jesus spelled out so clearly in today’s Gospel. The Fifth Commandment simply reads, You shall not murder. Most people think that, as long as they don’t kill anyone, they’re keeping this commandment. But Jesus explains that it goes far beyond taking another person’s life. I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. So the Fifth Commandment commands not only the hands but also the heart. Hatred and anger toward your brother make you guilty of breaking the Fifth Commandment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ will be subject to the council; but whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire. Saying “Raca” to someone was a slur that carried civil penalties. The Jewish council had apparently made a law against it. Even their manmade laws prohibited certain forms of speech. But Jesus reveals that just using the hurtful phrase, “You fool!”, made a person “subject to hellfire,” as far as God is concerned. In other words, to keep the Fifth Commandment, you have to avoid, not only killing a person, but also hating and becoming angry at a person, and speaking hurtful words to him.

Jesus does the same thing with the Sixth Commandment in the verses right after our Gospel. You shall not commit adultery. To understand what it is God actually commands, you have to know what it means to commit adultery. It includes all sex outside of marriage. It includes homosexuality. It includes divorce for unscriptural reasons. But Jesus goes even further: I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. “Lusting” is the same word as “coveting,” which means to set your desires on something you’re not supposed to have. Coveting another person’s body sexually is just as sinful as coveting a person’s house is just as sinful as coveting a person’s wealth, or even a person’s life. You have to understand that all God’s commandments command the hands, and the mouth, and the heart itself. No human law can regulate such things. But God’s law can and does.

Fourth, to read the Ten Commandments beneficially, you have to know, you have to understand that God’s commandments cannot save anyone. As Jesus said in our Gospel, I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and Pharisees had about as much external righteousness, external obedience to the commandments as anyone in Israel, as anyone anywhere. But, Jesus says, it wasn’t enough. To keep the Commandments, you have to obey them also on the inside, with the mind, mouth, and heart, and you have to do it perfectly, without failing. Because, as James says, Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking all of it. But, as Scripture clearly reveals, man, since the fall of Adam, is turned away from God, unable to trust in Him and worship Him, unable to hear Him, unable to keep His commandments from the heart. The commandments command well enough, but the commandments cannot save. As Paul writes to the Romans, We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Well, if the commandments are there, primarily at least, to show us our sin, to show us how far short we fall of the true righteousness that God demands, then, finally, to read the Ten Commandments beneficially, you have to know the Gospel that can save, the power of salvation for everyone who believes. In the Gospel, Paul writes, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith,”… even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as the place of atonement, through faith, in His blood…to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

That’s the Gospel, that God has given His Son Jesus Christ to shed His blood for our sins, so that we might be saved and made righteous before God through faith in Him, not through our attempts at obeying the Ten Commandments.

You see, then, how important it is to read the Commandments correctly. Teaching people the Ten Commandments would be worse than worthless if we don’t accompany that teaching with the further explanation that the Holy Scriptures provide in both the Old and the New Testaments. At best, we would turn people into little hypocrites, little Pharisees, who seek to please God by doing enough good things and avoiding enough bad things, by being obedient enough, by being upright and moral people. But you can’t be upright and moral people until you understand that you’re already not upright and moral people by nature, until you understand that you need a Savior, until you repent of your sins, until you believe in the Savior whom God has provided to be your righteousness before God. Then, through faith in Christ, the truly Righteous One, God forgives you your sins against all His commandments. And only then can you begin, as Christians, to truly obey them, from the heart, as those who have brought by the love of God to love God, to want no other God but Him, as those who have been born again of water and the Spirit, adopted as beloved children of the heavenly Father, as those who have been buried with Christ through Baptism, into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we, too, should walk in a new life. And the Ten Commandments serve as an indispensable guide for what that new life is supposed to look like.

Without that further explanation of the Ten Commandments, in the context of the whole Bible, they do more harm than good, because, by themselves, they allow people to fool themselves into thinking that they’re godly when they’re really not. But with the explanation provided by Scripture, a Christian can use the Ten Commandments beneficially. So learn them. Post them in your home, if you like, and recite them every day. But add an explanation of them, like Luther’s explanations in the Small Catechism, which are outstanding and Scriptural. And, even better, add the Apostles’ Creed and its explanations in the Small Catechism. Add the explanations for the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and for Holy Baptism, and for the Lord’s Supper as well. Fortified with those explanations, and spurred on by faith and the Holy Spirit, you will be well-prepared disciples of Christ Jesus, ready to live more righteously than the scribes and Pharisees, as the righteous people whom God has called you to be. To that end, let us pray with the Psalmist: Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on The Ten Commandments require further explanation

Some are called to preach, all are called to discipleship

Posted on June 30, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/972452979 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 5

1 Peter 3:8-15  +  Luke 5:1-11

We use the word “vocation” to talk about different “callings” we have as Christians, although we have to understand “calling” correctly. God doesn’t call any man, for example, to be a husband. But if a man becomes a husband, then God does call on him, through the Scriptures, to behave in a certain way. The same is true for wives, fathers, mothers, children, government officials, citizens, employers, and employees. Some of these roles are chosen by us, some of them are chosen for us by God, but can’t really say that God calls or invites people into these roles.

But there are two kinds of callings or “vocations” that God does call Christians to, and those are both set before us today, the one in the Gospel, the other in the Epistle, where we learn that some Christians, some disciples are called by God to preach, and all Christians are called by God to discipleship.

We turn first to the Gospel from Luke 5. Jesus had a very important lesson to teach His early disciples. Simon Peter, James and John, (and Peter’s brother Andrew, as we learn from Matthew’s Gospel) had already met Jesus, already spent some time learning from Him, had already become His disciples. But this account recorded in Luke 5 marks the time when these four disciples went from being part-time learners to full-time seminary students.

The Lord chose as the location for His preaching the shores of the Sea of Galilee where Peter and Andrew, James and John, were docked with their boats, washing their nets after fishing all night long. Yes, He wanted to preach to the crowds. But He also wanted both to recruit His new seminary students and to teach them about the ministry to which they were being called, which, in turn, helps us to understand the office of the ministry. And if you think that doesn’t apply to you because you’re not ministers, just look at the citations on your Service Insert from the Book of Concord, where we confess just how vital the ministry is to the Christian Church. It is the means by which God the Holy Spirit works justifying faith. Without the ministry, there would be no faith. Without faith, there would be no Christians.

Now, what does Jesus do in our Gospel? First, He gets into Peter’s boat and asks him to put out a little way from the shore, so that Jesus can preach to the crowd of disciples on the shore without being smothered by them.

There’s already a lesson in that about the ministry. Just as Peter’s boat became the pulpit, while Jesus was the actual Preacher, so in the ministry of the Church, ministers’ mouths and brains and hands and hearts become the tools and instruments for Jesus to address both the world and His own precious sheep. But those tools, those pulpits, those men, are faulty and frail, even as Peter confesses himself to be at the end of our Gospel, a sinful man. That’s why we use vestments for the clergy, to hide the man and to mark the man as someone who has been called, ordained, and authorized to speak for Jesus, in spite of his personal sins and flaws, to remind us all that, when this man who has been called by Jesus speaks (according to the Word of God), it’s as if Jesus Himself were doing the preaching, just as He once preached from Simon’s boat. The man serves as the pulpit of Jesus, who wishes to rebuke sin, to call people to repentance and faith, to forgive sins, to comfort and strengthen believers, and to urge the forgiven to a new and holy life of love and obedience, who wishes to teach people about God through the minister as His pulpit.

Next, after He finished preaching to the crowds, Jesus asked Peter to put out into deeper water and to let down the nets for a catch. Peter was reluctant at first, since they had come up with nothing the night before when they were fishing on their own. Still, even though Peter didn’t understand the point of fishing at this moment, even though he didn’t expect to catch anything, he did as Jesus had said. Peter let down the net, and you know how it turned out. They didn’t just catch a few fish. Two boats struggled it make it to shore without sinking for the weight of the fish in their net.

What lessons were those first disciples to learn from those events? What lessons are there for us? First, that ministers are sent at Jesus’ own command, as Peter was. It isn’t good enough for a man to feel called by Jesus to preach. Who could ever rely on such a feeling and know for certain that it came from God? Since when do feelings qualify a person for public office, especially since that’s never how Scripture describes God’s call? No, a man has to be legitimately called to the office of the ministry. How many false teachers are out there calling themselves Christians who simply took it upon themselves to preach and teach and claim to speak for Jesus? But Peter knew he was called to let down the nets, because Jesus directly told him to do it, just as Peter knew by the end of this encounter that Jesus was calling him into the ministry when Jesus told him in no uncertain terms, “From now on you will catch men.” There were several other repetitions of that call, like when the twelve were designated “apostles,” that is, those who are sent. Or in the upper room on Easter Sunday, when Jesus told the eleven, As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you. And again on that mountain in Galilee, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching.” And finally at the Ascension, “You will be My witnesses.”

Today, Jesus calls no one directly or “immediately.” The last man called directly by Jesus was a man named Saul who is better known as the apostle Paul. Every other legitimate pastor in the Church has been called by Jesus indirectly or “mediately,” through the external call of the Church, that is, through the clergy and the laity working together to appoint a man who has been instructed, examined, and approved for ministry in the Church. Ministers are called mediately, but that doesn’t make their ministry any less valid. They still preach at Christ’s command and with His authority.

Second, we learn that the “fishing” Jesus does through the ministry of His ministers is “net fishing,” not bait fishing. Let down your nets for a catch, Jesus said. We don’t lure people in with false promises, or with fun programs, or exciting youth groups, or popular music. We preach the Gospel of Christ crucified. Period. That is, as Paul calls it, the “power of God for salvation to all who believe.” We teach God’s Word. We call to repentance and faith in Christ. We administer the Sacraments. Beyond that, we leave it to Jesus to bring people into the boat, into the Church. He has to bring them. The Father has to draw them. The Spirit has to convince them. Our own ideas, our own methods and devices may attract people to something, but it won’t be to Jesus, as we learn in the Gospel that Peter and the others caught nothing when they went fishing on their own. That was no coincidence. It was part of the lesson Jesus wanted to teach.

Third, we learn that the ministry of the Word will be successful in the world, as we see by the enormous weight of the fish in Peter’s net. What does that mean, “successful,” though? It doesn’t mean that every preaching of the Gospel will bring in boatloads of people. Here and there the Gospel is preached, sometimes bringing in thousands of people at once, as on the day of Pentecost. Sometimes bringing in no one at all, as when Jesus preached to the rich young man, or to Pontius Pilate, or when Paul preached to governors Felix and Festus and King Herod. There is no divine promise that churches will always grow and thrive with large numbers where the Gospel is preached. There is simply the divine command to preach the Word of God, and the divine assurance that God will fill the Gospel nets where and when it pleases Him, and that the collective nets being let down around the world will bring in the full number of the elect.

Some are called to preach. But all are called to discipleship.

The same Peter who was called by Jesus in today’s Gospel reminds us in today’s Epistle that all Christians have been called by God to a holy calling, even though it isn’t the call into the holy ministry. We’ll summarize it with the word, “discipleship.” In chapter 2 of his first Epistle, he said this to the Christian laity: You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. The first “calling” all Christians receive is out of darkness into the light of God’s truth, from unbelief to faith. As we say in the Catechism, God the Holy Spirit has “called me by the Gospel,” through the preaching of those whom Jesus has called to preach.

Then, in today’s Epistle, Peter shows us what that calling entails. You were called to this, he says. Called to what? To 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. This goes together with what Jesus called on His disciples to do in last week’s Gospel: to “be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” As surely as God called Peter, Andrew, James, and John to preach the Gospel, so you have all been called to this, and to do it even if you have to suffer for it. Do you think that’s not meaningful? To be like Jesus in the world? To show people a little glimpse of what God is like through your example as Christians? Friends, this is the tool the Lord often uses to make people willing to listen to the preacher, just as the bad examples of Christians often keep people away from church. You can’t do anything about the bad examples of others. But you can pursue your calling faithfully.

What else are you called to? Peter says to the Christian laity, Always be ready to give a defense, with meekness and fear, to everyone who asks you for an explanation of the hope that is in you. If you’re living according to your calling, if you’re living as one who has hope, it’s like a light shining in a dark place. People will see that light, and sometimes they’ll ask you, why? Or, how? “How is it that you have such a merciful attitude? Why do you go to church once or twice a week?” Or, for those who don’t live nearby and watch our services online, “Why don’t you just go to a nearby church? Why make such a sacrifice?” “Why do you work so hard at your job or in school? Why are you so kind and considerate? Why do you treat people with such patience and respect? Why do you still praise God when you’re suffering? Why do you seem to be at peace when the world is crumbling around you?” At that point, the Lord Jesus has made you into His pulpit, and you have a wonderful opportunity to give a defense, even a very simple one, to explain your hope in the God who has called you, who gave His Son up to be crucified for the sins of all, that all might believe in Him and have the sure hope of eternal life.

Some are called to preach. All are called to discipleship. And through preachers and lay members carrying out their callings, God will see to it that His Church is built, and that His name is hallowed, even as we confess in the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Hallowed be Thy name. How is God’s name made holy? When God’s Word is taught purely and correctly, and when we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Some are called to preach, all are called to discipleship

Full of mercy, not hypocrisy

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/966113250 w=540&h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 4

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

“Do not judge!” Jesus says. Amen. Most people would like the sermon to end there, right? That’s what many people seem to believe the Bible’s only message to be. “Do not judge!” And if you ever judge anyone for anything, you’re nothing but a hypocrite, because Jesus told you not to judge! Even some who call themselves Christians use this as an excuse to avoid calling sin a sin, as Dolly Parton recently did about the sin of homosexuality, hiding like a coward behind this saying of Jesus, “Jesus said not to judge, so I don’t judge.” But you know better. That little saying of Jesus wasn’t spoken as an absolute prohibition from making any judgment at any time. It wasn’t intended to keep us from calling sin a sin. No, it goes together with Jesus’ words that come right before it: Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. It’s part of the broader teaching in today’s Gospel as Jesus teaches His disciples to be merciful people, not hypocritical people.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Notice the phrase, “your Father”? Jesus is talking to the children of God here, to His disciples, to Christians. And when I say Christians, I’m including the faithful Jews of His day who were trusting in God’s promise to save them from sin and death through the promised Christ. He is talking to those who are already in a covenant relationship with God—through circumcision for the Jews of His day, or for us, who are in a covenant relationship with God through the New Testament form of circumcision, which is Holy Baptism. He’s talking to the Jews of His day who were practicing their religion, and to Christians of our day who are practicing ours.

If that’s not you, then the rest of Jesus’ words aren’t meant for you either.

For those who are still outside of Christ, He has no teaching about judging or condemning or forgiving or giving. No teaching about beams in your eyes or specks in your brother’s eyes. None. For that matter, His Ten Commandments aren’t intended for them, either. No, for those who are outside of Christ, God has one message: “You are already lost and condemned in your current state. And there’s not a single thing you can do to change that. No command you can obey. No instruction you can follow. Already you have despised the true God in your thoughts, words, and actions. Already you have selfishly failed to love your neighbor as God commands. You don’t know God at all, and you have no part with Him.”

But, as we saw in last week’s Gospel, God wants to have a part with the lost; He wants them to be found, to know Him and believe in Him; He is willing to be their God. He has gone WAY out of His way to make atonement for their sins and to purchase entrance into His kingdom for them and to have His Gospel preached to them, as He had it preached to us when we were all lost. So after telling them the truth about their sins and their lostness, He also calls out to them in His Word to repent and believe in Christ and to be baptized in His name so that they do come into a covenant relationship with Him, where He is their God and they are His people.

So if anyone ever tries to throw Jesus’ words in your face, “Do not judge! You’re not supposed to judge!”, you can answer, “Oh, I see you want to talk about the Son of God and mankind’s only Savior, Jesus Christ, and His instructions for His holy, blood-bought Christians. Are you one of His disciples, too?” If they say, “No,” then insist on talking first about Jesus’ message to unbelievers: “God’s judgment is coming, and there is no one righteous before God. So repent and believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, so that you will not perish eternally in the judgment that God Himself will render!” If they have no desire for that, then don’t waste your time arguing about the commands Jesus gives to His own disciples. People who don’t want to live in God’s house have no business throwing the rules of the house in the face of the people of the house. Talk about hypocrisy!

But to you who are members of the house, disciples of Christ, children of the heavenly Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, baptized into His family and into a covenant of grace and forgiveness of sins, then Jesus does have something to teach you here in today’s Gospel, as you learn the rules of the house and how to become imitators of God.

It begins and ends with mercy. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Mercy is pity for the wretched. Mercy is charity toward the needy. Mercy stands above someone who has been knocked down, whether by their own fault or by someone else’s, and instead of ignoring that person, instead of despising that person, instead of trampling that person deeper into the dust, mercy feels bad for the injured person and seeks to help. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

And here are some examples of that: Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 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.

Do not judge. Again, this isn’t a blanket prohibition from ever deciding if something is right or wrong, or from ever stating that something is sinful that God calls sinful. Christians are to do that every day. No, it means, don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, to jump into other people’s business, if it’s none of your business. Don’t pretend to know other people’s thoughts or motives, as if you could see into their hearts. Don’t assume the worst of your neighbor’s words or actions or silence, but assume the best. Don’t mercilessly make yourself the judge of other people, sitting up there on your high horse. Would you want other people to sit in judgment of you, if it isn’t their place and if they don’t have all the facts? Would you want your heavenly Father to judge you according to the strictness of His holy Law, mercilessly pointing out your every flaw, your every errant thought, your every inexact word? I don’t think so. So you shouldn’t do that to others. The fact is, God does not mercilessly judge you, but mercifully shows you your sins and then calls you to repentance and faith in Christ, so that you may be forgiven. So be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Do not condemn. If you are not to judge, you certainly are not to condemn. It’s one thing to state the truth, for example, about homosexuality, that it is sinful and rebellion against God. It’s another thing to go around angrily or arrogantly condemning people, yelling at people, making fun of people who are sinning, condemning people without mercy, as if our greatest desire were to see them burn in hell. That kind of condemnation must be avoided by God’s people. Because it’s not how we have been treated by our Father in heaven. He could rightfully condemn every single one of us. He could be condescending toward us, He could write us off as incorrigible and hopeless. Instead, He shows us mercy, each and every day. His desire is not to condemn us, but to forgive us our sins when we repent of them. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

So, that means, forgive. Forgiving is the opposite of condemning. Again, this isn’t a blanket command to forgive everyone all the time. There are times when God Himself does not forgive, when a person remains impenitent. But where there is repentance, God gives forgiveness, freely. He doesn’t keep holding a person’s sins against him. In His mercy, He absolves. He forgives, for Jesus’ sake. He intentionally overlooks our flaws. He smiles a fatherly smile on the penitent, and He expects His children to do the same, in mercy.

And also to give, free of charge, to the one in need. Be generous, not just on the outside, but from the heart. Be merciful toward the one who needs something you have that you’re able to give away. Again, that’s what your Father in heaven does. It’s what Jesus did here on earth. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

To all these commands, Jesus attaches promises of great rewards. You will not be judged. You will not be condemned. You will be forgiven. And to you it will be given in the same measure that you give. Those are incentives God offers, because He knows that we carry around our Old Man, who fights against us to keep us from obeying God’s commands. These incentives to obedience, these promises of rewards from God, are just another part of God’s mercy to us as He helps us and coaxes us along, by His Holy Spirit, to be more like Him.

Jesus concludes His instruction in the Gospel with some short parables, starting with the insanity of a blind man trying to lead a blind man. In order to be of use in guiding someone else, you yourself have to be able to see. So make sure you know the teachings of God’s holy Word. Make sure you know what’s right and wrong, and also what’s wise. And make sure you’re not living in the very sin you’re trying to lead your brother away from. Take care of your own eyesight first, before daring to lead your brother down the right path.

A disciple is not above his teacher, doesn’t go beyond his teacher. He doesn’t condemn more than his teacher does, or less. He doesn’t forgive less, or more. He doesn’t get to suffer less, either. At best, a student becomes like his teacher. So study the life of your Teacher, Jesus, to see how He helped others, how and when He condemned sin and how and when He forgave it. He didn’t go around pointing out everything that was wrong in society, even though He is the Judge of all. He didn’t condemn sinners nearly as often as He could have. And He freely gave forgiveness where there was even a hint of repentance and faith. And He freely gave, not money, but of His time, of His attention, of His compassion, of His teaching, and of His healing. If you’re a disciple of Jesus, then learn to be like Jesus.

Finally, we have the parable about the foolishness of trying to remove the speck from your brother’s eye while you have a large beam in your own eye. Before you ever go to help your brother in Christ fix a sin in his or her life, always begin by examining yourself, to make sure you’re not guilty of an even greater sin. The Pharisees criticized their brothers for the tiniest thing, for taking a few too many steps on the Sabbath Day, for not fasting properly, or for picking grains of wheat to eat as people were walking. But they missed the bigger things they themselves were guilty of, especially the grievous sin of having hearts that were merciless.

It really does begin and end with that. God’s mercy went out and sought you and found you and brought you into His house, like a shepherd finding a lost sheep. Like a woman finding a lost coin. Now He teaches you in the Gospel how to show mercy to others as you yourself have received mercy from Him, that you may be a person who is full of mercy, not hypocrisy. May God grant us all His Holy Spirit to mold us more and more into the merciful image of our Brother Jesus, and of our merciful Father in heaven. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Full of mercy, not hypocrisy