The testimony about Jesus and its consequences

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Exaudi – the Sunday after Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

For forty days the Paschal candle was lit during our services here, until it was extinguished this past Thursday when we celebrated Jesus’ ascension into heaven. As I said after the service, it seems a little strange, not having it lit anymore. Imagine how Jesus’ disciples felt during those strange ten days between Jesus’ Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. It was a strange time of limbo, a time for those 120 Christians to do little else but pray and wait.

The eleven apostles didn’t know how long they’d have to wait, but they knew, more or less, what they were waiting for. They were waiting for the Helper, for the Holy Spirit to come to them. They were waiting for what Jesus’ promised: for the testimony of the Holy Spirit—the testimony about Jesus!—and for the beginning of their testimony, too, and for the terrible consequences of it that Jesus referred to in today’s Gospel. That testimony now belongs to us, to the Church that’s built upon it and that still holds it out to the world. That means that the consequences of the testimony also belong to us. But so does the help of the Helper.

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit after His ascension. He would send Him “from the Father,” because that’s how it works in the Holy Trinity. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, but also from the Son, as we confess in the Nicene Creed, in the sense that the Son is responsible for sending Him into the world from the Father. The Spirit’s work is to testify. But this is important: Notice what the content of His testimony is: “He will testify about Me.” The Spirit’s testimony is about Jesus. He tells what He has seen and heard about Jesus, and, as a Person of the Holy Trinity, the Spirit knows Jesus perfectly. He testified about Jesus throughout the Old Testament and throughout the New. When He spoke by the prophets in the Old Testament, the focus was always on the coming Christ. Now it’s on the Christ who has come. Any supposed testimony of the Holy Spirit that doesn’t focus on Jesus, or that doesn’t tell the truth about Jesus, isn’t coming from the Holy Spirit, but from an unholy spirit.

How would the Spirit of truth testify about Jesus? He would do it in three ways. First, through signs and wonders and various miracles, starting with the miracles of the Day of Pentecost which we’ll consider next week. It was about Jesus, because those signs were always connected to the apostles’ preaching about Jesus, the message that He was the promised Christ, that He suffered for our sins, that He was raised to life for our justification, that He has ascended on high and reigns over all things at the Father’s right hand, that He will return one day for judgment. This outward testimony of the Spirit was important as the apostles began to spread the Gospel throughout the world. But it was temporary; that testimony has been given. It’s done.

There is another testimony of the Spirit, in the hearts of the apostles, enabling them to teach (and to write!) about Jesus correctly. He guided them into all truth, as Jesus said He would. He emboldened them to preach the Gospel of Jesus with new-found courage and conviction—just as He had done, by the way, with the Old Testament prophets, as Peter writes: the Spirit of Christ who was in [the prophets] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Then there is the testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of the hearers of the Gospel as He works through the preaching of the Word, enabling the hearers to believe and understand the Gospel of Jesus. As Paul writes, No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And again, The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, enabling us to cry out to God as our dear Father. You can be confident that, whenever the Gospel is preached, the Spirit is there with His divine testimony, working to convict, to convince, to comfort, and to strengthen our faith in Jesus.

But the Spirit doesn’t testify alone. It’s always connected with that preaching. Jesus goes on in our Gospel, And you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. These words aren’t spoken to all people. They’re spoken to the apostles who were “with Jesus from the beginning.” Theirs is the eyewitness testimony, the testimony on which the Church is founded, together with that of the Old Testament prophets. And, just like the Old Testament prophets, the apostles recorded for us the very words that the Holy Spirit gave them and has faithfully preserved for us in the holy Bible.

You and I cannot offer such testimony. We were not eyewitnesses to everything Jesus said and did, or to His death, or to His resurrection. We can testify to the faith that each of us has in that testimony. We can and should tell the world that we have been convinced that the apostles’ testimony is true, and that Jesus is risen and reigning and returning. But when we invite people to church, when we invite people to know the Lord Jesus, we’re not inviting them to come and hear our testimony. We’re inviting them to come and hear the testimony of the Holy Spirit, through the testimony of the apostles (and prophets), through the Church that has been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief Cornerstone.

The testifying that the apostles would do was essential. Without it, there would be no Christian Church. But their testifying would not be without consequences. And Jesus wasn’t about to hide those consequences from them.

They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is rendering service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me.

If the Holy Spirit was testifying about Christ in the Old Testament, and if He would continue that testimony in the New Testament era, then you see that the Old Testament Church is really the same Church as the New Testament Church. But, as Jesus predicts here, most of the Jewish people would reject Him and His apostles after Him, proving that they never really knew God the Father rightly, that their version of the Jewish religion was a sham. And they would keep up the sham. They would keep their synagogues. They would hold onto customs and rituals and traditions of the Old Testament. But their Christ-less religion would not tolerate the preachers whom Christ sent out. The synagogues should have naturally turned into Christian churches when the Spirit and the apostles testified there, but instead, the Christ-less Jews would excommunicate the Christian Jews from the synagogues. And they would go further than that. They would persecute and execute the apostles and many who believed the testimony of the apostles, thinking they were serving God as they did it. But they weren’t serving God, Jesus says. They have not known the Father nor Me.

Now, you and I can’t be put out of the synagogues. We didn’t grow up attending one like the apostles did. (Like Jesus Himself did!) But the testimony about Jesus that we believe, the testimony about Jesus that we confess in the world, still draws hatred from Jews and Gentiles alike.

I recently read about a Christian pastor in a foreign country (somewhere in Asia, I think) who requires people to answer a set of questions prior to being baptized. The first question on the list was, “Are you willing to be put to death for being baptized as a Christian?” Another question: “Are you willing to be mocked and ridiculed in the marketplace for being a Christian?” Another: “Are you willing to lose your job for the sake of Christ?” Another question: “Are you ready to be disowned by your father?” I want you to really think about those questions, and your answer to them. Because, over the centuries, Christians have had to face some or all of these consequences for their testimony about Christ. It’s not unexpected. It shouldn’t be unexpected. Remember that I told you beforehand, Jesus says. And when it happens, we shouldn’t be like the student protesters this week who went on a hunger strike…and then complained about how unfair it is that they’re hungry. No, when it happens, before it happens, before you spend another day calling yourself a Christian, you should know what it is you’ve signed up for (or will sign up for).

Who would testify about Jesus, knowing that consequences like these will follow? Only those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the Father’s right hand. Only those who believe that heaven is our home and that even death can’t rob us of our eternal life with Christ our Savior, who suffered the same things for us, that we might be saved from sin and death. Only those who know that the consequences of not testifying about Jesus are far worse than the consequences of testifying about Him. Because if we don’t testify, who will? And if no one does, who can be saved?

It’s a lot to ask, a lot to expect. If only we had a Helper to guide us, to strengthen us, to comfort us through it all, to testify along with us and to shore up our testimony? Ah, but we do. The Helper has come, and He is still here. And next week we’ll celebrate the day of His coming. May the Helper, the Spirit of truth, grant you all the help you need, to believe in the testimony about the Lord Jesus and to confess Him before the world, no matter what the earthly consequences may be. Amen.

 

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The tasks ahead for Christ and His Church

Posted on May 9, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

Between Mark’s Gospel and Luke’s account in the book of Acts, we get a pretty well-rounded picture of the time Jesus spent on and off with His disciples after He rose from the dead. Mark condenses it all into a single account, as if it all happened at once. But Luke makes it clear that the various things happened over the course of 40 days, between Resurrection Sunday and Ascension Thursday, as Jesus instructed His disciples about the tasks that Christians would be carrying out after His departure, during this time between His Ascension and His coming again. But if we pull together other sayings of Jesus, and of St. Paul in his Epistles, we see an outline of the tasks ahead, not only for the Church, but for Christ Himself after His ascension.

After Jesus had convinced the eleven apostles on Easter Sunday (and the week after) that He had truly risen from the dead, He immediately began giving them instructions for the tasks that awaited them in the days ahead, following His Ascension. One of those instructions, which applied only to the apostles and believers at that time, was this: To not depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, “which,” he said, “you have heard from me. For John baptized with water; but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Now, this was, by far, the easiest task Christians would have to do: simply wait. Wait to be “baptized” with the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus call it a baptism? Not to replace water baptism, since, before His ascension, He Himself had instituted water Baptism and connected a promise of salvation to it: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And it wasn’t to institute a “second baptism” that all Christians are to undergo. No, this would be a special gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit, given on the Day of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension, a gift that would “bathe” them, be “poured out” on them, which is what the word “baptize” really means. But once the Spirit was poured out on the Church, from that time forward, water Baptism included the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is what St. Peter promised to the crowds on Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is why Baptism is called the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” and why the baptized are said to be “born of water and the Spirit.” We’ll say more about that two Sundays from now.

At that point, the apostles still didn’t understand the tasks Jesus was leaving to them, or the tasks He would be doing. Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? His answer is important. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has established by his own authority. It’s not for you to know the timing of God’s plans for the future. Imagine, if the apostles had known it would be some 2,000 years or more before Christ would return. They weren’t supposed to know at that time that earthly Israel would never have the kingdom restored to it, how the nation of Israel was going to keep rejecting the Gospel of Christ, for the most part, and would therefore fade into irrelevance. They weren’t supposed to know that yet, because it would have hindered their preaching to Israel. They weren’t supposed to understand fully how the kingdom of heaven was actually going to incorporate Jews and Gentiles into a new and spiritual Israel, which is the Holy Christian Church. They weren’t supposed to know how God would turn disasters into blessings, or persecutions into growth for the Church. They understood these things eventually, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, but not yet. It wasn’t their task to know those plans or to plan for those things. It’s not for us to know the timing of God’s plans, either, or to figure out the methods the Lord will use to direct the events of the earth for the building of His Church. That isn’t your task.

It was their task, as apostles, to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, to be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It was their task, and it’s still the Church’s task, to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, to teach all nations to observe everything Christ has commanded you, to “do this,” to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, “in remembrance” of Him. It is every Christian’s task to “watch and pray,” to be “sanctified in love,” to “lead holy lives,” to be “imitators of God, as dearly loved children.” It is your task, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, to “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

All those tasks have been given by Christ to His Church to carry out during this time between His Ascension and His coming at the end of the age, all with the presence, strength, and guidance that His Holy Spirit will continue to provide. And it’s more than enough to keep us busy until Christ comes, whether it’s very, very soon, or whether it’s not during our earthly lifetime.

But He will come. He promised it, and so did the angel on the day of Christ’s Ascension. After Jesus was lifted up into the sky and hidden from the apostles’ sight, two men, two angels, in white clothing stood by them. And they said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

What does it mean that Jesus was “lifted up” and “hidden from their sight”? It means that Christ, the Head of the Church, would no longer dwell visibly with His Church, which is His body. And yet, the Head hasn’t been severed from the body, as if the Church were now decapitated. He remains the Head, firmly attached to His body, only invisibly. He is by no means far away. On the contrary, St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, He is the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And, God gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

But what are some of the tasks ahead for Christ, our Head? Well, they’re all summarized by the phrase, “seated at the right hand of God.” As Mark writes, So, then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. As we just heard from St. Paul, that’s not a “place” or “location” where Christ is enclosed, far away from us. It’s a position of power and authority as Christ “fills all things.” Paul says in Ephesians, God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet.

And what does He do with that power and authority? His first task was to pour out the gift with which He had promised to “baptize” His apostles. As Peter said, Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

What else does Scripture tell us about Christ’s tasks at God’s right hand? St. Paul comforts the Romans with this truth: It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. That means that all who repent of their sins and look to Christ for forgiveness and deliverance from God’s righteous judgment have an Advocate before the Father at all times and never need to fear, as long as they keep looking to Christ in faith.

Jesus Himself had told His disciples earlier about one of His tasks after His ascension: In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. Even now, Christ Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, is fulfilling this promise, seeing to it that you are guarded and guided through this life, seeing to it that you have everything you need to persevere in the faith, including access to the Means of Grace, to Word and Sacrament, so that you reach the mansions of heaven, as long as you use those means and don’t despise them.

In order to provide you with the Means of Grace so that you safely reach that place He’s preparing for you in heaven, the ascended Lord Christ also carries out another task. Paul writes, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men…He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. The existence of pastors is no accident, and no human design. The ministry exists in the Church because Christ gives it from the right hand of God as His tool and instrument for creating and strengthening faith. As Peter says, God has exalted Christ to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins, so that, even though the ministry is carried out by men and the Church is built and nourished and preserved through the ministry of men, Jesus could rightfully say, on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. He even confirmed the preaching of the original ministers He had sent by empowering them to perform miraculous signs, as you heard at the end of the Gospel: They went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with the accompanying signs.

Finally, the ascended Christ carries out another task in which we can take great comfort. Psalm 110 says, The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” And Paul adds in 1 Cor., For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. Do you see the enemies gathering against the Church of Christ? They’re everywhere. The devil rages. The world grows fiercer and fiercer. It’s as Isaiah prophesied:       Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. But at the right hand of God sits the ascended Lord Christ, who invisibly wages war against His enemies, so that, although they devise evil and carry out wicked plans, it must all serve for the good of those who love Him, until He conquers every enemy at His glorious return.

So truly you have nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. Your Savior reigns at the right hand of God, faithfully carrying out His tasks. So instead of worrying, instead of trying to figure everything out, just go about your own God-given tasks and wait just a little while longer. When all the tasks are finished, Christ will come again, and the reckoning will begin, and those who are still found as living stones in His holy Church will finally see the Head of the Church, to whom you’ve been united through faith all this time. And the Church and her Head will live together as Bride and Groom, happily ever after. It’s a true story. Believe it! And rejoice! Amen.

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Pray to the Father, because He loves you!

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Rogate – Easter 5

James 1:22-27  +  John 16:23-30

The National Day of Prayer came and went again this week in our country. You probably didn’t even notice, and that’s okay. The president is required each year to sign a proclamation, calling upon the citizens of the United States to pray for our country. But, who can pray? Whose prayers are acceptable to God, and whose prayers are an abomination to Him? Jesus answers those questions in today’s Gospel, for this Sunday that is historically called “Rogate Sunday” which means “Pray!” or “Ask!” Because the Church didn’t need any human Congress (or king or president) to pass a law telling us to pray. We have the only encouragement we need, coming directly from the Lord Jesus. Let’s reflect on His words in today’s Gospel.

First He mentions a different kind of asking: In that day, you will not ask me anything. “That day,” if you look back a few verses, is referring to the joyful day that begins with His resurrection from the dead and continues until the end of the world. During this time, Jesus says to His disciples, “You won’t ask Me anything.” What does He mean?

First, remember that Jesus’ disciples had been asking Him many things already on this Maundy Thursday evening, starting with Peter’s objection, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” Then, “Lord, who is it who will betray You? Where are You going? Why can I not follow You now? How can we know the way to where You’re going? How is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” And then there was the question they wanted to ask, but they were too ashamed to keep asking questions. “What is this He says, ‘A little while’? We don’t know what He’s saying.” Question after question. Because they understood so little of what He was saying to them.

Many things Jesus said to His disciples on that night were rather cryptic. As He says here in our text, I have spoken these things to you figuratively. He was intentionally not saying things plainly, because things still had to play out in a certain way over the next few days. But after His resurrection from the dead, and especially after the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost, they wouldn’t be so confused anymore. They wouldn’t have to keep asking Jesus about the things He had said. The Spirit would teach them, and then they, through their preaching and writing, would teach us! It’s through the Holy Spirit that Jesus kept His promise to His disciples, The time is coming, however, when I will no longer speak to you figuratively, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. They wouldn’t be asking Him questions anymore. First, because, after His ascension, Jesus wouldn’t be there with them in the room anymore, as He had been until this time. But that’s okay. He would tell them about the Father, even after His ascension, through the teaching that the Holy Spirit would do.

But there’s another kind of asking that Jesus wants them—and us!—to do. Truly, truly I tell you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Ask!, Jesus says. Pray! Ask the Father for things. And do it “in My name,” Jesus says. And He will give it to you. That’s a promise. But everything hinges on what it means to ask “in Jesus’ name.”

It doesn’t mean tacking on the words “in Jesus’ name” to the end of our prayers. “Father, I ask You for $1 million, in Jesus’ name.” Don’t expect to receive $1 million. In fact, don’t pray that way at all, because it’s a lie. You can’t ask for money in Jesus’ name. Why not? Because it’s not something Jesus taught you to pray for, nor is it something for which Jesus Himself ever prayed. To ask in Jesus’ name means to ask as if Jesus were the one asking the Father for it. You’ve heard the acronym, WWJD? “What would Jesus do?” Here it’s WWJAF. What would Jesus ask for?

You don’t have to guess. You just have to know Jesus from the Gospels. And from all of Scripture, for that matter, especially the Psalms. You have to know how He prayed, what His will is, how He has taught God’s people to pray all along. And how did Jesus pray? With perfect, childlike trust in His heavenly Father, trusting in His goodness, trusting Him to hear, trusting Him to care, and trusting in His wisdom to do what was best.

Knowing the Lord’s Prayer helps you to pray in Jesus’ name, because He’s the one who taught us how to pray. When Christians pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re always praying in Jesus’ name, which means we have Jesus’ promise that the Father will grant our petitions.

When we pray for any of the things God has promised in His Word, for the things He’s told us He wants us to have, we’re praying in Jesus’ name. And when we pray for things that God hasn’t told us He wants us to have, for example, when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that the Father would take that cup of suffering away from Him, we add, together with Jesus, “yet not my will, but Your will be done.” And so we are praying then, too, in Jesus’ name.

But a very important part of praying in Jesus’ name is knowing and trusting in Jesus as the One who came forth from the Father to be our Savior, as the one who is true God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. An atheist can’t ask for anything in Jesus’ name, just as no non-Christians can pray for anything in Jesus’ name. Their prayers are unacceptable to God the Father, who is well-pleased in His beloved Son and who is filled with righteous anger toward those who reject His beloved Son.

What’s even worse than trying to approach the Father apart from Jesus is when a person who has no faith in Jesus attempts to pray to God, using the name of Jesus as a disguise for his own wickedness. So, for example, when the current president of the United States, who, by his own words and actions, has proven himself to be an unbeliever, claims to know the Lord, He is taking the Lord’s name in vain. When he quotes from Holy Scripture, as he did this week again in proclaiming the National Day of Prayer, when he speaks of his Christian faith, he is breaking the Second Commandment and committing the sin of blasphemy and the sin of deception. Yes, those are strong words, strong accusations. But the current president (and, to be frank, the vast majority of those in his political party, along with a sizable number of people in the other political parties as well), openly opposes the Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings, even as he tries to deceive people into viewing him as a Christian. But the Father sees the truth. He sees their impenitence, their unbelief, and their hardened hearts. And He shuts His ears to anything they ask of Him.

On the other hand, to those who believe in Jesus, this is what He says: In that day you will ask in my name. I am not telling you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you. See what Jesus is saying here! You shouldn’t think of God the Father as a distant being out there in the universe. Nor should you think of Him as an angry Judge, or as someone who’s so busy He doesn’t have time for you. He is an angry Judge toward sinners who remain in their sin and impenitence. But to you who have loved and believed in Jesus, whom the Father sent to save you from your sins, the Father is not angry, or distant, or unapproachable. On the contrary, Jesus reveals this amazing reality: the Father loves you.

Now, this isn’t the same word used in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world.” That’s a different kind of love, a love that seeks to help people not because of who they are but in spite of who they are, a love that drives God to do good even to the wicked, to sacrifice His Son even for His enemies, in order that they might become His children. No, here in this text the word for “love” is the love of befriending, the love of friendship, of common interests, of “liking” and appreciating someone. And Jesus says to His disciples that God the Father has that kind of love for them, for you, because you have loved me, Jesus says, and have believed that I came forth from God. “You have loved Me.” Same word. The Father not only accepts us through faith in Jesus. He has befriended us because we have befriended Jesus. We consider Him our friend. We appreciate who He is and why He came, and so His Father smiles on us and appreciates who we are, too.

Of course, who we are is who He is making us to be, by His Spirit. It’s the Father who draws people to Jesus, as He said earlier in the Gospel of John: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. So if you love and believe in Jesus as the Son of God who was sent from the Father to be your Savior, then it’s because the Father drew you to Him by His Spirit in the first place. And now that He has drawn you, and called you by His Gospel, and brought you into the Church of His beloved Son, He wants you to know that He loves you, and that you always have His ear. You should never think that you can’t approach God the Father with a request, whether big or small. You should never think that He’s too busy, or that He doesn’t care, or that you aren’t as important to Him as other people are, as if you needed to pray to them, to the “important people,” so that they could go to the Father on your behalf. No, if you love and believe in Jesus, then the Father loves you and tells you to ask, in Jesus’ name, so that you may receive, and so that your joy may be full, because the God of heaven has given you free access to Him. Now just remember to use it! Amen.

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The Lord demands that we acknowledge the truth

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 4

Isaiah 46:1-13

Throughout Jesus’ state of humiliation, from His conception to His burial in the tomb, God revealed to us His humility and His meekness. But meekness and humility are not His only traits. In Isaiah 46, the LORD “boasts” about Himself, in a sense. We usually think of boasting as something negative, as a character flaw. But it’s not a flaw when our God does it. When He speaks of His greatness, He’s simply speaking the truth, and, at times, defending the truth against those who don’t wish to accept it, against those who worship false gods. Such is the case in this short chapter, where the Lord demands that we acknowledge the truth of His greatness in actually doing something to deliver His people, unlike the false gods of the nations.

We meet two of the false gods in the Babylonians here in Isaiah 46: Bel and Nebo. Bel was one of their important gods. You see his name reflected in “Belshazzar,” the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar who was eventually overthrown by the Cyrus the Persian. He’s also known as Marduk, as he’s referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Bel was their sky-god and the supreme ruler of the gods. Nebo or Nabu was another Babylonian god, the son of Bel and the god of wisdom. You see his name reflected in the name Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews captive in the first place. What does Isaiah say about Bel and Nebo?

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, A burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; They could not deliver the burden, But have themselves gone into captivity.

Normally it’s people bowing or stooping down before their god. But, in utter shame and disgrace, the statues of Bel and Nebo would be the ones “bowing down” to the Lord, because, when the Persians came in and conquered Babylon, they took the Babylonian statues of their gods and laid them face down on a cart pulled by animals through the city, as a display of shame and disgrace. The Babylonians had hoped in their gods to deliver them and carry them to victory, but instead their gods were carried away into captivity, as the Lord predicts in these verses.

“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Who have been upheld by Me from birth, Who have been carried from the womb: Even to your old age, I am He, And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you.

Now the Lord reminds what’s left of the people of Israel who He is, who the true God is. He reminds them: I have upheld you from birth. I gave birth to you, I’ve carried you since that time, and I will still be the one carrying you in your old age. We can certainly apply those beautiful words to how God carries individual believers in His fatherly arms. But these words are spoken here directly to the nation of Israel as a whole, as God’s “son” to whom He had “given birth” by choosing Jacob and making him in a great nation, how He preserved that nation through slavery in Egypt, through the conquest of Canaan, through all the bitter enemies who had threatened them and through all the wretched kings who had ruled over them. The Lord was the One who had carried them, as on eagles’ wings, and He promises to keep doing it “even to gray hairs.”

And He did, returning them safely to the land of Canaan, delivering and carrying them through still more hardships in the coming centuries, all the way up to the coming of Christ. At that point the Israel that has God’s promise of continual deliverance is not a biological nation, but a spiritual one. It’s to His Holy Christian Church that this promise now applies, to whom God speaks, “Even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made you, I will carry you, I will deliver you.”

“To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal And compare Me, that we should be alike? They lavish gold out of the bag, And weigh silver on the scales; They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; They prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it And set it in its place, and it stands; From its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer Nor save him out of his trouble.

Here’s another example of the gods being carried instead of being able to carry. People carry around a bag of gold. They hire someone to make a god out of it. Then they carry around their god on their should, set it up, and leave it there. It doesn’t move. It can’t move. It doesn’t lift a finger to help them, even if they cry out to it really loud. But no one has carried the Lord around. He is the one who carries His people. And He does move to deliver them. He acted in history to save Israel from Babylon. But more than that, He acted in history to descend to the earth in the Person of His Son, whose every action was the movement of God to save sinful mankind. Seriously, to whom will you liken God? To whom can anyone compare Him?

“Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.

Acknowledge the truth, God says to His people, especially to those who had been denying it. He is the only true God, the only God who actually speaks to His people, who acts for His people, who delivers His people, and who told them ahead of time that He would do it, from the deliverance from Egypt, which He had told Abraham about ahead of time, to the conquest of Canaan, to the captivity in Babylon, to the return from captivity (which God alludes to here again as He calls His “bird of prey from the East,” that is, Cyrus, to defeat the Babylonians), to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Christ. What is it that separates Christianity from every other religion? It’s the fact that Christianity is based on truth, that which agrees with reality. It’s a historical religion, with historical writings, and with a God who has acted in human history and who even became a part of human history.

“Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, Who are far from righteousness: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not delay. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.

Listen to Me, God says. He demands that unbelievers set aside their stubbornness and acknowledge the truth. He is the true God. And interacts with His people and comes to their aid. He placed salvation—His Son, the Christ—in Zion. And now He places His salvation in the spiritual Zion, in the Church that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Here in His Church, here through His Son, God offers His salvation, to you, and to all! That’s the truth! Amen.

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The Holy Spirit, the Truth-Teller

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Cantate – Easter 4

James 1:16-21  +  John 16:5-15

As we said last week, these weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus Ascension into heaven focus on His words spoken in the upper room, before heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s preparing His disciples for some of the challenges we’ll face in the world, before He returns at the end of the age. And the greatest help that the Church will have during this age is the help of the Holy Spirit. People today think wrongly of the Holy Spirit as a feeling that moves through the building, or as a divine whisper in the ear, or as a burden on the heart. Or, people think that the Holy Spirit is here to enable people to speak in tongues or perform some other miracle. But the role of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus, has nothing to do with those former feelings, and very little to do with those latter signs. At first, on the Day of Pentecost and at various times during the lifetime of the apostles, the Spirit’s presence was accompanied with mighty outward signs of His presence. But those signs were never His primary work. Jesus talks about two of the main works of the Holy Spirit in today’s Gospel, and these works continue throughout this New Testament period. They’re vital for the Church in this world. There is a work He does toward the world, and there is a work He does toward the Christian, and both revolve around truth-telling, because the “Spirit of truth,” as Jesus calls Him in today’s Gospel, is the true Truth-Teller.

Jesus begins by comforting His disciples in today’s Gospel. They were sad to hear that He would be going away (speaking, again, about His ascension into heaven, which would take place within 43 days). But He assures them, It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. Here we run across this title of the Holy Spirit, which means “Helper” or “Intercessor” or “Advocate” or “Comforter.” It can even have the sense of “Attorney,” and that’s essentially the work that Jesus describes in the next few verses. The Holy Spirit is like an attorney representing Jesus’ disciples, like a prosecuting attorney who makes His case against the unbelieving world.

When he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin, and regarding righteousness, and regarding judgment. Regarding sin, because they do not believe in me; regarding righteousness, because I go to my Father and you will not see me any longer; regarding judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. The word “convict” here means to speak the truth against someone, to speak the truth revealing the crimes someone has committed. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does toward the unbelieving world, not as a voice calling down from heaven, but through the preaching of the Word of God that is carried out in the world. The Holy Spirit, Jesus promises, will be working when God’s Word is preached, speaking the truth, whether the world accepts it as truth or not.

He will convict the world regarding sin, because they do not believe in me. The truth-telling Spirit speaks the truth against the world concerning their sins, because people deny their sinfulness before God. They refuse to accept God’s judgment about what’s right and wrong. And so the Spirit of truth comes along and reveals the sins that the world refuses to recognize: the sin of worshiping false gods, the sin of atheism, the sin of making up your own religion and your own “truth,” the sin of badmouthing other people and ruining their reputation, the sin of lying, the sin of coveting what doesn’t belong to you, and all the sexual sins that the world indulges in.

But the greatest sin revealed by the Holy Spirit is to not believe in Jesus as the Christ and as the Savior of the world. It’s the greatest sin, because Jesus is the Father’s greatest gift to the world, because when a person repents of his sins and believes in the Lord Jesus, all his grievous sins are washed away. But where there is no repentance and faith in Christ, then all a person’s sins are still charged to his or her account. And there will be no escaping the truth on the Last Day.

He will convict the world regarding righteousness, because I go to my Father and you will not see me any longer. The truth-telling Spirit will speak the truth against the world concerning righteousness, because no one knows what it truly is. People have their own ideas of righteousness. All the people fighting for the climate, or fighting for a woman’s right to have an abortion, or fighting for illegal immigrants, or defending homosexuality or drag queen shows, or engaging in angry, violent protests—all these people think their causes are righteous, making them righteous. But they aren’t.

Or take just your average people of the world, who do the best they can in the world. They work hard. They don’t bother anyone. They take care of their families. And many think they’re righteous because of that. But the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit is that true righteousness, the kind that God recognizes, begins with worshiping the true God and serving Him only, fearing, loving, and trusting in Him above all things. It continues with honoring His Word and the preaching of it. True righteousness then continues with loving your neighbor as God defines love. True righteousness is wrapped up in Jesus Christ, who is called in Scripture the Righteous One. It isn’t to be found in anyone else, including ourselves. It’s to be found in Jesus whom we don’t see, because He has gone to the Father, but whose ministry is still offered to us in Word and Sacrament. Here is righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, in the Gospel of Christ crucified, risen, and ascended. But the world won’t seek God’s righteousness there, and so the Spirit of truth speaks against the world’s idea of righteousness.

He will convict the world regarding judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. The truth-telling Spirit will speak the truth against the world when it comes to judgment. Not only do people claim that their sins aren’t sins. Not only do they claim to be righteous. But they also try to convince themselves that they won’t have to face God’s judgment in the end, that there is no divine judgment. There is only the here and now. But the prince of the here and now, the devil, is already judged. And God’s judgment will come upon this world, and each individual will face God’s judgment when we die. If you’re found at the judgment to be on the side of the prince of this world, then you will share his fate. But if you’re found to be taking refuge by faith in Christ Jesus, then you will stand in the judgment, and you’ll share in the victory of Christ the King.

Now, all of that will be going on during this entire New Testament period, that work of the Holy Spirit, revealing the truth to the world about the futility of unbelief. The world has tried and will try to silence that truth, to not let it be spoken or heard. But the Spirit will see to it that the truth is told, no matter what.

The other work of the Holy Spirit highlighted here by Jesus is His work among the Christians themselves. When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, that he will speak, and he will reveal to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and proclaim it to you. That work was first fulfilled among the apostles. The “speaking” that Jesus refers to here isn’t an audible kind of speaking, but the “speaking” of opening their minds and helping them to understand the meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, and of the words of Jesus Himself, allowing them to preach and teach, and eventually write down in the New Testament Gospels and Epistles, not their own ideas about what it all meant, but the truth of what it all meant. The truth-telling Spirit would “guide them into all truth.”

The Holy Spirit still carries on that work in the hearts and minds of Christians, helping us to understand the Word of God, to hear the truth and to recognize it as truth. But notice the Spirit’s focus: “He will glorify Me,” Jesus says. The Spirit isn’t out there giving random guidance about life, or about the future. He’s guiding us to know Jesus rightly and so to glorify Him in truth. That’s one way you can tell that the modern Pentecostal teachers are false teachers, because they put so much emphasis on the Holy Spirit that Jesus becomes almost an afterthought. That does not bring glory to Him. It’s also how you can tell that all these modern Christians going on and on about modern Israel as God’s chosen people are following a false spirit, not the Holy Spirit. It brings no glory to Jesus to express Christian solidarity with a nation that rejects Jesus and His Word. On the contrary, such teachings rob Christ of His glory and mislead countless Christians to minimize Jesus, and to support unbelief and earthly-mindedness instead.

But if we rely on the truth that the Holy Spirit has already told, the truth recorded in Holy Scripture, then we will not be so easily misled with the guidance of a false spirit. The better we know the Word of God and listen to the Word of God, the better we’ll be able to recognize and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

There are other works of the Holy Spirit that we’ll talk about over the coming weeks. But for today, give thanks to the Lord Jesus for these two works of the truth-telling Helper: first, for His truth-telling against the unbelieving world, which is the enemy of Christians. How do we deal with this enemy? Not with hatred. Not with anger. Certainly not with violence. But by relying on the word and power of God the Holy Spirit, who enables us to speak the truth in love, and who will see to it that the truth is heard, if not always believed. And, second, give thanks for the Spirit’s truth-telling among us, guiding us to recognize which teachings are true and which ones aren’t. We will face many challenges in these days leading up to Christ’s return, challenges from the unbelieving world, challenges in understanding God’s Word rightly amid all the false teachings and unbelief surrounding us. But we will also have the continual presence of God’s Holy Spirit, the Helper promised by Jesus. Rely on His help, and give thanks for it! Because the truth will prevail in the end! God will see to it.  Amen.

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