This is how God forgives sins

Posted on October 15, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 19

Ephesians 4:22-28  +  Matthew 9:1-8

Last week we heard Jesus’ answer to the question about the greatest commandment in the Law: You shall love the Lord with all your heart, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But, as we discussed, the greatest commandment is still not the greatest teaching in the Bible. The greatest teaching is the Gospel: how Jesus, the Christ, by His perfect life and by His innocent death on the cross, earned the forgiveness of sins for all who have broken the greatest commandments, and how the Lord now promises to forgive sins to all who believe in Jesus. We see a brilliant example of the forgiveness of sins taking place in today’s Gospel—what it is, how it takes place, and who has the authority to forgive.

We’re told that Jesus came to His own city. Now, we think first of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. He’s known, after all, as Jesus of Nazareth. But, as Mark and Luke make clear, “His own city” is no longer Nazareth. It’s now Capernaum. Because not too long before this, the people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, tried to kill Him, tried to throw Him right over a cliff. But Jesus is more than welcome in Capernaum. So welcome, in fact, that the people crowded into the house where He was teaching, crowded in so tightly that there was standing room only. That made it impossible for the four men carrying the stretcher with the paralytic on it to get in to see Jesus. So they climbed up on the roof of the house, hoisted the stretcher up to the roof, dug a hole through the roof, and lowered the paralyzed man down through the hole in the roof to where Jesus was.

What an amazing scene that must have been! But Matthew doesn’t bother with those details that Mark and Luke record. The way they entered Jesus’ presence wasn’t the important part of the story. What happened next was.

When he saw their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.”

You heard those same words this morning after you confessed your sins and your faith in Christ Jesus. Let’s take a step back and look at what it means to forgive sins.

There is such a thing as personal forgiveness. When someone hurts you in some way, you either hold it against them, so that your relationship with them remains fractured, or you forgive them and your relationship is repaired, although some consequences of the sin may remain.

That’s not what Jesus was doing in today’s Gospel, offering personal forgiveness. The paralytic hadn’t sinned against Jesus personally, not against Jesus the man. He had sinned against God directly, as all people have, and he had surely also sinned against other people, which is also a sin against God. He, like everyone else, had broken the greatest commandments in the Law, and, as a sinner, he deserved to remain separated from God for eternity. He deserved to die.

But Jesus takes all the man’s sins committed against God and against other men, lumps them all together, and simply says, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you!” Or, in other words, “You’re forgiven for all the wrongs that you’ve done!”

What does that mean, “You’re forgiven”? It means, God will not hold your sins against you anymore. God, the holy Judge, hereby releases you from your guilt and from the punishment you deserve for your sins. You are no longer condemned. You are no longer a subject of the devil’s kingdom. You are no longer going to hell. No, you are justified before God. You are declared righteous in God’s courtroom. You are now a subject of God’s kingdom, a beloved child of the heavenly Father, a member of Christ, an heir of eternal life. All of that is included in the statement, “Your sins are forgiven you.”

Are there any conditions given for this forgiveness? Not a condition, as in, “You have to do something first to earn it!” No, there’s a reason why the Holy Spirit sets a paralytic before us as a prime candidate for receiving the forgiveness of sins. Like paralytics, we are unable to move, unable to earn the forgiveness of sins. But there is a condition, or a component, or an ingredient that does have to be there. All three Gospel writers give us this key detail: When Jesus saw their faith. The Holy Spirit had all three Evangelists record this event and this specific part of the event, because it’s important. When we’re talking about forgiving sins, faith is an essential part of it.

And what is faith? It’s the confidence of the heart that Jesus is good and merciful, willing and able to help, and always faithful to His Word and promise. And faith isn’t our work or our contribution to our forgiveness. It’s simply the thing that has to be there, and it’s worked by God the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the word of Christ. This is why it’s stated so clearly in Scripture that a person is justified before God by faith in Christ Jesus and not by any works of the Law.

That’s so different from what the world thinks is the path to God. Just do your best. Just be a better person today than you were yesterday, and you’ll be fine. Just love everyone. I assure you, that is what the unbelievers in your life think. They probably even think that’s what the Christian faith is all about. So why bother being a Christian? Just be a good person, and you’ll be fine. But you have to tell them the truth. If they would really please God by doing good things, then they’d have to be a whole lot better than they are now. Impossibly better. No, it’s not a person’s record of being good enough that will ever get them to be accepted by God. It’s only faith in Christ Jesus.

And contrition necessarily comes before faith. What does a person have faith in Jesus for or to do? For the forgiveness of sins. That implies that you acknowledge you have sins to forgive. If you want God’s acceptance through faith in Christ, that means you acknowledge you’re not acceptable as you are. And if you want your sins forgiven, that implies that you no longer want to cling to them or defend them or think fondly of them. “Oh, I know that was wrong, but it was no big deal, or it was so much fun!” There can be no faith in Christ for forgiveness if you don’t hate your sin, if you don’t really want that sin to be erased from your past. But where there is contrition, where you yearn for a clean slate, and where you look to Christ in faith for that cleansing, there God is willing and eager to forgive, as Jesus did for the paralytic in our Gospel.

That leads to the other key question. Who has authority to forgive sins—to change a person’s status before God from condemned sinner to forgiven child of God?

Some of the scribes and Pharisees who were crowded into that house in Capernaum raised that issue among themselves. As Luke tells us, they were thinking to themselves, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They were exactly right about that. Only God can change a person’s status before God. What they didn’t account for was that God was standing right there in front of them. Yes, Jesus even knew their thoughts, which only God can know. And to prove His divine authority to forgive sins, Jesus asked them, Is it easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And he did, proving that Jesus, the Son of Man had authority on earth to forgive sins.

Jesus spoke of His authority in other places. The Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. All judgment. All authority. The right to grant life as He pleases, or to hold people’s sins against them. That’s why forgiveness apart from Jesus is impossible, just as forgiveness apart from faith in Jesus is impossible. He and He alone has the authority to forgive sins.

But, if all authority and all judgment has been entrusted to Jesus by God the Father, then doesn’t that mean the same Jesus has the right to share some of that authority with others, if He chooses? And He has chosen!

The text before us is actually a perfect example of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 5: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them. Now, reconciling the world to Himself doesn’t mean reconciling or forgiving the sins of everyone in the world—or everyone in the room. That’s not what Jesus did in today’s Gospel. But one by one, as the word about Christ brought people to faith, He reconciled them to God through faith. He forgave them their sins.

But then Paul goes on, and God has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Just as God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, so He has appointed ministers, who are Christ’s divine ambassadors to call sinners to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, and to forgive the penitent and believing.

So Jesus said to His apostles, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And again after His resurrection, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

And so ministers are set in place around the world by Jesus to keep carrying out this ministry of reconciliation, to keep reconciling sinners to God, first by preaching the Law to those who need to hear it, who are secure in their sins at the moment; then by preaching about Jesus, who offered Himself as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world; and then by acting in Jesus name to forgive sins to those who have faith in Jesus. We can’t “see” faith, as Jesus could, so we are left to rely on a person’s confession of faith. We practiced it again here this morning in a general way. But private confession is also available, if you wish to be reexamined according to God’s Word, have your personal confession of faith heard, and have the absolution pronounced on you directly.

Now, the Christian life doesn’t end there, receiving the forgiveness of sins from Jesus through His appointed ministers. The paralytic was healed. Then what? He got up and walked. Well, St. Paul, in today’s Epistle, touched on the “Now what?” of the Christian life. Now that you’re forgiven, now that you’ve put on the New Man and put off the Old, you get up and walk according to the New Man. Live like forgiven children of God, not like unbelieving children of the devil. You wanted forgiveness for the deeds of the Old Man, right? So why would you continue to live in those deeds? Why wouldn’t you strive to get rid of them, if you wanted forgiveness for them?

There’s much more we could say about that, but we’ll leave it for another sermon, because today’s Gospel gives us enough to think about for the moment. The Christian faith centers around Christ and the forgiveness that He earned for us on the cross and offers to us in the Word and in the Sacraments. So use the ministry of the Word that Christ has instituted! Live in repentance! Believe the Gospel! And then know that the words of Christ always apply to you: Take heart, son, daughter! Your sins are forgiven you! Amen.

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Identifying the Millennium, Part 1

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 18

Revelation 20:1-6

Finally we come to Revelation 20, possibly the most abused chapter in the whole Bible. It’s the chapter—the only chapter in the whole Bible—where we hear of a “millennial” reign, that is, a 1,000 year reign, of anyone. The word “millennium” simply means “a thousand year period.” What does this thousand year period refer to? Let’s take a closer look at the text.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan,

Not that we need to identify the angel in these verses, because it can just be a symbol of God’s action. But this particular angel or “messenger” who came down from heaven fits well with the Lord Jesus Himself. He “came down from heaven” when He was incarnate as a man. He uses that phrase about Himself in John 3. This angel has the key to the bottomless pit, just like, back in chapter 1, the Lord Jesus said, “I have the keys of Hades and of death.” The dragon is expressly identified for us as the “serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan.”

It’s what comes next that has caused so much confusion. …and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.

Let’s start with the chain. What is the chain with which the angel binds the devil? If you remember, Jesus once used similar language about the devil after casting out a demon: How can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. There Jesus compares the devil to a strong man, and Himself to a stronger man who has come in and bound the devil, allowing Jesus to pull people out of the devil’s control. Jesus was already doing this during His time on earth, culminating in His death on the cross and His ascension into heaven. That fits well with what it says here, that the devil is bound “so that he should not deceive the nations any more until the thousand years were finished.” He isn’t completely powerless during this time. He isn’t completely restricted. But prior to Jesus’ coming, the nations, that is, the Gentiles, had been so deceived by the devil that practically none of them believed in the true God. Practically all the Gentiles were in the devil’s kingdom. But after Christ came, the Gospel went out and the devil wasn’t able to keep the thousands and the millions of Gentiles from being rescued out of his kingdom and brought into the Holy Christian Church. So the chain that binds the devil during the thousand years would be the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.

The devil is bound for a thousand years, with the preaching of the Gospel continuing in the world, that whole time. Since 1,000 is 10x10x10, that number of completeness that we’ve seen throughout the book, and since these numbers are mostly symbolic anyway, the safest conclusion is that the 1,000 years aren’t a literal number of years, but the full amount of time from Christ’s ascension until the Last Day, or at least, until shortly before the Last Day. In other words, the 1,000 years is the entire New Testament period.

But after these things he must be released for a little while. It’s hard to tell if that releasing of the devil happens toward the end of the 1,000 years or right after the 1,000 years, but in the end, it doesn’t change the interpretation. Toward the end of the world, the devil has to be released for a little while, or for a short time. He has to be released to deceive the nations once again. In other words, false doctrines will proliferate, the nations will be deceived and led astray, while the preaching of the true Gospel will be so diminished in the world that it will be difficult if not impossible to find.

Jesus spoke of the same thing in the Gospels: Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold… Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect… And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. It seems clear that John’s vision is referring to the same thing Jesus was talking about. A little while at the end, a time of tribulation that is shortened, because the deceptions of the devil and the resulting tribulations will be so bad that even the elect will barely survive.

We certainly seem to be in such times. False doctrine has always been around, but it’s ramped up considerably over the last several decades. The deception has captivated the nations, like putting men under a spell. But that’s also a punishment from God, because, as Paul says in 2 Thess., people are allowed to be deceived, because they didn’t love the truth.

Let’s look at a few more verses about the thousand years:

And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

John sees thrones and someone sitting on them, and judging, serving as priests of God, and reigning with Christ for a thousand years. They are the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image. Remember, by John’s time, Christians were already starting to be persecuted and executed by the Roman Empire. St. Paul is said to have been beheaded in Rome, along with many other faithful Christians who wouldn’t worship the false gods of the Roman Empire. All the Christians saw with their eyes was death. But John is given a vision of the reality they couldn’t see. Those who had died in the faith hadn’t really died at all. Their souls lived! They reigned! They served as priests of God throughout the whole 1,000 years, throughout the whole New Testament period. As Jesus said in the Gospel of John, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And he who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

The “first resurrection” is the same one Jesus referred to back in John 5. We recently heard those words on the Sunday when we considered the raising of the young man of Nain, if you remember. It’s the one Jesus does here and now through His Word as He brings people from spiritual death to spiritual life. The “second death,” that is, eternal death in hell, has no power over those who have already been raised to spiritual life through faith in Christ.

Now, there’s more to say on these verses and on the thousand years, but I think that’s enough for tonight. We’ll pick it up here next week. For tonight, remember this: The thousand years mentioned in this chapter of Revelation represent the New Testament period. The chaining of the devil symbolized that he would be hindered for much of this New Testament period from deceiving the nations; many would come to believe in Christ Jesus. Those who come to believe take part in the first resurrection, and even after they die, even if they die a cruel death at the hands of the wicked, they aren’t dead at all. They’re reigning with Christ right now and serving as priests of God in heaven. Let these symbols and pictures fill you with hope and comfort and encouragement! Amen.

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The greatest commandment is not the greatest teaching

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 18

1 Corinthians 1:4-9  +  Matthew 22:34-46

In our Gospel today, which took place during Holy Week, while some of the very Pharisees Jesus was talking with were plotting to kill Him, they tested Him with that question about the greatest commandment in the law. It’s a good question, with a good answer. So we’ll consider this morning Jesus’ answer about the greatest commandment. But for as great as the commandment is, we’ll also see that the greatest commandment still isn’t the greatest teaching in the Bible.

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? What would the Teacher answer? Which of the Ten Commandments would He cite? Or would He branch out into the ceremonial laws—the commandment surrounding circumcision, or one of the sacrifices or temple rituals? Or, would He say that there is no great commandment, that the Law was no longer relevant?

Jesus’ answer shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It was at least the second time He had given a similar answer. Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” And remember, Jesus isn’t making up those two commands on the spot. He’s simply highlighting those two commands, already written in the Old Testament Scriptures, as the greatest.

What makes those two commandments the greatest? I’ll give you four different reasons.

First, because they start with the heart. You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor. Jesus once said this about the heart: Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. The heart is the source of the sins that eventually are done by the hands, or by the tongue. On the other hand, the heart also has to be the source of any true obedience toward God. Doing the right things with the hands or saying the right things with the tongue still isn’t enough. The right things have to come from a right heart. And a right heart is a heart of love.

The second thing that makes those commandments the greatest is that they start with “the Lord your God.” The neighbor is important. He makes it into the second greatest commandment. But not the first. Loving (which includes honoring and trusting in and being devoted to) God has to come first. Loving “the Lord,” as in, Yahweh, not just any god or lord, but the One who revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush, the One who chose Abraham, Isaac, and Israel and made a Testament with the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai, the One who is revealed throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. Love for Him, with the whole heart, soul, and mind—that’s the first and greatest commandment. And it serves as a dividing line between all the peoples of the earth who don’t love that God, and those who do. If the first and greatest commandment is love for that God, for the true God, as He’s revealed in the Bible, then any and all idolatry, any and all worship of any other god is by definition a sin against the greatest commandment. All atheism and agnosticism breaks this first and greatest commandment. All belief in a generic god breaks this first and greatest commandment. Meanwhile, to love this God, to be devoted to Him with the whole heart, is to keep the first and greatest commandment.

Third, these commandments are the greatest commandments because they deal, not with temporary commands, given only for a time to the people of Israel, like circumcision and all the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, but with the moral law—with God’s determination of right and wrong, with God’s will for all people of all time, from Adam and Eve to the last people who will live on the earth before the Last Day, and even beyond. Loving the Lord as your God, and then loving your neighbor as yourself have always been and always will be God’s commands to all men—commands which will even stretch into the life after this life.

Finally, these commandments are the great commandments because, as Jesus says, The whole Law depends on these two commandments, as do the Prophets. It’s crucial that we understand this.

Love doesn’t nullify or override the rest of God’s commandments. Love doesn’t trump any of God’s commandments. Love is the basis for every commandment in the Old Testament, for every teaching in the Old Testament, for everything God did and for everything God required of the people of Israel. Love for Him with the whole heart, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. That’s why every one of Luther’s explanations of the Ten Commandments begins, “We should fear and love God, that…,” because each commandment is simply an application of the greatest commandments.

So, for example, when God gave commandments forbidding extramarital sexual relations, or homosexuality, it’s absurd to come along now and say, “Yeah, but we’re supposed to love people, so those commandments don’t apply anymore! All that matters is love!” No, love was already there in those commandments. In fact, to engage in those sinful activities is the opposite of love, regardless of how people feel about each other. If a person truly loved God and their neighbor, they wouldn’t engage in those activities. Period. They wouldn’t commit those sins—or any sins at all! Everyone would worship the true God. Everyone would use His name rightly, to praise and thank Him and to ask for His help. Everyone would know and believe His Word and honor the ministry of it. Everyone would honor their parents and those in authority over them. No one would murder anyone or harm anyone. Everyone would love and cherish his spouse. No one would steal. No one would badmouth anyone or lie about anyone. And no one would covet the riches or the possessions (or the spouses) of other people. People in society would respect each other, there would be no war, no violence, no perversion, no threat. There would only be love for the Lord our God, and love for our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Yes, those are the two greatest commandments. But, you see the problem, don’t you? That’s not the world we live in. It’s never been the world we live in, not anywhere, ever. It never described the conditions in Israel. It certainly didn’t describe the socialist or communist “paradises” that have been tried. It has never even described the conditions in the Christian Church.

Why? Because it doesn’t address the real problem of humanity. Our problem is not that we don’t have the right laws, or that we don’t know the great commandments. Our problem is that, even knowing the greatest commandments, we are unable and/or unwilling to keep them as they were meant to be kept. The greatest commandments tell us exactly what to do, but they have no power to produce the love they demand, and they have no power at all to save.

That’s why the Lord wasn’t content to give Israel great and awesome commandments. He also gave promises of help and salvation to those who broke His commandments. King David certainly didn’t keep the great commandments, not always. For all the good he is known for, he is still well-known for some of his massive failures to love the Lord his God and to love his neighbor as himself, even resorting to adultery, murder, and lies. So God made a promise to David, a promise that’s repeated in various forms throughout the Old Testament. He would send an offspring of David, a Seed, a distant Son. That’s what Jesus brings up in the second part of today’s Gospel.

“What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” They said to him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How then does David, in the Spirit, call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?”’ Now, if David calls him Lord, how is he David’s Son?” They couldn’t answer. They had never thought it through. They were so focused on the Law that they overlooked the promises. They overlooked the Gospel.

The Gospel is that God promised from the beginning of the world to send a Savior for the human race, because since the fall into sin we haven’t been the loving creatures God made us to be. That Savior would be a man, an offspring of Adam and Eve, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of King David. But He would be more than a man. David calls Him his “Lord” in the Psalm Jesus quoted, Psalm 110. The Savior would be true God, the Son of God. He would keep the greatest commandments in our place, and then die in our place, to earn for us the forgiveness of sins—forgiveness for all our failure to love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves. The Gospel is the promise that all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of David who is also David’s Lord, will be forgiven, will be saved from sin, death, and the devil, will be made children of God and heirs of eternal life—all through faith in Christ Jesus. This is the greatest teaching in the Bible. It’s the purpose of everything, of the entire history of the world. It was all pointing to the One who would come to save us from our failure to keep the greatest commandments.

The Pharisees rejected this greatest teaching. They rejected Jesus as the Christ and, later that week, helped to put Him up on a cross. But in doing that, they unwittingly became part of God’s plan to bring salvation to mankind. Because Jesus rose from the dead, after suffering for the sins of the world. And, as the Psalm says, the Lord, God the Father, sat Jesus down at His right hand and made Him ruler over all things as He puts all His enemies under His feet.

For breaking God’s greatest commandments, you and I deserve to remain His enemies. We deserve to be put under the feet of King Jesus. But instead, He calls out to each and every penitent sinner, “Don’t be afraid! Trust in Me! I died for you! And instead of putting you under My feet as My enemies, I’ll raise you up to sit with Me on My throne!”

Trust in the Lord Jesus! Receive God’s forgiveness for your sins! And then, spend the rest of your life learning to walk according to God’s greatest commandments, as imitators of the Lord Jesus, as those who rely, not on the greatest commandments to be saved, but on God’s greatest teaching, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of David—David’s Lord, and ours. Amen.

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The Rider on the white horse saves the day

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 17

Revelation 19:11-21

Several weeks ago we talked about the battle of Armageddon that never was. It didn’t happen. There was no battle, not really. The forces of evil lined up for battle, but they didn’t actually get the chance to fight, because God just came in and wiped them out. We see the same thing pictured before us this evening in slightly different language.

First we encounter a rider on a white horse. This isn’t our first encounter with Him. In John’s vision of the four horsemen, the rider on the white horse was just starting to ride out to conquer. He wore a stephanos, a wreath-crown on his head, showing that He would be victorious. We identified that rider as the Lord Jesus, who would spend the New Testament era building His Church through the preaching of His Gospel. Now we encounter Him again in this vision, and there can be no question that it represents Jesus.

The rider was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. Those same names had been applied to Jesus earlier in Revelation. Now His faithfulness and truth would be seen in making war against the forces of evil. It will be a just war, even as His judgment against His enemies is perfectly just and righteous.

His eyes were like a flame of fire, just as Jesus was described back in chapter one, representing His omniscience, and on His head were many crowns. These are the diadems, the crowns of the great emperors and symbols of claims to divinity. He wears many of them, because He has now spent the New Testament era expanding the “empire” of His Church, and His Gospel has conquered the whole earth, bringing in the elect from every nation.

He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. A name describes a person. Jesus has many descriptions that are revealed to us, but there are also things about Jesus that we simply cannot know or comprehend—how He can be true God and Man in one Person, for example. But we don’t have to know everything about Him. We only have to know the things He has revealed in His Word.

He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood. This isn’t His own blood. It’s reference to a prophecy about the Christ’s final victory over all His enemies, recorded in the book of Isaiah: . Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, And the year of My redeemed has come. I looked, but there was no one to help, And I wondered That there was no one to uphold; Therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me; And My own fury, it sustained Me. I have trodden down the peoples in My anger, Made them drunk in My fury, And brought down their strength to the earth.”

And His name is called The Word of God. There was that one name written on the rider that only He knows. But we have been told many of His names, including this famous one which only John uses: in His Gospel, in his first Epistle, and here in Revelation.

And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. This could be the angel armies. Or it could be all believers in heaven and on earth, lined up behind Christ the King, which, I think, makes the most sense. Fine linen, white and clean, was given earlier to the Bride of the Lamb, and all the saints were wearing white robes in earlier visions. But in the end, the armies don’t do any fighting. The rider on the white horse does it all Himself.

Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Christ alone does the fighting with the sword that goes out of His mouth. That is the instrument of creation. It’s the instrument by which God upholds the universe. It’s the instrument with which God brings people from spiritual death to spiritual life, with which He sustains the faith of His people and calls the wanderers back to repentance. And it will finally be the instrument by which God brings all His enemies to justice, just as Paul says about the Antichrist in 2 Thess. 2 that the Lord will consume him with the breath of His mouth and destroy him with the brightness of His coming.

And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. There’s another name we are allowed to know. The rider on the white horse is King of kings and Lord of lords, the highest King, the highest Lord, who is King and Lord over everyone else who is called king or lord in the universe, whether human or angel or demon.

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.” Usually when we hear about a supper that God provides, including the Lord’s Supper, it’s a pleasant thing, intended for all people to come and eat the good things the Lord will provide, both physical and spiritual—the blessings He offers the world in the Person of Christ. But not here. Only the birds of prey are invited to this supper, because it’s a supper of flesh, a supper of God’s enemies. And yes, this is a graphic and gory picture. But so have been the executions of Christian martyrs over the millennia. All the violence that men have done will be brought down on their own heads in the end. They get away with it now, but they won’t in the end.

And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. All God’s enemies—the secular Antichrist and the ecclesiastical Antichrist (the one within the Christian Church), together with the kings of the earth and their armies—are all gathered together to fight against God and against His army. This is no battle that would take place with guns or tanks or bombs, just as Christ won’t really return riding on a horse. These are all pictures of how God’s enemies will be lined up against Him and His true Church, determined to get rid of us once and for all. And I have to say, it seems like the world is alrighty lining up for battle. Between the secularists who openly deny God and want society to move on from religion entirely, and those, on the other hand, who still profess to believe in God but promote a false version of Him, with different standards of right and wrong and with a different way of being saved than through faith in Christ Jesus, most of the world has already gathered together for battle.

But there will be no actual battle. After all God’s enemies are gathered together against Him and His army, what happens? Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.

When the world is finally ready to be done with the Lord and with His people, the Last Day will come upon them like a thief. The rider on the white horse will save the day. The Lord Jesus will come, with His holy angels, and with a word He’ll raise the dead. The sleeping saints will be reunited with their bodies and gathered to the Lord. The living saints will be perfected and gathered to the Lord and to them. And the Lord Himself will fight for us. With a word, He’ll bring destruction on all our enemies and send them to eternal punishment in the lake of fire burning with brimstone, otherwise known as hell.

Once again we’re confronted with the main message of the book of Revelation. The world will line up against Christ and His Church. Injustice will prevail on earth for a time, and it will look like the true Church can’t possibly survive. But be faithful until the end. Don’t lose hope. Don’t lose heart. Because in the end the Lord comes, and we win. And Jesus will come riding in on that famous white horse to save the day. Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Amen.

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Love focuses outward

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 17

Ephesians 4:1-6  +  Luke 14:1-11

When God made Adam and Eve, He made them in His own likeness and image, which means, as we discussed recently in Bible class, that they had true knowledge of God and were truly righteous and holy like God. One of the key components of that righteousness is love, and one of the most basic traits of love is that it focuses outward, away from oneself. Love focuses, first, on God—who He is, what He thinks, what He has said and done, what He wants done. And love focuses, second, on the neighbor—what he or she needs, what would benefit him or her. That doesn’t mean we’re to have no concern at all for ourselves. After all, God says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” But the focus is outward, toward God first and toward the neighbor second, so that we spend very little time thinking about me—what I think, what I want, what I’m suffering, or what I might suffer if I serve God and my neighbor. Love doesn’t waste time dwelling on how great I am, or what a failure I am. It doesn’t have time to dwell on those things. There are too many other people to focus on. “What does God say? What would help the people around me?” These are the questions God would have us focus on. To live like that is to live in love, which is also to live in humility. That’s how God made us to be.

But since the fall into sin, it isn’t who we are, by nature. One of the main effects of sin on our race is that it has taken that outward focus of love and curved it inward, so that by nature we spend most of our time worrying about what I think, what I want, what I need, what I’m suffering, what I’m going through, how great I am, or how worthless I am. I think I’ve told you before that one of my teachers used to call this, “navel-gazing,” staring at your own belly button, focusing on yourself. We’re all prone to that. It’s one of the defining characteristics of sinners, in fact.

But Jesus wasn’t—wasn’t a sinner, wasn’t prone to navel-gazing. His focus was always outward, toward His Father in heaven, and toward the rest of humanity whom He came to save at great cost to Himself. He shows us in today’s Gospel the importance of an outward focus for God’s people.

It was a Sabbath Day. Jesus was invited to a meal at the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were notoriously focused on themselves, how obedient they were, how much godlier they were than others. There was a sick man there, a man who had dropsy. Jesus planned to heal him, but first, He wanted to guide the Pharisees and the other guests to understand this outward focus. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?, He asked. They remained silent. Not a word. They didn’t turn first to God, to see what He said about it in His Word. (If they had, they would have realized that God never forbade helping your neighbor on the Sabbath Day.) Instead, they turned inward. They made the Sabbath to be about themselves, their obedience to God’s commandment to rest on that day. They didn’t want to see anyone healed on the Sabbath. But they couldn’t come right out and say that, or they would have looked just as self-centered and mean spirited as they actually were. So they remained silent.

Jesus healed the man and let him go. Then He asked them, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer Him regarding these things. Of course, all of them would have helped their own animal on that day. But, again, they couldn’t admit that, because it would show that they had more concern for their animal than they did for their fellow Israelite who was suffering.

The fact is, God made the Sabbath day to emphasize that outward focus, on God, on His Word, and on the neighbor. The Sabbath rest was not designed so that the Israelites could look at themselves resting, could focus on themselves obeying the commandment, but on their workers who needed a break, on their family members who needed a break from work. My neighbor needs rest! My animals need rest! God’s Word must be heard! The ministry must be used! The needy must be helped! Every other day, the focus, by necessity, perhaps, was more about, my work, my chores, my needs. But one day a week, they were to focus exclusively on God’s word and their neighbors need. So not only did the Law permit healing on the Sabbath. It actually required it—if healing were in your power.

So Jesus’ kindness and compassion for the man with dropsy show us what true, humble, outward-focused love toward the neighbor looks like, and at the same time it highlighted the self-centeredness and inward focus of the Pharisees.

Then we come to the second part of our Gospel. At the same meal, Jesus noticed how the guests chose the best places for themselves. In their culture, the seating arrangement at a banquet said something about how important or how unimportant a guest was. And all these guests seemed to think of themselves as more important than the rest, as deserving of the best spot available. Again, focused inward, on their own importance.

But where should they have been focused? On the one who invited them! Gratitude toward the host for inviting them at all! And deference to the host’s decision about where each guest should sit. He’s the one you should be focused on. And since God is the Host of the heavenly banquet, and the King of His kingdom, which is the holy Christian Church, He will determine where each one belongs. And Jesus tells us here what pleases Him and what displeases Him.

It displeases God when we exalt ourselves, when we raise ourselves up in His presence, when we put ourselves ahead of others, when we make ourselves the judges of ourselves. Leave that to Me, He says. Leave it to Me to decide. Let Me be the Judge, because I am the Judge and I will determine where each one belongs. As for you, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’

How do you choose the lowest place before God? You admit, as you did in the confession of sins today, that you are a poor miserable sinner who has justly deserved His wrath and punishment. That means you admit that you’re no more worthy of His grace and mercy than anyone else. In fact, you see yourself as “chief of sinners.” That goes contrary to what our sinful nature wants. The most natural thing is to choose a place in the middle. No, I’m not the most deserving out there, but surely I’m not the least deserving! I’ll go over here to the middle and choose a place for myself. But no, Jesus says. That’s wrong, and dangerous, too. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. No, go and sit down in the lowest place. Admit before God and man that you are the least deserving, because you haven’t maintained that outward focus toward God and your neighbor that God demands. Not even close. You’ve spent more than a little time focused first on what you need, how you’ve been treated, how you’re suffering, what you deserve, how great you are, or how wretched you are. It’s time to let God be the Judge, and that means lowering yourself all the way down to the bottom of the heap before Him.

For those who do, Jesus makes an amazing promise: He who humbles himself will be exalted. There are no if’s or maybe’s about that promise. Admit your unworthiness before God, confess your curved, inward focus. Look to God, not for recognition of how worthy you are, but only for His mercy in Christ Jesus. And God will exalt you. He will lift you up. He will forgive you your sins and give you a place of honor in His kingdom, a good place, the right place, a place of His choosing, a place with Him.

And He’ll do all this, because Jesus, your Substitute, maintained His outward focus on God and on His neighbor for you, in your place. He maintained it all the way through Holy Week and up to the cross, never flinching, never crying out, “What about Me? What about what I deserve?” It was all, every moment of it, every drop of blood, spent yearning to fulfill His Father’s will, yearning to earn mankind’s salvation.

As a new person in Christ, that is the example you have also been called to imitate. Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There it is, the outward focus on your neighbor, and especially on your fellow Christian. It’s hard not to worry about yourself. It’s hard not to focus on your own successes and on your own failures. It’s hard to look up, away from your own belly button. But God, right now, is gently lifting up your head to stop worrying about yourself, to stop complaining, to see only the people around you—your family, your church, your neighbor. And He lifts your head even higher, to see Him, and to know that Christ, your Savior, and God, your Father, is not focused on Himself at all, but on you. One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. You, focused on Him, He, focused on you, with the promise to raise you up and give you all you need—what need do you have to focus on yourself? Amen.

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