This is how God loved the world

Posted on May 31, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Pentecost

Acts 10:42-48  +  John 3:16-21

You all know John 3:16, God so loved the world… We memorize that verse. We use it often. I’ve used it often in sermons. It was sort of the basis of my justification-by-faith-alone essay. Would you believe I’ve never preached on this text before? It always comes up in the Church Year on the day after Pentecost, and we have never had a service on that day, nor have we used the assigned readings for that day on any other day. Well, this evening we don’t have time for a full treatment of the text, but that’s all right, because it really is quite simple.

Most people who believe in a generic god talk about God’s “love,” by which they basically mean that God is nice, and caring, and never judgmental or condemning, and he’ll let everyone into heaven in the end—which allows them to do whatever they want, whenever they want, always falling back on idea that “God is love.”

But Jesus tells us plainly, simply, directly what God’s love looks like. “God so loved the world.” That phrase doesn’t mean “He loved the world so much.” It means, “He loved the world in such a way that.” In other words, Jesus is about to tell Nicodemus, with whom He’s speaking here in John 3, this is how God loved the world: He gave His only-begotten Son. Now, that’s not the end of that sentence; it’s not the complete answer, but it’s the first part of it. God loved the world—the fallen world, the sinful, corrupt, selfish, me-centered, devil-serving, headed-to-hell, already-condemned world, including you and me (unless you hope to be saved from eternal death in some other way)—in such a way that He gave His only-begotten Son. You know how much is packed into that saying. The Father planned all of human history so that His Son, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, might be given to us sinful men as a man like us, given to our race forever, in order to seek and to save that which was lost. Not only that, but the Father gave His beloved Son to suffer and to die on a cross for us. That is how God loved the world.

But the sentence continues with the purpose of that giving. This is how God loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son so that (for the purpose that) whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God the Creator, the one against whom all mankind had rebelled, had placed a judgment of death on our race after Adam and Eve’s sin, because their sinful condition passes down to all their children. But that same God chose, of His own freewill, to sacrifice His beloved Son on the cross so that all the sinners in the world could escape from that death sentence and live eternally with Him, by believing in His beloved, only-begotten Son. Yes, that’s the “condition” for spending eternity with Him. You have to believe in Jesus; you have to want Jesus for a Savior; you have to want to be saved through Him alone.

Of course, we’re so far gone by nature, we couldn’t even believe in Jesus on our own. And so the God who sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, sends His Holy Spirit into the world, to call sinners by the Gospel, to persuade sinners, to enable sinners to believe in His Son. He wants us to believe. He enables us to believe. But He doesn’t force anyone or compel anyone to believe. He enables us to believe, while still allowing us not to.

For the one who believes in Christ Jesus, the sentence of condemnation and death is removed here and now. He who believes in Him is not condemned. Or as Paul writes to the Romans, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the believer, the guilty verdict is changed to innocent. The brand of “sinner” is changed to “saint.” The sentence of death is changed to life. And the status of enemy of God is changed to child of God.

For the unbeliever, nothing changes. Do you hear that? Nothing changes. He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The unbeliever is already condemned. Condemned on the basis of the sins he has already committed and the sinful, godless condition in which he was born. Condemned, because he refused the path of justification that God provided for him and laid out for him and invited him to. The mind of the unbeliever is so arrogant that they despise justification by faith alone in Christ and then still have the audacity to accuse God of being a big Meany for not saving them in some other way, in the way of their own choosing.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. This is the condemnation. In other words, this demonstrates God’s righteousness in condemning them. God sent His Son, who is the Light, who is Truth, who is Goodness, who is Love personified, into the world to save the world. And most men preferred darkness, preferred lies, preferred that which is twisted and ugly and evil to that which is righteous and beautiful and good. They preferred the false freedom of the devil to the true freedom of God. Their condemnation is clearly deserved.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. Think of the tax collectors and sinners. While they were determined to live in sin, they avoided and hid from God’s Word and the ministry of it. But God’s Word moved them to acknowledge the truth, to reconsider their sinful choices, and then Jesus invited them to come to Him for forgiveness, and they came, and repented, and believed, and then, as believers, they stopped living in sin and started living according to the truth. Believers are not afraid to have the light of Christ shining on us, because our past sins have been cleansed by Christ and our present life is not one of practicing sin, living in sin, clinging to sin, but of daily contrition and repentance, if we are genuinely believers in Christ.

On the other hand, consider the Pharisees. They were happy to have the people of Israel view their works. But when Jesus came and exposed their hypocrisy and the lack of mercy underlying their works, they hid from Him, and even hated Him. They refused to acknowledge the truth, that they were sinners and that Christ was the Savior sent to save them.

What has changed? People love to pat themselves on the back and think of themselves as good people, but when God’s Word exposes them as sinners, they hide from Christ and remain in the darkness. They’ll talk all about God’s love, until it’s proclaimed to them that God loves them in such a way that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to suffer and die for their sins so that they might turn away from their sins, and from all their idols and false saviors, and believe in Christ alone for salvation. When that message is proclaimed in the world, then it becomes clear who the ones are who truly know and appreciate the love of God. They are the ones who repent and believe in Jesus. In them—in you who believe! — the Holy Spirit’s work has had its intended effect, and God’s purpose in sending His Son into the world has been fulfilled. In them—in you who believe! — the Holy Spirit continues His work of guiding you away from sin and toward the works that are fitting for saints, because you have been born of God and have come to know that this is how God loved the world, by giving His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Amen.

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The Church is built by the work of the Spirit

Posted on May 28, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

There were three Old Testament feasts every Jewish man was supposed to celebrate in Jerusalem: The Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and Feast of Tabernacles. Now, Passover was followed immediately with the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread, and on the Sunday that fell in that Passover week was another little feast called the Feast of Firstfruits, when the very first fruits of the harvest were collected in March or April, as the guarantee or proof that there would be an abundant harvest to come a couple of months later in May or June.

Well, Jesus, our Passover Lamb, was slain. And on the Sunday of that Passover week, which was the Feast of Firstfruits, He rose from the dead. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward, at His coming, those who belong to Christ. So in our celebration of Holy Week and Easter, we’re really celebrating the fulfillment of those Old Testament shadows pointing to Christ. The same is true on this Day of Pentecost, when we celebrate the fulfillment of the shadow of the Feast of Weeks, 50 days (or seven weeks + one day) after the Feast of Firstfruits. On that day the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples in Jerusalem, proceeding from God the Father and sent by God the Son, bringing about the harvest, or the conversion, of some 3,000 people who were baptized on that day in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, today we see in the book of Acts, not the Holy Spirit Himself, because He is a Spirit—unseen and unseeable—we see not the Spirit but the three signs that the Spirit had been poured out on the believers in Jerusalem. External signs, visible signs, and signs that in and of themselves teach us something about the Holy Spirit’s purpose and work.

It began with the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. Not wind, but the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. And since the word “wind” is related to the word “spirit” in Greek and in Hebrew, that was the first sign that this was the arrival of God’s Spirit. It was also a sign of how the Spirit would do His work in this New Testament period, invisibly, like wind or breath, working on the hearts of men through the preaching of the Gospel, preaching, which is made up of breath and sound formed into words.

Second, there were the tongues of fire resting above the heads of the disciples, another miracle indicating the Spirit’s presence. Tongues, because the Spirit would work through the tongues of men, again, through the preaching of the Word of God. Of fire, because the Word of God is compared to fire in Scripture. As God said through Jeremiah, “Is not My Word like a fire?” Or as John the Baptist prophesied about Jesus, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Or as Jesus said before His crucifixion, I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! And what does fire do? It burns, and it spreads. It sets other things on fire. In the same way, the Spirit would kindle the fire of faith and love through the preaching of the Gospel, faith and love that would spread throughout the world like wildfire, even as the preaching of the Gospel would spread throughout the world like wildfire—a fire that is still burning 2,000 years later.

And third, the actual tongues of the disciples were then turned into the Spirit’s instruments to proclaim the wonderful works of God in many languages, languages that were known to the hearers visiting Jerusalem that day, but unknown to those who spoke them. It was no accident that the Spirit was sent on a day when large crowds were gathered in Jerusalem from all the surrounding nations, to keep the Feast of Weeks. It was God’s purpose to show that Jesus the Christ was the Savior of the whole world, to show that the Gospel was intended for every nation, tribe, language, and people, that there is no such thing anymore as a favored race or a favored language. It signified that the Gospel is truly to be preached in all the world, in all the languages of men, so that not just a few lucky people in Jerusalem, but all men everywhere might be brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and so be saved from the wrath that will one day be poured out on the world for all the sins of men.

Those were the external signs or witnesses of the Holy Spirit given to the early Church for the purpose of confirming the apostles’ testimony about Jesus. The gift of speaking in other languages sometimes accompanied the preaching of the Gospel as the apostles went forth into the world. Other external signs were also given at times: the gift of prophesying future events, the power to drive out demons, the power to perform some miracles of healing. They were given to help the young Church grow and to attract the attention of outsiders, exactly as they did on the Day of Pentecost, and it’s a historical fact that those gifts ceased to be given after the days of the apostles. But those things weren’t the main work of the Holy Spirit. The true work of the Holy Spirit goes on.

And what is that work—or better, what are those works? The first work is faith itself, both bringing people to faith and preserving believers in the faith. As Paul says to the Corinthians, No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. He works through the preaching of the Word of God to persuade sinners to repent and to believe in Christ Jesus and to baptized for the forgiveness of sins. The crowds in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost would have never believed that story about Jesus being the Christ, about Jesus being raised from the dead, about Jesus reigning at the right hand of God the Father, about God’s free offer to forgive the sins of all who believe and are baptized, without the Holy Spirit working on their hearts to persuade them, to convince them, to bring them to faith.

Of course, that work was directly related to another work that Jesus alluded to in today’s Gospel. He told His apostles, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I have said to you. The Holy Spirit was responsible for the inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures, which testified about the coming Christ. As Peter writes, Prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In the same way, the same Spirit would also be responsible for reminding the apostles of all the things Jesus said to them. That’s why we have absolute confidence that the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, are trustworthy and true.

That inspiration of Scripture doesn’t continue today; it was completed through the apostles. But the teaching continues. He taught the apostles all things that they needed to know and understand so that they could pass them on, so that the truth of Christ could spread like wildfire. Now the same Holy Spirit drives believers into the inspired Scriptures. He opens and enlightens the minds of believers to understand the Scriptures. He gives us discernment. He restores our fallen reason so that the things of God make sense to us, while the same things make no sense to the minds of unbelievers. That’s why the actions and beliefs and thought processes of the unbelieving world often appear absolutely insane to us, because the Spirit has restored to us Christians a measure of sanity and reason.

Another work of the Holy Spirit is the work of sanctification in the sense of leading and guiding Christians to lead holy lives as we await the day of judgment. He sanctifies us in love. Love for God, love for our neighbor, and a special kind of love for our fellow Christians. He continues to use His inspired Scriptures to teach us what love looks like, how God defines love, and then He works in our hearts to lead us in the direction of love, always having to struggle against our sinful flesh that wants to lead us in the opposite direction.

Another work of the Holy Spirit is comfort. Comfort, after He brings us to know and to lament our sins. Comfort, during times of testing and tribulation. Comfort, when the world and everyone seems to be against us. He comforts us by turning our attention to Jesus, to Jesus and all He has done for us and all He has promised to do. This is the comfort that Jesus talked about in today’s Gospel, too. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You don’t always experience perfect peace in your heart, but when you hear the words of Jesus, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, they have an effect on you, don’t they? Don’t they comfort you? Don’t they battle against the troubles of your heart and the fear that bubbles up in your heart, to bring you some measure of peace? That’s the Holy Spirit.

And with comfort and peace comes also boldness, boldness to pray to our Father in heaven in the Spirit of adoption, boldness to face the struggles and the challenges of each new day, boldness to speak the truth in all things and to accept the backlash it will bring from the world that hates the truth. It’s that boldness we see in Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost or in Paul’s missionary journeys, where he was so often persecuted for preaching the Gospel. None of us has that kind of boldness dwelling in us naturally. But the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of believers. God has made His home with us, and that’s the source of all our strength.

Bringing people to faith through the preaching of the Gospel. Preserving us in the faith through Word and Sacrament. Giving us the Word of God in the Bible and teaching us to understand it better and better. Sanctification. Comfort. Boldness. These are the works of the Holy Spirit who dwells with believers and in believers. These are the works by which the Christ’s Church is built and fortified and by which Christians are guided and strengthened in our lives and in our mission. Give thanks today for the Spirit of God who dwells among us! Dig into the Scriptures He has inspired! Treasure the Sacraments by which He works! Rejoice in the comfort that He offers! And follow where He leads—to turn away from sin, to trust in Christ Jesus, and to live a life of love! The Spirit is God’s gift to you. So treasure it, and use it! Amen.

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The measuring and the witnessing

Posted on May 24, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Audio only of tonight’s sermon, no video

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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 6

Revelation 11:1-14

We have before us the second part of the interlude between the sounding of the sixth and seventh trumpets. In the first part of the interlude we saw that mighty angel standing with one foot on the land and one foot on the sea, holding the little book in his hand. That’s God’s assurance that, in spite of the persecutions and false doctrines that will fill the world, He still reigns over the future and will see to it that His Word is proclaimed in the world.

This second part of the interlude is related. It describes the state of the Church on earth under God’s protection. At the end of the last chapter, John was told by the mighty angel, You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings. As we see tonight, part of John’s prophetic ministry—and the ministry of all who come after him—is to “measure the temple of God.”

Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, “Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there.” This is very much like what the prophet Ezekiel saw in the last nine chapters of his book, a man measuring a city and its temple. That city, with all its dimensions being measured, represented a sacred space, the New Testament Church and God’s perfect plan for it, including His plan to preserve and protect it. That’s what John is seeing here, too, God’s plan to protect and preserve His true Church, His elect, even in the midst of the raging of the Antichrist and the false teachers and all the chaos and corruption going on in the world. The true Church will not fail. The true Church will not crumble. But by the Word of God, the true measuring rod against which all things are measured, by the Word of God that the faithful ministers continue to preach, the elect will be preserved.

But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. The Gentiles—the uncircumcised—were not allowed inside the inner court of the temple in Jerusalem. In John’s figurative vision of the New Testament Church, the Gentiles represent the false church that dwells side by side with the true Church. They represent the hypocrites, the false believers and false teachers who are in the Church, but not of the Church. It’s like Jesus’ parable of the kingdom of heaven being like a dragnet that’s filled with both good fish and bad fish, or like the field where both wheat and weeds are allowed to grow up together, not to be separated until the harvest at the end of the age.

The “Gentiles,” that is, the false members of the outward Christian Church, will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. Forty-two months is the same as three and a half years, the same as the one thousand two hundred and sixty days in the next verse and in other parts of Revelation, and apparently also the same as a time (that’s one year), times (that’s two years), and half a time (half a year) that we see in other places. It seems clear that this number is symbolic of the entire New Testament period, from Christ’s ascension until Judgment Day, or at least close to Judgment Day. And that fits. There have been unbelievers within the visible, outward Christian Church since the beginning, living (and even worshiping) right alongside true believers. They call themselves Christians, but they aren’t penitent. They aren’t believing. And they don’t intend to order their lives according to God’s commandments.

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” Now, just as we’re not interpreting the 42 months or the 1,260 days literally, we’re also not interpreting the two witnesses literally, as two specific men. Instead, since they preach for the entire time of the New Testament, we see them as representing the tiny number of faithful preachers of the Gospel at any time over the past 2,000 years. Two witnesses isn’t many, but it’s enough.

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. That imagery is drawn from Zechariah chapter 4, after the Jews had returned from captivity in Babylon. At that time, there were literally two men, Zerubbabel the anointed king of the Jews, and Joshua, the anointed high priest, through whom God would see to it that the holy city was rebuilt. They were pictured for Zechariah as two olive trees who supplied the oil for the lampstand that was Israel. Here the faithful preachers sent by Christ are pictured as two olive trees and two lampstands, supplying the oil of God’s Word, and with it, His Holy Spirit, the ones giving light to this dark world.

And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. Fire from the mouth is clearly a symbol of the Word of God. As God said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” The faithful preachers sent by Christ aren’t violent toward those who oppose them. But the word they preach reveals the perversion of sinners. It shows people that their deeds are acceptable before God, and that hurts people and makes them angry, wanting to harm the one who speaks out against them.

These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire. That imagery points the reader back to the prophet Elijah, who prayed that no rain would fall on Israel for three and a half years, and also to Moses, at whose word Egypt was struck with plagues. Figuratively, it seems to indicate that the faithful preachers of the Gospel will preach God’s judgment on the world, and God will see to it that judgment takes place even during this life against the wicked who oppose the witness of His Church.

When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. When they finish their testimony. That won’t happen until close to the end, when the Gospel has been preached in all the world. God knows exactly how far the preaching of His Word will reach, which people are the last ones who need to hear it. But there will come an end to preaching, either an absolute end, so that there are no faithful preachers left, or (and I think this is more likely) a general end, so that there are practically none left—which is basically the situation in the world right now, isn’t it? When that happens, the beast from the bottomless pit will overcome the faithful preachers, if not by physical death, then by silencing them. That beast is either the devil or his servant, the Antichrist, but the beast will come after the faithful preachers through his servants on earth, through the wicked, and especially through the wicked who have infiltrated the outward Christian Church. Already the vast majority of Christian churches ridicule the faithful preachers who proclaim the entirety of God’s Word, who preach against sex outside of marriage and homosexuality, who preach against women serving as pastors of churches, who insist on doctrinal integrity and pure teaching.

Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. It really isn’t hard to envision the world rejoicing over the silencing of those who preach God’s Word rightly, is it? Whenever a famous conservative speaker is silenced or shamed, there is maniacal laughter and rejoicing in the world. How much more when the Biblical preachers are silenced, who tormented the wicked with their constant exposing of sin and pointing to Christ! This may well be the world we’re living in right now, when the Christian message has been all but silenced in the world, when society openly mocks and criticizes the Christianity of the past and celebrates its apparent demise.

Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. Somehow, God will vindicate His preachers and the witness of His Church. The world will see that God did not actually abandon His people, even though it appeared that they were defeated.

In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. When the Church’s preaching is finished, when the world has spent a brief time rejoicing at the true Church’s apparent demise, when God has vindicated the message of His people in the world, then things will start to fall apart for the apostate church here on this earth, even as the third woe—the eternal condemnation of the wicked in hell—is about to take place.

So what we have in this chapter is a vivid depiction of the opposition believers will face both from the world and from the outward Christian Church which has rejected the Word of God—things that we’re seeing play out before our eyes. At the same time, we see that it’s all under God’s control, and that He still accomplishes His good purposes through the Church’s witness. We’re closer and closer to the end, very possibly already in that short “three and a half day” period at the end of the “three and a half year” period of the New Testament era. But the Lord has measured the true Church and won’t let it be destroyed. So hang on a little longer. Christ is coming soon! Amen.

 

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Witnesses, confessors, and the treatment they can expect

Posted on May 21, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

There is no audio or video of the service today as a result of our recent break-in and loss of equipment. We apologize for this and hope and pray to have it resolved by Wednesday’s service.

Sermon for Exaudi – Sunday after Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

The Paschal candle (standing here in the middle of the chancel) was extinguished during our Ascension Day service on Thursday. It was lit during the Easter season to symbolize Christ’s visible presence with His disciples for those forty days after His resurrection, and now it’s lit no longer, because His disciples saw Him no longer after He ascended into heaven and took charge of the universe invisibly as the crucified and risen One, ruling as King at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

Of course, Jesus has never been visibly present among us here. And yet, here we are, believing in Him, confessing Him, worshiping Him, ready to suffer all things—right?—even death, rather than to deny Him or to fall away from Him. That’s miraculous! That’s the work of the Helper who testified about Jesus, even as His apostles also bore witness.

Jesus prepared His apostles for His departure by promising them the help of this Helper, otherwise known as the Comforter or the Counselor or the Spirit of truth. He promised that the Helper would bear witness about Him, and that they, too, would bear witness. And He also told them in no uncertain terms how it would go for them in the world as they testified. They would be His witnesses, and not only the world, but also the false church would hate them for it. Let’s consider the words of Christ today and see what these words have to do with us.

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. And you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. The Spirit of truth is a perfectly reliable witness to testify about Jesus. He was in the beginning with the Father and the Son. It was through His working that Jesus was conceived in the virgin Mary’s womb. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, but is sent from the Father by Jesus, which is why we confess in the Nicene Creed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The apostles, too, would make reliable witnesses to Jesus, because, as Jesus says, they were with Him from the beginning, that is, from the beginning of His ministry, from the time just after He was baptized by John the Baptist. That means they saw firsthand His deeds, they heard firsthand His teaching, and, though it hadn’t happened just yet at the time of our Gospel, they would witness firsthand His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Together, the Holy Spirit and the apostles would bear witness. This is exactly what we see happening throughout the book of Acts. Next Sunday we’ll celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. What happened on that day? The Spirit testified through the miraculous signs of sound, fire, and tongues. And the apostles testified by the Spirit’s power, by telling the crowds what they had seen and learned directly from Jesus.

From that day on, the Spirit’s miraculous signs would accompany the apostles’ preaching. As soon as Peter testified before Cornelius, the Holy Spirit came upon the hearers and they spoke in tongues. Wherever Paul went, he testified, and so did the Holy Spirit through the signs and wonders that Paul performed—signs that Jesus Himself foretold in the Gospel for Ascension that we read this past Thursday. Finally, the writer to the Hebrews also describes the dual witness of apostles and Spirit: The salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.

Throughout their earthly lives, from the Day of Pentecost onward, the apostles bore witness about Jesus, the Son of God, delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification. And the Spirit bore witness, too, by the signs and gifts He displayed wherever the apostles preached.

The result? Some believed. Some here, some there, throughout the entire world and to this very day. The Church that Jesus promised would be built has been built and is still being built after all this time. That itself is a witness to His truthfulness. And faith is a witness, in a sense, one of those signs of the Holy Spirit, because, as Paul writes, no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

But you and I are not, properly speaking, witnesses. We weren’t with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry. We believe through the testimony of the firsthand witnesses: the apostles and the Holy Spirit. We aren’t in a position to tell people what we’ve seen of Jesus or what we’ve heard directly from Jesus. What we can do, what we have been called upon by God to do, is confess what we have been brought to believe. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

And so we confess. We confess with our creeds. We confess with our hymns. We confess with our liturgy, which itself is a witness to the Church’s faith from days of old. We confess with our church membership. We confess with our church attendance. We confess in our homes with our behavior and with our words. We confess at the workplace with our attitude and with our diligence. We confess in the public square by speaking the truth in love: the truth about who the true God is, and who He isn’t; the truth about God’s creation, about men and women and marriage and family, about God’s salvation in Christ Jesus, and about the coming judgment on the impenitent. We confess the faith without hesitation and without apology.

Or, maybe your confession of the faith has been more hesitant. Maybe the message you’ve given to those around you isn’t the confession of a holy child of the holy God. Maybe it hasn’t been a message of solid, unshakable truth, but that of just another worldling, going along to get along in this sinking ship of a planet. In which case, repent. Remember Jesus, who made the good confession before Pontius Pilate the day after He spoke the words of today’s Gospel. Remember Him and trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins and for the renewed zeal to confess Him boldly, by the power of His Holy Spirit.

But both witnesses and confessors of Christ should be fully aware of what such witnessing and confessing will mean.

Jesus continues with a warning for His apostles, or rather, a very blunt, straightforward prophecy telling His witnesses (and His confessors) what to expect in the world after He ascends into heaven. 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. In other places, Jesus warns His people about the hostility they’ll face from the unbelieving world. But notice here that Jesus warns of the hatred and the threats that would come from what, at that time, was still the Church of God, namely, the Jewish religion. They will put you out of the synagogues. They will kill you, thinking they’re rendering service to God. What was once the only Church, the true Church, would turn into a persecutor of Christians, and in an earthly sense, the persecutors would be successful.

That was certainly the case with the apostles. Imagine, growing up in the synagogue, hearing the Word of God, now understanding that it was all fulfilled in Christ Jesus, being called to witness to Him, and then being thrown out of the very church in which you were raised and then viciously persecuted by that same church.

Remember that I told you, Jesus tells His apostles. Remember that I warned you, so that you do not stumble, so that you are not hopelessly confused by how your former church could react this way to the Gospel. When the world turns against you, when the church itself turns against you, remember, that is not a sign of God’s displeasure with you, nor is it a sign that you must be wrong because the Church says so.

And why would the Church itself turn against God’s witnesses and confessors? Because they have not known the Father nor Me. But they were lifelong members of the Church! They were leaders in the Church and experts in the Scriptures! It’s true. And yet, Jesus says, they have not known the Father nor Me. Just as it’s possible to be in the world but not of the world, so, too, it’s possible to be in the Church but not of the Church.

You know this happens still today and has been happening for a long time, since before the days of Luther. Godly men confessed the Christian and apostolic faith and were excommunicated by a Christian Church whose hierarchy had fallen away from the truth and no longer knew the Father or Jesus. It happened to Luther and many who followed Him. It happens today in the Roman Church. It happens also among the Lutheran synods. It’s true, no one here in the U.S. is being killed for their confession. But it happens in other parts of the world, and the time will surely come here, too. Already the false church abandons Christians who confess the truth, leaving them for the world to devour.

But when you see these things happening, when you see faithful confessors of the truth berated and abandoned and when you see little churches struggling, remember that these are not signs of our failure. They’re indicators of our faithfulness. Now when I say that, I don’t mean that all suffering is a sign of faithfulness. But when we adhere to God’s Word and suffer for it, then suffering and the cross must follow, and we must expect rejection from the false Church. After all, Jesus told us ahead of time it would be this way. And there is comfort and hope in that!

The greatest hope comes from the fact of Jesus’ ascension and His sitting at the right hand of God. The world and the false church plot against God’s people. But God has set His King on His holy hill of Zion, as it says in Psalm 2. That’s Jesus, who reigns over all things for the good of His Church. As we’re seeing in our study of the book of Revelation, the Church in the last age will appear just about to be devoured by the devil, but it won’t be devoured, because when things look the most bleak, that’s when the ascended Lord Christ will descend once more, to come to our aid, even as He sends His Spirit to come to our aid now.

For now, we give our secondhand witness. We confess. And if we confess faithfully, there will be a false church that hates us. But we know that there is also a true Church that loves us, and more importantly, a God who loves us, a Savior who rules at God’s right hand for us, and a Holy Spirit who dwells with us to strengthen us through the Means of Grace. Keep confessing. And keep trusting. All things are in the powerful hands of our ascended Lord Jesus. Amen.

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We have a Friend in high places

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

(audio only of tonight’s sermon, no video)

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Sermon for the Ascension of Our Lord

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

Today we celebrate the day of Jesus’ ascension into heaven, the day He wrapped up His visible, earthly ministry and began His invisible, heavenly one. It’s a day for Christians to breathe a sigh of relief. Because, in spite of all the obstacles we face in this world, in spite of all the wickedness down here, Christ’s ascension reminds us that we have a Friend up there. We have a Friend in high places.

You heard in the Gospel how, on Easter Sunday, Jesus appeared alive to His disciples two days after He died on the cross. His appearance to them began with a rebuke for not believing that He had risen as He said He would. But after that, He issued and then kept repeating a great commission. Every time He appeared to them over the next forty days, He further described the mission He was sending them on. And notice, it wasn’t a mission to make the world a better place. It wasn’t a mission to get involved in the world’s politics or to infiltrate the world’s governments. It was a mission to spread a message.

In tonight’s reading from the book of Acts you heard one of those commissions: You will be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You heard another commission in Mark’s Gospel: Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

So what is “the gospel”? What is the message Jesus sent His apostles to spread? It’s summarized elsewhere as “repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name.”

Now, “repentance” itself can be summarized as the message of creation, sin, and judgment. It’s the message of who God is, how He made the world and all things, how all have sinned and have brought death and every form of trouble into the world, and how God has set a day of judgment, with an eternity of hellfire in store for all who have fallen short of His righteous requirements. That’s the first part of the message.

The second part of the message can be summarized as the message of Christ, the atonement, and the promise of the forgiveness of sins in His name. To be Christ’s witnesses means that the apostles were to spread the message that God had sent His Son into the world, as promised, and that, by His perfect life, His innocent death, and His glorious resurrection, He has made atonement for the world’s sins. And now the Lord Jesus, through His missionaries, holds out the forgiveness of sins to all who believe in Him. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

That’s the message that has reached us all here, nearly 2,000 years after Christ’s ascension. But the mission includes more than just spreading a message, doesn’t it? In another one of Christ’s commissions, the one recorded at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, He put it this way: All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. There’s more than just spreading a message in that commission. There’s a “discipling” involved, a baptizing and an ongoing teaching, a gathering of people together from all nations and within all nations, a shepherding of a flock, a building that is to take place, not necessarily building church buildings or monuments or cathedrals, but the building up of a Church made of livings stones, of people gathered around the apostles’ teaching and the Lord’s Sacraments, of saints who are still living in the world but are no longer of the world.

That’s the mission Christ gave His Church to fulfill in the days and years and centuries ahead. It includes the message as well as the discipling. And then, after repeating and explaining that mission over the course of forty days, He gathered His disciples together on the Mount of Olives, and He was taken up into heaven, Mark says, and He sat down at the right hand of God. But it’s not as if Christ gave His Church that monumental task so that He could be separated from His Church or go away on vacation. No, Christ ascended on high for the very purpose of being present with His Church and helping us to carry out His mission, guaranteeing us success (as God measures success). It’s not a task we can accomplish on our own. But we have a Friend in high places.

You are Peter, Jesus said on another occasion, and on this rock I will build My Church. I will build, He said. Yes, the apostles had to spread the message and baptize and teach. But Jesus says He will be the One actually doing the gathering and the building and the discipling. Behold, He said, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. With us invisibly. With us by His Holy Spirit, whom He sent into the world on Pentecost and has left here with believers as our Helper until the end of the age. With us, to work together with us as we carry out His mission. As we heard at the end of Mark’s Gospel, they went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with the accompanying signs.

So although Jesus has sat down at the right hand of the Father, our Friend in high places is still with us, working with us. More than that, He is ruling over all things for our good. As St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians and Corinthians, God raised Him 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 gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all…For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

Do you have troubles? Do you have uncertainties? Do you have enemies here below? It’ll be all right. You have a Friend in high places, in the highest place of all, ruling over the universe for your good, not yet removing all the wickedness from the world, but managing it so that the gates of Hades can’t prevail against His Church, and so that His people are preserved in faith and kept safe for the day of judgment, when He will remove all the wickedness from the world.

And that brings us to the last comforting truth I’d like you to think about this evening. What is our Friend in high places doing right now, in addition to working with us to carry out His mission and reigning over all things for our good? He told His disciples plainly: 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.

Now, we shouldn’t imagine that Jesus needs time to build and decorate mansions for us, as if the construction work took a long time. But He wants His Christians to picture it that way, to picture Him working for us, getting things ready for us, so that we understand that, even though He has ascended on high, He hasn’t forgotten about us. He won’t forget about us. On the contrary, He has His people on His mind at all times. Everything He does now He does so that you may be with Him in the end and spend eternity with Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, so that, when we see Him coming down again from heaven in the same way they saw Him go up into heaven, we may follow Him where He has gone.

Yes, it pays to have a Friend in high places. If you think about all the ills that plague this present generation—loneliness, disconnection from community, disconnection from God!, purposelessness, the exaltation of sinful man above all things, the destruction of truth and the perversion of everything good—which of those ills isn’t resolved, or at least tempered, by the truth of Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God, and by the mission He gave His Church to carry out as our Friend and Savior reigns on high at the Father’s right hand? Every Christian has peace with God through the risen and reigning Christ. Every Christian has a community throughout the world of people who pray for each other and who care for each other, even though we may not know one another, yet. Every Christian has a purpose, both collective and individual, to further the mission Christ gave His Church, to spread the message, to live as disciples of Christ and as lights in the world. Every Christian has the hope of the new heavens and the new earth, the permanent home of truth and of righteousness. And every Christian has Christ’s assurance that the one who died for you and rose again is with you always, even to the end of the age. Think about these things! Give thanks to God! And rejoice in the One who has called Himself your Friend, who lives and reigns, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the highest place of them all! Amen.

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