A Reformation about truth and freedom

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation

Galatians 2:16-21 + John 8:31-36

Today we’re celebrating the Reformation here in our beautiful church building. A few weeks ago, some of your fellow members and I celebrated it in a member’s living room on the other side of the country. But it’s a single celebration, among Christians who believe and confess the same truth of the Gospel, who share the same power of the Spirit, and the same Christian love for one another, and who are all determined to hold fast to the Word of God, and, thereby, to grow in faith and in knowledge, together.

As you know, we celebrate the Reformation, not as a way to “new Christianity,” but as the way back to true Christianity. How dare I say that? How dare we call the Christianity of the early Lutheran Church “true” Christianity, implying that there was something false about the Christianity being practiced by the Roman Church of that era? It goes back to what Jesus told us in today’s Gospel, You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. As we apply the Gospel to the Reformation, we’ll see that the Reformation itself was about truth and about freedom.

In the Gospel from John 8, Jesus said to those Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples.” Who, then, are the true disciples of Jesus? Answer: The ones who remain in His word. Who remain in His word. What does that mean? What is “the word” of Jesus? It includes everything, really. Everything Jesus said. Everything Jesus taught. And how do we know what He said and taught? From the Holy-Spirit-inspired Scriptures that God has preserved for us throughout all these centuries in the four Gospels. In fact, the word of Jesus includes also those Holy-Spirit-inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament, and the rest of the Holy-Spirit-inspired words of the New Testament, which we generally call the “epistles.” In short, the word of Jesus is the Bible itself, the Holy Scriptures. Other men have said and written and taught lots of good things over the centuries, based on the word of Jesus. Some have said and written and taught false things, not based on the word of Jesus. We can read and evaluate the writings of any men, but it’s not by following what other men say and teach that makes us or marks us as truly Jesus disciples. If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples.

Yes, but, how do you know that you’re understanding Jesus’ word correctly? Don’t you have to rely on what someone else tells you about them? Don’t you need the witness of the leaders of the Church and the traditions that the Church has commanded you to follow? We honor the witness of the Church. That is, we “give weight” to it. We value it. But, if we compare the witness of the Church over the millennia with the word of Jesus in Holy Scripture, we find that many new things were added by men, such as purgatory or prayers to the saints, that do not come at all from the Spirit-inspired word of Jesus, and we find teachings, like offering the Mass as an atoning sacrifice for the living and the dead, that directly contradict the word of Jesus. Men, popes, and councils have erred, have made errors. But, thankfully, Jesus never once said, “If you remain in the traditions of the Church, you are truly My disciples.” He never said, “All who submit to the Church’s decrees are truly My disciples.” No, He said, “If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples.”

What does it mean to “remain in” His word? It means to know it—everything God says in His holy Word—to know it, in context, to believe it, and to steadfastly hold onto it, to hold onto it, even when powerful men try to move you away from it, when powerful leaders in the Church tell you you have no right or ability to understand Jesus’ words rightly, that the interpretation of this or that gathering or synod of the Church is infallible, even when hundreds of years of tradition try to convince you that the Church herself is just as good a source of truth as the inspired word of Jesus.

But with so many different voices, and denominations each claiming to be telling the truth, what Jesus’ word really means, who is to know? If Jesus keeps His word, then you have your answer: If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth. This leads to one of the most basic Lutheran principles of Bible interpretation. Let Scripture interpret Scripture. Or, put another way, let the Holy Spirit be His own interpreter. That may require study. That may require effort. But the truth can be known.

I think I’ve told you this before. Years ago, when I was struggling to understand the truth about the article of justification, and to determine whether or not UOJ was true, as all the Lutheran synods were teaching, it wasn’t easy. Practically all the Lutheran churches in America insisted that UOJ was true, that it had always been taught by the Christian Church and, specifically, by the Lutheran Church, and that it had to be believed. That’s not as much pressure as Martin Luther experienced 500 years ago, facing the whole Holy Roman Empire, but it was still a lot of pressure. I studied this church father and that church father and found plenty of support there. But you know what finally gave me peace? The only thing that gave me peace and that convinced me of the truth? It was just going through the word of Jesus, passage by passage, that talked about justification. And after being immersed in the word of Jesus, looking at all the passages together, the truth became clear. I knew the truth, just as you have known it.

And that truth, that sinners are justified by faith alone in Christ Jesus, is the other main theme of the Reformation. It was a Reformation about truth, and about freedom, which is directly related to the sinner’s justification.

You will know the truth, Jesus said, and the truth will set you free! The problem was, the unbelieving Jews, the ones who had, up until this point, rejected Jesus’ word as truth, the ones who stood on the traditions of the Jewish Church even more than they stood on the inspired Scriptures, didn’t think, didn’t realize they needed to be set free. The Jews answered him, “We are Abraham’s seed and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” The Jews of Jesus’ day had that idea in common with many Jews still today, that, because they were physically descended from Abraham, they were and must always remain the chosen people of God, enslaved to no one, always acceptable in God’s sight because of who their ancestor was, and because of how obedient they were to the Law of Moses. They concluded that for those two reasons, because of their ancestry and because of their obedience to the Law, they were and would always be free.

Then along comes Jesus and bursts their bubble. He answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. Now, even the self-righteous Pharisees didn’t go around claiming that they never sinned. It takes a special kind of self-delusion for anyone to say, “I don’t sin. I’m sinless and perfect in every way.” But here, Jesus lays down the hard truth: If you commit sin, then you are a slave. A slave of sin, without the ability to work your way out of that slavery, without the free will to choose your way out of that slavery. Slaves don’t have free will to stop being slave, do they? Your ancestry doesn’t help you, if you practice sin. Your obedience doesn’t free you, if you also disobey, at times, if you also sin. There’s only one way to escape this slavery of sin. Now, a slave does not remain in the house forever. In other words, you Jews who practice sin, and put your confidence in your ancestry, or in your obedience, even now you’re only in God’s house as slaves, slaves who will eventually be sent away from God’s house entirely. But a son remains forever. Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Free, not to be dismissed from God’s house, but to remain in God’s house forever, not as slaves, but as sons. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is only one who can free you from the slavery to sin, who can give you the right to become free children of God, who have a permanent place in His home.

He does that “setting free” in two ways. He does it, first, by forgiving us our sins, by setting us free from the guilt of those sins that we commit, when He calls us to repent of our sins and to believe in Him, who has promised to set us free. That’s what justification is, God setting us free, Jesus setting us free from having to pay for our sins, from having to suffer for our sins, from having to work off or make atonement for our sins. He Himself is the Atoner, the Sacrifice of atonement, the Reconciler. His blood was the full price of our freedom. Faith in Him is the means by which He applies that atoning price to our account and sets us free.

But for all who have been set free from the slavery to sin, who have been justified and forgiven and made children of God, permanent members of His household, and heirs of eternal life, Christ’s act of setting us free, of justifying us, is also the beginning of something else. It’s the beginning of a new life of freedom. It’s the beginning of a new kind of obedience, not as slaves to sin anymore, but as slaves to righteousness—an entirely different kind of slavery, a good kind, even as Christ Himself was a willing “slave” or “servant” of His Father in heaven. By setting us free from sin through the forgiveness of sins, through the washing of Holy Baptism, He has freed us to become imitators of Him, the true Servant of God, as He both calls and enables us to walk in step with the Holy Spirit. We call this the freedom of “sanctification.” It’s an ongoing process as we are renewed, day after day, in the image of Christ, as the Holy Spirit guides us and pulls us along toward doing and thinking what is righteous, and good, and loving. It’s not a freedom to go on living in sin. It’s a freedom to serve God in righteousness and holiness that begins here and now, and that will be completed when we reach our heavenly home.

These two issues—the source of truth and our ability to know it; and freedom from sin, what it is and how to achieve it—were at the center of the Lutheran Reformation, and they remain central issues still today. The Roman Church and the Eastern Church, and many who call themselves Lutheran, would have you look to Church Councils and Church Fathers and synods as a source of truth alongside the Word of God. Other churches would have you look inward, at your feelings and opinions about things. Still others would have you look for direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. And many of those same churches would have you seek freedom from sin in your own good works, in your own obedience, or, in the case of the synods, in an imaginary justification of the whole world. But here we are, along with still many in the world, left standing alongside Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521, pressured on all sides to give in: “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture and plain reason… my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

Be content to keep standing here beside Luther, especially on these issues of truth and freedom. It may seem lonely at times, and it will continue to require many sacrifices, on your part and mine, to remain in Jesus’ word, no matter what anyone else demands, and to embrace the freedom of justification by faith alone, no matter what anyone else teaches. Jesus calls these sacrifices “bearing the cross.” And if our dear Lord was willing to bear the cross of shame, suffering, and death for our sins, to free us from slavery, to grant us eternal joy and eternal life, how could we shrink back from bearing the cross that comes from faithfulness to Him? Remain in His Word. Remain in the freedom that comes from the truth. And let us all give thanks to God for bringing us back to true Christianity, and to this blessed fellowship with one another. Amen.

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The greatest commandment is to love Jesus

Posted on October 19, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 18

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

Today’s Gospel touches on the themes of Jewish Law, moral law, love, and the person of Jesus Christ—all of which the world understands wrongly, all of which the Christian faith alone teaches rightly. As we consider together the exchange in today’s Gospel between Jesus and the experts in the Law of Moses, we’ll see how all those themes fit together. We’ll see that the greatest commandment in the Law is to love Jesus.

First, to the Jewish Law. Now, understand that to be “Jewish” can be understood in a purely biological sense, as simple as having a single drop of blood from the genetic line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which probably includes a whole lot of people who don’t even know they’re Jewish and would never define themselves that way, because they have a much greater percentage of some other ethnicity in their family history.

But being a Jew, being considered Jewish, is normally tied to one’s submission to the Law of Moses, whereby God brought the children of Israel into a formal, covenantal relationship with Him—everything from circumcision, to the Ten Commandments, to the rituals and ceremonies outlined in the Law. According to the Law of Moses, anyone who didn’t submit to the Law of Moses, anyone who worshiped other gods, or who willfully disobeyed any part of the Law of Moses, was to be cut off from his people, either by death or by banishment. That’s how important the Law was to the Jewish people, by God’s own command.

Well, by the time our Gospel took place, during the early part of Holy Week, Jesus had been saying and doing some things that those who were considered experts in the Jewish Law found to be unlawful. They could see that His preaching was “threatening” to liberate the Jewish people from the Law of Moses, to graduate them from the Law, which was, as St. Paul once referred to it, a “tutor to lead us to Christ.” By the time Holy Week came around, they felt so threatened by Jesus’ preaching that they were already planning to kill Him. But to make themselves look better, they were trying desperately to trap Jesus in His words, so that they might have a public justification for executing Him. And so one of them asked, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

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.’” Instead of pointing to Jewish laws concerning Kosher foods, or circumcision, or resting on the Sabbath Day, or the sacrifices they were to make, which were all part of what we call the “ceremonial Law,” Jesus said that the greatest commandments, the ones on which all the rest depend, are not the ceremonial laws, but are what we call the “moral law,” summarized in love for God (the true God) and love for one’s neighbor. The ceremonial Law was given only to Israel under the covenant God made with them through Moses at Mt. Sinai. It wasn’t for any other nation. God wasn’t angry at the Gentiles because they didn’t get circumcised, or because they failed to rest on the Sabbath Day, or because they ate pork. But He did condemn the Gentiles for violating His moral Law, which was for all people of all time. For example, when the Israelites went in to conquer the land of Canaan at the time of Moses, God revealed His anger at those Gentiles in Canaan for violating His moral law: for their idolatry and their witchcraft, which is a failure to love the true God above all things, and for their violence toward one another, which is a failure to love their neighbor. Love for God—the true God, not the false gods of the Gentiles—and love for one’s neighbor. Those are the greatest commandments in the Law.

Now, as you know, “love” is a concept that the devil has completely twisted in the minds of men. “Love,” as most people define it, is attraction. “Love” is doing or saying whatever makes someone else feel good about themselves. And “hate,” by contrast, is doing or saying anything that makes a person feel bad. You see, the devil has taken the moral Law, which God has written into all our hearts by nature, and has (awfully successfully) redefined “love” (and “hate”) in people’s thinking, and, frankly, also in the preaching of that comes from many pulpits that pretend to be Christian. What is love, really?

Love is commitment. Love is devotion. Love is genuine, heartful attachment. The Lord God—the true God who has revealed Himself to us in the Bible—is to be the primary object of our commitment, devotion, and attachment. Nothing is supposed to be more important to us than knowing the Lord God, worshiping the Lord God, serving the Lord God. And since the Lord God has commanded it to come next, after loving Him, our second-place commitment, devotion, and attachment is to be to our neighbor. This is what God expects from every human being.

The Ten Commandments themselves reflect this moral Law, though they also contain some ceremonial laws that were only for the Old Testament people of Israel. How do we know that? Because the Word of God explains it that way. The Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, guide us to understand what love actually looks like, toward God and man.

According to Scripture, it’s love (not hate) to call all unbelievers to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, even though it means hurting their feelings and telling them that they’re not okay as they are, because, as they are, they’re perishing, and our commitment to them doesn’t allow us to remain silent. It’s also love (not hate) to say that abortion is wicked, because God calls it wicked. That homosexuality is wicked, because God calls it wicked. That adultery in all its forms is wicked, because God says it is. That crossing a border illegally is wicked, because God has commanded all people to submit to the governing authorities. Our society embraces all these things and calls those who don’t “loveless” and “hateful.” But that’s because they’ve turned away from God, and His definitions, to make up their own beliefs about right and wrong.

In the same way, it’s love (not hate) to tell a Jewish person—one who rejects Jesus as Lord—that he has forsaken the true God and has gone after an idol who has stolen the identity of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he has no part in the people of God, and that his Christ-less religion is a sham, one that will take him straight to hell, if he doesn’t repent. That’s not anti-Semitism to say that. We denounce every form of true anti-Semitism, where people assume the worst about a person or mistreat a person because of that person’s Jewish heritage. There is no teaching of Christianity that promotes or permits violence, hatred, mistreatment, ridicule, or even arrogance toward anyone, including those who are called Jews. If someone mistreats a Jewish person, in any way, in the name of Christianity, he is liar. Christ does not permit any such thing. But to tell the truth, that the Jews are lost in their current state of unbelief, is not hate. We say it in love, to bring the one who is perishing to repentance and faith in the only true God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But what if the Jews love the Lord their God with all their heart, as commanded in the Law? Ah, but they most certainly don’t. For two reasons.

The first is explained by Jesus Himself in the second part of the Gospel. “What do you think about the Christ?”, Jesus asked the experts in the Law. “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?”

The experts were speechless. They couldn’t answer. Because they didn’t know the answer. How could David’s Son, the Christ, also be David’s Lord? You see, the kingship in Israel passed down from father to son. The father was king before the son was. The son received his kingship from his father. So the son could never be greater than his father, much less the Lord of his father. The Jews thought that the Christ, as the promised Son of David, would receive His kingship from David, His “father,” his ancestor. And yet here David calls his Son his “Lord.” That’s because the Christ would be both descended from David, according to His human nature, and eternally descended from God the Father, according to His divine nature, making Him Lord of all. The Christ was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him. Without Him, nothing was made that has been made. And the Christ is Jesus. Jesus is Lord, of David, and of everyone.

That means that, when the greatest commandment says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” Jesus is included in “the Lord.” The Lord includes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the experts in the Law most certainly didn’t love Jesus as their Lord. So they were doomed from the start.

But there’s a second reason why we can say that the Jews didn’t love the Lord their God with all their heart: Because no one does. That’s the problem with the Law of Moses. It’s the problem with the moral Law. It commands perfect love for God and man, God-defined love, but because of the weakness of our sinful nature, the twisted nature we inherited from our parents and they from theirs, the Law is unable to save anyone or to point anyone to a path that leads to salvation. “Oh, well, you just have to love God with your whole heart, and love your neighbor!” Thanks a lot. I haven’t done that, and even if I could start doing it from now on, that doesn’t make up for all the selfishness I’ve indulged in up until now, or all the meanness, or all the laziness, or any of the sins I’ve committed. The Law reveals and commands love, which is good and right. But the Jews were sinners, as are we all.

That’s why we need Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of David. He, the Lord God whom we were to love with all our heart, but didn’t, took on human flesh in order to fulfill the law of love in our place, to suffer on the cross for our failure to love Him and our neighbor, as His Law demands. Jesus’ love for us, for all people, led Him to the cross, so that we might put our faith in Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins. And now that He has risen from the dead, His love still leads Him to send forth His mighty Word, to expose our natural lovelessness so that we don’t perish in it, to call us to repentance and faith in Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

The greatest commandment in the Law has always been to love God, which means also to love Jesus. And the beauty of it is that it was our very failure to keep that greatest commandment that gave God the opportunity to show His love for us in the most unimaginable way possible, by giving His Son into death for His enemies, in order that we might finally love Him as we ought. As St. John writes, In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also should love one another. Amen.

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The sending of the seventy and beyond

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Feast of St. Luke

2 Timothy 4:5-15 + Luke 10:1-9

Our celebration of St. Luke is really just another opportunity to hear and consider the Word of God that has been chosen for this festival, which is the sending of the 70, recorded in Luke 10.

Most Greek manuscripts say 70, but there are some that say 72 were sent out on this occasion. There’s no way to know for sure, but it doesn’t matter at all. The 70 or 72 were sent out two by two ahead of Jesus, into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Who were these men? They are never named in Scripture. We simply notice that they were chosen from among all of the multitudes who had been following Jesus. Not everyone was sent. Only certain men were sent, and given a message to preach, and miraculous power to use, and instructions for how they were to go about their mission.

It’s important that we separate the parts of this sending that were specific to these 70 men on this specific mission from the general principles that apply beyond the 70.

For example, He sent them two by two ahead of Him. Does that mean that every mission must include two missionaries or preachers? No. And yet, the practice of not sending a man alone into a new mission field has been recognized in the Church since the beginning. As St. Paul was sent to new mission fields, where no Christian churches had yet been established, remember how even he, an apostle directly chosen by Jesus, was not sent alone. He was sent, first, with Barnabas, and then with Silas on his other missionary journeys, sometimes accompanied by others. There is wisdom in that, wisdom that came from Jesus as He sent out the 70.

Something very specific about this mission was that Jesus Himself was going to follow these men, was going to appear in all the cities where they would go, making them the heralds of His arrival. That, obviously, is not how men are sent out today. And yet, there is a sense in which it is true. Because part of our preaching is that Jesus is coming soon, not to this city or that one, but to the whole world at once, to judge the world in righteousness. In that sense, Jesus will soon come, both here, and everywhere where His messengers preach His word.

He said to the 70, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” The harvest was truly great in that first century AD, when practically no one in the world had heard the Gospel of Jesus, when the Church was poised to explode in her membership, and baptisms would be performed by the thousands. God knows where His Gospel will be believed. God sees those who will be converted by it, baptized into His name, and harvested into His holy Christian Church. At various times and at various places in history, the harvest has been truly great. At other times, in other places, it has been small, just as a harvest of crops can have good years and bad. But you can be absolutely sure that a harvest still remains, because that’s the only thing preventing Jesus from returning, the only thing that’s still postponing the day of resurrection and the day of judgment.

But just as true today as it was back then, the laborers are few, especially the laborers who are committed to teaching the whole truth of God’s Word, to preaching the Gospel purely and to administering the Sacraments rightly. So the Lord’s command to pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest remains just as urgent today as it was back then. We include it in our general prayer almost every Sunday, and you can certainly include it more often than that in your personal prayers.

Of course, sometimes, some of the men who pray for laborers to be sent out will become the fulfillment of their own prayers. Go!, Jesus said to the 70. Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Lambs among wolves. Harmless, meek, non-aggressive animals being sent out among vicious, blood-thirsty, aggressive animals. Prey being sent out to live openly among the predators. Is that really what mission work is like? That’s how Jesus describes it, isn’t it? And He was talking, most directly, about what His Jewish missionaries would encounter among their Jewish neighbors in the neighboring cities! Such strong opposition from their own countrymen! How is that possible?

It’s possible because, for as much as Christians may look like and share things in common with unbelievers, we are, in fact, as different as night and day when it comes to our spirit, when it comes to our allegiances, our spiritual beliefs, and our eternal destinies. Believers in Christ are alive. Unbelievers are dead. Believers in Christ are beloved children of God. Unbelievers are still hostile to God, and that often spills over into hostility for the children of God. In the first three hundred years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, both Jews and Gentiles persecuted and killed men like the 70 whom Jesus sent out. In parts of the world still today, Christians are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands, as in Nigeria, where Muslims are the wolves slaying Jesus’ lambs.

And yet, did any of the 70 hear this and say, “No, Lord! If that’s the case, I’m staying home!”? No, not one. Because even if they had been killed for Jesus’ sake, which none of them were, on this occasion, they knew that Jesus held the keys to a kingdom that outlasts this life, and they lived not for peace and comfort here, but for the peace, comfort, and joy of that life beyond this life.

Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. This command was very specific to the mission of the 70. They were to go quickly, because Jesus would be right behind them, and His time on earth was short. They were not to take any provisions or possessions of their own, because, as we’ll see below, they were to rely on God to provide for them through the people to whom they would preach. And, remember, He wasn’t sending them to foreign countries. He was sending them to their fellow Israelites, who were all their fellow church members, too. So this isn’t a permanent prohibition for ministers to own property. It’s a temporary instruction for these Israelites who were to visit their fellow Israelites with tremendous news, and with the expectation that their fellow Israelites would support them in their preaching.

But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. It appears that, two by two, the 70 were to arrive in the cities and villages, explain the reason for their arrival in the public square, and look for a family that was willing to take them in. Jesus gives them, not just a nice saying, but a divine blessing to pronounce upon such a house, “Peace to this house.” God promised to bless that family with His peace and providence, but only if the people of the house welcomed not only the messengers but the message they preached. If they didn’t believe the message, then God’s peace would not rest upon them, because peace with God only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. There are some specific commands here. The missionaries were to stay in someone else’s home until their mission trip was completed. They were to receive their food from what the house provided, and they were not supposed to go door to door, looking for a new place to stay every night. But there is a general principle established here: The laborer is worthy of his wages. St. Paul actually cites this very saying of Jesus when he writes to Timothy in 1 Tim. 5, The laborer is worthy of his wages, and again when he writes to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 9: The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. St. Paul makes clear that this applies to every minister of the Gospel, and to every family or congregation that benefits from a pastor’s preaching, that the hearers should support the preachers, even as you have always done here so willingly for me.

Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. That’s not only a command for the hearers to provide. It’s also a command for the minister to be satisfied with what he’s given.

And heal the sick there. Again, a very specific, limited power, not given to all ministers of all time, but given to the 12 apostles, and also to these 70, to perform miraculous healing in Jesus’ name, and not to be stingy with such healing, but, as Jesus told the 12 when He sent them out, Freely you have received, freely give.

And say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ There’s the message. Just a summary of it, of course, but also the heart of it. The kingdom of God has come near to you. The kingdom of God isn’t a place up there in the sky. It’s every place where God reigns as King. It’s the place where the devil has no more say, no more power. It’s the place where sin and guilt are wiped out, where death is defeated, where God is a Father who cares equally for all the subjects of His kingdom, and where Jesus reigns as King in a person’s heart. It has “come near to you,” the 70 were to say, because the Lord Jesus was right behind them, soon to visit them. And where Jesus is, that’s where the kingdom of God is centered. Where Jesus comes, through His Word and through His Sacraments, where He comes with His righteousness, with His peace, there the Holy Spirit draws people away from stubbornly clinging to sin to repentance, from ignorance of God to the knowledge of God, from unbelief to faith, from death to life.

Now, Jesus was well aware that this message would not be accepted by many. In the following verses, he gives the 70 instructions about how to pronounce a curse upon the towns and cities that wouldn’t receive them. He who rejects you rejects Me, He said. But He also knew that some would receive His messengers, and so He said, He who listens to you listens to Me. When Jesus sends a messenger, a minister, to speak and to act in His name, He will hold the hearers accountable when He comes, for good or for bad.

And how will you know if the messenger was truly sent by God? The 70 had two proofs: the miracles they were enabled to perform, and the fact that their message agreed with the Scriptures. It’s not that much different today. A minister sent by God today has two proofs: the call of Jesus, through the call and ordination of the Church, which can be verified, and the fact that their message agrees with the Scriptures. Where both of these are present, receive them, listen to them, and support them, as you have done and still are doing. And know that, just as Jesus rejoiced when the 70 returned and told Him how many had received them and their preaching, so He will rejoice, and rejoices even now, when sinners are reconciled to God through the ministers whom He has sent, whether it’s the apostle Paul, or St. Luke the Evangelist, or even the one standing before you today. Amen.

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Called to imitate the love and humility of Christ

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 17

Ephesians 4:1-6 + Luke 14:1-11

You heard in today’s Epistle a powerful encouragement from the Apostle Paul. He said, I, the prisoner in the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. According to St. Paul, you Christians, you baptized believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, have a “calling.” You have been “called,” called by the Holy Spirit, through the Gospel. In fact, the very word “Church” in the Greek New Testament comes from a word that means “called out.” The Church is the little congregation of baptized believers, scattered around the world, that has been “called out.” And yet, not only “called out,” but also “called to.” St. Peter, in his first Epistle, puts it just that way: You have been called out of darkness, he says, to God’s marvelous light, called out of ignorance to knowledge, called out of the devil’s kingdom into God’s kingdom, called out of the slavery to sin into the service of righteousness, called out of unbelief to repentance and faith.

Today’s Gospel also highlights the Christian’s calling “out of” or “away from” a certain place and our calling “to” another place. Through the Gospel, the Holy Spirit calls us away from a place of indifference to a place of love. He calls us away from a place of pride to a place of humility.

Away from a place of indifference to a place of love. We see that in the first part of today’s Gospel. Jesus had been invited to a Sabbath-Day dinner at the home of one of the rulers of the Pharisees. And there was a man there at the supper who suffered from dropsy, a painful swelling in the arms or legs—often a sign of heart failure. Jesus had miraculously healed many diseases before this. And some of those healings had taken place on the Sabbath Day, the day of rest, according to the Third Commandment under the Law of Moses. And each time Jesus had healed on the Sabbath Day, the Pharisees and other Jews had gotten very angry, both at Him and at those who dared to be healed by Him on the day when they were all supposed to be resting.

So Jesus knew that the Pharisees would be watching Him at this supper. But He also knew that the man in front of Him, the man with dropsy, needed help—the kind of healing help only Jesus was able to offer. But before performing the healing, He had a lesson to teach the Pharisees. He asked them, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? According to God’s Law, in context, it was. The commandment prohibited doing “work” on the Sabbath day for a person’s own benefit, working your job, your farm, your kitchen, your yard, etc. But works of love, good works to help a person’s neighbor in an emergency—even good works to help a needy animal!—were not forbidden. Not by God, at least.

But these experts in the Law remained silent. They weren’t there to discuss God’s Word with Jesus. And they certainly weren’t there to seek help for this sickly man. They didn’t care about either; they had become indifferent to both—to both God and their neighbor—and, instead, were only there to carry out their own agenda to watch Jesus and to catch Him in a trap.

But Jesus cared, both about God’s Word and about His neighbor. He healed the man and let him go. And then He still wanted these men to confront their own lovelessness, to admit it, to repent of it. So He asked again, Which of you, if your ox or donkey fell into a pit, would not immediately pull it out on the Sabbath day? They all would, and they knew it. They wouldn’t sit back and “rest on the Sabbath” while their pack animal needed their help. But when it came to their own flesh and blood, their neighbor, their brother, their friend, their fellow church member—no, they didn’t care enough about him to intervene. They cared more about their agenda than they cared about their neighbor, so they still refused to answer Jesus.

Today, God would call you away from the indifference that still dwells in your sinful flesh to a place of love—love for God’s Word, so that you actually care what He says, so that you know His commandments, in context, and don’t try to twist His Word for your comfort, for your convenience, or for your own selfish purposes; and love for your neighbor, so that you actually care about your neighbor, being ready to go out of your way to help him, no matter what day of the week it may be. And sometimes, “love” means speaking hard truths to your neighbor, even as Jesus spoke hard truth to the Pharisees in today’s Gospel, exposing their indifference. Here, in this Gospel, God calls all people away from indifference, to repentance, to faith, and to love. And if you’re a baptized Christian, you have not only received but accepted that calling. Now walk in a manner worthy of it.

In a similar way, Christians have been called away from a place of pride to a place of humility.

Jesus witnessed this all-too-familiar pride at that same Sabbath dinner. He watched the guests arrive, and He saw how each one made a beeline for the place of highest honor at the dinner table, for the seats reserved for the most important guests, each one assuming that the host favored him the most, each one thinking, “Surely the host wants me to have the place of honor. So I’ll go ahead and seize it for myself.”

That provided Jesus with an opportunity to tell a parable about choosing one’s place at someone else’s dinner. He uses the example of a wedding banquet, but it’s a parable, so He isn’t really giving them advice for the proper etiquette at a banquet. He’s comparing the kingdom of heaven, the Church of God, to a wedding banquet. When you are invited by someone to a wedding, do not sit down in the place of highest honor. Otherwise, if someone more honorable than you has been invited by him, the one who invited you both may come and say to you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then, with shame, you will proceed to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that, when the one who invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher!’ Then you will have honor in front of all those who are sitting at the table with you.

As I said, Jesus isn’t interested in earthly wedding banquet behavior. He’s interested in saving people from sin, death, and the devil, and He knows the danger of thinking highly of oneself when it comes to God.

God is the Host of the banquet. He is the One who invites everyone to come into His kingdom. But how you come in is incredibly important. If you want to approach God with pride, as someone who thinks he deserves recognition, who has worked hard and earned a place in heaven and whom God is lucky to have by His side, if you approach God on your own terms, with your own beliefs, doing what you think is right (regardless of what He has to say about it in His Word), that’s like making a beeline for that place of highest honor and seizing it for yourself. But if you do that, you’re going to be in big trouble, because the Host of the heavenly feast will come in and see you sitting there, all proud of yourself, assuming you’re more deserving than the rest. If He finds you sitting there, He will tell you to get up and give your place to someone else. You’ll be disgraced before God and men. And when Jesus says in His parable that you’ll have to go down to the lowest place, what He means is, you won’t have a place in God’s presence at all. You’ll be ushered out of His kingdom into eternal darkness.

On the other hand, if you approach God, as He has invited you to do, in humility, as someone who acknowledges he deserves nothing from God, who recognizes that he has no righteousness of his own to offer God, who has earned only wrath and punishment from the just and holy God, who only looks to God for the mercy and favor He has promised to poor sinners for the sake of Jesus Christ, who died for you so that you might be acceptable to His heavenly Father, if you approach God on His terms, listening to His Word and believing in His Son Jesus Christ, leaving your life, your future, and your honor in God’s hands, to do with you as He pleases, that’s like choosing the lowest place at the banquet. And if God finds you sitting there, you’re safe, because the Host of the heavenly feast has already told you what He will do. He will come in and see you sitting there, where Jesus told you sit, and He will tell you to get up and go to a higher place, to a place of glory, to the place of a son or a daughter of God, to a place of eternal life.

Jesus summarizes it this way: For whoever exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. To exalt yourself is to lift yourself up, to look at yourself and take pride in yourself, and, in so doing, to place yourself above God and man. But the Holy Spirit, through the Gospel, has called you away from that. He has called you to recognize pride as the devil’s own attitude, to turn away from it, and to turn, instead, to a place of humility. To humble yourself means to lower yourself, with the sure hope that God won’t leave you in the dust.

Called away from indifference to love. Called away from pride to humility. In the end, the calling you have received is nothing other than the call to be imitators of God, the call to be like Jesus. When you read this Gospel, you can’t help but think of what Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 2: Let this mind be in you all, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. For love of you, for love of everyone, Jesus humbled Himself, lowered Himself all the way down to death on a cross. But God the Father didn’t leave Him in the dust. Paul goes on: Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. See how highly the Father has exalted Jesus, after He humbled Himself. You have His promise that the same will be done for you, if you humble yourself before Him.

Here, in this Gospel, God calls all people away from indifference to love, from pride to humility. He calls all people to know and to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, and then to imitate Him, to walk in His footsteps. If you’re a baptized Christian, you have not only received but accepted that calling. Now walk in a manner worthy of it, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above you all, and through you all, and in you all. Amen.

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God’s mighty messengers, the holy angels

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Feast of St. Michael & All Angels

Revelation 12:7-12 + Matthew 18:1-11

On Monday, which was the actual feast of St. Michael, President Trump posted this on the White House website: According to sacred Scripture, when the Devil rebelled against God in Heaven, Saint Michael and his legion of angels cast Satan down to Earth—triumphantly reasserting God’s sovereignty over all creation. For 2,000 years, Christians have looked to Saint Michael the Archangel for protection, strength, and courage in times of conflict, distress, and doubt. In 1886, nearly 140 years ago, Pope Leo XIII, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, fearing for the future of the western world, introduced the legendary Prayer to Saint Michael, which is still recited to this day in churches and homes all across our Nation and throughout the world: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

On the one hand, it’s nice to see the government speaking positively about religion instead of persecuting it. But we should always think critically when a government official says something about God or the Bible, because they’re not good theologians. Consider what the president wrote and notice a couple of things. First, he tells the nation that St. Michael cast down Satan in the beginning, when the Devil rebelled, “reasserting God’s sovereignty over all creation.” But what you heard about Michael casting out the devil in tonight’s first lesson from Revelation 12 didn’t happen in connection with the devil’s rebellion. If we look at the context, we see that it happened in connection with the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ Jesus. In fact, the vision is so full of symbolism that it would be unwise for us to think about that “battle in heaven” too literally in the first place. Nor was God’s sovereignty over all creation ever in question, needing to be “reasserted” by Michael and the angels. Nor are we ever taught in Holy Scripture to pray to any of the holy angels. Instead, we are taught over and over again to pray to God.

But, having said that, it is entirely appropriate to give thanks to God for the help and protection of the holy angels, and to pray to God that He would continue to send them to help us and to minister to us in our time need. Because there are many and great forces working against us in the spiritual realm. The devil is real. His demons are real. But so is Michael, and so are the holy angels, whom God employs to fight for us in ways that are almost always invisible to us.

Now there’s much we don’t know about angels, but there are some things we do know from Scripture. Angels don’t have flesh and blood as we do, but they can appear as men when they wish, like the two angels who accompanied the Lord in His visit to Abraham. We often picture angels with wings. That’s because Scripture describes them that way in several places, including how God Himself commanded Moses to depict them on the ark of the covenant and in the temple. Some of them are called “cherubim,” others “seraphim,” pictured as having either no wings, or two wings, or four wings, or six.

What do the angels do? Well, first and foremost, they worship God, their Creator, their Father, and their Lord. The seraphim are pictured doing that in Isaiah’s vision as they flew around God’s throne, calling out, Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory! Or in Revelation, the angels join their voices with all creatures, singing, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing! The writer to the Hebrews tells us that when God brought His firstborn into the world, He says: Let all the angels of God worship Him. And they did. Remember when they appeared to the shepherds of Bethlehem, and a great multitude of the heavenly host appeared and sang, Glory to God in the highest! Peace on earth, goodwill to men!

Not only do the angels worship God, but they teach us to worship God together with them, with joy, with reverence, and with humble awe. There was a reason why God told Moses to place two cherubim on the mercy seat, the lid of the ark of the covenant, with their wings spread over the mercy seat, and with their faces staring down at it in reverence, just as there was a reason why God instructed Solomon to have two statues of angels made to stand guard in the most holy place in the temple, with other carved figures of angels placed in the walls of the Temple. God was teaching Israel to worship Him as the angels do. God was teaching them to imitate the worship of the angels, and that, when we worship God, the angels are present there, too, which is why, whenever we sing the Sanctus before Communion, we pray, “Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name!”

Now, if the angels worshiped God there at the mercy seat where He appeared, and in the temple, shouldn’t we worship Him a hundred times more? The angels worship Him as their Creator and Father. We worship Him, not only as our Creator and Father, but as our Redeemer and Savior. The sinless angels have never needed God’s mercy. We poor sinners need it at all times. God didn’t send His Son into angels’ flesh, but into ours. God didn’t give His Son into death for the angels, but for us men. God has not had to forgive the angels any sins, but He forgives ours daily. God has not brought the angels into the body of Christ, but He has made us members of Christ’s body. So may our worship not just imitate, but surpass that of the angels. We have far greater reasons to worship our God than they.

But the main purpose of the angels, the primary work they were created to do, at least as far as we’re told in Scripture, is to serve the people of God. As it says in Hebrews about the angels, Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

There have been two main ways in which angels have served the Church. First, they were often God’s messengers to certain men, bringing the Word of God to people, here and there, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. But such messages were rare. The chief and ongoing work of the angels is something that we never get to see, and that is, to guard and protect the people of God from dangers both seen and unseen, from attacks both spiritual and physical, both demonic and human. The angels are God’s instruments to keep us safe from harm.

Michael is said to be one of the chief angels, an “archangel.” His name itself is a word of praise, meaning, “Who is like God?” The prophet Daniel was told that Michael is “the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people.” Whether “your people” was only a reference to the Old Testament nation of Israel or to all the people of God throughout the world for all time, we don’t even know. And it doesn’t really matter. Because, whether Michael is our archangel or whether it’s another, all the angels work together, at God’s command, to guard and protect the children of God.

All of this fits perfectly with what David wrote in Psalm 34, The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him and delivers them; and with what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 91, Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. The truth is, if we could only see all the dangers that surround us, and the spiritual battles being fought all around us, we would never stop giving thanks to God for the protection He gives us through these mighty messengers of His.

So take comfort in the angels’ presence and protection, whether you’re on land, on sea, or in the air, in your home or in the hospital, knowing that the angels are faithful servants of God, and mighty warriors against all that might bring us harm. And if any bad thing does happen to a child of God, we can know for certain that it was not a failure of the angels to protect us, or a failure of God to see to our protection. As St. Paul wrote, “We must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations.” This is not yet Paradise, where we will be truly safe from all harm. We’re still on the battlefield here, still living in the realm of the prince of this world, still living in enemy territory, as it were. But if any bad thing happens, we have God’s promise that He allowed it to happen for a good purpose, for our eternal good, and for the good of His holy Church, even as it finally worked out well for poor Lazarus, who suffered much in this life, but whose soul was finally carried, by the angels, up to Paradise.

There will come a day when the troubles of this life are finally removed forever, and the angels will be there on that day, too. Jesus says, The Son of Man will come in His glory, and all His holy angels with Him. And, As the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. At the same time, Jesus says, He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Give thanks to God today for how He runs the universe to work all things together for good to those who love Him, including His use of these holy messengers of His, the mighty angels, our fellow servants of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who worship Him together with us and lend us their ministry and protection. We don’t see them now, but we will see them when Christ comes again. Until then, we will continue to pray in Luther’s Morning and Evening Prayers, “Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.” Amen.

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