Matins for St. Timothy’s Day

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon and Service for the opening service of the meeting of the Confessional Lutheran Ministerium, on January 24, 2023.

1 Timothy 6:11-16  +  Matthew 24:42-47

(Sermon by Pastor Joshua Sullivan of Kerrville, Texas)

In the epistle lesson appointed for the Festival of St. Timothy, the apostle Paul gives his son in the faith more than enough to keep himself busy and productive in the Lord. He gives several exhortations that are for Timothy the minister and Timothy the Christian, so that they apply to those of who are are pastors and those of who aren’t.

First he writes, “Flee these things.” “These things” being the love of money and the love of glory that leads to useless wranglings over words that are contrary to the the words of the Lord Jesus.  He writes in verse 9, “Those who desire to be rich—and we can add those who desire their own glory—fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.” Flee these things. But its not enough to flee  the temptations of the world. You have to have a place to run, a direction to go, a goal to pursue. So “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.” Righteousness because God has declared you righteous because you believe in His Son; godliness because you are a son of God through faith in Christ Jesus; faith in God’s promises because faith is your victory over the world; love, gentleness, and patience toward others because that is how Christ Jesus lives toward you each day.

And lest Timothy fall the flesh’s allurement that all this should be easy, the apostle adds another verb: Fight. “Fight the good fight of faith.” It isn’t a fight against flesh and blood people—not matter how much it may seem like it at times, or how much other people want to make it so. The fight is against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). Timothy is to fight these powers, rulers, and spiritual hosts. He is to take up the shield of faith to extinguish the flaming darts of temptation and enticement the devil shoots at your heart and mind. He is to take up the sword of the spirit, the Word of God, and use it correctly to slay those temptations, enticements, and falsehoods as Samuel “hacked Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal” (1 Sam 15:33). It is, after all, a fight, a warfare, and all these things wage war against his soul and his ministry. To this Paul adds perseverance. “Lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” As you confessed at your ordination, continue in the good confession of the gospel, to keep this commandment without spot, blameless until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.

I’m sure there were days in which Timothy asked the question Paul asked in 2 Corinthians 2:16, and a question which we have asked ourselves at times, “Who is sufficient for these things?” Certainly not Timothy in himself. Not you. Not me. But Paul gives us the answer. “Our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor 3:5). This is why Paul urges Timothy in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate.” We are insufficient of ourselves to flee sin, to pursue righteousness, to fight the fight of faith, to lay hold of eternal life, and to persevere in that faith until the end. We are insufficient in ourselves to fulfill the ministry God has given us pastors and the vocations He has given to all of us as Christians. But our sufficiency is from God who gives life to all things, who calls all things into being and sustains them, who sustains us. Our sufficiency  is from God the Son who, while suffering in the flesh for our sins, did not shrink back from making the good confession before Pilate. Our sufficiency to flee sin, to pursue righteousness, to fight the good fight of faith, and to lay hold on eternal life, is from God who has graciously given His Son for our sins and gives His Holy Spirit to enliven us by faith so that we live new lives as new creatures.

It’s no coincidence that the first conference of our ministerium should begin on St. Timothy’s day. The goal of the ministerium is to support each other in the ministry, to encourage one another to faithfulness, and to spur each other on to do the work that God has given us to do, and not just the work of the Ministry, but also the work of being a Christian. Fleeing sin, pursuing righteousness, fighting the good fight, laying hold of of eternal life, and confessing the good confession. As we do this, we point each other, not to ourselves, but we encourage one another as Paul encouraged Timothy. The strength and sufficiency for all this is not within ourselves, but from God who gives live to all things, who gives us New Life through faith in Christ, so that we can make the good confession as He did. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Wednesday, January 25th

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Matthew 9:9-17

9 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.

10 Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”

15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

During His earthly ministry, Jesus didn’t only perform outward healings. His ministry was mostly spiritual. He called sinners like Matthew to leave their sinful life and follow Him, and they did. He went to the houses of sinners and ate and drank with them, showing them that they were safe with Him—not safe to go on living in sin, but safe to confess their sins, with the assurance of full and free forgiveness with Him and from Him. He had come to call sinners to repentance. To them He opened wide the doors of heaven, and He still does.

At the same time, He slammed the door shut on those who pretended to be righteous or healthy. To them, religion was about external deeds, of which they thought they had done plenty. Their pride had two tragic consequences. It prevented them from receiving help from Jesus, and it caused them to begrudge His help to others whom they considered to be unworthy.

Even John the Baptist’s disciples, who were familiar with repentance, were fixated on external religion, outward piety. They couldn’t understand why Jesus’ disciples didn’t openly fast, as they did. Jesus used the parables of the cloth and the wineskins to illustrate that the new covenant is different from the old. The Gospel is focused on mercy, not sacrifice, obedience from the heart, not external ceremonies, true repentance and faith in Christ, not a perfunctory show of religiosity. The joy of the Gospel of Jesus’ compassion is too big to be confined to a strict schedule of obligatory fasting.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, great Physician, You are righteous. We are not. Blot out our sins and heal our souls, for Your mercy’s sake alone, and stay with us until the end to keep attending to our healing. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Tuesday, January 24th 

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Matthew 8:28-34

28 When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. 29 And suddenly they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”

30 Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. 31 So the demons begged Him, saying, “If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.”

32 And He said to them, “Go.” So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.

33 Then those who kept them fled; and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.

The account of Jesus casting the Legion of demons out of the men and into the herd of pigs is the most vivid, detailed account of Jesus’ interactions with the demons in the Bible. The other Evangelists record the superhuman strength of the possessed man, along with the violence he displayed toward himself and others. But Jesus did not have to fight against the demons. He stood as the Almighty God, unthreatened and unafraid. Indeed, the demons were the ones who cowered in fear of Him, because they knew who He was and that He had the power to torment them even then, before the Last Judgment, when He will cast them into the everlasting fire, prepared originally, not for men, but for unclean spirits like these.

In their fear and desperation not to be cast immediately into hell, they begged to be cast into a herd of swine, and Jesus granted their request. The pigs drowned, and, apparently, the demons were free to go back to “going through dry places, seeking rest” (Matt. 12:43). Why would He grant this request, or any request on their part? Perhaps because Jews had no business keeping unclean animals in the first place. Perhaps as a sobering reminder that God is not yet ready to rid the world entirely of the devil’s assaults. In any case, Jesus’ sovereign power and authority are highlighted for us. That power caused the people of that region to fear Him and to want to be rid of Him. But for those who have been baptized into His name, it gives the greatest comfort. Not even a legion of demons can touch us, as long as we are close to Him.

Let us pray: O Lord Jesus, be ever our mighty Defender against the crafts and assaults of the devil! Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Monday, January 23rd 

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Matthew 8:14-22

14 Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15 So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.

16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:

“He Himself took our infirmities
And bore our sicknesses.”

18 And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. 19 Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”

20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”

22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Jesus spent a whole Sabbath day in Capernaum manifesting who He was: the Conqueror of demons, the Healer of the sick, the One who is kind and good and ready to help, at no charge, for no reward. Matthew is the Evangelist who ties Jesus’ goodness and His healing miracles to Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant. We often think of Jesus “bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows” (Is. 53:4) with reference to what He suffered for us on the cross and throughout Holy Week, and rightly so. But as Matthew explains, it also refers to the fact that the Christ would actually take away the pains of His people while He was with them on earth.

No longer is Christ with us so that we can go to see Him to have our every illness healed. But we do well to go to where He still makes Himself available to us, to the ministry of the Word, not for the healing of earthly illnesses, but for the healing of our souls in the forgiveness of sins, in the strengthening of our faith, and in the protection He provides against the demons’ power.

As the rest of today’s reading teaches, following Jesus in this world will not be easy; He offers no earthly amenities. But following Him should be the most important thing in the world to us whose very life depends on the refuge He alone provides against sin, death, and the devil. And if we remain with Him to the end, He’ll take away all our pains and provide the perfect healing of our bodies and our souls in the resurrection.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, have mercy on us in the midst of all our afflictions and make us ready to follow Jesus at all times. Amen.

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No one who trusts in Christ will be disappointed

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Epiphany 3

Romans 12:16-21  +  Matthew 8:1-13

In our opening hymn this morning, we reviewed some of the highlights of the Epiphany season, how Jesus’ divinity was manifested in wonderful ways: by the star that led the wise men to find Him and worship in Bethlehem, by His baptism in the Jordan River, by changing water into wine at the wedding at Cana, and, from today’s Gospel, by making whole palsied limbs and fainting soul…Manifest in gracious will, ever bringing good from ill. Yes, Jesus’ divinity was manifested in those healing miracles. But something about His divinity was also manifested in those accounts. The hymn we just sang captures it, from the perspective of the leper and the centurion who came to Jesus for help: In Thee, Lord, have I put my trust. Leave me not helpless in the dust. Let me not be confounded. Let my faith, O Lord, be always firmly grounded in Thy Word. In these two healing accounts, the Lord reveals His willingness to help those who seek help from Him, and He leaves us with this truth: No one who trusts in Christ will be disappointed.

The leper approached Jesus, fell down before Him, and prayed, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. What a beautiful, simple little prayer! He makes no demands of Jesus, as if he deserves His help. He expresses a firm confidence in Jesus’ ability to help. You can make me clean. And he leaves the decision whether or not to heal him entirely up to Jesus’ good and gracious will. If You are willing. That’s the power of God’s word, to work such faith in this man’s heart. That’s the power of the message about Jesus: that He has come to save unworthy sinners.

What was Jesus’ response to that prayer? Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was moved with compassion. That He reached out and touched the leper. The Clean One touches the unclean one and says, I am willing. Be clean. And he was clean. I am willing, Jesus said. He didn’t need to pray to God the Father and ask if He was willing. I am willing. That’s a manifestation of His Godhood. And of His complete power over sickness and disease. And of His compassion for the wretched, for the helpless, for the needy, for the downtrodden, for the outcast. The leper trusted in Jesus, and he was not disappointed.

Jesus’ compassion is always there, because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. His willingness to cleanse sinners from their sin is also always there, as John writes: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. With regard to physical maladies in this life, Jesus isn’t always willing to remove them. That willingness was almost entirely restricted to the three years of His earthly ministry, to prove His divinity and His power to save, not just from physical maladies, but from sin, death, and the devil. But He is always willing to help us bear those maladies. You remember St. Paul’s famous “thorn in the flesh,” whatever it was. He pleaded with Jesus to remove it, but what did the Lord tell him? My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. But at the end of this age, He will be willing to cleanse us completely, both our sinful flesh and all the maladies that go along with it. Then we will hear Him say, “Be clean.” And we will be, completely, perfectly, and forever.

After He cleansed the leper, Jesus wasn’t done with him just yet. He told him, See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.

With cleanness comes a command: Go, do as the Law requires. We note that the cleansing happens first, and then comes the command. So also when Jesus absolves you of your sins, He doesn’t put the absolution at the end, after you’ve obeyed His commands, after you’ve done your works of penance or satisfaction. No, He absolves, and then He commands you to go and sin no more, to love God and to love your neighbor. “You are clean,” He says. Now live as a clean person, as a testimony to those around you. As Paul wrote in today’s Epistle: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So much for Jesus’ interaction with the leper. Now let’s turn to the centurion.

A Roman centurion came to Jesus with a request. Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented. Now, sometimes, Jesus made people wait a moment to get an answer from Him, to test their faith, to hold them up as an example, to force them to stop trusting in what their eyes could see and to cling only to His Word. But none of that was necessary with this centurion. Immediately Jesus replied, I will come and heal him.

And then, amazingly, it was the centurion who stopped him and said, no. No, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. To him, this was a very simple matter. He understood chain of command. The superior gives an order to the officer under his command, and the command is obeyed. Or else! The simple word the centurion had already heard about Jesus was enough to convince him that Jesus was the Superior, the one with authority to issue a command, from anywhere on earth, from anywhere in the universe. The word of Jesus was all the centurion craved, and would be all that he needed to know that his servant would be made well.

We’re told that Jesus marveled at this saying. Truly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! What was Jesus astonished at? Not the centurion’s status. Not his worthiness or his good works. He was astonished that anyone, and especially a Gentile who had  not been raised in the true faith, should have such a great faith, firmly grounded in the Person of Christ and in the Word of Christ, in Jesus as the Commander in charge of sickness and health, of nature itself, of the fate of mankind! Faith that Jesus was the kind of God who cared about unworthy sinners, and who would not allow those who trusted in Him to be disappointed.

The centurion was an anomaly in Israel at that time. But he wouldn’t remain alone.

I tell you that many will come from the East and the West and will sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. There will be many more who look to Jesus with this kind of humble faith, who trust wholly in the power of His Word. They will come from all over the world, from the East and the West, from every race among men. People will hear and be convinced, not by the power of the rational arguments people make for Jesus, not by the power of their own reason. They will hear the simple word about the goodness and power of Jesus—His goodness displayed first and foremost in His death on the cross for our sins, His power displayed first and foremost in His resurrection from the dead—and they will repent of their sins. They will receive the gift of faith. They will look to Jesus with genuine trust in His word, in spite of what their human reason may tell them.

At the same time, though, a sad future is foretold: But the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The physical children of Abraham will be cast out into outer darkness. Why? Because they didn’t want the free salvation Jesus was bringing. They didn’t want to listen to His Word that revealed their sin and their need for a Savior sent from heaven. They actually thought of themselves as “good people,” people who were worthy of God’s help, worthy of a place at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. How wrong they were.

How wrong is anyone who dares to think that way, and it’s a common way for people to think. Even Christians must beware, because as the evil in the world around us increases, our flesh would have us put ourselves up on a pedestal and believe ourselves to be more worthy of God’s favor and forgiveness and help than others.

Not so. The one whom God accepts, the one whom God helps, the one whom God praises is the one who brings no worthiness of his own to God, but who trusts firmly in God’s promises, in His acceptance for the sake of Christ alone.

When we do that, when we rely, not on ourselves, not on what we wish God would do, but only on what He has promised to do for the sake of Christ, then we can expect that Jesus’ response to us will be like His response to the centurion: As you have believed, so let it be done.

When you believe in God’s promises, when you trust in the word of Christ above everything else, you will have a favorable answer from God every time. Not because you are so good, not because your prayers are so good, but because, by approaching Jesus in faith, you’re approaching the very One who makes you worthy of God’s help, the very One who came into the world to help and to save sinners. Trust in Christ! Trust in His Word! And you can be sure, you will never be disappointed. Amen.

 

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