Monthly Archives: August 2026

Popeye Gospel – Sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:1-10 for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

1 Corinthians 15:1-10

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Sin makes everyone prideful. It’s true that some people are more prideful than others. Some wear their pride as prominently as a ten-gallon hat on top of their heads; some keep it better hidden. But pride isn’t a special weakness of only a few. Pride is the default setting of the sinful nature of every one of us.

In our Old Testament reading (Gen. 4:1-15), we saw Cain’s pride. God had established the sacrifice that covered nakedness and shame with the slaughtering of an animal (Gen. 3:21). Abel followed that pattern by offering the firstborn of his flocks. But Abel’s brother, Cain, proudly thought his offering of crops was good enough. When God didn’t accept Cain’s offering, his face fell. Rather than examining his heart and actions, Cain didn’t let go of his pride. Since Abel was offering acceptable sacrifices, Cain murdered him. Cain would rather destroy what was better than repent of his unacceptable sacrifices.

In the Gospel reading (Lk. 18:9-14), the Pharisee does same thing. Instead of comparing himself and his actions to other Pharisees, he picks the worst of the worst—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and tax collectors. Instead of looking into the clear mirror of God’s Law, he compares himself to scoundrels and fornicators, which couldn’t give him a clear picture of himself. Even though his resume of works was extraordinary according to human standards, it doesn’t impress God. That was why the tax collector went home justified. He simply pleaded for mercy. Pride keeps score, and faith begs for mercy.

Pride always boasts. It boasts of what it has accomplished, what it has avoided, and what it is by its own strength. Some of you will remember the old cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man. Besides eating spinach and having ridiculously large forearms, Popeye is known for his quote, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam.” Sinful pride does the same. It says, “I am what I am, so look at me, my accomplishments, and my achievements.” That kind of prideful boasting exalts the self while excluding God, and it is deadly. But there is another kind of boasting.

Paul uses almost the same words as Popeye, but in a stark contrast from the spinach-eating sailor, Paul doesn’t let those words stand alone. He puts more weight on what he says before. “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Co. 15:10). Paul knew what he had been. Before Jesus appeared to him, he was the church’s primary and fiercest enemy.

Paul had been trained by one of the most prominent teachers and a member of the Sanhedrin (Act. 5:34-39; 22:3). He had lived a life that was blameless under the law (Php. 3:6). He consented to Stephen’s death (Act. 8:1) and was ravaging the church all over the world (Act. 9:1; 26:11). Then, Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me” (Act. 9:4). Christ brought the self-righteous Saul to the dust. The Gospel opened his eyes (Act. 9:17-19). And he became the apostle to the Gentiles (Act. 9:15; 22:21).

Paul never forgot that moment. From that day forward he refused to stand before God saying, “I thank You that I am not like other men,” and instead said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). The same man who once trusted his own righteousness now trusted only in the righteousness that is given by God to those who have faith in Christ (Ro. 3:21-22). 

When Paul boasts, he doesn’t do it from a place of pride. He will not take credit. “By the grace of God I am what I am.” If God had dealt with Paul according to justice, damnation would have been his due. It was grace—and grace alone—that made Saul into a Paul.

Dear saints, you and I all stand in the same place. By nature, you are not better than Cain, the Pharisee, or Saul the persecutor. You were not less of a sinner. We are all “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). The only reason any of us became Christians is that God has done the work. His Law cast us down and humbled us. Then, the Holy Spirit enlightened us with the Gospel, brought us to faith, forgave us, and adopted us as His own. What you are today, you are by the grace of God alone.

To confess that you are a Christian is already a boast of God’s pure grace. It is to be called out of darkness into light, out of damnation into salvation—all for the sake of Christ. By the grace of God, you are what you are. As a part of the body of Christ, you have work to do.

Here, Paul says that he has worked harder than any of the other apostles, but it wasn’t to his own credit. It was the grace of God that worked through him. This is a Christian boast. The work Paul did was real, and the glory belonged to God.

That’s why Paul says, “His grace toward me was not in vain.” Grace does not leave a person unchanged or idle. It produces real labor and real results. Paul actually did work harder than the rest. He traveled farther, suffered more, planted more congregations, and endured more hardship than the others (2 Co. 6:4-10). Yet every moment it was the grace of God at work in and through him. The same is true for you.

God has called you to serve Him in His kingdom. In your family and household; in your workplace; in this congregation; with your neighbors; in your city, your state, and country—in those ordinary places God’s grace does remarkable things through you. The grace that is saving you (1 Co. 15:2) is active and powerful.

There is a ‘bad’ kind of humility that sounds pious, but it actually lessens the work of God. It says, “I’m just a nobody who isn’t significant. My vocations don’t really matter. God isn’t using me for anything special.” Hogwash. That might sound humble, but it denies the power of God’s grace that already made you who you are. It’s an anti-spinach that weakens what God is doing and will do through you. It treats the living Christ who lives in you as if He were weak or uninterested in using ordinary believers for His kingdom. That false humility minimized God’s grace and actually harms faith. Imagine if Paul had said, “What I’ve done for the kingdom doesn’t matter because I used to persecute the Church of Christ.” That would grossly dishonor the work God did through him. And it would deter him from continuing to do the work God gave him to do. Don’t let the devil lull you into that kind of complacency!

You don’t have to outwork Paul and plant churches on every corner. But you are a Christian. That is already a high enough calling. The grace that has made you God’s child is not in vain. It works through your hands, words, and presence. It moves you to be generous, forgiving, and bold in your witness. In the quiet places of your everyday life, God advances His kingdom in ways that will only be fully seen on the Last Day. God has made you to be His salt and light (Mt. 5:13-16). He has placed you on a lampstand so that you give light to those around you. And He makes your light shine.

Sure, confess that you have not done enough—no Christian ever has. Plead for the grace that makes you willing and able to walk in the good works God has already prepared for you (Eph. 2:10). Whatever is done through you—even the smallest act of faithfulness—is not of yourself. It is the grace of God that is with you.

That is the kind of boasting that belongs in a Christian’s mouth. “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.”

That grace comes to you now as Jesus comes to feed you with His Body and Blood. He still forgives yesterday’s sins and the sins of this morning. He is your righteousness. He has made you what you are, and He is the One who will keep working through you until the day He brings His work to completion. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

The Untaming of the Shrewd – Sermon on Luke 16:1-13 for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 16:1-13

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

We’ll get to the parable, but we’ll start with a little congregational participation. Ready? Pick one hand and hold it in front of you. Point your thumb toward your face and line your other fingers straight behind it like you’re going to do a karate chop. Keep your hand like that and look at me for a moment.

Imagine you’re at the grocery store to buy a snack for yourself. It could be a bag of chips, a box of cookies, or a pint of ice cream, whatever you fancy right now. No self-checkout today. You’ve handed the cashier a $20 bill, and she’s about to hand you your change. Without looking at your hand, move it into position to receive the change. Now, look at your hand. I’m guessing your palm is toward the ceiling, fingers slightly open, ready to close around the change. We’ll call that the ‘receptive’ hand.

Put your hand back in the karate chop position and keep it there again. Imagine you spot a $100 bill on a shelf in the store. No one else is around. Forget about what you would do with it. Just move your hand as if you’re reaching to take it. Look again—that’s the grasping and taking hand.

Everyone knows that hand. It is the hand of a child who snatches a toy and yells, “Mine!” It is the hand that treats everything as something to control rather than receive. That grasping hand is not new. It is as old as the Fall.

God created our hands to be the hands of a steward with open palms. First, receiving from Him; then, offering to Him. God created us in His Own image and gave us dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the animals, and all the earth. He gave every plant for food (Gen. 1:28-30). That dominion wasn’t permission to beat creation into submission. It was entrusted to us as image-bearers, so that we would reflect the heart of our all-giving Creator.

Not only did God give all of creation to be under our dominion, He also gave us a home. He put Adam and the woman in the Garden of Eden and gave them a clear purpose, “to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). The two Hebrew verbs there are the same words God used when He established the priests who were to ‘serve’ and ‘guard’ the Tabernacle (Num. 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6). In short, Adam wasn’t only created to be a gardener. He was created to be a priestly guardian of the sacred space of Eden. There was only one vocation in Eden, and that was the vocation of steward. God created us to receive everything from His open hand—palms up, receiving every gift of creation from His generosity. That open, receptive hand is the original stewardship hand.

Sadly, the hand rolled over. In Gen. 3, the devil suggested that God was holding out. Out of all creation, God said that one tree was off-limits. The devil lied to the woman and said that things would be better if she would eat the forbidden fruit. Suddenly, that is all her eye could see. The woman sees that the tree is good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise (Gen 3:6). That desire and covetousness twisted her vision. The hands of the woman and Adam—hands that had been open to receive—those hands turned over to reach, grasp, and take.

That single motion—palm down, fingers closing around what wasn’t theirs—was the tipping point. The stewards presumed to be owners. But God never transferred ownership. Instead, they took and grasped what didn’t belong to them. They became thieves. In a sense, they stole the fruit. But the deeper theft was their attempt to take God’s place. The closing, grasping hand was the first act of original sin. It showed that they no longer trusted God, and whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (Ro. 14:23). That hand turning over and grasping what God hadn’t given was a violation of at least the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Commandments.

Now, bring that picture into the parable Jesus tells today.

There is a rich man whose hand was always open, always giving. He entrusted his possessions to a manager. The manager’s hand was supposed to stay palm up so he could receive the master’s wealth, manage it, and return it to the owner. But the manager’s hand has already rolled over. He has been wasting what was never his. Some commentators suggest that this manager was scamming the tenants by collecting more than he was supposed to and keeping the extra for himself.

When the master calls for an accounting of the books, the manager’s closed fist is exposed, and he will be removed from his position. The manager knows himself well enough to admit that he isn’t strong enough to dig, and he’s too proud to beg. So, what does he do? He acts shrewdly and hatches a plan. He probably worked harder that afternoon than he had in years.

He calls in the debtors one by one and reduces what they actually owe without the master’s permission or authorization. The unrighteous manager is still living off the master’s open-handed generosity, still using the master’s resources. He keeps his hand turned over so he can cleverly take more—this time, from the master himself. He is using his boss’s generosity as his own personal safety net. He knows that these debtors will be singing the praises of the rich man. But they will also associate him with their debt being slashed.

Notice that when the rich man figures the whole thing out, he still doesn’t close his hand. Instead, the master commends and praises the manager—not for his theft, but for his shrewdness. The manager knew the giving nature of the rich man and bet everything on it. That’s what Jesus is praising.

Jesus is not holding him up as a moral example. The man is unrighteous. His motivation is purely self-preservation. He’s a thief, but he’s a shrewd thief. Look at the energy this little scoundrel pours into securing a few friends who will toss him bread when he’s finally out of his job. Look at how he plots, stays up late, and reworks the books for his own benefit.

What Jesus praises is the shrewd use of what belongs to another. The manager did it only for his own benefit. Jesus wants us to do it for the benefit of others. In short, Christ wants us to use what God gives and entrusts to us in shrewd ways that reveal the generosity of our heavenly Father. That’s why Jesus says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Lk. 16:8).

Dear saints, you have infinite treasures. You have the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of the resurrection and the life of the world to come. You have all of that because of the open hand of our God who gives and gives and gives. He promises that you don’t have to worry about any of your needs for tomorrow because He will provide (Mt. 6:31-34). But still, we are careful, cautious, and stingy. In our selfishness we have tamed ourselves to be close-fisted. Repent.

That is the rebuke Jesus has for us today. Our closed hands are greedy and lazy. The 7th Commandment forbids both. Greed selfishly grabs. Laziness selfishly refuses to work. The virtue the Holy Spirit is after in us today is generosity. He wants us to open our hands to both freely receive and freely give. Jesus presses the point: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings”(Lk. 16:9). Eventually, money will fail. The day is coming when our hands can’t hold anything. So today, use what is already the Lord’s to make eternal friends—people who will stand with you in the Resurrection because the Gospel reached them through the resources you have stewarded.

David recognized this in our Old Testament reading (1 Chr. 29:10-15). When the people freely gave and poured out their gifts so the Temple could be built, David prayed, “All things come from You, and of Your own have we given You” (1 Chron. 29:14). Whenever and whatever we give, we are only returning what the open hand of God first placed in our hands. There is no such thing as ‘my money’ or ‘my stuff’ in the kingdom of heaven. There is only the Lord’s money and the Lord’s stuff temporarily in our care. That fact frees the fist that desires to grasp. That truth untames us and makes us shrewd. Closed hands always end in idolatry by making a (little ‘g’) god of the self and of the stuff we think we can control.

Repent and always know that Christ is the perfect Steward. His hands stayed open. Though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich (2 Co. 8:9). He emptied Himself. He stretched out His hands on the cross and let everything be taken. His blood, His life, His whole Self—He gave it all as pure gift. You are not just a failed steward left to dig yourself out of sin. Instead, you are a redeemed steward who has been washed, forgiven, and claimed. The Holy Spirit is still at work to turn our hands back over, palm up, open again.

Jesus wants us to have the same energy that the unjust steward showed. He wants to untame us so we shrewdly use that same intensity, that same foresight, that same willingness to stay up late and work hard for His kingdom.

You have a mind. Use it to find new ways to love your neighbor. You have a body. Use it to serve others. You have resources that are already His. Use them to make friends who will welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

Dear saints, your Master’s hand is always open. He has already given you everything that matters. You are free. Be shrewd with His gifts, and rejoice in His goodness. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.