Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Now and always, our God is the God of the living (Lk. 20:38).
From the very beginning of Scripture (Gen. 1:1-2:3), God creates and gives life to everything that and lives and breathes. God forms Adam from the dust of the ground with His own hand and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7) because He is the God of the living.
In the time of the Flood (Gen. 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13) when every intention of the thoughts of mankind’s heart was choosing death, God brings destruction to those who rejected Him as the God of life. But He would not make a complete end. He instructed Noah to build an ark to save Noah, his family, and the animals. God did this to preserve the life He had created because He is the God of the living.
When God heard the groaning of His people who were slaves in Egypt, He remembered His covenant with them. God saw their affliction, and God knew (Ex. 2:23-25). God did all those signs and wonders to bring His people out of that land of slavery and death. He opened a way through the waters of the Red Sea so His people could escape Pharaoh’s deadly soldiers, pass through the watery tomb on dry ground, and arrive safely on the other shore (Ex. 14:10-15:1). He did this because He is the God of the living.
When they were scattered and exiled, God promised to bring His people to their own land. He promised to sprinkle clean water on them to wash them from all their uncleanness. He would remove the sinful, dead hearts of stone and give them living hearts of flesh (Ezk. 36:24-28) because He is the God of the living.
When His people were dried up bones (Ezk. 37:1-14), God gave His prophet Ezekiel a promise to proclaim: “I will open your graves and raise you from your graves. I will bring you into the land, and you shall know that I am the Lord. I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live.” God made that promise because He is the God of the living.
When Job was suffering, he knew that his Redeemer lives (Job 19:20-27). And Job had no doubt that his Redeemer would stand victorious on the earth. Job rightly confessed even after his body died and his flesh was destroyed that his own eyes would see God because Job knew that God is the God of the living.
Faced with a blazing execution, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship the pagan image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up (Dan. 3:1-30). They knew that God was able to deliver them from the burning fiery furnace and out of the king’s hand. But even if God didn’t deliver them they would not worship that dead, golden image. Even though they were bound and thrown into that inferno, they were not burned or singed because the God of the living walked with them both through and out of that fire.
The God of the living brings life to every corner of creation where we bring sin and, with our sin, death. The God of the living took on flesh and blood to take your place on Golgotha, the Place of the Skull (Mt. 27:33). Out of love for you who choose death, He willingly went to death to utterly defeat it. And when God dies, He doesn’t stay dead. He is the God of the living.
Jesus, your Savior, has and will come into your grave and bring you out. By His death, He has swallowed up death. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Death’s only answer is, “I lost them. The God of the living has taken them away.”
Dear saints, because of the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and living Jesus, you now look for the resurrection of the dead and for the life of the world to come. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 85; Hosea 14:1-2; 1 John 4:17-21; and John 15:1-17.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
I was listening to a couple of pastors talk about sermons and preaching yesterday, and one of them said something that was as insightful as it was obvious; I just hadn’t heard it put so bluntly. The pastor basically said, “Every evangelical sermon is a commentary on Genesis 3 and the Fall.” Especially lately, it seems like my sermons keep referring back to Gen. 3. First of all, if you’re sick of that, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry. And second, tonight, rather than attempting to hide it, I’m just going to embrace it because it ties so closely to our Old Testament reading (Hos. 14:1-2).
After those fateful bites of forbidden fruit, Adam and his wife’s eyes are opened, and they knew that they were naked and exposed. When they heard the sound of their Creator walking in the garden, they hid themselves from His presence. God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” God wasn’t looking for information; instead, He was giving Adam a chance to repent and return. But Adam says that he was trying to hide from God because he was naked. In other words, he had nothing. He was exposed and afraid because there was nothing He could offer God after disobeying the command to not eat from that one tree.
But the fact that he didn’t have anything to offer God didn’t stop Adam from trying. All Adam could come up with was to offer some pitiful, evil excuses for his sin. “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). With those words, Adam tries to blame his wife first, but ultimately, he tries to blame God. While I’ve always found that absurd, Adam did have some logic in trying that.
Think about this for a minute: When God created, He did it through words. Because Adam was created in God’s image, his words also had power over creation. God brought every living creature to Adam and whatever he called it, that was its name (Gen. 2:19). But when Adam fell into sin, that image of God and verbal power was lost. His lips and tongue had been infected with sin and were full of lies (Ro. 3:13-14). After eating the forbidden fruit, Adam’s words didn’t have the same power over reality that they had before. Blaming God didn’t work. Those pathetic excuses failed to rectify the situation. But with his nakedness exposed, Adam figured he had nothing else to offer God.
Now, here’s where the reading from Hosea comes in because God tells us what to offer Him when we have been separated from Him due to sin. God calls His people to return to Him because they had stumbled in iniquity and were completely exposed as sinners. But notice how they called are to return – not empty, naked, and bare. They to return with something. They are given words to take with them as they return. What words are given? “Take away all iniquity.” Those are bold words for sinners to place on their lips, but there is a reason they can and should.
First of all, those words are God-given. God gives those words and wants to hear those words. Second, those words recognize the presence of sin and iniquity and transgression that needs to be dealt with. And third and most importantly, those words recognize that sin can only be removed by God Himself. And this confession, “Take away all iniquity,” is, at the same time, both the confession of the existence of sin and the confession that God needs to remove that sin, which is exactly in line with who God has promised to be.
Right after the Fall, God promised that the Seed of the woman would come and crush the serpent’s head. He did the work of covering Adam and the woman’s nakedness and shame with animal skins. He had defined Himself as a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin (Ex. 34:6-7). God has promised to be the Sin Absolver.
Our Psalm tonight (Ps. 85) opens by remembering how God had been favorable, restored fortunes, forgiven iniquity, covered sin, and withdrawn His wrath and anger. Then, it takes those things God had done and says, “God, do it again! Give us your favor, restore our fortunes, forgive our iniquity, cover our sin, withdraw Your wrath and anger again.”
To ask God to do all of that again assumes that God loves us even though we are sinners. But that isn’t just an assumption. God has proven that love. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Christ went a step beyond that. Jesus has shown and demonstrated God’s love for us, in that, while we were still sinners – not friends, but sinners and enemies of God – Christ came and died for us (Ro. 5:8). God sent His Son to suffer and be the atoning sacrifice for your sin (1 Jn. 4:10).
Dear saints, when you return to God, you are to return with these promises, these works, these demonstrations of God’s love for you. You remind and point God back to the suffering and death of Jesus, your Savior. In His suffering and death, you have been given full, undeniable proof of God’s love for you. His love was made manifest when He sent Jesus so that you might live through Him (1 Jn. 4:9).
And this love of God produces fruit that lasts and abides (Jn. 15:16). Go and tell others about this love of God. Jesus has suffered for sin of the world (1 Jn. 4:14). Teach them the words with which God wants them to return. He is ready to hear that they are sinners, and He is eager to forgive them for the sake of Jesus’ suffering which reconciles us, returns us to God, and gives us life now and forever. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are portions of Psalm 22; Zechariah 13:1, 7-9; and Mark 14:32-41.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
One of the common objections that pagans have against Christianity goes something like this: The Christian god is nothing more than a spoiled brat. He gets upset when humans decide to eat a piece of fruit, and you silly Christians believe the only way to make him happy is for him to torture and kill his own child. The pagans will then say that if god were truly loving that he wouldn’t threaten us with eternal punishment simply because we don’t follow his contrived rules. They think that god should just love and accept us for who we are and not who he expects us to be. He’s simply too demanding and stubborn. If he wants to forgive us, he should just get over his rules, ignore our deficiencies, and move on.[1]
That type of thinking is all the evidence you need to know that person has no clue what Christianity actually teaches. So, let’s try an analogy – just know this analogy isn’t a complete picture of Christianity either. The hymn we just sang, “Salvation Unto Us Has Come,” does a great job giving a fuller picture than this analogy does, but the analogy helps address that objection, so here it is:
Imagine a mom and dad who have a perfectly loving home with several children. In this home, there is no anger or selfishness. The children never fuss or complain. They all treat each other and with perfect, complete love and respect.
Then one day, a virus attacks the children, and it causes them to harm themselves and each other in horrible ways. They also fight against their parents. (Please know, the analogy already breaks down here because it doesn’t place any culpability on the kids for contracting this virus. We are entirely guilty for all of our sin. But, again, it’s not a full picture.)
In that instance, could those parents simply let that virus eat away at their children? Could they just decide to love their children the way they are while the virus progresses, and the conditions keep getting worse? Could those parents ignore how that virus mutates the genes of their kids and spreads to others too? Could they just let that virus fester and kill their kids along with all their descendants while the kids get more and more violent and dangerous? No!
The parents would hate the virus. They would be angry at the destruction and devastation it brought to their family. They would do anything they could to annihilate the virus. But those parents know two things. First, they know that the virus has run so deep that killing the virus would also mean the death of their children. Second, they know that only way to abolish the virus and stop the suffering it brings is for one of the parents to receive a treatment that sucks all the virus out of their children and puts it all into one of the parents. It means that one of the parents will have to die, but the children will live and be cured. So, of course, one of the parents, out of love for the family willingly volunteers to be the cure and die.
Now, this analogy doesn’t present all the aspects of what Scripture teaches, but it addresses the “God-is-a-child-abuser” objection against Christianity that I mentioned earlier.
Dear saints, the virus of sin is horrific. Sin isn’t just something floating around out there that periodically causes pain. No, sin is a completely devastating infection coursing through your veins. Your sin causes hurt and harm to others and to yourself. Sin kills you.
Yes, God loves you just the way you are. But it would not be loving for God to leave you just the way you are. Instead, He loves you in such a way that He will not allow sin to drag you into eternal suffering. In Christ, God came down to draw all the infection of sin from you. Jesus took all that sin and disease from you (Is. 53:4; Mt. 8:17). In 2 Cor. 5:19, 21, Scripture tells us, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them… For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
When the virus of sin first infected humanity in the Garden of Eden, God promised to send the Savior (Gen. 3:15) and draw all the disease of sin out of you. In love for you, God kept that promise when, in the fullness of time, the long-promised and long-awaited Christ came to willingly suffer all the pain and torment that the virus of sin brings.
In Christ, God was at work keeping the promise He had made. But even though humanity first heard that promise in the Garden of Eden, Scripture teaches that even before He created all things, God knew that humanity would choose to contract that virus and He knew what it would take to cure you. So, Scripture comforts you by clearly stating that Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8 [KJV]; 1 Pet. 1:19-20).
When God poured out His just anger and righteous wrath against the virus of sin, He first placed it all upon Himself, on Jesus (Jn. 1:29; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Jn. 2:2) to spare and rescue you from that punishment. And when Christ suffered God’s punishment for your sin, He knew exactly what He was doing (Mk. 14:36, 39). No one took Jesus’ life from Him. He had the authority to lay it down and to take it up again (Jn. 10:18).
He knew that He was the Shepherd who would be struck for your sake (Zech. 13:8; Mk. 14:27). He willingly took the blow of God’s punishment and laid down His life for you (Jn. 10:11). Christ did this so that you would call upon His name and be His people (Zech. 13:9).
It was not out of hatred for His Son, but out of love for you that God the Father punished Jesus on the cross. The Good Shepherd willingly took all of God’s wrath against your sin in order that you would be His forever. He was punished so that you would be restored and forgiven, brought back to your proper place as a child of God. Because of what Jesus has done for you, you can confess, “The Lord is my God.”
Christ has opened the fountain that cleanses you from the virus of sin and uncleanness (Zech. 13:1). Because Jesus has taken your punishment God is not ashamed to say, “[You] are My people” (Zech. 13:9). Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] I have intentionally used lower-case references to God here because this argument does not – in any way, shape, or form – represent who God truly is.
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and
“‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Our Old Testament and Gospel readings today both record the devil coming to tempt. The first temptation was in the perfection of Eden and was aimed at Eve and Adam. The second was aimed at Jesus who was alone in the wilderness. In the Garden, Satan succeeded, and in the wilderness, he failed – and failed miserably. Now, in the past, we’ve considered how both of those temptations are similar and follow the pattern that the devil uses with us.
The devil is a one trick pony who tries to get Eve, Adam, Jesus, and you to doubt God’s Word. In the Garden, the devil asks, “Did God really say?” And when he is in the wilderness with Jesus, the devil starts his temptations with, “If you are the Son of God…” Remember, at Jesus’ Baptism, God the Father clearly said, “This is My beloved Son,” so the devil is trying to cast doubt on God’s Word again. He does the same thing In the temptations he throws at you. Now, this is extremely helpful to know and helps us fight against sin. But there is a very important difference between the temptations Satan lobs at Adam, Eve, and Jesus and the temptations he hurls at you. The difference, mainly, lies in the devil’s goal. Think through this for a minute.
In the Garden, the devil only needed to get Adam and Eve to sin once. One sin would rip all of humanity them from perfection and holiness and plunge them into fallenness and corruption. One sin and Satan figured he could stop working and retire to Arizona or Florida. But he was wrong. God completely upended the devil’s plan and promised to send the Seed of the woman to crush Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15). So, with his plans thwarted, the devil had to continue to tempt all people while he waited for that Savior to be born.
When Jesus entered creation, the devil again saw his chance for an early retirement. Here was that long-promised Seed of the woman. If he could just get Christ to commit one sin, then Jesus couldn’t be the Savior of all humanity. So, the devil waited until he thought the moment was ripe. After Jesus had fasted for forty days and nights, the devil came with these three temptations that he aimed at the second Adam (Ro. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45).
Do you see the difference? In the Garden with Adam and Eve but especially in the wilderness with Jesus, all it would take is one sin and the devil’s goal would be accomplished. Now, it wasn’t possible for Jesus to sin; He’s God and God cannot sin. But, hypothetically, if Jesus had sinned, there would be no Savior and no reconciliation with God. No mercy. No grace. No forgiveness. But, dear saints, that is not Satan’s goal when he tempts you. The devil’s goal is not to get you to sin once. No, he has to keep coming after you.
Because Jesus did not sin, the devil needs to continually tempt you – day after day, moment after moment. He can’t leave you alone; he has to keep pestering and tempting you. Even though you were born into the sin of your first parents, Jesus has rescued you by His perfect obedience. Now through faith, the devil does not own you; Jesus does. Christ has lived perfectly and has been tempted in every way as you are, but He did it without sin (Heb. 4:15). Jesus kept the Commandments in your place and credits His obedience to you through faith.
The day is coming when the devil will no longer be able to tempt you, but that day is not yet. So, the devil continues to work on you with his temptations, and you have to fight with all the resources God has given to you. Eph. 6:10-18 details the armor that God has provided for you – the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the Gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. And remember when you read that passage, you are called to take up that armor and pray. Stand protected and call in the heavenly reinforcements to fight for you. God will send His holy angels to fight back against the devil on your behalf.
This is just an aside, but that is another difference between Jesus’ temptation and yours. Our Lord faced those temptations completely on His own. The angels only came to minister to Him after He resists the temptations and wins. You always have the holy angels assisting you in every moment and temptation.
Today, you should recognize that the devil is going to be after you constantly to try to get you to fall into temptation and sin to draw you away from Jesus. But even knowing this offers a key strategy to help you in the fight.
Adam and Eve’s fall was instant. But because you are saved and bought by the blood of Jesus, the devil is going to try, little by little, to get you to slowly slip away from the faith. For example, the devil isn’t going to tempt you to blaspheme God; he knows better than that. You aren’t going to just curse God. But the serpent will tempt you to skip church or your family devotions. Satan is going to work, little by little, to harden your conscience toward sin. And this means, dear saints, you need to be actively working to soften your conscience. This is difficult, painful work, but it is work you need to do. Here’s how you go about that.
We’ll use the 5th Commandment as an example. The 5th Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” and the Small Catechism’s explanation, “We should fear and love God so that we do our neighbor no bodily harm nor cause him any suffering but help and befriend him in every need.” Now imagine your conscience has a 5thCommandment thermometer. There are degrees by which the 5th Commandment is broken. Genocide would be way up at the boiling point. A little below that would be mass murder, then murder, then hitting and physically harming your neighbor. Way down at the bottom would be anger because when Jesus explains the 5th Commandment, He equates anger with murder (Mt. 5:21-22). But anger doesn’t physically harm others like murdering or even hitting them does. Let me be clear, both are sin; both need repentance and forgiveness because they both break the 5th Commandment.
Now think about where your conscience registers guilt because of your thoughts, words, and deeds somewhere on that 5th Commandment thermometer. Maybe you don’t think twice about being angry in your heart because you figure everyone does it and that guy really was a jerk. But you wouldn’t go grab a baseball bat and hit him. So, the devil isn’t going to tempt you to do that sort of thing. Instead, what the devil is going to do is try to raise the temperature of your conscience just a bit. He’s going to try to get you to break the 5thCommandment with more anger or holding on to that grudge a little harder. Once the temperature of your conscience acclimates to that level of sin, Satan can graduate you to the baseball bat.
What you need to do, dear saints, is stop excusing your anger. Recognize and confess it for the sin that it is. Let go of that anger and continually soften your conscience to the working of the Holy Spirit. Think through all of the Commandments like this. Recognize where your conscience registers sin and take that sin to Jesus. Confess it for the sin that it is and hand it over to the Lamb of God who takes away that sin and nails it to the cross.
And know this. The softer your conscience becomes, the more you will feel your sin. Real sanctification and actually growing in holiness is going to make you feel more and more sinful and cry out like Paul does in Ro. 7:24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” The one who will rescue you is your great high priest. He can sympathize with your weakness because He was tempted in every way as you are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:14). He invites you now to come with confidence, right here, to His throne of grace. Here you will find mercy and grace freely given to you in Jesus’ Body and Blood which will continue to strengthen you for the fight against the devil’s temptations. And as you fight, remember that God is faithful and will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. He has promised to provide the way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13). Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
I promise that we’ll get to this text from Isaiah, but it will be in a roundabout way. When God commanded, “Thou shalt not steal,” He meant it. Stealing is a disruption of God’s creation. When God gives something to someone, that is where He wants it to be. That is why thieves were required to repay the ones they robbed. Throughout the Scriptures, God says that a thief must give back what was stolen, and that repayment comes with interest. If you rob someone of their money or goods but it can be recovered, God says the cost is to pay back double what was stolen (Ex. 22:4, 7). But God set a higher price for other things that were stolen – especially if they could not be recovered. If a thief stole and killed one sheep, he was required to pay back four sheep. For every unrecoverable stolen ox, the repayment was five oxen. And If you stole food, you have to pay that back sevenfold (Pr. 6:31).
The first robbery recorded in the Bible was a theft of food in the Garden of Eden. All of creation belonged to God, and He freely handed it over to the man and woman that He had created in His image. Every plant was nutritious and delicious. And God gave all the plants for food (Gen. 1:29) – except one tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That tree, like every other tree, belonged to God. It’s fruit was His, and He said, “You don’t get to eat it.” But that first couple reached out their hands, took God’s fruit, and ate it. They stole food from God.
Now, here’s the problem, how would they repay God sevenfold as the Bible requires? It’s more complex than it might sound. They couldn’t pay with more fruit from that tree. All the fruit that remained on the tree already belonged to God. And to make things worse, they couldn’t put the fruit they had eaten back because it had become part of them. The only way to restore the fruit would be for Adam and Eve to be put back on the tree. But even that repayment was impossible because now they were thieves and sinners. Because it was stolen, that fruit was cursed and infected Adam and Eve with death that was coursing through their veins.
For the seven-fold payment to be made, Adam and all his children, needed a new Adam to offer payment in their place. Jesus entered this world as that new, sinless, and perfect Adam (Ro. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45). Only Jesus, perfect God and perfect man, could make repayment for that theft. And that is exactly what He does.
In our Gospel reading (Lk. 18:31-43), we heard how Jesus restored the sight of blind Bartimaeus (Mk. 10:46-52) on the road outside of Jericho. And Jesus did this by taking Bartimaeus’ blindness into Himself (Is. 53:4; Mt. 8:17) while also restoring his sight. That miracle, and all of Jesus’ miracles, show that Christ was removing the venom of sin and death, putting creation back together, and making the payment for that original sin and all subsequent sins. But all of Jesus’ miracles were merely a beginning of the full repayment He was about to make. Bartimaeus’ eyes eventually went blind again when he died. That is why that full, seven-fold repayment for the thievery in Gen. 3 is only made when Jesus is pinned to the cross, sheds His perfect blood, and dies. All of that brings us to this reading from Isaiah.
What is weak is to become strong. What is feeble is to become firm. To you who are anxious and troubled in heart, God says, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.” Normally, when sinners hear about vengeance and recompense, they are afraid and rightly so. But notice what this vengeance and recompense accomplishes – God comes to save you. He pays the debt that you owe. He has avenged your sin upon His only begotten Son. The payment has been made; your sin is atoned for (Is. 6:7).
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He healed many more blind people besides Bartimaeus. Christ opened the ears of many who were deaf. Our Lord made many lame people walk and loosened all sorts of tongues to sing for joy. Each of those miracles were a display of Jesus’ divine power and authority to fix what sin and death had brought to creation. All of Christ’s miracles showed that He had come to undo the curse of the Fall. And yet, they aren’t the fullness of what Jesus had come to accomplish. They were limited in scope. Here, Isaiah says all the eyes of all the blind shall be opened and all the ears of all the deaf unstopped.
Jesus didn’t just come to open a few eyes and ears. He came to open all of them. When you read through the Gospels, Jesus is doing these miracles almost constantly. But there is no doubt that there were more blind and deaf in Israel and throughout the world that didn’t get the blessing of Jesus’ miraculous touch. In other words, there is more healing, more restoring, more removal of the curse to be done than Christ accomplished through His miracles.
But now that Christ has died and risen again, now that He is seated on the throne of all creation as the New Adam at the Father’s right hand, the curse of sin and death that hangs over all creation has been paid for. Your God has come and saved. And the day is coming when the eyes of all who are in the category of ‘blind’ will be opened. All the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. All the lame shall leap like a deer. And all the mute will sing for joy because the price has been paid. It has been paid by Jesus for you. Whatever parts of the curse still lay upon you have all been taken by Jesus. Christ has redeemed you by becoming a curse for you (Gal. 3:13).
As we move into Lent this year, we are going to consider what the suffering of Christ has accomplished. Out of God’s great love for you, Christ endured all the wrath, judgment, and death you deserved because of your sins. In Christ, God came to save you. Every illness, every malady, every pain, every sorrow you experience had a price, and that price was the precious death of God’s beloved Son.
And as we go on this Lenten journey, we do it remembering the destination – eternal life with God. Take a Bible and open to the end of Isaiah 35. Just after our text, Isaiah speaks of a highway. Listen to how Isaiah describes it. Isaiah 35:8-10, “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.” Pause there for a minute.
All of that is to say that God has come to save you, and He has placed you on this highway. When you pass through areas of this highway that are dreadful, don’t worry because Jesus is with you. When you pass through areas of this highway that are delightful, remember, it is only the highway. The highway has its own joys and foretastes of what is to come, but the destination lies ahead. And what is that destination?
Back to Isaiah 35:10, “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” In other words, the point of the highway is the destination. The Resurrection, the new creation, the life of the world to come – that is your destination, believer. Don’t forget that.
Your God has come and saved you. Your journey is secure on God’s highway. How unspeakably great will it be when we arrive at our ultimate destination? Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
At Christmas, we celebrate the fact that the eternal God the Son came down to us so He could bring us up to Him. God, who is spirit (Jn. 4:24), became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn. 1:14). This is the wonder of wonders and deserves our eternal contemplation, thanks, and praise. That being said, God simply becoming flesh wouldn’t have done us any good unless He did more than simply have a body. God came in the flesh and used that body to be your Savior from sin, and that is what we see happening at Jesus’ Baptism.
Today, we’re mainly going to focus on how Jesus responds to John’s objection, but before we do that, we need to consider for a minute what Jesus’ Baptism accomplishes. John said the reason he was preaching and Baptizing in the wilderness is for repentance (Mt. 3:11), and Lk. 3:3 says John’s baptism was for the forgiveness of sins. But Jesus doesn’t have any sin, so He doesn’t need either repentance or forgiveness. That is why John objects and would have prevented Jesus from being Baptized (Mt. 3:14). Jesus isn’t Baptized because of His sins because, again, He didn’t have any. Instead, Jesus is Baptized to be anointed with the sin of the world. In His Baptism, Jesus steps into the office of being the Messiah or the Christ, both of those titles mean ‘the Anointed One.’
Imagine what was happening as John was Baptizing. People who recognized how they had sinned against God by idolatry, profaning God’s name, and breaking the Sabbath; people who were convicted of how rebellious they were toward their parents, murderers, adulterers, thieves, liars, and coveters; they were all coming to John repenting and to have those sins washed away in the waters of the Jordan River. So, imagine all the sins of all those sinners floating around in the water, making it filthy.
But then, Jesus steps into those repugnant waters. Since Jesus didn’t have any sin to wash away, He soaks up all those sins into Himself like a sponge leaving the waters clean again. This is why, the next time John sees Jesus, he says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29). It is at His Baptism that Jesus, at least, begins to fulfill what was prophesied about Him back in Isaiah 53 – that He would be numbered with the transgressors (Is. 53:12), and that God would lay on Him the iniquity of us all (Is. 53:4-6).
One of my favorite verses is 2 Cor. 5:21, which could be viewed as an interpretation of or teaching about what happens at Jesus’ Baptism, “For our sake, [God] made [Jesus], who knew no sin, to be sin.” And I’d encourage you to personalize that verse: “For my sake, God made pure, perfect, sinless Jesus to be sin. God did that for me.” And the verse doesn’t stop there. It also tells you why God did this. He did it so that in Jesus, you “might become the righteousness of God.” Because of Jesus, believer, you are pure as God is pure (1 Jn. 3:3). Because of Jesus, dear saints, you are holy as God is holy (1 Pet. 1:16). Because of Jesus, Christian, you are righteous as God is righteous (2 Cor. 5:21).
Now, that brings us back to Jesus’ response to John’s objection. John doesn’t want to Baptize Jesus because John is the sinner who needs to be Baptized and have his sins washed away by Jesus. But Jesus replies, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt. 3:15). Notice that, Jesus doesn’t tell John that He needs to be Baptized so He can fulfill all righteousness by Himself. No. He tells John that John has a role to play in fulfilling all righteousness, “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
John had a role and works to do with Jesus in Christ’s work fulfilling all righteousness. John’s role was to prepare the way of the Lord (Jn. 1:23), to proclaim a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Lk. 3:3), to point people to Jesus (Jn. 1:29) and finally, to Baptize Jesus. That was God’s purpose for John. God put John into that specific office and vocation, and God did that long before John was born.
The Old Testament closes with the prophet Malachi, which was written about 430 years before Jesus was born saying that God would send Elijah before the “great and awesome day of the Lord comes” (Mal. 4:5). And Jesus says that John is the fulfillment of that prophecy (Mt. 11:13-14). All four Gospels say (Mt. 3:3; Mk. 1:2-3; Lk. 3:4; Jn. 1:23) that John the Baptizer was the fulfillment of what God said in Is. 40:3 about the voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord, which was promised about 750 years before John was born. For at least three-quarters of a millennia, God had planned that John would work with Jesus to fulfill all righteousness. John’s identity and purpose is completely bound up to Jesus’ identity and purpose as the Savior of the world.
Dear saints, the same is true for you. Jesus has also called you to work with Him to fulfill all righteousness. Christ calls you into particular offices and vocations to work with Him in fulfilling all righteousness. Sure, you weren’t called to do the things that John the Baptizer did, but you are called to work with Jesus – even from before the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34). You’re familiar with Eph. 2:8-9 which says, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” And don’t forget what the next verse (Eph. 2:10) says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
God places you into different offices in which you work with Jesus to fulfill all righteousness. You kids here, from the moment you were conceived, God put you in the office of being a child so you can work with Jesus to fulfill all righteousness by honoring and obeying your parents. You who are married, at your wedding, God put you into the office of husband or wife to work with Jesus to fulfill all righteousness. As God blesses you with children, He places you into the office of parent where you fulfill all righteousness by raising your children, training them in the way they should go, and teaching them the faith. The same is true in your job, in your extended family, and with your friends. In each and every relationship you have, God is placing you into an office and giving you good works to do in order to fulfill all righteousness.
Whenever you do what God gives you to do in the different offices He places you in, you are serving God by loving your neighbor, and as you do that, you are working with Jesus to fulfill all righteousness. In every good work you do, God’s light shines through you, others see your good deeds, and they will glorify their Father in heaven (Mt. 5:16). Dear saints, you are God’s fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9) and your deeds follow you (Rev. 14:13).
Now, to strengthen you in those tasks and to give you what you need, your heavenly Father invites you to His table where He will fill you with Jesus’ Body and Blood given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Through this meal, He fills you cup so it runs over with His righteousness (Ps. 23:5) and spills over to those around you. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Jesus says, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Those words of our Lord have been rolling around in my mind this past month. What Jesus says there has a lot of implications both for individuals and, by extension, for congregations. To be a disciple of Jesus – in other words to be a Christian – means abiding, remaining, and staying in Jesus’ Word. Those who are saved love to hear their Savior’s words. And that does not only refer to the red-letter words in our Bibles. It’s the whole thing. From the words, “In the beginning,” in Gen. 1:1 through the final, “Amen,” of Rev. 22:21 are all Jesus’ Words.
And notice to whom Jesus says this – this is so important. Jesus is speaking to “the Jews who had believed in Him.” In other words, Christ is speaking to Christians (Ro. 10:17) – people who believe His words. So, what Jesus is calling them to do is to continue abiding and remaining in His Words because if they do notremain in Jesus’ Words, they will not be His disciples, they will not know the truth, and they will not be free. Dear saints, your life as a Christian is to continue to learn and grow in your knowledge and understanding of the Bible. To be a Christian is to be a student of the Scriptures.
Now, all of that is important to ponder and consider, but there is something even more profound here that I want us to consider today. Again, as Jesus speaks to people who believe in Him, He calls them to abide in His Word so that they will (future tense) be set free. In other words, those who believe in Jesus are waiting for a freedom that is still to come. That freedom is promised, and that freedom is the hope of every Christian, but it is still in the future.
Today, as Jesus’ disciples, let’s abide in these words of Jesus here for a moment because many other passages in Scripture say that we are free when we believe. Romans 6:22 says that you, believer, have been set free from sin. A little later in Romans 8:2, Scripture says that the Spirit of Life has set you free in Christ Jesus. Galatians 5:1 says that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Just like the people in this reading did, we might want to ask Jesus, “How is it that You say, ‘You will become free’? Aren’t we free already?” Well, Jesus is clear. “Truly, truly. Amen, amen, I say to you everyone who practices,” probably a better way to translate this would be ‘does,’ “everyone who does sin is a slave to sin.” To do sin is to be a slave to sin.
So, dear saints, consider this: Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe His Word? Yes. Then Scripture is clear, you are free – right now.
But also consider this: Are you perfect? Do you do things that God forbids? Do you not do things that God demands? In other words, do you sin? Yes. Then, your Lord is also clear – you are a slave to sin. And you can’t wiggle out of this. It isn’t just that you make mistakes or that you are programmed to do things that aren’t quite right. No. All of us deliberately sin. We sin on purpose, with full knowledge, and repeatedly. And by sinning, we place ourselves under slavery to sin and put our faith in danger. Repent.
Jesus knows when He says that those who do sin are slaves to sin is a devastating judgment. That’s why He continues speaking and offers us hope saying that even though, “the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Jesus doesn’t just leave you in slavery to sin. He is the Son who sets you free – both now and in the future. Romans 6 says that you have been joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection in your Baptism, and it goes on to say, “our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin may be brought to nothing, so that,” and listen carefully here, “so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Ro. 6:6-7).
Jesus tells us the truth. The one who does sin is a slave to sin, and He sets us free from the evil master of sin. These two clear truths from Scripture have to be one of the most difficult tensions in all the world. You are, for a time, both slaves (because you sin) and sons (because you believe and are redeemed). You are free, and at the same time you are a slave to sin. You aren’t one or the other or bounce back and forth. At the same time, you are sons of God and still slaves to sin. The last half of Romans 7 talks about this tension (Ro. 7:14-25).
You are simultaneously saint and sinner, or, as Jesus puts it here, simultaneously slaves and sons. The tension between those two teachings isn’t understandable or comprehensible. But that’s ok. The Bible teaches all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding like the Trinity; the two natures of Jesus, that He is both God and man; etc. We don’t hesitate to believe those things because Scripture clearly teaches them. Well, Scripture also teaches that you are a slave to sin and a redeemed son of God.
This tension is what keeps you running back to Jesus. It isn’t your obedience or your consistency or the fact that you feel bad about being a sinner that sets you free. Yes, you should feel bad about being a sinner, but that isn’t what sets you free from your slavery to sin. It’s Jesus, the Son, and Him alone who sets you free now and will make you free forever.
Dear saints, when – not ‘if’ but ‘when’ – when you feel the weight of your slavery, when the shackles of your iniquities rub your wrists and ankles raw, when the whip of your transgressions has shredded your back, remember Jesus came for you. He came – not for the righteous because there aren’t any righteous – He came to call you, sinner, to repentance and faith (Mt. 9:13; Mk. 2:17; Lk. 5:32). Jesus sets you free, and if He sets you free, then you are free indeed.
Child of God, abide in Jesus’ Word, and you will remain in the house forever. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?
45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
This Gospel reading takes place on Holy Tuesday. In other words, it is just a few days before Jesus will be crucified, and what we heard is Jesus’ last public teaching until He preaches the seven last words from the cross. The Pharisees and Sadducees are asking our Lord three questions to try to entangle Him in His words (Mt. 22:15). They want Jesus to say something they can use against Him and kill Him. The first two questions they asked were about paying taxes and the resurrection. But Jesus answers both questions so skillfully that they can’t find a way to accuse Him.
Our text begins with their third and final trick question that comes from a sleezy lawyer. “Teacher, what is the great commandment in the Law?” It seems as though the intent of this question is to get Jesus to put one of the Commandments above the others, and when He does that, they will say that He teaches that the other nine aren’t as important. But they end up looking like fools. It was Jesus’ finger that carved those words into the stone tablets and His voice that spoke them on Mt. Sinai. Jesus is the Author of the Commandments, and they are all important.
So, Jesus answers the question, “The great Commandment is this: love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “All the Commandments matter. All of them are the greatest. They all demand that you love God and love your neighbor. All the Commandments depend on these two.” Jesus is clear here, and Scripture is clear elsewhere that what the Commandments require of us is to love. Love is the fulfilling of the Law (Ro. 13:10b). In every situation, you are to love God and love your neighbor. And it is important to spend some time on this because there is a lot of unnecessary confusion about what love looks like. A pastor friend of mine (Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller) put together a list that helps to define and shape what love looks like. And this list is biblical and, I think, very helpful.
First, love is shaped by the Ten Commandments. Love does not mean that there are no other Commandments. No, the Commandments define what love is. Love depends on the Commandments. If you are fornicating and committing adultery, you cannot presume to say that it’s ok because, “We love each other.” Adultery is always unloving.
Second, love is shaped by our vocation or our station in life. Everyone has several vocations, so I’ll use myself as an example here. Some of my vocations are husband, father, pastor, a child of my parents, a friend, etc. In each of those vocations, I am called to love. But what that love looks like depends on those different vocations. For example, part of my love as a father includes providing for my family. So, I earn a living so my wife can go and buy socks for our kids. As a pastor, my love looks different. It looks like faithfully preaching and teaching God’s Word to you, the flock that God has entrusted into my care. My vocation as a pastor does not require me to buy socks for all of you. Pastors are not called to provide socks for their congregations. But that, then, leads us to the third thing that shapes our love.
Our love is also shaped by the needs of our neighbor. If one of you, who aren’t part of my family, needs socks and can’t get them for yourself, my love for you would be to give you socks. Even if the only reason I know you and your need socks is that I’m your pastor, I’m not giving you socks because I’m your pastor. I’m giving you socks because I am your brother in Christ. And if I needed socks, I would want one of you to give me socks if you have the means and resources to provide them. In that instance, I’m loving you as I would love myself. (I think this is the most I’ve ever used the word ‘socks’ in a sermon, but I’m done now.)
That leads us to the fourth thing that shapes our love which is the gifts God has given us. God gives us stuff, skills, and talents so we can use them to love and serve our neighbor. If God has made you successful and given you a lot of money, use those resources to love your neighbor. If God has given you the talent of being good at cooking, you love your neighbor by cooking. If God has given you good mind for math, you can love your neighbor as an engineer or an accountant. The beautiful thing about this one is that the gifts God gives you can help you love your neighbor across different vocations. A person who is good at math can be a good accountant. He can earn a good living and provide for his family and, at the same time, love and serve his clients who need someone to keep their books.
Just briefly here, our neighbor’s need might mean that we have to love our neighbor in a way that we aren’t gifted. Imagine a meteor hit the church during this service. We don’t have an ER doctor here, but we do have an optometrist, a medical student, nurses, and EMTs who are gifted in knowing how the body works and how to heal. They should be the ones who go to the people who are most injured and help them. And if more people are injured, those of us who aren’t gifted in that way are called to do the best we can even though that kind of love is usually reserved for doctors and nurses. Our neighbor’s need trumps how we are gifted. Especially in an emergency, we love and serve others based on their needs rather than our love depending on our gifts. And when the ambulances get here, we who don’t know as much about first aid should step aside and let the professionals use their gifts to serve the people in need.
So, the first four things that shape our love are: 1) the Ten Commandments; 2) our vocation; 3) our neighbor’s need; and 4) our gifts. All of that is fairly obvious and reasonable. But there is another thing that shapes our love, and this last one is one that our culture fights against (for several reasons). But this one is also important to consider. The fifth thing that shapes our love is our neighbor’s sin, and this is where things can get tricky and difficult. But this is also where Jesus’ summary of the Ten Commandments – love God with everything and love your neighbor as yourself – is helpful. And God gives you wisdom to help navigate this.
Imagine you know someone who is addicted to fentanyl, your calling is still crystal clear: you are called to love that person. But now what is that love going to look like? Is it loving to just step aside and let them keep killing themselves by using that fentanyl? No, it isn’t. Their sin against themselves might even mean that you need to break one of the Commandments in order to love them. You might need to steal their fentanyl even though stealing is sin and a violation against the 7th Commandment.
Now, please recognize that the Ten Commandments are still the primary thing that shapes and defines our love. But because of your neighbor’s sin, you break the 7th Commandment about stealing in order for you to keep the 5th Commandment which calls you to do your neighbor no bodily harm, but help and defend him in every need. This is why knowing the Commandments is so important. And, again, your vocation still plays into this too. You aren’t called to travel to San Francisco, Seattle, or Portland and steal fentanyl from all the addicts in those places.
Our neighbor’s sin can hinder the ways we love them. Parents, when your children are breaking the 4thCommandment and not obeying you, your love for them looks like disciplining them; it isn’t what you want to do, but you are called to do it (Pro. 22:15; 23:13; Heb. 12:11). If you have abusive parents, you are still called to keep the 4th Commandment and honor them, but their sin could mean you have to disobey them if they demand you do something contrary to God’s Word. If your cousin, Stacy, is getting married, your love normally looks like going to her wedding and celebrating with her. But if she is breaking the 6th Commandment by trying to be married to another woman, your love for her means not going to the wedding because that would embolden her in her sin against the 6th Commandment. Yes, this is hard and difficult. Yes, this is uncomfortable. Yes, it is even confusing. You are always called to love, but sin can put constraints on love.
And that brings us to the second part of our text which is the question Jesus asks the people who are trying to trip Him up. Jesus turns the discussion to the identity of the Messiah. The Savior is David’s Ancestor and also David’s Lord. The way this is possible is that Jesus is the fully Divine, eternal Son of God and fully human. Christ is God and Man.
Your Savior’s love for you was fully shaped by the Ten Commandments, which Jesus kept perfectly. His vocation was to be the Messiah and shed His blood and bear the punishment for the sins of all humanity because that was our need. He was gifted with everything necessary to be the Savior. And He navigated our sin in such a way that He perfectly loved God by loving us and bearing our sin to the cross. Now, He is risen and lives and reigns on the throne of all creation for eternity.
Your eternal life totally depends upon what Jesus, the Son of God and Son of David, has done. God be praised that He has done all things well (Mk. 7:37). Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
10 Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many. 11 I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. 12 When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. 13 Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life. 14 Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. 15 Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on. 16 For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. 17 For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. 18 But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. 19 The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.
20 My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. 22 For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. 23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
In 2019, the AFLC’s Annual Conference was held near Scranton, PA. To save our congregations a bit of money, four other pastors and I decided to travel together. We rented a vehicle in Minneapolis which ended up being a brand new, black GMC Yukon with tinted windows and all the bells and whistles. Our first day of travel together was from Minneapolis to a hotel in Toledo, OH which is just under 700 miles and would take about 10 hours. We had Google Maps plot our course to avoid toll roads, made our way through Wisconsin, and started to enter the Chicago metro. As we got deeper into Chicago, Google kindly told us that our current course had congested traffic and that there was an alternate route which would save us 45 minutes. That’s what you call a no brainer. Reroute.
We got off the freeway and quickly found ourselves driving through the neighborhoods of Chicago. Sure, there were stoplights and stop signs, but we kept moving. Now, one of the other pastors had grown up near Chicago, but he had been asleep in the third-row seat when we decided to reroute. I’m not exactly sure what woke him up, but he looked out the window and asked, “Where are we?” We told him that we were still in Chicago and that we had left the freeway to avoid traffic. He looked at a couple of street signs and said in the most serious voice I had ever heard him use. “We need to get out of here. Now!”
We had been redirected to the south side of Chicago, not only that, but a neighborhood notorious for stray bullets and carjackings. Apparently, Google Maps can help you avoid tolls and traffic jams, but it isn’t able to assist five, slightly overweight, mostly Scandinavian pastors avoid being robbed at gunpoint. We did make it out safely with the rented Yukon.
The point is this: it is easy to quickly and unintentionally end up on the wrong path. For us five pastors, the address of our destination didn’t even change, but we were deeply down the wrong path.
Now, there is a temptation for us to hear about the two paths described in these verses and lull ourselves into a false sense of security. We can wrongly think, “I’ve been taught the Bible which is the Word of Life. I’m not overly influenced by all that bad stuff ‘out there.’ I’ll just set the cruise control on my mostly moral life, make sure the lane departure warning system is enabled so I keep being virtuous, and everything will be just fine and dandy.”
Dear saints, beware of that attitude sneaking up on you because when it does, you are already several steps down the dark path of wickedness. The fork in the road between the path of life and the path of the wicked isn’t just ‘out there’ and clearly marked with signs. No. The exit down road of evil is always in the heart of each of us sinners and you can start down it without realizing that your destination has changed. Repent.
Go back for just a minute to that picture of the wicked being unable to rest or sleep unless they have done wrong or made someone stumble. If it weren’t so haunting, it would almost be comical. Imagine the wicked getting ready for bed. They put on their pajamas, brush their teeth, go to the bathroom, fluff their pillow, snuggle up under the covers, but toss and turn because they realize they haven’t gotten someone else to sin. It sounds so ridiculous, but, if you’re honest, you’ve probably experienced that restlessness and sleeplessness when you realize you haven’t caused someone else to stumble.
Stick with me on this. The most natural reaction we sinners have to our sin is, sadly, not to repent, not to get off the dark, evil path of the wicked. Instead, our natural reaction is to recruit other sinners by trying one of two things:
First, we try to recruit other sinners when we play the comparison game. We compare our sin to the sin of others. We search high and low for people who have fallen into sin and think that God will look more kindly on us because there are others who fell harder or further than we did. In our opinion – which, frankly, doesn’t matter – our sin isn’t as grievous as those other people’s. That comparing our sin to the sin of others brings us to a place where we celebrate the sin and downfall of others. We hope to find others stumbling.
But the second way we recruit others to sin is more dangerous and, I think, more common. We recruit other sinners when we try to defend ourselves and make excuses for our sin. When we make excuses for our sin, we are foolishly trying to rig a jury that has no jurisdiction over our case. We figure if we can get enough people to understand why we did that sinful thing, whatever it was, then they will be ‘on our side.’ We lose sleep thinking of ways to convince others that our sin was justified. We want them to make us comfortable with our unrepented sin.
Adam tried to pull this asinine trick when he ate the forbidden fruit. He tried to excuse his sin by convincing God that the reason he ate the fruit was the fault of God Himself. Adam basically says, “Listen God, the only reason I ate the fruit was that this woman, whom You gave to be with me, gave me that fruit. You’re responsible and culpable for my sin” (Gen. 3:12).
When we make excuses for our sin, what we are actually doing is we are trying to get others to fall into their own sin. We want them to lie by calling the evil, sinful thing we did ‘good’ or ‘ok’ or, at least, ‘neutral.’ But Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe,” in other words, ‘damned,’ “are those who call evil good and good evil.” When we try to excuse our sin before others, we are trying to get them to call something evil we have done ‘good.’ Again, repent.
Dear saints, constantly be on the alert for the path of the wicked knowing that you are always inclined to reroute yourself to it. See the roadblock that this passage puts in front of that wicked path. “Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on” (v. 14-15). Don’t be like a foolish child and blow through that roadblock.
Dear saints, stay on the righteous path. Hold fast to the Words of Scripture. Notice how the opening verses also call this righteous path the way of wisdom. This wise, righteous path is clear of obstacles. When you walk on this path, you will not be hampered, and if you run (I’m so glad that the text leaves that as optional by saying, ‘if’) if you run on this path, you will not stumble. This path is life – it is full of life, and it grants life.
To follow this path means that when Scripture points out your sin, be wise. Confess that sin. Receive God’s mercy and forgiveness freely given to you because it has been bought and paid for by Jesus’ holy and precious blood. Confess that sin and be filled with Christ’s righteousness.
And know that this path is like the light of dawn. You who are righteous through faith in Christ, you don’t walk in the light of the full day – not yet. But you do walk in the light of the dawn which is always growing brighter and brighter so you see the righteous way more clearly as the day of your Savior’s return draws ever nearer. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
7 [T]hen the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
It should come as no surprise, but this text is fundamental and foundational to understanding who we are as God’s creatures. But to really get to the roots of who we are, we first have to understand who God is as our Creator, and this text gives us one piece of that understanding. The other piece came just before our text.
The Bible gives us two very different accounts of creation. In Genesis 1:1-2:3, God creates the sun, moon, stars, land, sky, plants, fish, birds, mankind, and all things by simply speaking. Whatever He commands comes into being. The whole account is filled with the repeated words, “And God said…. And it was so.” Then, God rests. Throughout those six days of creating and the seventh day of rest, He is simply called “God” (Heb.‘Elohim’). In that first account account of creation, we see a God who is transcendent – He is not subject to the limitations we are used to.
But then in our text here, the second account of creation, we see something remarkably different. The difference can be seen just a few verses before our text began in how Moses refers to God. No longer is He simply ‘God’ – He is the Lord God. In Hebrew, it is Yahweh God. In other words, this transcendent, powerful God has a name, and He is close and personal – especially with the head of His creation, Adam.
Yahweh puts His hands into the earth, molds the clay to form the man, and breathes life into Adam’s nostrils (Gen. 2:7). Then that immanent, personal God plants a garden for Adam (Gen. 2:8-9). After our text, Yahweh remains close to Adam by causing him to sleep and performing a surgery on him in order to create the woman. And Yahweh brings the woman to Adam as his suitable helper and joins them together in marriage so they would become one flesh by having children (Mt. 19:6; Mk. 10:9).
From these two accounts of creation, we have an important insight into God. He is mighty, powerful, and uninhibited. But He is also intimately close and involved with mankind.
Finally, after God finishes creation, He rests on the seventh day. Now, God doesn’t rest on the seventh day because He is tired. He created by merely speaking, and God speaks a lot more through the rest of Scripture but doesn’t grow tired or need a nap (Ps. 121:3-4). Instead, those two creation accounts help us understand something about that day of rest. God rests because He has set up all of creation to be His Temple where He will rest in the order and peace that He has established.
When I was younger, I imagined God created everything while He sat far away in heaven, speaking things into existence, but staying aloof somewhere way up there in heaven. But that scenario isn’t compatible with the rest of Scripture.
God’s desire is to dwell with people, the crown of His creation. The final picture Scripture gives of the eternal bliss of believers is God making His dwelling with you (Rev. 21:3). This desire of God to dwell among His creation becomes especially clear after the Fall. When God delivers His people from slavery in Egypt, He instructs them to build the Tabernacle so He can dwell in their midst (Ex. 25:8). In that Tabernacle, and later in the Temple, God says that He will walk among them (Lev. 26:12; 2 Sam. 7:6-7) just as we see He does in Gen. 3:8. To do that, God’s instructions on how to build the Temple in Jerusalem include many of the same materials, like gold and onyx stones, and the same ‘floorplans’ we read about here in the Garden of Eden.[1]
Now, that brings us to the nature of mankind. God puts Adam in the midst of that newly created Temple of Eden and gives Adam two responsibilities. Our translation says that Adam is there “to work it and keep it.” The two Hebrew words there can refer to a lot of activities, but when Scripture uses these two terms together, they most often refer to the duties and responsibilities of the priests in the sanctuary of the Tabernacle and Temple (Num. 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6). In other words, this text is telling us that mankind was created to be the priest and guardian of sacred space. We were not created just to be gardeners.
On top of being priests, God set up mankind to be kings and queens over creation. God said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:26-28). So, from our very origin, we were created to be priests and the royal rulers over creation with God reigning in our midst.
Of course, sadly, we did not remain in that original state. Adam and his wife failed in their priestly duties. They did not guard the Temple of Eden as they should have. Instead, they let the foul serpent defile it, and they lost their priestly roles. Instead, God sent a cherubim to take over the responsibility of guarding the way to the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24 [see also Ezk. 28:14-16]). They also gave up their royal status over creation. Instead of having dominion over everything that creeps on the earth, they listened to what should have been under their rule; they listened to the serpent’s lies. By eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they rejected God and His ordering of the world.
But, dear saints, God has provided a way back to the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:2, 14), a way back to being what we were created to be, a way back to our origin. Jesus, the new Adam (1 Cor. 15:21-22, 45, 47), has come and crushed the serpent’s head. By His death and resurrection, Jesus has now redeemed you and made you what you were created to be. Through faith in Christ, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His Own possession (1 Pet. 2:9). This very Jesus dwells among you even now (Mt. 18:20). And, as Christ’s people, you are called to be His priests and kings and queens, guarding the sacred spaces of this congregation and your family.
So repent. Repent of the times you have chosen to neglect and abdicate your position as God’s priests and royalty. Repent of the times you have listened to the serpent’s lies and not expelled him from the good gardens where God has placed you and given you priestly and royal authority. Repent because the only fruit you have gotten from those sins is death (Ro. 6:21).
And know, as our Epistle reading (Ro. 6:19-23) promises, that you have been set free from sin and are now the servants of God who gives you fruit that leads to sanctification and life (Ro. 6:22). And know that Christ has equipped you with everything you need to be His priests and royalty. You have the full armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18) to defend against the attacks of the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh. And you have God’s promise that He will never leave you or forsake you. In a world that is still soiled and stained with sin, Christ has brought you back into His kingdom, and He will lead you to eternal paradise with Him. Amen.The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Gold and onyx (Gen. 2:11-12) are used to decorate the sanctuaries and priestly garments (Ex. 25:7, 11, 17, 31). The Tabernacle/Temple lampstand probably symbolizes the tree of life (Gen. 2:9; Ex. 25:31-35). Even the river flowing from Eden (Gen. 2:10) resembles Ezekiel’s Temple vision (Ezk. 47:1-12).
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