Tag Archives: Sin

A Covering of Love – Sermon on 1 Peter 4:7-11 for the Easter 7/Sunday after the Ascension

1 Peter 4:7–11

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

When something is coming to an end, there is often a sense of urgency. The last month of my senior year of high school, my class of twelve got together more often than we did the years prior. At Bible camps, kids will goof off at the campfire, but the last night they will share about their life, reflect more on what they have learned, and talk about how they hope to be different and better when they go back to their regular lives. When a family member is in their last days, every moment, every word, every interaction carries more weight to it. As the end draws near, little things become even more insignificant, and the big things become even bigger.

In this epistle reading, Peter says that the end of all things is at hand. Because Jesus has died, risen, and ascended into heaven, His work as the Savior of mankind is complete. Everything necessary for your salvation, redemption, and restoration has been accomplished. Now, your Savior and Brother sits on the throne of all creation. At any moment, Jesus can return and bring an end to all things. All of this is to say that we are living in the end times. Peter said this nearly 2,000 years ago, so it’s at least as true now as it was then. The end, the completion, the finishing of all things is at hand.

And that has a different ring to it than if Peter had written, “The end of all things is coming soon,” doesn’t it? “Soon” presupposes and anticipates a delay – even if it is only a short delay. But Peter doesn’t talk about Christ’s return as coming soon. It is “at hand.” That gives an extra ‘umph’ of urgency and immediacy. But the fact that the end of all things is “at hand” doesn’t excuse us to be worried and get frantic. Peter here doesn’t allow us to be the Christian version of Chicken Little running around and yelling, “The sky is falling; the sky is falling.” Not even close.

Instead, we are called to be self-controlled and sober-minded. In other words, we are to be in control of all our actions. Yes, of course, this refers to not getting drunk with alcohol. It includes that, but Peter means more than that. This call to be self-controlled and sober-minded is an echo of what Jesus says in Mt. 6:25-34, “Do not be anxious,” because when we are anxious, we do all sorts of ridiculous things. There is a myriad of awful, evil, horrible things going on in the world, but Jesus hasn’t given you permission to worry about it or run around all frantic and anxious.

The danger of anxiety and worry is that it would distract us from our prayers. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our worry will change what is going to happen. But more often worry distracts us from prayers. Take your worries and anxieties and turn them into prayers (1 Pet. 5:7). In a very real sense, worry is just a form spiritual drunkenness. Worry can distort the truth and the reality that Christ is in control of all things. To be self-controlled and sober-minded here is to let the fact that Jesus is ascended to the throne of all creation, that He has promised to hear your prayers, and that He promises to answer those prayers, let those truths keep you calm, clear-headed, and focused. Don’t get drunk with worry and the cares of this world. Be self-controlled and sober-minded because the end of all things is at hand.

Instead of being worried, Peter gives us three instructions of what we are to do as we live in the time of the end. We are to love, show hospitality, and use our God-given gifts. Each of these instructions could be its own sermon. But today, I want to focus on the first one because Peter says it is the most important of the three. He says, “Above all love one another,” and he tells us why we are to love one another, “because love covers a multitude of sins.”

Now, we have to be clear on a couple things here. First, Peter isn’t equating this love that covers a multitude of sins with forgiveness. Yes, forgiveness is a loving thing that releases sins. God’s love for us, which is manifested in Christ’s death, that love has forgiven and removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12). Other places in Scripture call us to love others by forgiving their sins, but Peter is doing something different here when he talks about covering a multitude of sins. We are to have a love that makes the sins of others invisible. We are to have a love that hides the sins of others.

That brings us to the second thing that needs to be clear. This does not mean that we don’t call sin what it is – sin. Sin is sin is sin. To say anything different is not loving. It isn’t loving to say that it’s ok for someone to be addicted to drugs because that is just the way God made them. That’s not love. Sin needs to be brought to the surface so it can be repented, confessed, and forgiven. So, what does it mean that love covers a multitude of sins?

It means that when others sin against us – especially our brothers and sisters in Christ – we are called to love them in such a way that overlooks, ignores, buries, and covers those sins. Holding grudges just isn’t worth it. The 8th Commandment and its explanation in the Small Catechism is especially helpful here: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” What does this mean? “We should fear and love God so that we do not deceitfully lie about, betray, backbite, nor slander our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the most charitable construction on all that he does.”

It is extremely easy for us to put the least charitable construction on the actions of people who sin against us. Someone cuts you off in traffic or budges in front of you, and you assume, “That guy is an idiot,” or, “She’s rude and inconsiderate.” But you know what is just as easy? Maybe it’s slightly more difficult because of our pride – it’s just as easy to put the most charitable construction on their actions. “That person just made a mistake. Maybe, they have something going on in their life that I don’t know about.” The danger for us is that when we are always ascribing the worst motives to others, it’s easy to assume and imagine that they do the same to us. That is a dangerous place to be.

Of course, when someone sins against you and you point it out, that person should repent and ask for forgiveness. That’s how things should work. But what happens when you point out someone’s sin and they say, “I didn’t do anything wrong,” and they don’t ask for forgiveness? What do you do then? Is the relationship over? No. It shouldn’t be. That is where this passage comes in. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” And this is what we are to keep doing. Keep loving one another earnestly and fervently because love covers a multitudeof sins.

This covering up of sin through love is a distinct virtue of Christians that does not exist in the world. But the world will notice when you do this, Christian. They will see it and be drawn to it. This kind of love for one another isn’t always going to be pleasant for you. But it will be attractive to those who aren’t Christians. Having this kind of love that covers sin might be the most important evangelistic work that you do. Repeatedly in the book of Acts, this kind of love between Christians is what attracted others to see what was different about believers. So keep loving one another earnestly, since that love covers a multitude of sins.

Now, I know that was a lot of law. I recognize that. I’ll just point out that this text is full of law, so that’s what I have to preach. But I will close with this: your heavenly Father hasn’t only covered your sin and pretended that it isn’t there. No. Because of Jesus, He has removed it, forgiven it, trampled it under His foot, and cast it into the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:19). Because of that – because your sins are gone, taken away, and forgiven – you can more easily cover the sins of others in Christian love. 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.

Spirit-Guided – Sermon on John 16:5-15 for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 16:5–15

5 “But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Our expectations rarely match reality. Often times, it’s not even close. When I was 15 years old, I was eagerly anticipating being in a sailboat race across Lake Superior in July. Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, I knew that “gales of November” don’t come that early. My expectations for that race were largely shaped by movies of majestic boats efficiently gliding across rolling waves driven by strong winds. But I also worried that there would be 10-15 ft. swells that would toss our 25 ft. boat around like a leaf making me seasick and struggling to stay on the boat. The reality ended up being two and a half days of cold, drizzling rain, and barely a whisper of wind, and the only thing that made me sick was the inescapable fumes of fiberglass varnish which sent me and the other crewmembers to the side of the boat more than once.

We plan and prepare for things to be a certain way, but then the moment or event comes and is completely different than what we imagined. Sometimes, the reality is better; sometimes, it’s worse; and sometimes, it it’s just different. As a kid, you probably expected that being an adult would come with the independence and freedom to do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. Then, reality came. Now, you realize being an adult can mean the autonomy to do what you want, but most often it means carrying out the responsibilities God has given you. Even if adulthood isn’t the total freedom and independence you thought it might be, it’s still very fulfilling.

In this Gospel reading, we don’t know exactly what the disciples expected as Jesus talks about His departure and going away to the Father. We just know their reaction – they are sorrowful (Jn. 16:6, 20, 22). They don’t know what to expect. That’s why Jesus comforts them and us by teaching about the Holy Spirit.

The first thing we need to get straight is that, when Jesus says that He has to go to Him who sent Him and that it is to their advantage that He goes away, He doesn’t mean that He is going to be completely absent. Jesus had already promised His abiding presence. He guarantees, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them,” (Mt. 18:20), and before He ascends into heaven He says, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20). Yes, Jesus has gone to the Father who sent Him, but He is also truly, physically present with us – especially in Holy Communion. When Jesus says that He is departing, He is saying that He must go to the cross, pay for our sins, and ascend into to heaven where He continually presents His work on your behalf to God the Father (Heb. 9:24; Ro. 8:34).

That’s the reason Jesus is departing. It isn’t that He’s leaving and is gone. No. His departure is the fact that He goes to work your salvation, and to continually present His work to God the Father. Christian, your life is hidden with Christ where He is seated (Col. 3:1-4). That’s why the Holy Spirit comes. The Holy Spirit is constantly present with you to be your Helper, Advocate, and Comforter constantly pointing you to all the things Christ has done for you. The Holy Spirit comes to point you to all the benefits that Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension give you. The Holy Spirit comforts you with the gifts of Jesus.

That is why we need Jesus’ teaching here about what the Holy Spirit does. So many Christians have wrong expectations about the Holy Spirit. Throw out all of those expectations and listen to what Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit’s work. The Holy Spirit works to convict us concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. And don’t get put off by that word ‘convict.’ Most of the time we use the word ‘convict’ today, it means to find guilty. And when Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit convicting concerning sin and judgment, we tend expect this will be a bad thing. But being convicted isn’t always a bad thing.

We will talk about a person having deep convictions, meaning they are sure and certain about what they believe. They are convinced of the truth of something. That’s how we should understand this as Christians. Jesus goes on to summarize the Holy Spirit’s work as guiding us into all the truth. The Holy Spirit is guiding us to be convinced of certain things concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. When Jesus tells us why the Holy Spirit convicts or convinces of each of these things, each of the why’s isn’t what we naturally expect. Let’s take each of these in order.

First, when Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin, we would expect Him to say the Holy Spirit does that because you people are so bad and evil. But that’s not what Jesus says. The Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning sin because they do not believe in Jesus. I’m guessing Paul had these very words of Jesus in mind when he wrote in Ro. 14:23 that says, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” In other words, you can do the best, most merciful work, but apart from faith in Jesus, it is of no benefit; in fact, Scripture says the mercy of the wicked is cruel (Pr. 12:10). Confessing your sins is an article of faith. It is the Holy Spirit who has taught us to confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean in thought, word, and deed. And the Holy Spirit guides us to continue our confession by saying that we flee for refuge to God’s mercy freely given through Christ.

Second, when Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning righteousness, we would expect Him to say, “Because they don’t have any righteousness and need to do better.” But that’s not what Jesus says. The Holy Spirit convicts concerning righteousness because Jesus goes to the Father. When you consider this in the context of the rest of Scripture, this is stunning. The Man Jesus has opened the path to heaven so you can follow Him and be brought there too by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Imagine being in a line waiting to stand before God’s judgment. How would you feel as you wait in that line? Probably pretty nervous – especially because that judgment will determine where you will spend eternity. But now imagine that you’re standing in that line and Jesus is standing right next to you waiting for His turn to be judged. Do you think He would be nervous? No, Jesus isn’t going to be worried at all! He’s confident and knows He is perfect and hasn’t committed any sins. Well Christian, you need to know, you need to be convinced, that through faith you occupy Jesus’ place in that line. His righteousness is yours. God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin, so that in Him you would become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). To believe that takes the working of the Holy Spirit.

Third and finally, the Holy Spirit convicts concerning judgment. We would expect this is needed because judgment is coming. Again, that’s not what Jesus says. The Holy Spirit convinces you that the ruler of this world, Satan, is judged. Think of that! Satan, which means accuser, is the one who is judged. The one who tries to accuse you before God has absolutely zero credibility in God’s courtroom. The devil isn’t losing; he has lost. Satan is utterly defeated and conquered. Yes, this takes faith. But the Holy Spirit will continue to point you past what you may see in this world back to these words of Jesus which clearly state that the devil is judged.

Sable, that brings me to you. Sable, today you are Baptized. God has placed His name upon you, claimed you as His own, and has given you Jesus’ righteousness. And from this day forward, the Holy Spirit will continue to guide you into these truths and convictions, convincing you of your sin so you will believe in Jesus. Convincing you of the righteousness you have been given. And convincing you of the judgment of the devil.

Sable, and all of you here, it’s hard to know what to expect for your future. But know this: the Holy Spirit will continually guide you into all the truth, convicting and convincing you that Jesus’ work for your salvation is perfect, complete, and finished. 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.

Unlocked – Sermon on John 20:19-31 for the Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19–31

19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Normally, I try to have one main theme or point in my sermons. Today, I’m throwing that out the window, and you’re going to get three mini-sermons. Yes, each of them is mini.

Sermon #1 – Jesus unlocks the New Creation. When God the Father created the world, He formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature (Gen. 2:7). Now in our Gospel text here, the resurrected Son of God stands among His disciples the very evening He rose, and He breathes on them saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld” (Jn. 20:22-23).

The way the Holy Spirit inspired this to be written, we are supposed to see those two things – Jesus’ breathing on the disciples and also what He says about the Holy Spirit and forgiveness – as one action. In other words, Jesus’ statement is how Jesus breathes on the disciples. With the breathing of those words, Jesus is unlocking the new creation to you, believer. You who are in Christ through faith, you are a new creation; the old has passed away and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).

Sermon #2 – Locked doors don’t matter to Jesus. This text drops us into the room with the disciples Easter evening, so 1,991 years and seven days ago. It had been a chaotic day. Angels were appearing and talking to people. The resurrected Jesus has been popping up all over the place. Even with all of that going on throughout the day, the disciples and the women are gathered together in a house with the doors locked because they were afraid.

Luke in his Gospel also tells us about that evening (Lk. 24:36-49), and the way Luke records it, it seems like there is a disagreement between them all. It seems like some of them believe Jesus is raised, but some of them think something else is going on because Luke says that even when they see Jesus they think He is a ghost (Lk. 24:26-27). 

The way John words things here in v. 19, it makes it seem like Jesus invisibly goes through the locked door, but once He’s through He is suddenly visible. But listen to how Luke records it (Lk. 24:36): “As they were talking about these things, Jesus Himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’” The way that is worded makes it seem like Jesus was right there the whole time, and He suddenly appears – He makes Himself visible – while they are all confused and trying to make sense of everything that had been going on that day.

Then, Jesus asks for some food, and He eats a piece of broiled fish because, of course, ghosts wouldn’t be able to eat food. Then Jesus shows them His hands, feet, and side (just like He does here). The disciples touch Jesus. Not only do they see Him, they also feel Him hug Him. Who knows? Maybe they even gave Him high fives and fist bumps.

Now, here’s the point of mini sermon #2: Just because you can’t see Jesus with your eyes, that does not mean that He isn’t here. Jesus promised, at least a few months before His crucifixion, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mt. 18:20). Dear saints, Jesus is really, truly, actually here with us this morning. If He wanted to, He could appear and ask for something to eat. Anyone carrying a can of sardines? But even better, He is here and will give you His Body to eat and His Blood to drink. Jesus is here. So, believe.

Sermon #3 – Jesus has some unlocking for you to do. When Jesus gives the Holy Spirit, He gives Christians the authority to forgive and to bind sin (Jn. 20:22-23). Remember when the lame man was lowered through the roof to be before Jesus (Mt. 9:1-8; Mk. 2:1-12; Lk. 5:17-26); what did Jesus say to him? “Your sins are forgiven.” The Pharisees grumbled because they rightly said that only God can forgive sins. Then, Jesus proves He is God and has authority to forgive sins by healing the man. Well, the one who has the authority to forgive sins extends that authority to His Church the same day He rose from the dead.

I’ve used this analogy about absolution before, but it’s helpful and worth hearing it again. Imagine you are found guilty of a crime and locked in prison. As you sit in your cell, a judge looks over your case and rules that you are innocent. He sends an order to the guard of your prison to set you free. The guard comes to your cell with the keys, unlocks the door, walks you out of the prison, and releases you back into society. Now who set you free – the judge or the guard? Honestly, the answer is both. The judge uses his authority to free you, and the guard uses his hands and feet to free you. Both things work together – the judge’s authority and the guard’s releasing because of that authority. 

When we gather together as God’s people here in God’s house, it is right for us to confess our sins together. And it is right for the man you have called to be your pastor – which is me – to proclaim God’s absolution and forgiveness for those sins. In the church, the pastors are the guys with the keys (Mt. 16:18-19). And please know that I wouldn’t have the guts to declare that forgiveness if Scripture didn’t clearly say that is what I, as the pastor, am to do. That is why the absolution is “by Christ’s command and authority.”

And this authority isn’t only given to pastors to announce over congregations. Jesus gives all believers this authority. You can announce this forgiveness. If someone comes to you and tells you about their sin and guilt and shame, point them to Jesus. Tell them that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And tell them, “I forgive you of your sins because of what Jesus has done. And I do that because that’s what Jesus Himself would do.”

Dear saints, Jesus is way better at forgiving than you are at sinning. The absolution is a great gift that Jesus has given to the Church. That is the message Jesus has sent us into the world to announce (Jn. 20:21). That is the peace that Jesus gives when He says, “Peace to you.” It is the peace that declares those sins are gone. As far as the east is from the west, so far has Jesus removed our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12).

Dear Ava, that brings me to you. Ava, today you are Baptized. Today, Jesus has joined you to Himself by placing His name upon you (Mt. 28:19) and clothed you with Himself (Gal. 3:27). In your Baptism, Jesus joined you to His death so that you have a Jesus-kind of death – in other words, a death that doesn’t last long and ends in resurrection (Ro. 6:3-11). Ava, you have been born of God; stay in the faith which overcomes the world (1 Jn. 5:4).

Our service today opened with 1 Pet. 2:2, “Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word.” May all of us continually be fed and nourished by that Word that unlocks our sin and opens the way to eternal life. 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.

God of the Living – Sermon for the Vigil of Easter

Click here for the bulletin with the readings for tonight’s service.

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.

Christ’s Suffering as Proof of God’s Love for Us

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.

God Punishes Christ

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.

The Fight – Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11 for the First Sunday of Lent

Matthew 4:1–11

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.

Coming to Save – Sermon on Isaiah 35:3-7 for Quinquagesima Sunday

Isaiah 35:3–7

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.

Working with Jesus – Sermon on Matthew 3:13-17 for the Baptism of Our Lord

Matthew 3:13–17

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.

Slaves & Sons – Sermon on John 8:31-36 for Reformation Sunday

John 8:31–36

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.