Trinity 7: Audio Sermon (22-July-2012)

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Trinity 7 [Romans 6:19-23] (22-July-2012)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am, lay reading), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (10am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (2pm) and St John's Lutheran Church, Sale (4pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Romans 6:19-23)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Our epistle reading today talks about spiritual slavery.

Slavery isn’t a picture that we normally identify with anymore. It isn’t part of our every day life. In the time that St Paul was writing it was still common for someone to have a slave, to have bought their servant with money until they were set free, and so people in Ancient Rome who were reading this letter would have easily understood what he was talking about.

But then, there is slavery in our society today. In ancient times and in the early days in America, slavery was public—it was in the open. People didn’t hide it. If you wanted to criticise it, you could criticise it in the open. But now, slavery has gone underground and it has gone inward. It has gone underground, in that there are people who are kept as slaves in brothels, and there is a trade in child slavery throughout the world. The world was shocked when, in the last couple of years, we heard about a man in Austria who kept his daughter in an underground cellar with the children he has fathered with her. Yes, we know all too well what slavery is—and it is something profoundly and deeply shocking. Anyone whom we would call a slave today is someone who is amongst the poorest and amongst the loneliest people in the whole world.

Slavery is a bit like poverty. In Australia, most people think that there really isn’t such thing as poverty. Employment and work are not readily available but people are still able to receive welfare from the government. A long time ago, before the government offered such widespread assistance to people, poverty was much more public. In countries throughout Asia, Africa, even in big cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, poverty is much more public. But here in Australia, poverty has gone underground and inward. It has gone underground in that many people fall between the cracks of the government system, sometimes due to mental health, sometimes due to being unable to manage their funds, or because of addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and such like. So the poor in this country often receive very little sympathy, and many Christian too harden their hearts in helping them. Poverty is hidden, it is shameful to Australians, it is very lonely. Gippsland is a place too where there are very many needy people, who are pushed in their loneliness further and further out from Melbourne’s spotlight into the isolated corners of our state.

But I said that poverty—like slavery—has gone not just underground but inward. Poverty and slavery are shocking to people, but we also understand very profoundly and very deeply what these things mean, because there is such a profound inward poverty and inward slavery in people.

People have everything they need—they have a TV, a car, a home, a family, but then they don’t have any values, any customs and culture worth handing on, any aspirations, anything to look forward to in life, any hopes. This is a great inward poverty.

People also are free—they have the ability to do pretty much whatever they like. But they never seem to be able to get anything done—they take two steps forward and three steps back. They build, and their plans are torn down. People are slaves to money, slaves to their desires, their idols, their bodies, their hormones, their work—yes, people today know very deeply what it means to be a slave. There is a great spiritual slavery.

And in our reading today, St Paul says:

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Notice that St Paul tells us that he is speaking in human terms. He is talking in such a way that everyone should be able to understand him. Often St Paul talks in such a way that makes no sense to unbelievers, for example, when he says earlier in this chapter, in Romans 6, that through baptism we are buried with Christ into his death. We can only understand what he is talking about with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. It’s the same when Jesus speaks in parables—he speaks in parables in such a way that unbelievers and scoffers simply don’t understand what he is saying. They still might understand what the parable is about—for example, they might understand what it means that a person should sell everything and buy a field for the sake of a precious pearl—but they wouldn’t be able to understand it from experience—they would never, ever think to be so silly as to sell everything to buy one field with a pearl in it.

But St Paul is not talking in this sort of lofty, spiritual language. He says: I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. He is appealing to our common sense, our reason, our logic, our basic instincts. We don’t need to know how to speak lofty spiritual language in order to understand what he’s talking about. Maybe this picture of slavery was not so shocking to the ancient people as it is for us, but then the Holy Spirit can use these particular words with tremendous power and encouragement for our context today.

So St Paul writes: I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

What he means is this: Earlier in Romans 6, St Paul talks about baptism. And he says that through baptism we are buried with Christ, and we are raised to new life. We are given the forgiveness of sins completely freely, we are given eternal life completely freely and we are saved by God by grace, completely and totally freely. There is nothing that we can do to earn the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation—it has to be all given to us for free by God in baptism.

But now what? Just because we’re forgiven, does this mean that we can do whatever we like? No—of course not. We’re free from sin, death and the devil, but that doesn’t mean we should continue to serve the devil. Everybody can understand this.

In the Lutheran Church, there are many people who completely misunderstand what the forgiveness of sins means. Sure, we’re not saved by works, but that doesn’t mean that we’re free to do bad works. And so, it often happens that a Lutheran, who reads the bible and confronts a fellow Lutheran about their sinful life and that the bible speaks against their bad behaviour, is told: “Relax! Chill out! Don’t worry yourself! I’m not saved by works, I’ve saved by grace!” And then these same people then just end up giving God a bad name, Christianity a bad name and the Lutheran Church a bad name. These people are simply slaves to the old life. And if that’s true, then the person who is accused of being a “party-pooper” and a “goody two-shoes” should comfort themselves with Jesus’ words: “Woe to you when others speak well of you!”

St Paul says: For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Everybody understands that if you are a Christian, a baptised person, that there’s going to be good works that follow.

And so St Paul says: Everyone is a slave to something!

Today, the atheists look at Christians and say: “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were no such thing as God! Then we could kick off our shoes and relax for once and do whatever we like.” But the atheists are not free! They are slaves!

They are right—Christians are slaves! And they are rightly shocked by this. But what they aren’t shocked by is their own slavery to their own sinful flesh. That is much more shocking.

Of course, if you are a slave, you have to front up for work on time and present yourself to your master, ready for duty!

So St Paul says: For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Present your members! Which master are you going to front up to? Impurity or righteousness? Evil or good? Satan the father of lies, or God your Father in heaven?

And so St Paul writes about the rewards that these masters give to their slaves.

He writes: When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

So what do you think: What does it mean to be a slave of God?

Many people think that God has got us like a puppet on a string, and he is playing some sick and twisted game with our lives. Some people think that they are being punished by God for their sins all the time, and every day is a just another day where they have to live out some more of God’s punishment. Sometimes, then, it’s easier for people to switch off, to stay asleep, to escape from life, to drown their sorrows in booze and drugs, than to face another day of punishment. People say, “What goes around comes around.” “I’ve done the crime, I need to pay the time.” People say, “God knows what I’ve done wrong—and I deserve the punishment from him. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

But here’s the problem with this. This is not God. This is the way pagans talk about their gods, about fate, about karma, about justice, but it isn’t the way God reveals himself. If we say, “God is punishing me and there’s nothing I can do to stop him”, then we are not treating God as if he is actually a person, but we are treating him like a machine. God doesn’t have batteries, he has a heart!

Psalm 103: The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love… He will not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

And so, Jesus says: Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

See how Jesus talks about his yoke, his burden, his slavery which he gives to us.

And then we might say, “Yes, but it’s still a yoke! It’s still a burden. I still feel like I’m just a slave to whatever latest disappointment and punishment God wants to give me!”

Well, when you feel like this, say to God, “Listen God, if you want to punish, go away and punish someone else!”

This is exactly what David says at the end of Psalm 39: “Look away from me, that I may smile again!” Go and look at someone else.

And then we might say, “Yes—but I’m the one who has sinned, I’m the one who has done wrong, nobody else can be punished for my sins.”

And that, my friend, is where you’re wrong!—because Jesus was made to be sin who knew no sin. If Jesus wasn’t punished for your sins, for whose sins was he punished? He was either punished for your sins, or he was punished for nobody’s sins.

Jesus drank the cup of God’s anger, he was obedient as a slave to the wrath of God, to his anger, to his judgment, so that all that anger and judgment may be removed from us. We are not slaves to God’s anger, we present ourselves as slaves to God’s grace, to his friendliness, to his blessing, to his kindness, to his love. That’s what makes Jesus’ yoke an easy one, and that’s what makes his burden a light one.

And so we present ourselves as slaves to God as the one who looks after us and protects and guides us and shapes us every day. We present ourselves as slaves to Jesus Christ, the obedient Son of God, who died on the cross for us and rose from the dead for us. We present ourselves as slaves to the Holy Spirit who within the Christian Church forgives us our sins and reminds us of Christ’s work for us daily and richly.

And so St Paul finishes this part of our reading today with these words: But now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you are a slave to the devil, to sin, to the anger of God, then you will get your wages. But eternal life is outside all human wisdom, all reason, all common sense—because it’s not a wage, a reward, but it is a free gift of God. To be a slave to God is to be a receiver of his free gifts.

This is just what is says in the Book of Concord (Ap V 107): “God wishes us to believe Him, and to receive from Him blessings, and this He declares to be true divine service.” We could also put it like this: “God wants us to be a sponge, he wants us to soak up everything that he gives us, he wants us to put our empty hands to receive his sacrament, he wants us to present our deaf ears and our mute mouths so that he can open them. He wants us to preach to us the forgiveness of our sins in all our poverty. He doesn’t want us to earn, to fix, to solve, to labour for our salvation. He wants us to receive it, and he wants to give it to us for free. And when we trust in God’s word and sacraments, then we are his slaves.” And what a joy it is to be this kind of a slave to such a loving master!

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

Lord God, heavenly Father, we present our members to you for righteousness. We are ashamed of the many things we have done in presenting ourselves as slaves to sin. Give us your free gift of eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Funeral of Karl Grigoleit: Audio Sermon (20-July-2012)

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Funeral of Karl Grigoleit [Philippians 1:21] (20-July-2012)

This sermon was preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon, 11am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Philippians 1:21)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

This little bible verse, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”, is one that many Christians and unbelievers resonate with. People hear it and they nod their heads and say, “Yes, that’s true.” But also the verse resonates with people in such a way that nobody knows what it means.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Of course, unbelievers don’t know what the first part of the verse means: “To live is Christ.” At best, people think it means that St Paul was saying that he is striving to achieve to be like Jesus or something like that. But St Paul doesn’t say that to live is to become like Christ, but to live is Christ.

Also, but also unbelievers think they know what “to die is gain” means, but they don’t. People say, “This person was in a lot of pain for a long time”, “This person suffered a lot in life” – death was a relief for him, death was a blessing for him, death was a good thing.

But St Paul doesn’t say that to die is a relief, but to die is gain. Death is not simply shaking off something bad and old, but it’s a kind of achievement of something new. To die is not just to be finished with something old, but it is to gain something new.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

So what do we mean when we say, “For to me to live is Christ”?

In the Apostles’ Creed we say: “I believe in Jesus Christ, [God’s] only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried, he descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.”

And so we might think, “This is someone else’s life. It’s not my life.” How can I say, “For to me to live is Christ”?

This passage is a bit like the passage about the Lord’s Supper. Jesus says, “This is my body.” “This is my blood.” And we say, How can it actually be his body and actually be his blood? It must be a symbol. No, it’s not a symbol. Jesus said it—he chose the exact words he wanted to use. And so we as Christians believe the simple words of Christ that when we come to the Lord’s Supper we are eating nothing other than his body given for us through the bread, and nothing less than his blood shed for us for the forgiveness of sins through the wine.

And so St Paul says, “For me to live is Christ.”

He’s not talking symbolically here. He’s saying that his life and the life of all Christians is, in actual fact, Christ, and his life.

So how does this happen?

Every Christian begins their life in Holy Baptism. When a person is baptised, they begin their life with Christ. People often misunderstand baptism as if it’s something that they do, as if it’s their contribution to God, and it’s a symbol of their decision to follow Jesus.

That’s not true. Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” St John says, “We love, because he first loved us.” And John also says, “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

And so, at every funeral service, we always begin with words about baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

So when we come to a Christian funeral, we come to commemorate the fact that this person, today—Karl Grigoleit, was chosen by Christ in Holy Baptism, was loved and kept safe by Jesus Christ, and now is keeping him safe for the resurrection of his body from the dead.

And we might say, “but back in the old days, people just baptised their babies as a matter of course. They weren’t necessarily sincere about it.”

But we aren’t saved because of our works, or our sincerity, or because of our will to choose Jesus, or our decisions that we have made to Jesus. We aren’t saved because of our strength. We are saved because of Jesus’ strength. Jesus has made a decision to die for us and he made the decision to stand up again on the third day and walk out of the tomb.

And so, good for Germany, and hats off to old Europe for baptising the children out of habit, and commending their children into Jesus’ loving arms! He wants the little children to come to him, and doesn’t want them to be stopped!

Woe to new Europe and Australians and false teachers that thinks that baptism’s worth nothing, and the only thing that is worth anything is our works, our decisions, our strength!

St Paul says, “When we are weak, then we are strong!” And so babies are the perfect candidates for baptism, because they are so weak, and Jesus then comes and becomes their strength. In the same way the best candidates for resurrection are those who are dead, because they are so weak, and Jesus then comes and becomes their strength.

And so, what does it mean that we have lived our lives together with a baptised person?

It means that we have lived in the presence of Jesus Christ.

For me to live is Christ.

For Karl Grigoleit—he was a son, he grew up without his parents. Jesus Christ lived with him and gave him the relatives he needed to look after him. Jesus Christ lived his life together with him—Jesus says: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

Karl Grigoleit was a husband to a loving wife. Jesus Christ was present there in that marriage. It wasn’t just Karl who was Erika’s husband, but it was Jesus Christ through him, whom the bible calls the bridegroom of our soul.

Karl was a father—but Jesus Christ was also present there in the family. It wasn’t just Karl who was Steven’s father, but it was Jesus who was looking after him as his good shepherd.

Karl had a business and employed people—and Jesus Christ also did his work there, giving all sorts people the gift of work and productivity.

For me to live is Christ.

And we might say, Look, we liked Karl! He was a good guy! We loved him! But he wasn’t Jesus Christ!

But you see that’s where the next part comes in. Jesus was conceived for Karl, and his conception was cleaned. Jesus was born for Karl, and his birth was made holy. Jesus suffered and died for Karl, rose again from the dead for Karl, ascended into heaven and prayed every day for Karl. And he baptised Karl. And so Jesus didn’t just splash a little bit of water on Karl, but through that splashing of water, through that very same act of holy baptism, Jesus Christ was splashing his blood, his forgiveness, and his righteousness on Karl’s entire life, one day at a time, one week at a time, month at a time, one decade at a time.

What for? Why did Jesus Christ do this?

He did this so that what St Paul said would be completely true:

For me to live is Christ, and [not only that, but] to die is gain.

You see, baptism is a down payment of the Holy Spirit for the next life. Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are all God’s complete and total free gift. It’s all given to you for free, and completely freely. St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.”

And so, to die is gain. To die is not just relief from the suffering in this life. He gains something new for the next life. Listen to that word: “gain”! Death is a new achievement, but not our achievement: God’s achievement in our hour of the most complete and total helplessness.

And so for us as Christians, there is a different feeling when we come to a funeral. Sure, we are sad because we’ve lost a great friend and companion in life, but why should we be sad when he is so happy? Don’t you know that to die is gain? Why should we be upset to see him go, when we know that every tear will be wiped away from his eyes?

And so we say, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain!”

Draw us to Thee,

For then shall we

Walk in Thy steps for ever,

And hasten on

Where Thou art gone,

To be with Thee, dear Saviour.

Zeuch uns nach dir,

so kommen wir

mit herzlichem Verlangen

hin, da du bist,

Herr Jesu Christ,

aus dieser Welt gegangen.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted!

Jesus says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us here to this funeral service today, and we thank you for Karl and for the many blessings we received from you through his life. Strengthen us and comfort us with the gift of your Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Trinity 6: Audio Sermon (15-July-2012)

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Trinity 6 [Matthew 6:20-26] (15-July-2012)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am) and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale (3pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Matthew 6:20-26)

I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Our Gospel reading today is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is written down in Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7. At the beginning of this sermon, Jesus teaches his listeners the famous words: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Later on, he teaches about giving to the needy, the Lord’s prayer and fasting. He teaches about not being anxious, and tells the parable about the wise man who builds his house upon the rock and the foolish man who builds his house upon the sand.

There are many things in this sermon of Jesus that are familiar. But the section that we are reading today is about righteousness.

Jesus says: For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

There are two things that Jesus teaches us here: first of all, if you want to enter heaven, you have to be righteous. If you’re not righteous, you will not enter heaven.

The second thing that Jesus teaches us is that there is such thing as a fake righteousness. This fake righteousness will give you a fake heaven, but won’t let you into the real one. This fake righteousness is taught, promoted and lived by false teachers—in this case, the Pharisees and the scribes.

Jesus puts us face to face with a reality: there is such a thing as fake religion, false religion, false righteousness, false teachers. Jesus teaches us that we shouldn’t believe everything we hear.

So he says: I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So what was it that the scribes and Pharisees were actually teaching people? In the previous verse, Jesus says: Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

The funny thing is this: the Pharisees were some of the strictest Jews alive at the time. They weren’t people who seemed to be “relaxed”. But at the same time, Jesus accuses them of “relaxing” God’s commandments.

But let’s just step back a moment, before we think about the detail of what Jesus is saying.

Firstly, I want you to think about the people who were listening to Jesus on that mountain that day. Who were they? What sort of people do you imagine that they might have been?

We read that Jesus went up the mountain, sat down and his disciples came to him.

Now why were these people chosen to hear these words of Jesus and not other people? We might say that they just happened to be there at the right time. But the fact that they just happened to be there is God’s work—he allowed them to be there on this day on the mountain. He was working all things together for the good of those people who had come to hear Jesus. He also worked it in such a way that Matthew the evangelist was able to write down what Jesus said so that we could read it ourselves today.

Proverbs 3 says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Here we have a group of people who are listening to Jesus, a group of people who just happen to be there on a particular day. They are trusting in his words with all their heart, and they are not leaning on their own understanding. And just think how thankful they must have been to have heard Jesus speak—how things worked together just so that they could be there. They could acknowledge God in all their ways, they could look back on the day, the week, the year, and see God’s hand moving to gently bring them to the feet of Jesus.

This is exactly the way it happens for us. God has worked all sorts of things together in such a way that he can reveal his righteousness to you today. Firstly, he inspired the evangelist Matthew to write these words down. Then, he enabled and allowed the writing of Matthew to be copied and published and preserved together with the rest of the New Testament for 2000 years. Through empires and kingdoms, he allowed Christianity to flourish and make a great impact on the world, which we are still feeling today, from the mediaeval times and before. Also, he brought you here to this little church in Gippsland to hear these same words that Christians have been listening to for centuries. How did he bring you here? Maybe you had Christian parents and a Christian family—maybe you met a Christian later in life, and you converted at a later age. Maybe going to church for you is a good habit that you got yourself into, and enjoy the company of the people here, and like singing, and it makes you feel good.

Whatever your reason, here you are—and you can look back and acknowledge God in all your ways. You can see that God has provided you with all that you need to support this body and life. You can see that God defends you against all danger and guards and protects you from all evil. You can see that he has done all of this only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in you.

But here’s the crunch—every person that is born on this earth is born a Pharisee and a scribe. When you are in the presence of Jesus Christ, you always learn something new which can only be learnt from him. Every person that is born on this earth wants to be saved by fake righteousness. Every person is born lost from God’s narrow way. Every person is born condemned by God’s law—helpless and crushed. Every person is born in sin, and every person’s heart is inclined to worship idols, and if they are going to be righteous in the eyes of the one true God who made heaven and earth, the only way it is going to happen is that God himself comes to you, speaks to you and declares you righteous. The only way that you will be righteous is that God himself allows you to enter heaven, God himself teaches your heart the truth which otherwise you would never know. And so when God teaches us something—even when it is uncomfortable for us—this is his love at work. God speaks the truth in love to us.

And this is exactly what happened that day, when Jesus preached to his disciples the Sermon on the Mount. He revealed to them the wisdom from heaven that they would otherwise never be able to work out or come up with for themselves.

The Pharisees wanted to teach the people how to be righteous by using the 10 commandments as a checklist. They could say—“tick! I’ve done this one. I’ve done that one. I haven’t committed murder. Great! I’m on my way to heaven.”

And now Jesus gets out his surgeon’s knife and cuts right to the heart of their false teaching.

He says: You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

So here are the Pharisees running around saying, “I haven’t committed murder. But it’s my right to be angry. It’s my right to tell those good-for-nothings what’s what! It’s my right to put them in their place. It’s my right to insult them, and blast the blow-torch of my mouth all over those people—they deserve it! Look how much damage those people are doing, look at how those people are corrupting our world, our society, our youth! It’s my right to insult them, it’s my right to kick them where it hurts, it’s my right to push them down, make them writhe, hurt their feelings, make them feel uncomfortable!” –isn’t it? I can tell you that I know that these sinful thoughts constantly spring up in my mind day after day.

What does Jesus say?

He says, “Everyone who is angry at his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Jesus is not speaking in abstract here. He is talking right to those who are listening to him. Speak, Lord, your servant hears, as Samuel said. Jesus is our teacher, but he is also our judge. And he lays open the hearts of all who hear his words—he doesn’t just give them some good advice for the future. Jesus shows them where they have failed every day of their lives up until now. He can’t save you, until the Pharisee in you is killed, stoned to death, crucified and buried. And these stones he throws one by one: you will be liable to judgment, the council, the hell of fire.

This is what God’s law does to us. We want to relax the commandments. We want to tick all the boxes and think that we’ve done everything that God requires. But Jesus uses God’s law like a knife and comes and finds the hypocrite in each of us, and puts it to death so that we despair completely of ourselves, our thoughts and our own actions.

St Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.” That’s what every pastor needs to say from the pulpit—that they are the chief of sinners and know their sins better than anyone else. But much more importantly, that Christ died for you—Christ is your righteousness. His conception makes your sinful conception clean, his birth makes your birth holy, his suffering, his death and his blood makes your body forgiven and whole, his resurrection makes you alive. And his church on earth, by opening the bible and speaking the words of Jesus to you, speaks this truth to you, baptises you, preaches to you, absolves you, and feeds you with the body and blood of Christ, so that by this and through these things that happen in the church,  God himself justifies you and speaks his judgment of complete and total forgiveness of all your sins to you. That’s Christ’s righteousness. That’s the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and exceeds the righteousness every false teacher in the world today, throughout Australia, Victoria and even Gippsland, where there are plenty of false teachers to be found in abundance. Christ’s righteousness is the only righteousness by which you will be saved.

And now in the last part of our reading, Jesus gives a little case-study and a little life-application if you like. He preaches the fifth commandment to us, “You shall not murder”, he preaches against anger and insults, and now he draws our attention to the altar. He says: “Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Here Jesus is talking about the Jewish faith where people offered a burnt offering to God in the temple. The tradition of altars goes right back to Cain and Abel. You remember before the temple and the tabernacle, people built altars. Jacob built an altar when he woke up from his dream about the ladder. And just as angels ascended and descended on Jacob’s ladder, so also Jesus teaches his disciple Nathanael at the end of John chapter 1, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

And so, we Christians throughout the centuries have built altars, not as places of sacrifice, but as places where Christ is truly present, where he has promised to come and preach his word to us and to baptise us and give us his body and blood. We build altars in the place where we call upon the name of Jesus and where the angels ascend and descend upon him.

In our churches, we always have an altar. Throughout the history of the Lutheran Church especially, many people have had a family altar where they call upon God’s name in their home. For many people, this has been the kitchen table.

The altar is the place where God brings his forgiveness from heaven to earth. The altar in the church is the place where God speaks his righteousness to us. We are not saved by something that happens to us while we’re walking down the street, we’re are saved by the gifts that God gives us: baptism, the preaching of the gospel, the sacrament of the altar.

When we come to the altar, we present our whole bodies as a living sacrifice to our living Lord Jesus. We present ourselves to him so that he may consume our sin with the fire of his wrath, and receive from him his life-giving body and blood , so that we may be strengthened and preserved in body and soul to life eternal.

We bring all our problems to Jesus. And Jesus takes them on himself and shares them with all the other Christians who come to the altar with you, so that we bear all our burdens together in love. We come to church with our problems, we leave with the problems of our fellow Christians throughout the world. We are all connected to each other through the Lord’s Supper which we eat and drink together.

And so Jesus also doesn’t want us to be fighting with each other when come. We should go and be reconciled to our brothers and sisters. This doesn’t mean mean that we stay away from the Lord’s Supper for ever and ever, so long as people have something against us, but we should do it quickly: Come to terms with your accuser quickly, Jesus says. Get it sorted before you come to the altar next time. We don’t have anything to lose by being reconciled to people. Actually, I tell a lie!—we have everything to lose, we have our pride and sinful flesh, our idolatry, our body and blood to lose, and we have the life of Jesus, his body and blood to be gained.

But Jesus doesn’t send you out to do this task of reconciling without him. You might think that you’re going to go out and speak to an enemy who will hate you for what you do, but you are always speaking in the presence of Jesus—and of all the angels that are ascending and descending on Jesus—and they are your friends. So it is a task which Jesus gives us that we are able to do in freedom, in peace, with joy, with confidence, with certainty, because he has made peace with you through his blood on the cross. It’s a task that a Pharisee can’t do, and it’s a job that can only be done when the Pharisee is rebuked and put to death, and it’s a job that can only be done in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone, in his forgiveness, his strength and his power.

As St Peter says: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, you alone are our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. We love you, Lord Jesus, our strength. You are our rock and our fortress and our deliverer, our God, our rock in whom we take refuge, our shield, and the horn of our salvation, our stronghold. Amen.

Nursing home devotion (12-July-2012)

This devotion was given at the Brookfield Park Nursing Home in Traralgon, 10.45am.

Text: (2 Timothy 2:8)

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, send your Holy Spirit to all of us, so that I may speak well, and we all may hear well, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

I remember once I went to visit a sick man in a hospital. While I was there, I read him something from the bible and said a prayer together and gave him the blessing. And as I was leaving the man in the bed next to him called out to me and said hello. He said to me, “I’m very sick, but I’m not a Christian, and I don’t have any faith to make me well again.”

This is a very common misunderstanding. People often think that “faith” is something that comes from inside a person’s heart. Now, it’s true: faith has to be put in a person’s heart, and it has to live people and grow there, but it never begins there.

Sometimes we Christians get this wrong too. People say, “How do you know that God exists?” And people respond by saying, “I can feel him.” Or, “he speaks to me”. And things like that.

But that sort of thing doesn’t really help anyone. People say, “Well, you have your beliefs and I’ll have mine.” Or, “what’s true for you isn’t true for me.” Or, “I’ve never experienced this—therefore God’s not true.”

Everyone has different experiences. Different cultures have different experiences when it comes to the faith. I remember when I was studying to be a pastor, one of our professors asked us, “How many of you came here to study because you thought God was telling you to do this in a dream?” Nobody put their hand up. But then the professor said, “When I go out into Central Australia to teach the Aboriginal pastors and ask them the same question, they all put their hands up!”

So you see, different people, different cultures, experience the faith differently. You can’t base faith on experiences.

One of the things that Christians say together every Sunday, and some people even say this every day, is “On the third day Jesus rose again from the dead.”

This is one of the most important things that Christians believe. We don’t just believe that anyone rose from the dead, or that to rise from the dead is possible, but that at a certain time in history, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, rose from the dead.

Sometimes when a person dies, we might say that they live on—maybe in our hearts, in our memories and things like that. That’s not what we mean when we’re talking about Jesus. When we say that Jesus rose from the dead, we mean that he was dead, and then he stood up and walked out of his tomb.

So when we talk about faith, what’s important is not that we have certain feelings, and certain experiences, but that something happened in history outside of us. We believe that Jesus rose from the dead—and that this is an historical fact, just as factual as that World War II happened, or September 11^th happened, or that Prince William and Kate got married, or that Geelong won the AFL premiership last year. (We might not like it, but we can’t argue with the fact that it happened!)

This is the same thing with the resurrection. Christians believe in something historical, something factual that happened, and when we talk to people about the faith—we say, “Well, see what you think—do you think it happened or not? Is Jesus still dead or is he risen from the dead?”

So you see, faith comes from outside of us, not inside of us. Even when it comes to salvation, we don’t put our faith in the fact that we feel saved, or feel happy, but the fact that Jesus died and rose. That’s why Christians practise baptism and baptise people—it’s not so that they feel good or for them to express themselves and their faith, it’s so that Jesus can give them the Holy Spirit and that they can be confident that God has given them everything not from inside of them, but from outside of them.

But then people say, “Jesus rose again from the dead.” So what? Well, we don’t believe simply that he rose again just for himself, but for everyone, for you, so that we will also rise from the dead with him.

Let’s talk about football… I remember once I was near Geelong and I was catching the train back home, and I looked around at the train station, and everyone was dressed in Essendon colours. Now if Essendon won the game, who actually is it that won? It’s the football team that won. It’s the players. But then, when the football game is played, there’s all the supporters cheering them on, and when they win the game, all the supporters celebrate. It’s a win for everyone, not just for the players!

In the same way, when we say that Jesus rose from the dead, it’s a win not just for Jesus, but it’s a win for everyone. It’s a win for everyone who is going to die. It’s a win for everyone who is suffering and abandoned. It’s a win for everyone who is low in the eyes of the world and society. It’s a win for everyone who feels rotten and miserable. It’s a win for everyone who is a sinner—everyone who is lost, everyone who is condemned. It’s a win for the entire human race.

You can be certain that resurrection from the dead will happen to you, because it’s been done before. And if it’s been done before, it can happen again. And so we say, “On the third day he rose again from the dead.”

Amen.

Heavenly Father, teach us to remember your Son, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. We thank you for the blood of Jesus, shed in his death on the cross, which was the payment for all sin. And we thank you that he also rose again from the dead and promises to give eternal life to all who believe in him. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Trinity 5: Audio Sermon (8-July-2012)

Click title for link

Trinity 5 [Luke 5:1-11] (8-July-2012)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (10am, lay reading), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (2pm) and St John's Lutheran Church, Sale (4pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Luke 5:1-11)

 Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!
But at your word I will let down the nets.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever gone hungry? Have you ever lived hand-to-mouth? Many people in Australia (and in other western countries) don’t worry about this, but they are not prepared to lower their so-called “quality of life”.

Australia is a great country to live in. We have so much to be thankful for. God has provided for you everything that you need. He continually gives us daily bread. Even at this winter-time, when all sorts of bugs and cold and flus are going around—in the broad scheme of things, we have much better health than many parts of the world. There are all sorts of diseases that we simply don’t have anymore thanks to the advances of modern medicine.

But it’s precisely in times of hardship, in times of testing and temptation that Jesus wants to demonstrate to us the power of his word. The church today will stand or fall on this one point—do we trust the power of Jesus’ words, or do we want to do what we think is practical, instead?

Often “being practical” for most people means “doing whatever will make sure we don’t lose the most money”. But at the end of the day, when all the dollars and cents are piled high up in your bank account, when comes the day of death, you won’t take a scrap with you. Psalm 49 says: “Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him. For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed—and though you get praise when you do well for yourself—his soul will go to the generation of his fathers, who will never again see light. Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.”

And we might look back on our life and say, “God’s been good to me. He’s protected me, He’s given me nice things, a nice home, good food, a nice family”, and that’s good. All those things are a gift from God.

But if we get a little crumb from our heavenly Father’s table—just a little taste of his generosity and mercy—then we start trying to steal from his table, and grab more and more. We start worshipping the crumbs, rather than God who can give us so much more than a few crumbs, in fact, he prepares for us a rich banquet.

We might make a lot of money in our work, but then if all we want to do is make money, and not enjoy our God-given work, then all we will have at the end of the day will be money. It’s not that we won’t be happy—we will be happy, dancing for joy and sacrificing our whole lives to a golden calf.

But will we have God? We say: I’ve got “principles”, “values”, “good morals”, “common sense”—but did we keep the commandments of God? God didn’t give you any principles to live by, any values, guidelines—he gave you his commandments. If you keep God’s commandments, you will be rewarded. If you break them, you will be punished. If you do them, you will live. If you break them, you will die.

This is how God’s law works. It cuts to the heart, it’s the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Thank God that we are not saved by works, but that He sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins, so that we can receive the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation through him.

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And so in our reading today, Jesus shows to these simple fishermen the power of his word. He wants them to know that he is trustworthy, that they can trust him. Note here, first of all, that he doesn’t go to demonstrate this power to the powerful in the world. He doesn’t take the kings, the queens, the rich, the powerful, the educated, the respected on a cruise and do this. They might have peered through their binoculars as Jesus did this and clapped him politely when he caught the fish, and thought that it was marvellous little trick that Jesus was performing.

No—Jesus goes to the simple people, the poor people, the nobodies, the lowly, the meek, the humble, those who are mourning, who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. By the way, Jesus does not show partiality here. Some Christians think that it’s fine not to read the bible and it’s fine never to read a Christian book, because Jesus chose simple fishermen. That’s not the way a humble person talks, but a stupid person! Jesus didn’t choose Peter because he was an idiot. Remember Jesus also appeared to St Paul, who was highly educated—one of the most educated men alive at the time—and used him for his purposes. But Jesus also gave Paul much suffering—prison, shipwrecks, blindness, floggings, you name it.

So even though Jesus chooses the little people here, he calls everyone—rich, poor, educated, uneducated, high, low. St Ephrem the Syrian from the 4^th century said: “Jesus caught twelve fishermen, and with these he caught the whole creation.”

And so right at the beginning of our reading we see Jesus teaching people. We don’t know what he said, but it’s enough for us to know that it was His Word. It was any word that he spoke.

We read: On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

And now we see that Jesus wants to demonstrate the power of his word. This is a word that never lets one of the least of his little ones go without a cup of water. This is a word that they can hang their hat on for the rest of their lives. It’s a word that created them, it’s a word that will throw them in a grave at the end of their life and in the meantime, it’s a word that will keep them fed, clothed, sustained and alive every moment of their lives and into eternity.

And so we read: And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.

Jesus gives them a command. These fishermen weren’t putting themselves out looking for a word from Jesus to drop out of the sky. He just happened to be there with them and he told them what to do. He says: “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

And here Peter gives us a wonderful example. He protests but he also obeys and submits. He says: “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

He acknowledges before Jesus that what he is being asked to do doesn’t make any sense. We’ve already toiled! We’ve worked hard, we’ve sweated, we’re tired. We toiled all night! We already worked at the best time for catching fish. It’s not much use putting out the net now! And we caught nothing! We’ve tried this, and it’s failed. We’ve tried again and again, and it hasn’t worked.

But still Peter says: “But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Yes, Lord, I will do the crazy thing, the stupid thing, I am happy to be foolish in the eyes of the world to let the wisdom of God be revealed. I will not be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to those who believe. At your word I will let down the nets.

We can go through all the commandments of God and we can see the temptation to break each one of them, because we think it’s not practical, and it doesn’t work.

For example, the second commandment “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord, your God.” We should call upon God’s name in every trouble. But instead, when we’re in trouble, we want to solve things ourselves, and don’t ask God to fix the problem.

The third commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” So often we don’t sit and read the bible, because we’ve got something more important to do. So often we don’t come to church, because we’ve got something that we need to finish off, or reward ourselves with a nice sleep in, because it’s the only morning we’ve had for three weeks to do it.

The fourth commandment: “Honour your father and your mother.” Yes, we know that we should respect our parents, politicians, bosses and leaders, but if we decide we don’t like them, we can suddenly say whatever we like about them.

The seventh commandment: “You shall not steal.” When we’re poor, it’s not the time to steal, it’s the time to ask, to beg from God. He won’t let you go hungry.

The eighth commandment: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.” So often we justify ourselves by saying we told a “white lie” so that we don’t get ourselves into trouble, or so that people will like us.

Or with young people, one the greatest temptations is to break the sixth commandment: “You shall not commit adultery”, and especially when it comes to living together and sleeping together without being married. And this is especially sad, because right at the age when young people can do so much good, and have the capacity to build a home and family, they waste their best years in mistrust, slavery and heartbreak. (And that’s not to mention pornography.) And people say, But it’s so expensive to live in two separate houses. Yes, but wouldn’t you rather be a bit poor for the sake of a good conscience? God won’t let you go hungry. And we know that in poorer areas, sometimes people just sleep with whomever happens to be around so that they can have a baby and claim the baby bonus from the government. But before wealthy people start pointing the finger, they should also remember that there’s really no difference between rich kids and poor kids in terms of sleeping around. The poor kids might be financially rewarded for their wrongs, but the rich kids just have abortions. At least the 16-year-old mums with babies didn’t kill anyone.

And so we come to Jesus and we say: Master--don’t you understand, Jesus? Don’t you understand what we’ve been through? We toiled all night and we took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.

And we see what a wonderful blessing comes from the simple obedience to the command of Jesus. When they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.

What a wonderful generous Saviour we have!

But you know, the law of God, works, obedience doesn’t save. We can let down as many fishing nets at the command of Jesus as we want, we can nod our head to him and say, “Yes, sir”—but it doesn’t mean that we believe in him as our Saviour and our Redeemer.

We listen to this passage, and we could so easily come to the opinion that Jesus is simply not for us, and say: “I don’t have that sort of faith. I don’t have that sort of courage. I’m not strong enough. I’m weak. I’m useless. I’m lost and condemned.”

But this is exactly how Peter felt. We read: When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

Peter doesn’t just realise that he is a sinner, but he asks Jesus to go away because he is a sinner. He says, “Depart from me, Jesus, because I’m no good.” I can’t do your work, Jesus, I’m no use. Go away. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

See how powerful the word of Jesus is. See how wonderful his commands are. See how much blessing comes from the obedience to the simple words of Jesus. But they are words that kill. There is an old expression in the Lutheran church: The law always accuses. The 10 commandments don’t show you how to live, they show you how the die. Peter says: Depart from me, Living One, Life-giving One, because I am dead, and I smell of death.

And Jesus now demonstrates that his word, his voice is not just powerful, but loving. The words of Jesus are not just wonderful, but they are friendly.

Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.

Jesus says: Every day from now on, will not be a day with fear, but it will be a day with me. And that’s good news. Your work might be hard, but I will there too. You might struggle from day to day, but my name will always be there for you to call. You might struggle from week to week, but my body and blood will be there for you to eat and drink.

And we read: When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

You can see what a wonderful Saviour we have. Wouldn’t you want to leave everything and follow him too?

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, you have called us out of the kingdom of darkness into your marvellous light. Your words never lie: help us to put our trust in you day by day, and to follow wherever you lead us. Amen.