Pentecost II (Proper 7 A) [

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker (8.30am, 10.30am).

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

The sermon text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St Matthew. And he was one of the disciples who was sent out by Jesus and instructed with these words:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sorrows.

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

Last week in our Gospel reading, we read about how Jesus was sending out his eleven apostles, the twelve disciples minus Judas who had killed himself, into the world. And Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.”

Today, we have a wonderful passage from Matthew 10 where Jesus sends the 12 apostles out on a special mission. And our Gospel reading today comes from a sermon that Jesus gives to the twelve apostles as he sends them out to encourage them in their work.

Right at the beginning of the chapter, we read: [Jesus] called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.

You can see that Jesus gave to them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out. In our culture today, I don’t think many people really understand what an unclean spirit is. An unclean spirit can be a demon, but we can also call the spirit of any human being that is tainted by sin and has not been received into salvation an unclean spirit—it is the unclean spirit of a particular person. Any spirit, whether it is good or bad, good or bad, angelic or demonic, is something created by God. Either we are talking about a pure angel or a fallen angel, a demon. Either we are talking about a pure, or purified spirit of a person, or we are talking about the fallen, unclean spirit of a person.

When we baptise a person, we often say: Depart from [so-and-so], you unclean spirit, and make way for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not created by God, but is the spirit of God himself. The Holy Spirit is God’s own spirit, the spirit which Jesus Christ sends to people from God the Father.

Anyway, Jesus gives the twelve apostles authority over the unclean spirits. We so often want to win friends and influence people. We want to influence people’s spirits. But here, Jesus doesn’t give them any influence over them, but he gives them authority over them.

So who were these people that Jesus gave this authority to? It says: The name of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. We’ll recognise many of the names there in that list! Some of those people we don’t much about—and probably in 2000 years most people won’t know much about us either. In fact, people will probably know more about these disciples we don’t know about that they know about us! Now, that’s a humbling thought! So we read: These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them. And at the end of Matthew 10, when Jesus had finished giving these instructions, it says: When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there. You can see that this passage in our Gospel reading is very clearly spoken by Jesus to his twelve disciple, the twelve apostles.

We often don’t think too much about the twelve apostles, and who they really were. But the number twelve is significant, because in the Old Testament there were twelve tribes of Israel. The whole Jewish nation was divided into twelve families. And now in the New Testament, Jesus sends out 12 new leaders for his church. These 12 were with Jesus throughout his ministry and then were witnesses to his resurrection. Then Jesus sent them out to carry the gospel into all nations.

Anyway, we read that he gave them the authority to heal every disease and every affliction. Jesus gives them power over nature. We even read in Jesus’ sermon where he tells them: Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast our demons. Isn’t it amazing that the twelve disciples had this particular gift to even raise the dead?

We have to remember that on the day of Easter, that Jesus sent his twelve disciples with the most brilliant power of all. He says: If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

And you see, when Jesus gives his twelve disciples the authority to forgive sins he is actually giving to them the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast our demons. The power to perform these miracles goes together with the authority to forgive sins.

You might know about a passage in the bible where Jesus goes and heals a lame man, and he says: Your sins are forgiven. Then when people criticise him, Jesus says: Which is easier to say? “Yours sins are forgiven” or “Take up your bed and walk”? You can see that Jesus heals the man through the forgiveness of sins. And so in the same way, Jesus gives to the 12 apostles the authority to forgive sins and also together with it the power to heal.

Now, you might think, it’s all very well that Jesus should say all of this to the twelve apostles, but what’s all this got to do with us? (Come on, Pastor Stephen! Why don’t you preach to us something that actually relevant to our lives?!)

Well, the only reason why you know anything about Jesus at all is because of the twelve apostles. Everything that we know about Jesus was written down by the apostles or their close friends. And when we come together into church each week, we come to listen to the writings of the apostles. Even after the day of Pentecost, we read all the Christians were dedicating themselves to the apostles’ teaching. That’s what we’re here to do today—we dedicate ourselves to the apostles’ teaching.

In a minute, we’ll get to our Gospel reading. But we need to remember that these words apply to the apostles. And then, they apply to us pastors who preach the word of the apostles. And also, they apply to you Christians because you believe and confess the teaching of the apostles. Do you see how it works? Jesus gives this sermon to the apostles: but he also gives this encouragement to me as a pastor because I’m here telling you the same thing that the apostles said, and he also gives this same encouragement to you because you believe and confess with your own mouth and your heart what the apostles also believed in their own heart and confessed with their own mouths.

And so, in the creed we say that we are together as one group throughout the last 20 centuries or so as one holy, Christian and apostolic church. That word “apostolic” means that we believe, teach and confess the same thing as the apostles.

And this word of the apostles has authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, to heal every disease and every affliction. It has the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast our demons. On the last day, each and every Christian who has remained faithful to the end will be healed of every single sickness in such a way that not one drop of sickness will be left, they will we raised from the dead in such a way that they will never die again but will be alive together with Jesus, will be cleansed of all leprosy and will be given skin that shines bright with heavenly light, and all demons will be cast out—not one demon, evil spirit, will walk into heaven with us, because all sin will be forgiven, and every tear will be wiped away from our eyes. Sometimes, where Jesus allows it for the glory of his name that the church should receive a special gift of healing for a time. But most of the time, for most Christians, that is not the case—it only happens when and where Jesus allows us for the benefit of his church. But we have to realise that the complete transformation of our bodies and our souls will be so much better than any of Jesus healing miracles on this earth. In some sense, the reason why Jesus performed these miracles was to show us that he will perform these miracles in each of us when he calls us into eternal life.

So all this is given to us through the word of God, through the forgiveness of sins, through the testimony of the apostles. And so St John, one of the apostles, writes: We [the apostles] are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

So if Jesus is going to perform such wonderful miraculous healings on our bodies when we finally enter perfect and sinless into his kingdom, it’s no wonder that in this life, Jesus wants to protect us not just in our souls, but also in our bodies! Don’t you think that’s amazing?

He says in our reading: Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are more value than many sparrows.

Can you imagine the apostles in their time, how so many of them were killed because they preached about Jesus? And do you know there are so many people all throughout the world who are killed for their faith even today? In Somalia, I heard about a 14 year old girl who was made an example of and shot dead in public in a street simply because she owned a bible.

And Jesus says: Do not fear them. Do you understand the power and the encouragement of Jesus’ words here? He says: Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Notice the word: can. Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Of course, we know that God could destroy our bodies and soul in hell, if he wanted to. But to Christians, that is impossible, because Jesus says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life. Sometimes some Christians really worry that they might be going to hell after all, because they simply have too much sin. Listen—only the Holy Spirit wants you know your sin. The devil doesn’t want you to know about it. But once you do know your sin, the devil wants to take away from you all the comfort. And Jesus died for all sin, and he never wants this comfort to be taken away from you. So if you know your sin, good—but don’t despair. The only people that can go to heaven is sinners, because they are the only people Jesus died for.

Now listen to these words: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are more value than many sparrows.

It’s one thing that Jesus comforts us, but Jesus doesn’t only give us comfort, he also gives us help. And I think in the church today, lots of people pray for comfort, and are happy to be comforted, but don’t ask Jesus for any help, or at least don’t expect Jesus to help. So they think, I’m a sinner, and I’m forgiven. Good. But also, I’m sick, I’m depressed, I’m sad, I’m miserable, I’m broken, I’m desperate, I’m poor—and people think, Jesus can’t do anything about any of that. That’s wrong! Don’t you ever give up on Jesus, who has never given up on you. Don’t despair of his comfort, but also don’t despair of his help. If he has redeemed your soul, don’t you think that he can’t also help you in your physical need? The hairs on your head are all numbered. Think about this. Jesus will help you, and he gives to you every gift that you need each and every day. He doesn’t give what we think we need, but he gives what he in his divine love knows that we need. Be still, and know that he is God.

And so Jesus says: Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. Don’t deny Jesus because you’re worried about what might happen to you! Jesus is the Lord of heaven and earth and he knows everything, he knows the very depths of your heart, all the dark corners of your soul, and he pours his light and his grace and his forgiveness over all of it.

Just think when a person is baptised, how not just your soul is enrolled in the Book of Life in heaven, but also your body, and each individual hair on your head. Just think that when we come to the Lord’s Supper, we are not just receiving some spiritual food to help our souls, but this is the body of blood of Christ that will strengthen and preserve us in body and soul until life eternal. This is a down-payment of the complete transformation and resurrection of our human bodies, together with all the hair on your heads.

So, do not fear, you are of more value than many sparrows. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, send your angels to guard and shield us in all situations of our life, and give us the boldness and confidence to confess the witness that your apostles have given to us in the church today. Strengthen and preserve us in body and soul until life eternal. Amen.