St Michael and All Angels: Audio Sermon (28-Sept-2014)

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St Michael and All Angels [Matthew 18:1-11] (28-Sept-2014)

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

http://stephenvdh.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/st-michael-and-all-angels-matthew-181.html

Pentecost XV: Audio Sermon (21-Sept-2014)

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Pentecost XV (Proper 20 A) [Matthew 20:1-16] (27-June-2015)

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

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

Text: (Matthew 20:1-16)

And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In the church today, there is a lack of missionary zeal, compared with times gone past. I saw a documentary just recently about the history of the Birdsville Track, and was particularly struck by what was said about ruined churches in the middle of the desert that were founded by early Australian Lutherans for the purpose of bringing the gospel to the Aborigines. There was a time gone by in the history of our church when many people went to contribute to the mission efforts in Papua New Guinea. Where is that zeal today? Where is that fervour for mission?

Many Christians today, of course, don’t believe that there is such thing as sin, eternal death, the devil, hell. Many Christians don’t believe that there is anything which can truly endanger our souls, and from which people need to be saved.

However, there are many people in Australia who want to rouse us Christians from our sleep and encourage us to reach out to our neighbours. But often this is done for the wrong reasons. Instead of seeking to save souls, today’s missionaries simply want to get “bottoms on seats” in the church. A successful missionary today is judged on the basis of whether he or she encourages people to come to church or not. But what about heaven? What about helping people enter into eternal life and pointing people to Jesus?

Coming to church is not a good work which earns you salvation. Coming to church is not something that gives you brownie-points. Once we’re part of the church, we are called to grow in our faith, and hear God’s word again and again. Coming to church is simply an external thing—it can be done for show. But repentance and salvation is not an external thing—it is worked by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word.

There’s nothing wrong with inviting people to church, of course—it’s a good thing. But the church’s work is not finished simply when they are seated on a pew. Each person needs to continually grow and be fed by the word of God.

In fact, there is some missionary work that is so important, but that never happens in a church building, which is preparing people for death on their deathbeds. Sometimes it happens that people go their whole life never taking their salvation very seriously, until death is just around the corner. They may have had a successful life or not, from a human point of view, but then they realise that it is time to attend to their soul and make their peace with God.

Sometimes these people have put themselves down on the Australian census as belonging to a particular church, such as our own, but have never entered a church building. And sometimes these people then call a pastor, or a Christian friend, to come and talk with them as they are preparing to die. As a pastor, I have been to many deathbeds, and have had the privilege of being with people when they have died, or the day or two before they died.

I once spoke to another minister from another church when I was in Gippsland about this kind of work. He said: “I never visit deathbeds. Because you’re spending your time with people who have made no contribution to the church. If the church were a business, you’d be spending all your time with people who never give any pay.”

Our Gospel reading today condemns outright this kind of a missionary who wants to build churches and empires in their own image, but do not attend to the salvation of souls. Listen to that expression: “the salvation of souls”. Somehow it seems like words from a long time ago, but now people don’t talk like that anymore. A church that does not care about the salvation of souls, is no church at all, and has no business on this earth.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus describes this picture: The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. We read how he goes out all throughout the day, at the third hour (9am), at the sixth hour (12pm), at the ninth hour (3pm) and at the eleventh hour (5pm), and calls them all to come and work in his vineyard. And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.

We can see from this reading that the person who converts to the faith at their last opportunity, having made no contribution to the church or its finances, is welcomed into eternal life as an equal partner of all the apostles and martyrs and Christians throughout the centuries. And this is precisely why we are here as a church—to bring the gospel to people at whatever stage of life they come to hear it, whether it is at the first hour, third hour, sixth hour, ninth hour or eleventh hour. A person who is raised in the faith from a small child, and a person who converted later in life, and a person who converts in their last dying hours, receives the same eternal life. No-one is better than the other.

Sure—there are some in the church who have laboured hard in the vineyard and have spilled their blood for the sake of the gospel. Think of all the martyrs throughout history who have died for the faith. There will be some kind of special glory that will be showed to them on account of the great suffering that they endured for the sake of Christ. But those of us who have only suffered a little bit won’t hold that against them. Surely, we will be happy simply to be there in heaven together with them.

But this is not the issue that is being talked about in our Gospel reading. The great martyrs and faithful witnesses throughout Christian history will not be able to look down on other Christians who didn’t shed as much blood as they did. Some people are simply not placed by God in that kind of situation. Christians aren’t saved by their contributions to the church or its history, but by Jesus’ contribution to the church and its history. We are saved simply through his blood and his sacrifice and his death. And whatever hour we come to him, he welcomes us with open arms.

However, Jesus paints the church as a very strange business. In fact, there is no business on each that could run like this. Jesus is not giving us a formula of how to run a government or a business. Normally, if a person has worked for one hour, they get one hour’s pay. If they have worked for two hours, they get two hour’s pay. If we take our car in to get serviced, or repaired, we are charged for labour according to the time it would take to fix the problem. If it is a big job, we would be charged more; if it a small job, we would be charged less. If someone works part-time, they would receive less pay than the person who works full-time, because they would be paid by the hour.

But the church is a completely different type of business. In fact, it’s not a business at all in the way we think of it. Each person is paid for a full day’s work no matter how many hours they have worked. This is because salvation comes purely by God’s grace, and because God wants to give eternal life as a gift, and not because of our works. If you want a reward, if you want equal wages from God, then you’ll get it. You’ll get death just like everyone else. The wages of sin is death. But salvation is not wages. It’s not your pay. It’s a free gift. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So there is absolutely no place in the church whatsoever for treating our mission the same way we would run a worldly business. The church simply does not run that way. Sure—the church needs money to pay its pastors and all that sort of thing. And God commands you to give joyfully towards the work of the church. But the problem with the finances of the church is not getting guilt into people’s pocket, but by getting the gospel into people’s hearts. St Paul says: God loves a cheerful giver.

And also, there is social inequality in the world. There are employees and employers. Employees need to show respect to their bosses—citizens need to show respect to their leaders—children need to show respect for their parents, etc. But everyone who is baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has the same baptism, the same Lord, the same faith, the same God who is the Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Everyone in the church is equal. But that doesn’t mean that Christian young people don’t treat old people with respect, and Christian citizens disrespect their politicians, and all that sort of thing. We are each called to work and to do the things that God has called us to do in our own place in life. But this is not what saves us. Through baptism, we are all equally children of God together with Christ, the Son of God, praying “Our Father in heaven” to our heavenly Father as equals together with him.

But because of this business model there’s a little problem. Jesus says: When those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” So the last will be first, and the first last.

Here Jesus gives a warning to us all. St Paul gives the same warning in 1 Corinthians 10: Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Remember that King Solomon lived his whole life blessed with such wonderful divine wisdom, writing the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. People all around the world, like the Queen of Sheba, came to listen to his words. And nevertheless, he died as an idolater. He was led away from the faith by his many wives.

We can be Christians for our whole life, and we can make many fine contributions to the church. We can give large sums of money, we can do wonderful missionary work, we can even serve as a pastor, and run committees, and do all sorts of wonderful things, labouring in God’s vineyard hard and through the heat of the day. And then, like Solomon, we can fall away from the faith and grumble to God for the free gift that he wants to give us.

And sometimes we do this all in the name of grace. We say: “I’m a Christian, I’ve done my piece, I’ve made my contribution, I’m well-respected, I’ve been to church, I’ve said my prayers, I’ve fasted twice a week, I’ve made my confession, I’ve sat through all those sermons…” and nevertheless, at the same time, we throw everything back at God in his face, making our faith into our work. We think: it doesn’t matter what I do anymore, how I live, how I think, because I’ve done my piece. I don’t need to repent anymore. And we look at other Christians, and we say: These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. I deserve more than this. I deserve to be paid more because I have “done my bit”.

Jesus says: The last will be first and first last.

So what’s the point of being Christian, if what we do, if how much we cry, if how much we work, if our blood, sweat and tears are worth nothing?

Because Jesus calls you to eternal life. And he wants to save your soul. He wants to save it from sin, death, hell, misery, and from Satan himself. And Jesus will not save you from these things with your work, and your contributions, and even from the quality of your prayers and your repentance. He will save you by grace, and he will save you by grace alone.

Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.

I choose to give—listen to those precious words. Take what belongs to you, you poor sinner, take what belongs to you. Reject everything that doesn’t belong to you. Flee to Christ and hide in his wounds—he alone you will protect you from sin, the world and the devil.

What a wonderful, generous Saviour we have! What a wonderful gift it is that the Holy Spirit should call us by the gospel! What a wonderful gift it is to be given the most wonderful gift of God, the salvation of our souls!

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us grumblers, and save us by your grace. We always want something better than what you give us, but we pray that you would give us gracious and thankful hearts. Teach us to love and praise you in all things, and send us your generous Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pentecost XVI: Audio Sermon (14-Sept-2014)

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Pentecost XIV (Proper 19 A) [Matthew 18:21-35] (14-Sept-2014)

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 we read from this gospel reading today:

I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, send to all of us today your living and abundant Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

In Matthew chapter 18, we read a lot of things about the forgiveness of sins. And last week in our Gospel reading, we read about how Jesus gives to his listeners and to us some very specific instructions about how to go about reconciling with a person who has sinned against us.

And our reading from today follows on from that. And so at the beginning of the reading, we kind of get a sense in which Peter has been carefully listening to what Jesus has been saying and that he’s been carefully thinking things through. And he might be thinking about all kinds of situations in his own life where he has been unwilling to forgive people who have sinned against him. And so he says to Jesus: Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? This is as if Peter wants to say, “Look, Jesus, I could be spending a lot of time following this process and these instructions, seeking to be reconciled to these other people. How long should I keep doing it?”

But Jesus doesn’t want him to keep records, and keep counting. Jesus says: I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Now, this whole parable today, hits at something right at the centre of our Christian faith. This has to do with something that Christians throughout the world talk about every single day that the world goes around. This parable explains for us a certain part of the Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our sins and we forgive those who sin against us. Here in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus actually gives us the words to pray, and teaches and instructs about exactly what kind of things we should pray about. And this is right at the heart of things: Forgive us our sins.

Now, in some sense this part of the Lord’s Prayer is so incredibly important. When we come to God in prayer, we are entering into his holy throne room, but we do it as sinners. In a sense, the only people who enter into this throne room to speak with God are sinners, because they are the only people that Jesus actually teaches to pray. There’s no one on the earth that Jesus teaches this prayer to, except sinners.

So when we come to God in prayer, because we are sinners, Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer that this is not the normal way that things work. Normally, if a person is going to approach God, they have to be completely and totally holy and without sin. If we are not completely and totally perfect, then praying to God is a completely dangerous thing. We could be completely consumed by God’s anger, and we have every right to be.

So if we are going to come to God as we are, then something needs to be done about this sin that is in us. We need to realise that if God is going to listen to our prayers at all, that he is going to have to do something about this sin, and overlook this sin. We’re going to have to ask him to forgive it.

Now, right at the heart of our understanding of prayer is the understanding that we enter into God’s holy perfect presence, only because he forgives us our sins. And without this forgiveness of sins, we are totally unable to pray at all. Everything we pray for or pray about is heard by God completely by his mercy, by his grace, because of his free love.

But also, what’s the reason why God the Father forgives us our sins? We learn this in the first word of the Lord’s Prayer. Can anyone think of what the first word of the Lord’s Prayer is? It’s that little word: our. Jesus is the one who teaches us to pray, and he is completely and totally sinless. And he knows full well that we are completely and totally sinful. And so when he teaches us to pray, he teaches us to say not “my Father”, but “our Father.” We don’t say “my Father”, because God is not my Father by myself and because of my works, and my worthiness, and my sinlessness. Even when we go to our room and shut the door, we don’t change the words of the Lord’s Prayer and say, “My Father”. Instead we say “Our Father” because every prayer we make is never a prayer that we pray by ourselves, but it is a prayer that we pray together with our perfect, sinless, holy brother, Jesus himself. Jesus himself comes and prays with us, and he joins in with our prayer, and our prayers are simply joining in with his prayer. And it’s because of Jesus, and his holiness, his purity, his sacrificial death, his wonderful resurrection, that we can join in with him and approach God’s throne with boldness and confidence.

So you can see that the forgiveness of sins goes right to the heart of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to pray. Without the forgiveness of sins, we would never be able to pray in the first place. And this forgiveness of sins we can’t earn. We can’t go around doing certain things and when we clock up enough points at the end of the day, then God would forgive us. No—forgiveness of sins is totally free. We receive the forgiveness of sins, completely and totally because of Jesus and his work, and not because of our works. In the bible, this is called being justified by faith. God forgives us freely because of what Jesus has done for us, and not because of what we have done. And so St Paul says: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Did you hear this word “access”? Because we are justified by faith, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, God gives us access to him and to all his gifts, and especially in prayer. We have completely free and total access to God and his presence.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus teaches this by showing us a person who owes to a king ten thousand talents. We read: The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. We have to understand that ten thousand talents is an enormous amount of money. A talent was about twenty years’ wages for a labourer. Now I tried to work out what a fruit-picker might be paid over twenty years here in Australia, and I think that this amount would be about $720,000. But here in the reading, the servant doesn’t owe the king one talent, but ten thousand talents. The amount here is not 20 years of work but 200,000 years of work, 20 years times 10,000. So $720,000 times 10,000 is $72,000,000,000. This is a completely insane amount of money! Even the richest of us would find it difficult to pay to the king this kind of money.

We read: Since he could not pray, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” Did you hear that? It says that the servant simply couldn’t pay. Of course he couldn’t pay. Do we realise too that we can’t pay God off? We can’t slip God a $3000 dollar bottle of wine for him to slip in his draw. It doesn’t work like that. We are completely at God’s mercy. And not only that, but we read that in the parable, the king’s solution to this problem was to sell the man, with his wife and children as a slave. Not only can’t we pay God off, but we owe him our very life. The price of our life is in his hands.

And so the servant begs the king, and asks him to be patient. Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. No, the servant probably won’t be able to pay him everything, but if he does he is going to have to rely on the king to be patient. Do you realise that we are here today because God has been patient with us? Do you realise that the only reason that you have been allowed to continue your life today is because God is patient? What are you going to render to the Lord for all his goodness to you, as the psalm says?

And we read in the parable: And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. What an amazing thing that this is! Have you ever been forgiven a $72 billion debt? Can you imagine this? And yet, this is what we receive every Sunday in the church. We are baptised people—we have been baptised in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And this means that our unpayable debt has been completely cancelled. We receive the forgiveness of sins through the absolution spoken by the pastor every Sunday in church. This means that our unpayable debt has been completely cancelled. We receive the body and blood of Christ, given for you and shed for you for [what?.. For] the forgiveness of sins. This means that our unpayable debt has been completely cancelled. And now, think, if this is what our completely, totally merciful God has given to us, what do you owe God now? You owe him nothing because he cancelled debt. But at the same time, because he has cancelled the debt, we owe him our lives and our very selves, everything that we are and everything that we do. But let’s understand this properly, it’s not as if God needs our bodies and our souls and our hearts for himself as a kind of payment. Yes, he created us, but we are so corrupted and fallen, that we have to admit to God that our hearts aren’t worth very much! If we pray to God, I give you my soul, my heart, my all – do we really think so highly of ourselves that in God’s sight we are really offering him something that is valuable to him? God is like an old beggar going through the junk and all the left overs at the dump, and he has his big stick and he sees us like rusty old cans and picks us up one by one and shoves us in his bag: baked beans over here, spaghetti over here, dog food over here. But then God values as so incredibly precious. It’s a bit like collecting bottles and cashing them in for 10c at the recycling depot. Can you imagine what Jesus and his life and his blood would be cashed in for? It’s much more than $72 billion! In $72 billion times $72 billion! Jesus’ blood and his life pays us overL a thousand upon a thousand times.

And so, this brings us back to our reading. Peter says: How often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, “I do not tell you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Jesus calls us not to count. As St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: Love keeps no record of wrongs.

And here we come back to the Lord’s Prayer, where it says two things: not just forgive us our sins, but forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

At the end of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says: For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This is something that can really worry us. We might think—I’m not reconciled to everyone I know. Is God going to reject me? Does God only forgive me when I forgive other people. No—that’s not what’s being said. God doesn’t forgive you because of your work in forgiving people. God is the one who forgives first, and he is the one who forgives us perfectly. And when we learn what this forgiveness is and learn to value it for what it really is, we can’t but help to forgive other people. This is what happens when God forgives us—if God has forgiven us such a huge insurmountable debt, what’s a few little scraps that other people owe us?

St John says: In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

And so now, the very fact that we are forgiven and loved by God, means that God has taught us what true love and true forgiveness is. We have experienced it, and how grateful we surely must be for it!

But now, Jesus gives us strict warning. He says to us: OK, I know that you are not full of the love that I have shown to you, but I am going to teach this love to you day by day. You are going to learn that each day is a day in which your sins are going to be forgiven. But also, if you refuse to forgive other people, if you want to hold on to your grudges, and calculate all the things that other people owe you, then it’s clear that you simply don’t understand what I have done for you.

We sometimes say: Forgive and forget. And God doesn’t have a bad memory when it comes to our sins. But then what forgiveness means, is not that God forgets our sins, but that he never acts on them. This is the same when it comes to us: we might know that someone has sinned against us, but are we going to hold it against them, or are we going to do go to them?

We read in our reading how the wicked servant goes out and chokes another man and demands that he be paid for his little debt of hundred denarii—a piddling amount in comparison with what he was forgiven. And when the king finds out that the servant refused to cancel his debts to other people, he says: You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

We have to realise that not everyone whom we forgive will receive our forgiveness. We’re not talking about being reconciled, but about forgiving. God will not send us to hell because other people didn’t want to be forgiven by us. But I don’t know about you, but the words that hit me the most in this passage is where Jesus says: from your heart. Not simply with words, and externally, but with the heart, internally. And I’m sure that you know just how hard this is to do.

Don’t despair! Jesus forgives you once again, and cancels your debt once again. But he also sends you again into the world to learn one step at a time what it means to be his child and to be a person who is empowered to forgive others. And he warns us that if we refuse to forgive and have no desire from our heart to forgive, then we haven’t learnt what it means that God forgives us, and it would be only a matter of time when we become so bitter, that we can’t even stand being in God’s presence anymore. And this is something that grieves God’s heart deeply. But we also learn here, that just as God calls us to forgive others from our heart, what does this teach us about his forgiveness? Of course, we learn that this forgiveness comes from his heart, and that it pours and flows to us from his heart. And this should always be a source of encouragement to us!

Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful forgiveness of sins that we have received from you and from the Father and from the Holy Spirit. Open our eyes to just what a precious gift this is. Teach us and lead us through the power of your Holy Spirit to forgive others and to shine this brilliant light into all the dark corners in the world, just as you have forgiven us. Amen.

Pentecost XIII: Audio Sermon (7-Sept-2014)

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Pentecost XIII (Proper 18 A) [Matthew 18:15-20] (7-Sept-2014)

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, who was a former tax-collector. And I get the impression that this is a very personal part of his gospel, since Jesus says, If he does not listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. And so we read from this gospel reading today:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, send to all of us today your living and abundant Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

Today our Gospel reading is a simple six verses, but a profoundly rich text, that we could spend a good few weeks chewing over and learning so much from it. And particularly this reading today hits right to the heart of church unity, peace and love in the church, and what it means to be one fellowship in the Holy Spirit. St Paul says at the end of 2 Corinthians such a wonderful blessing: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. It’s that wonderful gift of fellowship in the Holy Spirit, the communion of the Holy Spirit as one church together that Jesus talks to us about today.

And so our Gospel reading today has two parts. The first part is where Jesus gives to us straight out of heaven wonderful advice of how to go about resolving a conflict when someone has sinned against us. The second part is where Jesus speaks about the power of the unity of the Christian church and what that means.

I.

So firstly, let’s go to the first part of our reading.

As pastors, we are called to preach the Gospel. And the whole church lives and breathes from the Gospel. And basically, what I mean by the Gospel is the forgiveness of sins. Basically, I really don’t have anything else that I have to say to you on a Sunday morning apart from the forgiveness of sins. And Luther says in his Small Catechism: Where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. How many blessings come from the forgiveness of sins, we just can’t begin to imagine!

But also, there’s another side to this preaching that we pastors are called to do, and that is to preach God’s law. If we’re going to preach the forgiveness of sin, we also have to preach about sin, and tell you what it is, and what it’s about, and all that kind of thing. If there’s no sin, why would anyone want forgiveness for it?

St Paul says: All Scripture is breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

And I have to admit that when I look at our reading today, I see that there is a need to use this scripture not just for teaching, and St Paul says, but also for reproof, and correction and training in righteousness. We want to talk about the peace and the unity of the church, and we can look around and see that throughout the world the church can be pretty divided and disunified. But as a pastor, I’m not called to preach to the whole church everywhere all throughout the world—I’m only called to preach to you: to you the people of St Mark’s Lutheran Church, Mount Barker, because I am installed not as the world’s pastor, but simply as yours. So, we have to ask ourselves, what about our peace and unity here in our congregation?

Well, let me say a few words to you as one Christian friend to another: our gospel reading today, if we really want to take it seriously and humble ourselves and learn from it deeply and drink from its goodness, then these words have the potential to completely change our whole congregation from top to bottom. And since I’ve been here, it’s been a great joy to serve you as your pastor. But one thing here is very unusual—and I want you to know that it is unusual and that not every congregation has this problem. We have a gossip culture in this congregation that has been ingrained for so long that it even has a pet name—“car park talk”. You have to know as a congregation that this undercurrent of damaging, corruptive talk is sinful, and it works against the Christian faith. Now, as a congregation, we have been seeking for many years to redevelop our facilities, and we seek God’s blessing in all of it. But what we also have to understand is that God is actually real—and he’s not stupid. He knows very well that there is so much potential for wonderful things to happen in this place, whatever they might be. But God also knows how to slow our plans down to teach us to return to him in a new and fresh way. Remember Jesus’ words: By this shall all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

You know, it’s precisely right into our midst, into our congregation, into this place and this church gathered here that Christ actually physically comes down to speak his words: I forgive you all your sins. Jesus is so gracious and so overflowing with mercy and forgiveness that he actually seeks to build his kingdom right in our midst without our help and without our contribution. But then he takes us by the hand and he says: Follow me. He wants us to join him in his mission and to be part of it, and not to work against it.

And so it’s right to people like us, sinners like us who need direction and who need help and who need to be taught the basics, that Jesus speaks the words from our Gospel to us today: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

There’s another passage where Jesus says: 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.

So according to Jesus who should be the first person to seek reconciliation? The person who has committed the sin or the person who has been sinned against? In the first passage it says: If your brother has something against you. And in our Gospel reading today it says: If your brother sins against you. So whether or not, someone has something against you, or you have something against them—if they have sinned against you, Jesus calls you either which way to make the first move, and to take the unity and the peace of the holy Christian church on earth into your hands. Jesus wants this unity and this peace to be your responsibility, and your calling, and he sends you with his blessing.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. We are not talking here about things that happen in public, as when a person says something offensive in the public media. If the matter is public, they can rightly be criticised publicly. But here Jesus is talking about things that happen privately. Ask yourself, who has hurt you? Who has sinned against you? Jesus shows us here that even the smallest disagreement that we might have with another person in the church needs to be addressed. Jesus doesn’t actually allow us to talk about the person behind their back—they must be addressed face to face. And so if someone comes to us and says that someone has sinned against them, then we must also encourage the person to go and speak to that person themselves as Jesus has commanded here. And also, if someone is talking about two other people that they have nothing to do with, then they need to be told to hold their tongue and shut their mouth. Now, if we really thing this through—and someone might immediately come to mind who has sinned against us—we might be immediately feel completely filled with dread and fear at the prospect of having to talk to a person to their face. Well, Jesus is giving us a gift in this advice today—he’s not guilting us into something that almost seems impossible to us. He has already forgiven us, and now he lets us share in his life so that we can share that wonderful freedom with someone else. So, my advice to you would be when faced with this reading and all you experience is complete fear, then commit the thing to Jesus himself – ask him to provide the timing, the opportunity, the words, and if possible, the reconciliation. He will give you everything that you need in his time, and he will prepare you and train you on the way. In the meantime, it’s not for you to destroy the person’s reputation behind their back. It’s time to commit them into the hands of Jesus.

Just think what the wonderful blessing comes from this: If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. Just to think, that just as Jesus has gained us through baptism and through the forgiveness of sins, we too are allowed to share with Jesus and work together with him in gaining people: brothers and sisters in his kingdom.

Secondly, Jesus gives us a further procedure: But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

We might like to practically think through and practically nut out in our own minds the various situations in our own minds and sharpen our minds against this passage. This procedure is not the kind of thing that happens in a week. We might go to a person privately again, and then take a friend along again, before then bringing the matter into the public forum of the church. What is at stake here, and what Jesus teaches us here is just how the unity and the peace and the love within the church must be such a strong concern for each of us. And if a person is ever excommunicated from the church, where a person is publically rejected from the church and denied fellowship with the church, being treated as a Gentile and a tax collector doesn’t mean treating them badly, but that our concern for this person’s soul must increase even more, because their salvation is at stake. They have been so stubborn in allowing their sin to destroy the church’s peace, that they won’t even listen to the church anymore. And it’s the church that speaks to that person the forgiveness of sins, and gives them life and salvation, as Jesus has commanded.

So let’s take these words of Jesus as a wonderful challenge. They are not words that come from a self-help book among many that you can go down to a bookshop and buy. This is advice that comes from heaven, from Jesus who is the head of his own church, he is the heavenly bridegroom, from our heavenly shepherd and he knows how to keep his sheep in order. Let’s study and learn this passage and let it sink into us deeply.

II.

Let me read to you now the second part of our reading: Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

You can see here, that the church here joins in with Jesus in forgiving people, and withholding forgiveness from people. If you receive the forgiveness of sins here in the church, then you know that Christ himself forgives you. This is him speaking here in the church. He says: Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. But if forgiveness of sins is withheld from you on the basis of the word of God, then you know that Christ himself has withheld forgiveness from you. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

And what Jesus promises here, he actually gives to his apostles when he says after his resurrection: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven them. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

This passage is worth another sermon just in itself. But let me read what it says about this in Luther’s Small Catechism, which is our church’s confession of faith when it comes to this area. It says: I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by his divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation, and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us himself.

We receive this forgiveness through the ministry of pastors every Sunday when we confess our sins, and the pastor says: On behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ and by his command I forgive you all your sins. We actually fulfil this prophesy today which Christ makes in our Gospel reading today.

But there’s also a sense, that each one of us, as we go around and seek to build and strengthen the unity of the church, seeking to gain our brother, that this is a word that is empowered by Jesus as he seeks to loose the chains that still grip a person. This is not our work here: this is Jesus work in binding and loosing. Just before our Gospel reading today, Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. Our reading today shows us how Jesus goes about seeking his sheep, and opening the door of heaven for people, through us, both as Christian pastors and Christian people wherever he sends us.

But at the end of the reading Jesus says something absolutely wonderful. He says: Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

In my previous parish, I had five congregations to look after, and some of them were very small, and yet we never had less than two or three at church! And this is such a wonderful encouragement to us, and it flies in the face of a worldly understanding of being a successful church. Most of the time when people put surveys together about healthy churches or successful churches—they often mean large ones. But think about our friends in Iraq at the moment—there are many faithful Christians who might worship in small numbers in humble church buildings, with huge mosques across the road. Are the mosques somehow more blessed because they have more people than the Christians? No—the Christians preach truth, and across the road people will only hear lies. Jesus didn’t say wherever two or three thousand are gathered, but two or three.

And so wherever there are Christians agreeing on earth about anything they ask, Jesus says: it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. Do you see how important the unity and peace of the church really is? Do you see what power Jesus is giving to his church on earth, to his holy people? And Jesus says that even the smallest little group of Christians, that are gathered faithfully in his name, and around his word, that he himself will be with them in the flesh, physically, standing as one of them, being the loving heavenly husband with his bride, the church, on earth, speaking to us his words himself, feeding us with his own body himself and pouring out that wonderful, healing, strengthening, forgiving, atoning and purifying blood into our own mouths. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Do you hear that? I am among them. Not a ghost, not a memory, not a spirit, not a fake. I am among them. I, myself, I, and nothing less that our Lord Jesus himself in the flesh. What a wonderful gift! Amen.

Lord Jesus, come down into our midst and gather us in body, soul, mind and heart around your powerful and life-giving word. Teach us in everything we do what it means to be a city shining brightly on a hill, so that people may see our good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Amen.

Pentecost XII: Audio Sermon (31-Aug-2014)

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Pentecost XII (Proper 17 A) [Matthew 16:21-28] (31-Aug-2014)

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 we read from his gospel:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

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

In our Gospel reading last week, we read the passage where Peter, on behalf of the twelve apostles, makes a wonderful confession of faith: Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus says to Peter: Blessed are you, Simon, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

This is such a wonderful passage, and gives us such encouragement. It gives us encouragement to make a bold and faithful confession in the presence of Jesus. It gives us the encouragement to want to speak with Peter a confession of faith together with him, and not to be worried about the consequences. And these words of Jesus also teach us that even though we might be gathered here on Sundays as a pretty motley sort of a crowd, with all kinds of baggage, with all kinds of problems and struggles, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, when we make this kind of confession of faith, which is given to us by God himself. And then we learn about these wonderful keys to the kingdom of heaven—that when we hear the forgiveness of sins spoken to us that the doors of heaven are opened for us so that we can walk in and enjoy all the benefits of heaven both now and for the rest of eternity.

But then we read something very strange at the end of the reading from last week. It says: Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. Hang on a minute! – Jesus has just praised Peter for making this confession of faith that he was the Christ. He has just said that on this rock, on this confession of faith, that he will build his church. And now Jesus says, “Don’t tell anyone”? Why? And not only that, but we read that Jesus strictly charged the disciples. He was adamant that should not tell anyone, he was strict about it.

Now why was this? One day in the future, Jesus was going to be on trial. He was going to be betrayed by Judas with a kiss, he was going to be arrested and taken to appear before the high priest. And on that occasion, it is going to be demanded of Jesus himself that he say exactly who he is. We read: The high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  The priest says: I adjure you by the living God. This means: I command you, I demand of you to speak the truth, and to speak the truth in the presence of God under oath. It would be like someone today giving someone a bible and saying: “Put your hand on this bible, and swear to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

And so what does the priest demand that Jesus should tell him? He says: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. This is exactly what Peter said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And so Jesus said: You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming in the clouds of heaven.

What a wonderful confession faith Jesus makes in the presence of the high priest! Later Jesus is taken before Pontius Pilate and Pilate asks him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” And Jesus says to him, “You have said so.”

So only after this, only when Jesus has made his confession of faith in public before the high priests and Pontius Pilate, is Jesus going to then going to send Peter out with all the other disciples to tell the whole world that he is the Crist, the Son of the living God. They are going to follow in his footsteps. They have the keep their mouths shut now, and not speak a word, but after Jesus had laid the path for them, and shown the disciples exactly what it looks like to make this kind of confession, then they will go out to all nations and make disciples.

Do you see now why Jesus strictly charged them to tell no one that he was Christ? They had to be patient, the had to wait, they had to wait for their Saviour, their Lord, their master, to take the lead, and then they would follow.

And so in our reading today we read: From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

Jesus praised Peter for his wonderful confession of faith, but here we learn just how little Peter knew. Jesus tells the disciples something which to us seems so obvious: Jesus must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priest and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. The disciples know that Jesus is a wonderful king, but they don’t yet understand that he must suffer. And this is so strange, because we here today who celebrate Good Friday and Easter every year, know that this is the most important thing: Jesus must make a perfect sacrifice for us to pay for each and every single one of our sins and failures and the sins of the whole world. And so that we know this sacrifice was in fact perfect, Jesus rose from the dead. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we know that Father accepted Jesus’ sacrifice completely and perfectly. And this resurrection from the dead, we come and commemorate every Sunday, because Sunday is the day when Jesus rose from the dead.

Can you believe that here in our reading, all the disciples, and Peter, had no idea about any of this? And so Peter says: Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you. And [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Peter has no idea that this very fact that Jesus is going to suffer and die is going to be the very centre of the Christian faith. Peter has no idea that the sign of the cross is going to be the sign that is built onto every church building for the next 2000 years. He has no idea that every time a baby is baptised they will have a cross put on their forehead and their breast, and that every time a church service begins, pastors throughout the world will make the sign of the cross. He has no idea, and neither do any of the disciples.

Peter is tempted by Satan here. And through this temptation, he comes and puts the temptation on Jesus. And Jesus knows who is at work now. This is Satan, the tempter, the devil, the evil one, who doesn’t want Jesus to die, because the devil knows that through the death and resurrection of Jesus that he will be defeated.

And so Jesus says to Peter, Get behind me, Satan! And so we know also that whenever we talk about Jesus but in such a way that he is not the same Jesus who laid down his life for the sheep, that this is not the real Jesus anymore, but this is Satan’s picture of Jesus, because without this suffering and death of Jesus, Satan is not defeated.

This passage gives us a lot of encouragement though. Just think how such a basic part of the Christian faith Peter himself didn’t even know yet. And this is the way it always happens: Jesus doesn’t reveal everything to us and convince of everything all at once. We have to learn things gradually and slowly. Jesus teaches us just what he desires for us each week, each day, each time we hear and read and study his word. Each time this happens, Jesus gives us a new insight, and builds us up one brick at a time into maturity. Sometimes like Peter, even the most advanced and knowledgeable Christians who think they know everything, we have to be careful to keep our mouth shut and patiently learn from Jesus his will and his word. Otherwise we could easily blurt out some of our own human knowledge and opinions and ideas, and even be used by Satan himself. This is why Jesus says: You are not setting your mind on the thigns of God, but on the things of man. So as we gather here each week, let’s pray to the Holy Spirit to enlighten us in all our darkness and pour out his blessings on us, and educate us, teach us the words of Jesus.

So after this, Jesus then instructs the disciples some more. He says: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Jesus is going to go to the cross. He is going to make a faithful confession before the high priest and before Pontius Pilate, but then what? Then he will be judged falsely, whipped, beaten, executed. Remember John the Baptist lost his head, and then Jesus comes after him and starts preaching the same thing. Are you surprised that Jesus should be executed too? But then Jesus is going to send out the disciples into the whole world and preach the same thing. Is it any surprise that the disciples are going to also have a cross? Jesus says: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

We Christians today are often caught between two worlds. We might want to be faithful followers of Jesus, but at the same time, we might realise that there might be some aspect of our life where we don’t yet want to follow Jesus, because we might be scared of the consequences. Perhaps there’s something in your workplace. Maybe someone is unfairly treated, and you don’t want to defend them because you don’t want to get in trouble either. Maybe you have children, and you don’t want to read them too many bible stories because you’re worried that they might say something religious and holy when they’re around your friends and make you look like a religious nutcase. I could make up all kinds of scenarios, but Jesus himself will make this known. Sometimes we might look to him and say, “Jesus, you are calling me to do something courageous, but the very courage you seem to require of me is the very thing I lack?” Maybe you think, “If only I didn’t fear people, if only I didn’t fear what other people think of me, if only I didn’t feel losing a friend here or there, of losing some money, or losing my reputation and my standing.”

Don’t be afraid. Don’t be worried. Jesus has looked after you every day in your life until now. Do you think he’s about to let you down now? There’s nothing to be afraid of when we are with him, because he is risen from the dead. And so he says to us: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. If anyone is going to have a cross, it means that you are going to be put on trial by the world, and sentenced. So was Jesus.

And Jesus wants to encourage us. He knows the fear that lies deep within us: he knows our failure. And yet he calls us even deeper into his presence than we have ever been before. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Do you think about your soul? Do you think about its eternal well-being? Or do you just think about money, food, career, success, good reputation? What about your soul?

You know, it is becoming much more difficult to live a Christian life now. The world promotes all kinds of rubbish and coats it with nice sounding words. There are all kinds of things which are self-destructive, corrosive for human society, corrosive for your soul, all the greed and smut, and yet people say that these things are: love, justice, progress, achievement, beautiful, good. And then people look at the Christian worldview and the things that Jesus teaches, and says: hate-mongering, backward, conservative, stupid, mediaeval, unloving.

And so just as Jesus was falsely judged, we Christians today are also falsely judged. But we are not our own: we belong to Jesus. And Jesus calls us to deny ourselves and follow him. We think from our human understanding that he’s calling us into thick darkness, into despair and pain and misery for the rest of our lives. But in actual fact, he is calling us to exactly the opposite: into eternal light, eternal hope, eternal joy and eternal happiness for the rest of eternity.

There is such wonderful passages in the bible which gives us so much strength. Psalm 139 says: Even the darkness is not dark with you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. Or Psalm 18 says: It is you, O Lord, you lights my lamp. The Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. Or also Psalm 94: When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

You see, Jesus wants us to know that the world is not our judge. Who is our judge? He is! Jesus says: For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

This is such an encouragement for us. Every time we have taken up the cross and followed our Lord Jesus, Jesus promises that that cross will be replaced with a wonderful crown. Every time we have brought our sorrows to him, he promises his joy. Every time we have brought our needs to him, he promises to fill our cup to overflowing. Every time we receive the world’s sentence of death, Jesus gives us a new sentence, a new judgment, a new hope: the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

So, let’s draw close to Jesus and his word, and learn from him. He knows us so much better than we know ourselves, and he will never let us down. Every time he has put his cross deep in our hearts, this is not a sign that Jesus is absent, but a sign of his deep and abiding presence. This is a sign of the Holy Spirit and his deep love.

So don’t be afraid of the cross, and whatever God himself might send you. We believe in a God who raises from the dead, and we believe in his Son Jesus Christ, who is the Son of this living God. Amen.

Lord Jesus, you know what we need. Strengthen us with your Holy Spirit, that we may follow you, with our crosses in hand. We place our bodies, our souls, and spirits into your hands, into your protection, and into your care. Amen.

Hills Connect Youth Service [Matthew 5:13-14] (24-Aug-2014)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker, 7pm.

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

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, we thank you for the opportunity to come together here tonight and we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to all of us. Shine your light through all of us, that others may see our good works and give glory to you, dear Jesus, and give glory to your Father. Amen.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our little theme for tonight, “Double-dipping”. And one of the pictures that keeps popping up in my mind is where you go out to a party and one of my children—usually whoever happens to be a toddler—is caught at the snacks table and is standing there putting one half-eaten biscuit back into the dip after another. And you have to go up and say, “No—you can’t double-dip!”

Or there was always the annoying person who was spreading butter on their toast, and then would get butter all in the vegemite jar, or butter all in the jam jar, so that you ended up with this nice plum jam with floaty greasy yellow bits on the top. Or either that or you ended up with vegemite or jam in the butter.

But the more I’ve been thinking about this theme of ours tonight, I’ve been continually coming back to something that I’m sure that you all understand. Nobody likes a double-dipper! Nobody wants a toddler putting their half-chewed crackers back in the French onion dip. Nobody wants butter floating on top of the jam or in the vegemite.

But as Christians, there is a sense in which we find ourselves living in two completely different worlds. Jesus has called us to live in his kingdom, but we also then live in a world which is hostile to Jesus. We might come to church, and hear the word of God, and pray, and then during the week, we go out to wherever we go, whether it’s to work, or school, or uni, and we find ourselves amongst people who have no interest in church, or God’s word, or prayer, or Jesus. We’ve got one toe dipped in Jesus’ kingdom, and one toe dipped in another kingdom, and it can be a real struggle to be a Christian sometimes.

Jesus says: I have called you friends. What a wonderful thing it is to be called a friend by Jesus. Jesus baptises us and washes us clean from sin, and forgives us, and he makes us his friends. And he is the kind of friend that is always there for us, one that constantly looks after us, and visits us when we are in need, and never gets tired from listening to our whinging! And yet, then we also have other friends—friends at school, uni, work, facebook friends—and those friends are nowhere near as faithful as Jesus. Jesus never unfollows us when we post something to him that he doesn’t like. And yet, sometimes our friends will turn around to us and even make fun of us because we consider Jesus to be our friend as well. Have you ever been in this kind of situation?

So let’s come to Jesus and ask him—how do we live like this? Jesus, we want to be faithful to you. We want to live a Christian life and follow you. But how do we do it in this world? Where can we get the encouragement that we need?

In our readings tonight, we see this struggle going on in the book of Proverbs. We see a father saying to his son: My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. Can you picture something escaping from your sight? And Jesus wants to encourage us too—he wants us to look to him, to keep our eyes fixed on him, on his cross, on his resurrection. And he says: Let these things not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. And he says: For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Do you hear those words? Life. Healing. Jesus’ words, his death, his blood, his cross, his resurrection—all these things are life to those who find them, healing to all their flesh. And the proverbs say: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Hear it says that we should keep our heart, and watch it, and guard it like a security guard, and make sure nothing sneaks into it and that doesn’t belong there. Keep your heart with all vigilance. Vigilance means stay awake, and set a body-guard there and treasure up all the wonderful things in God’s word, so that your heart may overflow with the springs of life.

You can see—these proverbs are 3000 years old. But already from that time, there were people who struggled with being double-dippers. They wanted to remain faithful to God, and faithful to God’s word, but also it was a struggle not to let God’s word escape from their sight, and they needed to keep watch over their hearts like a body-guard, like a security guard.

But also, in our second reading tonight, St Paul says: You are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

Just imagine if St Paul had said here: You are all children of butter. You are not children of the vegemite. (You can see I’ve got a real problem with vegemite and butter!) What happens when butter mixes with vegemite—you end up with buttery vegemite! You have this double-dipping problem!

But think about what St Paul says. He says: You are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

St Paul here doesn’t want these two things to mix. But what happens if you bring light and darkness together? What happens when you bring a candle into a dark room? The darkness disappears. The light wins, the light lightens up the whole room. You can’t get a bit of light stuck in a dark room as if it doesn’t belong there, and you can’t get a bit of darkness stuck in a light room as if it doesn’t belong there.

The same happens with Jesus—when he walks into a room, he lightens it up. When the word of God comes into our hearts, it brings light and brightness and freshness there so that darkness can’t stand it. You can’t double-dip with darkness and light, they are mutually exclusive!

And so, St Paul here wants to encourage us. He knows there’s going to be a tendency for us, because we’re sinners, to want to be attracted to darkness. If there were two shows on TV, one about the life of Jesus, and another about witchcraft and occult, there would be plenty of people who would find the darkness much more interesting. But St Paul says: You are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. Can you see the encouragement that St Paul wants to give us here? He says: Don’t be attracted and entertained by darkness. That’s your sinful nature, your flesh. Be a child of light—put on the armour of faith, and love, and the helmet of hope.

When we were baptised, this armour, this encouragement, this faith, this love, this hope, this light, was actually given to you. And what a wonderful gift it is! I would really like to encourage you all to learn more and more the word of God, to read a little bit each day, each week, and to keep letting that light that comes from heaven, that light that comes from the face of Jesus keep pouring into your baptised heart. Jesus wants to encourage you so much, and wants you never to lose hope in him. He is so much stronger that you are, and loves you so much more than anyone in this world. And the light which comes from his word is so much more pure that any light you have ever seen.

The longest chapter in the bible, Psalm 119, says: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

But before I mention our Gospel reading tonight, I’d like you to think about a story that a friend of mine told me recently.

Imagine there is a boat, and this boat is floating on a swamp, and there are people stuck in the swamp, and struggling to swim. Now if we found ourselves on that kind of boat, what would we do? Surely, we’d want to go straight to those people who are the closest to drowning and pull them out of the swamp first and bring them into the boat, and then rescue the others.

This is a bit like what we’re like as Christians. We’re floating around in a boat through a swamp. And there are so many people all around us that are drowning in the swamp. Wouldn’t we simply want to bring those people into the boat with us who are closest to drowning?

But what happens is that so often we only want to bring those people into the boat are a bit like us. And we say to people who are drowning, “Don’t worry: the swamp is not that bad. You’ll be right.” And then the people drown, and it’s almost like we’re on a boat with a hole in it, that is simply sinking into the swamp as well.

No—there are so many people out there who have never heard the gospel. There are so many people who are floundering, drowning in the swamp, and they have no hope. And they look to us here in the church for help—and we are called to go along with our rescue-boat, and drag them out of the swamp, not to lower our standards and to be dragged into the swamp with them.

Jesus says: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Now, I don’t about you, but I love lighthouses. Just recently, before I came to this parish, my family and I went on a little holiday to Kangaroo Island, and I just loved climbing the lighthouses. I could spend a whole holiday just going around and visiting lighthouses. I think secretly that I’d love to live in one. And in a lighthouse, the walls are so thick, that you can almost crawl up and go to sleep where the windows are.

Now, just imagine a lighthouse in the old days. There are ships going past, and they look to the lighthouse to give a clear signal where the land is. Now just imagine if there were some people who came and wanted to build some houses nearby, and thought: this lighthouse is a waste of bricks. We’ll just take a few bricks from the top and lower the lighthouse a bit. And gradually over the years the lighthouse gets shorter and shorter. And then, you know what happens, the light ends up being so low that it doesn’t shine out to sea anymore and you end up with shipwrecks.

We’re not called to lower our standards for the world. We’re called to shine the gospel brightly and high up so that all those all around can see us. We’re not called to use the bricks for a lighthouse to build little houses all around the bottom! That’s called “double-dipping!” We’re not called to shine the light of the gospel to people who are just like us so that we build a little Christian social club. The gospel needs to go far out into the darkest parts of Mt Barker, of Hahndorf, of Lobethal, of Woodside, and all throughout the Adelaide Hills. The church needs to shine brightly, not with its standards lowered, so that nobody can see the light anymore.

Jesus says: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your godo works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

So keep reading and learning the Scripture. Let it penetrate deeply into your heart. Particularly, can I set you a challenge as young people—go to the bible and learn and study what it says about marriage and sex. If there’s one area in our society where young people are really floundering and drowning, it’s in this area. Now, it would be great to spend some time in the future to talk about this some more. And I know that many of you will be cut very deeply just by the fact that I have even mentioned this area—because every young person knows that the internet also provides people with a worldwide pornography network, which is causing so many people to drown. Many of you will know exactly what I’m talking about, and the great darkness that is found there.

But there’s one thing that’s even deeper that this kind of darkness—and that is that so many people, and so many young people, are so full of despair. Many of you will probably know about people who have resorted to self-harm and other things like this. If only these people knew just how deeply Jesus loves them and how much he forgives them, and how he paid for every single one of their sins with every drop of his precious blood. Do you know you this? Some of you may have studied Luther’s Small Catechism in Confirmation. Let me read to you what it says about the Lord’s Prayer on the words: Lead us not into temptation. God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into [what? Into] false belief, despair, and other great sshame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.

Despair. Lack of hope. Jesus gives us so much hope: he shines the hope of the forgiveness of sins so high and so powerfully, so much more powerfully than we can ever imagine.

So don’t dip yourselves in hope, and then in despair. Dip yourselves in eternal hope, and then double dip yourselves in eternal hope again! Let the light continually shine into your dark hearts and bring new life and energy and hope there. Don’t stay home on Sunday mornings. Go and hear the word of God. Go and receive the body and blood of Jesus. He has given it for you. He has shed it for you. He knows that you need it. And don’t you know that you need it? Climb the lighthouse, one step at a time, and let the light of the gospel shine brightly through you. There is so much encouragement for you. There is so much life that comes from Jesus’ blood and from his wounds, and so much power that comes from his resurrection.

So Jesus says: You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, we need so much encouragement from you, because we are often dipping ourselves into your kingdom, and then we go and dip ourselves in the kingdom of the world, of darkness. We don’t want to double dip. We want to dip ourselves in the light and the forgiveness that you have given to us in our baptism, and we know that no darkness into the whole world can overcome it. Bless us, encourage us and forgive us. Amen.