Sermon on Reformation III: God's work in the Reformation (29-Oct-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am.

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

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Prayer: Sanctify us in the truth, Lord; your word is truth. Amen.

Today we are celebrating the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation. And today in our church, we are using the colour red. In most Lutheran Churches today, there are only generally two days when we use the colour red. One is the day of Pentecost, and the other is today, when we celebrate the Reformation. Red has to do with fire and the Holy Spirit.

Now the colours themselves are not all that important, but I’d like to talk in our sermon today what Pentecost and Reformation have in common. Now there are a lot of things we could say that are different about them: Pentecost is mentioned in the book of Acts, it is an event which is mentioned in the bible. It is the day when Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, and when the first Christians were baptised and believed in Jesus. On the other hand, the festival of the Reformation is a day which is not mentioned in the bible at all, it commemorates a day much later in church history, where a Catholic monk nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church of Wittenberg against the teaching of indulgences.

Do you know what happened on Reformation day? Martin Luther was a pastor in Germany, a Catholic priest and a monk, and a teacher of theology at a university in a town called Wittenberg. At that time, in the 1500s, the pope was building a large church, the St Peter’s church in Rome. Part of the money-raising activities included selling something called an indulgence. Many Christians at that time believed that after they died they could not go to heaven straight away, but would have to spend some time to pay off their sins in purgatory, which was a halfway-place between heaven and hell. But you could make your time in purgatory a bit shorter by buying an indulgence, which was a certificate from the pope which cancelled some of this time in purgatory. The church was cheating people into giving money to the church, and they were, let’s say, selling the forgiveness of sins for a price.

Martin Luther became convinced that this practice was wrong, and wrote 95 brief statements about the issue, and he nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg for public debate. Now, what does this have to do with the day of Pentecost? What do the two things have in common?

Well, let me come forward now to today. Have you ever heard the term, “the end times”? Have you ever heard anyone talk about the “end times”? Have you ever thought that maybe we are living in a time close to the end of the world? Have a think – if you look back on history and think about the last thirty years, how do you think it might compare to the next thirty years? Do the next thirty years make you worried? Look at what has happened in the world in the last fear years—we have had so many things change in the world, there is an enormous amount of suffering going on in the world that makes us all wonder where it is all going to end. Jesus says that in the last days there will be wars and rumours of wars, distress of nations, people fainting with fear…

I have heard many Christians recently say to me that they think we are living in end times. What do you think? Do you think the “end times” are now, or do you think they are still centuries away?

Well, let me tell you something – the bible talks a very different way about the “end times”, or we might say, “the last days”. Let’s go back to think about the day of Pentecost: the disciples were all gathered together and there was a great wind, and the disciples all received fire upon their heads, they spoke in different languages and tongues, and there were people from all over the place who were there who could hear the disciples speaking in their own languages. And we read: All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Isn’t it an amazing thing that there were all these things going on, and yet not everyone was convinced by it? Some were amazed and perplexed. Some thought the apostles were drunk.

But then Peter, the apostle, stands up and he begins the first Christian sermon. He says: Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. The third hour is 9 o’clock in the morning. Peter refutes those who thought that they were just drunk. But then he gives an explanation about what was actually happening. He says: But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. What Peter says is that what these people could all see happening before them, where the Holy Spirit was being poured out, was the exact thing the prophet Joel had said many hundreds of years before. And the prophet Joel said: In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Did you hear that? Joel says that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. And Peter says, this is exactly what is happening right now, today. But… did you hear when it would happen? Joel says, and Peter quotes, that it will happen in the last days. In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

What this means is that according to the bible, according to Jesus’ own apostles, it is already the last days, right from the day of Pentecost. Of course, we might say, the last days have been going on for a long time. Well, we can leave the timing of things up to God. But according to the bible, the last times is not particularly now, it is not particularly in the future, but it has always been the last days, since Jesus himself poured out his Holy Spirit on the church. The time of the Holy Spirit is the last days of the world. It is the last days, because Jesus has died and risen again. Sin has been paid for. We are not looking forward to some later days when sin will be paid for again. All the sin of the world has been taken upon the shoulders of Jesus your Saviour, and he has already died for it. It has been done, and it is finished, as Jesus himself said on the cross. And now, we are simply looking forward to Jesus’ return at the end of the world.

The whole time there has been a church, the whole time where the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the church, is a time which the bible calls the last days, the end times.

Now, if we go now to the first letter of John, he says something very strange about the last days. In 1 John 2:18, John writes: Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist has come, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

This is a very strange statement to our ears today. What is John talking about? He says, just like Peter said on the day of Pentecost, that it is the last hour. And he says that there is something going on in the church that proves to us that we know that it is the last hour. What is this thing? He says: As you have heard that the antichrist has come, so now many antichrists have come.

What is the antichrist? Well, the antichrist is a false Christ. It is a replacement Christ. It is a christ who is not Jesus Christ. In the Gospels, Jesus says: False christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. So what is this false Christ? What is this antichrist?

Let me explain. Everything good that God creates, the devil always tried to make a fake. He always tried to make a counterfeit, like a criminal who makes counterfeit money. So even the devil tries to copy God the Father.  We have our loving heavenly Father, but then Jesus calls the devil a father too, he calls him the father of lies. We have the Holy Spirit, but then the devil also has a team of spirits too, not the Holy Spirit, but evil spirits, unclean spirits, or demons.

But then the devil also tries to make a fake christ. We have Jesus Christ, who is our wonderful Saviour from sin, who made an atonement and paid for our sin through his holy, precious blood and his perfect sacrifice on the cross. But then the devil wants to point us to another christ, a fake christ, a christ who does not need to atone for you but makes you do the atoning, a christ who does not pay for your sin, but makes you pay, a christ who does not shed his blood for you, and does not make a sacrifice for you, but demands all kinds of destructive sacrifices from you.

Jesus Christ is true God and he became a true man. And the devil also wants to use real people, true men, true human beings, as his agents, to do his work. Jesus Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit at his baptism. The word “Christ” means someone who is anointed. Jesus Christ was anointed to be our high priest, our prophet and our king. And so, the devil wants to try and make a pretend Christ, an antichrist, who is not anointed by the Holy Spirit, but by an evil spirit, and is not a priest who prays for us, but is a false prophet and a false king.

But St Paul also has something to say about this antichrist, in his second letter to the Thessalonians. He calls the antichrist “the man of lawlessness”. He writes: The man of lawlessness…takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Now, what is St Paul saying here? Today, there seem to be a lot of people talking about who they think the antichrist is. Some people said that Hitler or Stalin is the antichrist. Some people thought Barak Obama was the antichrist.

But St Paul says that the man of lawlessness takes his seat in the temple of God. This means that we find the antichrist, not outside of the church, but inside the church. Yes, the antichrist can even be a leader in the church, even a pastor, even a bishop, or even a pope.

You might sometimes look at all the things that happen in the church, and you might think: I thought the church was supposed to be the place where people love each other, just as Jesus taught. Well, you’re right, but I’ve got news for you—the church is full of sinners. There’s no one else here. We are all sinners who need forgiveness and salvation. Sometimes, sin takes over the church in some way. Or sometimes, there’s a terrific Christian person who makes a wonderful contribution to their congregation, and the other people, and even pastors, are jealous of them and want them out. People shake their heads and despair about that lovely little thing which we call “church politics”!

Let’s go back to Martin Luther. He lived in a time where people didn’t know what the gospel was, because the church taught something else. People were incredibly burdened, because the church taught them about God, but in such a way that they were not sure that he loved them. People knew about Jesus, but not in such a way that he knew him as their loving Saviour. People knew about heaven, but only as a faraway place which they had to climb up to, and as a place which they just had no certainty at all that they could ever achieve getting there. Nobody knew God’s grace and his forgiveness, they only knew about earning their way to heaven and doing good works. A time of great spiritual darkness had come over the church. Another spirit was at work in the church. Jesus was taken away from sinners, and he was replaced with human rules, human righteousness, human efforts.

But meanwhile, the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the day of Pentecost. And he was not finished with the church. He had raised up little people all throughout the centuries who noticed something was wrong and who said something. One of these people was an English man called John Wycliffe. He was one of the first people to translate the bible into English. Also, you might have heard about a man called John Huss. He was from Bohemia, which is now where the Czech Republic is. But he was burned at the stake.

Then later there was a man in Germany called Martin Luther. And the Holy Spirit had pushed down very hard on him. Martin Luther knew the great darkness that was around him—and we’re not talking about moral darkness. There has always been moral darkness—I’m talking about spiritual darkness, about the darkness of false teaching. Luther knew his sin well, and when he measured it against God’s righteousness and God’s commandment, and all he could see was his failure, he thought that no matter what he would do, he could only go to hell. He thought God was torturing him, that God was an angry monster.

But then, he read the bible. And what did he find there? He found the simple clear teaching that a person is not saved by their works, but by God’s grace, and this wonderful grace of God is not earned by us but it is received through faith.

St Paul says in Romans: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith… He also writes: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me also read what it says in Ephesians: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Now there are some amazing things that then happened in Luther’s time. Can you imagine living without the forgiveness of sins? Can you imagine it? Maybe you have had a time in your life where all you could see was your sin, and nothing else, but then you realised in a new way that you had a Saviour! Maybe you came to Jesus later in life, and you know very well what the darkness from before feels like! Maybe you have gone through a dark period of suffering, and you cried to God, wondering where he was, and what he was doing, and maybe you thought that Jesus had abandoned you!

But can you imagine the whole church everywhere having to live in nothing but that darkness! Can you imagine everyone everywhere having to live without the gospel, without hope? And then the Holy Spirit used an unlikely person like Martin Luther to bring it to light again. And at the same time, the pope rejected it. He wrote that Luther was a wild boar let loose in God’s vineyard. Just like the day of Pentecost, where some people thought that the apostles were drink, some people thought that Martin Luther was nothing but a drunken German. And in a way that still impacts our lives today, instead of listening to their powerful human leaders who wanted to exert their mere human authority without the Word of God, many people listened to the word of God, they listened to Scriptures, they listened to God’s voice. St Paul says in 1 Thessalonians: When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. Instead of listening to the words of men, they listened to the words of the Holy Spirit which he inspired. What happened at the time of the Reformation was that the Holy Spirit showed that he still cared about the church, and that he would not keep silent, but still wanted to comfort poor sinners. The Holy Spirit wanted to make sure that Jesus’ words would ring true: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What a wonderful thing it is to know the truth of the Gospel, and to be set free from the condemnation of the law!

You remember we were talking about the antichrist in the church. Still today many people believe in a false christ. They seek a Jesus who is not described in the word of God. They paint their own image and their shape their own statue of a Jesus that suits them, and they fall down and worship it. People look to church leaders as its saviours, in world councils of churches, in shallow empty documents, instead of the real Jesus as its saviour. We seek empty human unity, instead of the real unity around Jesus and his word. Instead of seeking church unity around the word of God, and unity in teaching and in doctrine, people seek a unity of their experiences—and say that all religions are basically the same, we all say that our religions basically make us feel good, and we don’t need Jesus. If we think we can come to God without Jesus, then we are basically saying that Jesus isn’t God, and that he’s just a wise man, a kind of mystic, or a good example. St Paul said to the Corinthians: If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with readily enough. The message of the Reformation is a call to repentance. The first of Luther’s 95 These were the words: When Jesus said, “Repent”, he meant that our whole lives should be one of repentance. All the great movements of renewal in the church have been ones of repentance. John the Baptist said, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” Jesus said: “Repent and believe the Gospel”. And today, the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation should call us to turn back to the word, to put away our fake Jesus and fake Christ that we make for ourselves, and turn back to the real Jesus, who has baptised us, who feeds us with his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, and preaches to us the forgiveness of every single one of sins. The reformation calls us to recognise our sinful condition for what it is, and to receive our Saviour for who he is, without any works or any contributions from us whatsoever.

So what about the fake and pretend Christ whom the devil seeks to create? What does the bible say about him? St Paul makes this wonderful prophesy that the Lord Jesus would slay him with the breath of his mouth.

What is the breath of Jesus’ mouth? It is the wonderful preaching of the Gospel! It the powerful breath of the Holy Spirit. And wherever the word of God is preached in its truth and purity, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, wherever the free forgiveness of sins is shouted from the rooftops, the darkness is destroyed, the devil is cast out, and all the ideas of mere men crumble to dust. This is the wonderful event that we are commemorating in the church today: when the Gospel after so many years of darkness was preached in all its clarity again. No wonder many people have thought that the Reformation was like the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first came down! That is the great victory and the reason to celebrate the Reformation.

We don’t believe a human word, but we believe in a word that comes from God. The gospel is God’s own voice from heaven which says: I have sent my Son, he paid for your sin, and now I want you to hear my voice loud and clear all throughout the church on earth: I forgive you all your sins! Amen.

Lord Jesus, in these last days, keep the pure and clear light of your word burning strong in your church on earth. Bless us and uphold us until that time when we see you finally face to face. Amen.

Sermon on Reformation II: The Lord's Supper (22-Oct-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:23-24)

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

                                                                                                             

Today’s sermon is the second of a three-part series on the teachings of the Reformation. This year, 2017, we are commemorating the 500^th anniversary since Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church doors in Wittenberg. Next week, we are going to celebrate this anniversary. In last week’s sermon, we were looking at the Doctrine of Justification by faith alone. This is the teaching that we are saved by faith in what Jesus Christ did on the cross and in his resurrection for us. We cannot earn salvation by anything that we do. This teaching is so foundation for us as Christians, and as Lutherans, because it answers the most important question anybody on this earth can ask: What must I do to be saved? We spoke particularly last week about the fact that God’s law exposes our sin, and the Gospel teaches sinners what their Saviour has done for them.

In our sermon this week, we are going to talk about Lord’s Supper. This is also such an important topic because the Lord’s Supper is right at the very centre of the church, and who we are as Christians. The Lord’s Supper is the wonderful food that Jesus prepares for us which continually strengthens us as we walk on our journey through life: it is our weekly banquet where Jesus gives us his own body and blood to eat and to drink.

So let’s first of all read the Scripture which most clearly speaks about the Lord’s Supper, and that is, the words of institution. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, we read there the history of when Jesus instituted his special supper. Also, we read these words in St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which read like this: For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

In the church, we have all kinds of different names for the Lord’s Supper. In the Small Catechism, Luther calls it “The Sacrament of the Altar.” We don’t often use this name anymore, but it is a useful name to flesh out. A Sacrament is something which God himself has instituted—this means, it was his idea, he came up with it, he invented it, he started it off. And through this event, God brings us the forgiveness of sins through earthly elements, which are attached to his word. So in baptism, the earthly element is water, and in the Lord’s Supper, the elements are bread and wine.

Luther calls it the “Sacrament of the Altar” because the Lord’s Supper normally takes place at the altar. In the Old Testament, the altar was the place where the people offered their sacrifices to God, but for us in the church today, the altar is the place where God places the sacrifice of his own Son for our benefit. Already two-thousand years ago, Christ died on the cross and offered his body and blood as a sacrifice. Today, that same body and blood is placed by God himself on our own altar, so that we may come and partake of these gifts, and receive them into your mouths.

Sometimes, the Lord’s Supper is called the “Lord’s Supper”. This name actually comes from the bible itself, where Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for making a right mess of everything. He says: When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat. It’s as if to say, it’s just your own supper. But then, Paul goes on to teach them about the Lord’s Supper and what it is. It’s called a supper, because Jesus first held it with his disciples in the evening.

We sometimes also call it “Holy Communion”, which comes from St Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10, where he says: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? That word, “participation”, can also be translated, a “communion”. This means we share in something—Jesus shares his body and blood with us in the bread and wine, so that we have this communion with him. Also, sometimes, people call it the Eucharist, which means “a thanksgiving”. It comes from the Greek word, “thank you”. It is a word that means something like the “thanksgiving dinners” which happen every year in America.

In Luther’s Small Catechism, we have a very clear statement about what our church believes about the Lord’s Supper. He says: The Sacrament of the Altar is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.

The most important thing to discuss when it comes to the Lord’s Supper is what it is. Our church believes and teaches that it is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, Luther has a very significant word which he puts there in the catechism. He says: it is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now why does he put in this word “true”? Because there are many people who don’t believe that it really is the body and blood of Christ, and that it is only a symbol. Actually, if we take the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church (that means, the Greek church and the Russian church), the Oriental Orthodox Church (which is the Coptic Orthodox from Egypt and Ethiopia), and the Lutherans, this is the most widely held belief about the Lord’s Supper by Christians all around the world today, and the most widely held belief throughout Christian history.

However, many Christians today don’t believe it, and these are the churches which follow the Reformed opinion. Many—in fact, most—protestant churches hold this opinion. This is the opinion which says that the bread and wine only represent or symbolise the body and blood of Jesus. Lutherans don’t believe this—our church teaches that the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of Christ. Why do we hold to this so strongly? The reason is, because on the night Jesus was betrayed, he said: This is my body. This is my blood. He didn’t say that it represented his body, and he didn’t say that it symbolised his body. He said: This is my body.

Now, there are three reasons why people often disagree with this. Firstly, people say: There are other passages in Scripture where Jesus talks in a figurative way about himself. For example, he says: I am the vine. Or: I am the door for the sheep. Now, yes, that is true. But this is a different context. In those passages, Jesus is using a picture of himself to teach his disciples something. With respect to the vine, he is not saying he represents a vine. Jesus is not some insignificant person who represents a cosmic, alien vine in outer-space somewhere. What he saying is that just as a vine has branches, so also we Christians and disciples of Jesus are members of Jesus, we are made part of his body, just like branches on a vine. And just as a vine sends the juice and sap out to all the branches and fruit, so also Jesus fills us with all the gifts of his Holy Spirit, and every gift that we need as we live in his kingdom.

But the Lord’s Supper is a very different thing. Firstly, this happened on the night when he was betrayed. This was his final meal with his disciples. Just as when Jacob was about to die and gathered his sons to give them a blessing, so also Jesus shares this supper with his disciples just as he is about to die. And what do you know about writing a will? You don’t mess around with language. You don’t talk in such a way that can be taken in two ways. Now, this is not just anyone’s will—this is Jesus’ will, and he is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is speaking straight here. He is not messing around with his words. When he says: This is my body, he means that it is his body.

Also, sometimes people say that the answer to the problem lies in the words: Do this in remembrance of me. Some people say: It can’t really be his body, because he says that it is for remembering him. So they say: The Lord’s Supper is simply nothing more than bread and wine, and when we eat and drink it, we remember Jesus. Now, recently, in another sermon, I was talking about this point. In English, when we say “remember” we often mean something that goes on in our heads. But in Hebrew, “remembering” is something that people do. A very clear example of this is when the thief on the cross says to Jesus: Remember me, when you come into your kingdom. He is not simply asking Jesus to think about him, when Jesus is in heaven and the thief has gone to hell. He is not saying, “Remember the good times we had when we on the cross together.” The thief is saying, “When you come into your kingdom, I want you to bring me with you.” I don’t want you simply to think about me, and remember who I was, but I want you to do something for me, and to take me with you. And this is exactly what Jesus does. He says: Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. That’s how Jesus remembers him. He brings him to heaven with him.

And so, in the Lord’s Supper, we do remember Jesus. We remember the wonderful things that Jesus for us and for our salvation. But we don’t remember him, while he is far away and we are all the way down here. He actually comes to meet us, and we remember him in his presence. We remember the fact that he is here! And when Jesus says: Do this in remembrance of me, what is the thing that we actually do? Is it just eating bread and wine? No… The thing that we do in remembrance of Jesus is to eat his body and to drink his blood. Just as Jesus remembered the thief on the cross and brought him with him into heaven, so also Jesus comes and meets us on earth, giving us his body and blood to eat and drink in remembrance of him.

The third thing that people often say is that it is simply not possible. They say: Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, so he can’t be here on earth in the Lord’s Supper. Yes, it’s true: Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. But the thing we need to come back to is the fact that Jesus said: This is my body, this is my blood. If that’s what Jesus said, then we need to leave it up to him to work out how this is possible. But not only that, remember that Jesus actually went and met Paul and converted him on the road to Damascus. Later when Paul was in prison, Jesus went and met him and encouraged him and said: Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome. Even though Jesus ascended into heaven, he could still come and encourage his people. Also, when Jesus gave his disciples the command to baptise, he said: I am with you always to the end of the age. He also said: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Also, remember that Jesus is both true man and true God. We can’t make our body and blood present in churches all throughout the world, because we are not gods. But Jesus has all the power in heaven and earth in his hands, and he knows how to bring about what he promises in his own words.

But the other thing we need to remember is this: Jesus body and blood is not dead flesh and dead blood. We are not cannibals or vampires here. Jesus is risen from the dead, and his whole body is glorified in a wonderful and amazing way because he is also true God. And so, Jesus did not say: This is my arm, or this is my fingernail. At the same time, he didn’t say: this is my spirit, or this is my soul. He said: This is my body, and this is my blood. This is his miracle which he performs, and he gives these things to us in a glorious, invisible way.

Now, if we actually believe that Jesus comes to meet us in the church, to give us his body and blood in this way, this completely changes the way we think about what the church is, and why we are here. I once heard the story about an American theology professor, who visited a Lutheran church in Latvia. Now Latvia was part of the U.S.S.R. for a long time, under communism, and during those years it was very difficult to be a Christian because the church was outlawed in certain ways. So this professor went early to church and sat in the back, and saw a young woman come into the church and she got down on her hands and knees and prostrated herself on the floor to pray, and then got up. The American professor was quite stunned, and said to the young woman, “Why did you do that?” The young woman said, “Why didn’t you?” It’s as if to say: If you know whose house this is, and who it is that comes and meets us here, wouldn’t you be completely in awe?

There’s a wonderful event in the gospels where a blind beggar hears the sounds of a noisy crowd and asks about it. We read: They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” This is exactly what happens in the Lord’s Supper: Jesus of Nazareth passes by and he comes right into this place to meet us and to feed us. If you were alive in those days, you wouldn’t sit at home and say: “Never mind, I’ll see him some other time”, or “I’ll pray to him later.” No—you’d go out and meet him, just like the blind beggar did! The problem is, so many people don’t realise that they are blind, and they don’t know that Jesus is here and comes to meet them. But this is what Jesus promises when he says: This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.

There’s so much to say about the Lord’s Supper, and we can’t say it all in our sermon today. In fact, the great gift of the Lord’s Supper is something that we can spend our whole lifetimes learning, and we still won’t fathom its depths! It is my prayer that the Lord’s Supper—together with Baptism and God’s word—is the thing that is right at the centre of our life together as Christians here in this place. And old Christian writer once called the Lord’s Supper “a medicine of immortality, an antidote, that we may not die but live in God through Jesus Christ, a cleansing remedy through warding off and driving out evils.” (Ignatius of Antioch). Or another old Christian writer said: “If those who touched the hem of His garment were properly healed, how much more shall we be strengthened if we have Him in us whole?” (John Chrysostom)

But before we finish, we need to realise something very profound. If Jesus is going to come and enter into us in this wonderful way, how is it going to happen without him completely overpowering us with his majesty and even destroying us? How is it going to happen that Jesus does not completely crush us with the weight of his glory, he being so perfect, are we being so weak and sinful? It can only happen in one way: He has to forgive us our sins. And this is exactly what Jesus does. He says: This is my body, which is given for you. This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord’s Supper, not only gives us Jesus’ body and blood, but he also gives us the promise of the forgiveness of sins connected to it. And this word of Jesus commands faith from us, it calls us to believe this and to trust in it.

And so, it is not the sinless who are worthy to come to the Lord’s Supper, and to feast on these gifts. It is those who know their sin, and want to change their lives, and lead a completely new one. If we are honest, we realise that our old self is always a complete disappointment, and we are always failing to lead the Christian life we know we should. And so, we come to Jesus, with everything that is on our hearts and our minds, with all our failures and all our griefs and sorrows, and we place them all into his hands. And he gives us his body and blood to eat and to drink, given for you, and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This is his last will and testament, he reads it allowed to you his family, and he gives you your inheritance right into your mouths. If only we could understand what a precious gift this is! As we often say in our service: May he strengthen you with his Sacrament that your joy may be full! Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful gift of the holy supper of your body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. Help us to treasure this wonderful gift which you have given to your church on earth, as we sing and praise your name together with the angels, the archangels and with all the company of heaven. Amen.

Sermon on Reformation I: On Justification by Faith Alone (15-Oct-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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

                                                                                                             

Today’s sermon is the first of a three-part series on the teachings of the Reformation. On 31^st October 1517—which at the end of the month will be exactly 500 years ago—Martin Luther went to the church door in the German city of Wittenberg, and nailed there his 95 Theses against the practice of indulgences. I won’t go into great detail now as to what indulgences were, and what this was all about, but this event was a kind of beginning of a series of shock-waves, which rippled not just in Germany, but all throughout Europe, and has left a permanent impact on the history of the world. This was also the beginning of a series of events which led to the beginning of the Lutheran Church as a separate entity from the Roman Catholic Church. So, you can see that the celebration this year, is a very important one for us. And so, for these three weeks in a row, I would like to give these three sermons about the distinctive teaching of the Lutheran Church, and why the things that happened 500 years ago are still relevant today. So today’s sermon is going to be about The Doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone. This is such an important teaching, because until the time of Martin Luther, this teaching had basically died out and was silent in the church. Next week, we’re going to talk about the Lord’s Supper. And then the third sermon in our series is going to be about the Victory and the Celebration of the Reformation.

So what is “justification”? Justification is a word that has to do with courts and courthouses, and is the action where a person is declared righteous in the sight of God.

Let’s flesh this out a bit… Justification is a process[1], it is a trial that happens in a court, and this courtroom is heaven. God is the judge, and he is seated on his throne. The accuser, or the prosecuting attorney, is the devil. Actually, the name “Satan” means “accuser”. The person on trial is mankind, the human race, which includes you. And so the accuser accuses—the accuser makes his accusations. And the person on trial, the accused—this is us, this includes you—we know that the accusation is true because our conscience also witnesses against us. The Holy Spirit searches, and also knows that the accusation is true. And so when the accuser makes an accusation which is true, the person is guilty and there needs to be justice, and a punishment. The guilt is great, and the punishment is endless—because this is no ordinary law—this is no human law, like the law of Australia, or the law of some other country. This is God’s law. And God’s law says: You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. God’s law says: Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. God’s law says: Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. And so, this is the situation we find ourselves in, in God’s courtroom, and our sentence is ready to be pronounced.

At this point, in the court process, something amazing happens. Into all of this, comes Jesus of Nazareth. He is the true Son of God, true God and true man, and he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is our High Priest and he is our Advocate, our Defender. And he sees us standing there—a wretched, lost and condemned criminal in God’s court room—and he says: I have suffered for this person, I have died in his place, I have taken the punishment that he deserve, I have done a great work and I have earned this person a place in God’s house, I have won the victory over the Satan, the Accuser, and all their enemies. What can you do in such a situation other than grab the feet of Jesus first of all in sorrow over the suffering that we caused him, but also in complete trust in him and gratitude, and complete joy for the wonderful blessing that he gives us.

And so, the voice of God comes from the Most Holy Place. This voice comes out of the Holy of Holies in heaven, from God’s mighty dwelling place, from his temple, from his throne room, and he says: Rip up the accusation. Tear up the charge. Burn it, bury it. Because of my beloved Son, the guilty person is free to go. You are acquitted from all guilt, and you are set free from every punishment. You are justified, you are set free. You have no price to pay whatsoever, because Jesus has paid everything on your behalf. This Jesus is perfect, he is perfectly righteous. Your sin, your guilt and your punishment is taken from your account and given to him, and his righteousness and his innocence and his perfect atonement is taken from his account and given to you. God does not count you guilty because Jesus’ righteousness is accounted to you.

And so, this word of God from heaven is actually spoken here on the earth, first of all, in the pulpit. Each Sunday, and whenever Christians gather, preachers are called to speak this word of forgiveness to you. It is also spoken to you at the altar, when we give you the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and say that this is given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And it is spoken to you whenever you receive the absolution, when the forgiveness of sins is directly applied to you, whether it is in public, like we heard it today, or privately, in private confession. All of this is the forgiveness of sins on earth as it is in heaven. You have everything that you need. And so St Paul says: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is what we’re talking about when we’re talking about justification by faith alone. This teaching shows us where the church is. Where there are sinners receiving the free forgiveness of their sins because of what Christ has done, without any contributions or works of their own, that is the church. And anything else in the whole world that looks like a church but doesn’t have this one teaching is not the church. Because this teaching of justification shows us the answer to the most important question that anyone on this world could ever ask: What must I do to be saved? The answer is: You cannot do anything. You can only make matters worse, you can do nothing but condemn yourself further. Jesus has done everything. He stretched out his arms on the cross and said: It is finished. He has done everything, and he gives it all to you for free. All you need to do is put out your hand and take the gift that he gives you. God’s word is true, and he never lies.

St Paul says in Ephesians 2: You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Here you see St Paul describing the state of affairs outside of God’s kingdom, outside the church. This is life without justification: we are dead, and children of wrath. But then St Paul goes on: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Now listen to what St Paul says: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. You can see how central this teaching was when Paul was writing to the Ephesians.

Now, let’s go through this doctrine in a bit more detail. If we want to understand this doctrine really well and much more sharply, then we should also make sure that we understand about God’s law and the Gospel. The Law is God’s powerful word which shows to us our sin: it doesn’t make us a sinner, but it finds sinners. It’s like a spotlight in the night, a laser beam, that comes and finds you, and exposes you for everything that you are. But then there is another word which God speaks only to sinners: it is the word which shows you your Saviour. It doesn’t find a saint, but it makes you a saint, and not because you did anything, but because Jesus did everything. The gospel is the word spoken to you exposed in the dark with that laser beam, the law, and covers you over with new clothes, with the wonderful spotless garment and robe of Jesus’ righteousness.

Now it’s not true that the Law is the Old Testament and the Gospel is the New Testament. The Law is found in both the Old and the New Testament, and the Gospel is found in both the Old and New Testament. But in the Old Testament, the most important thing is where God reveals his law on Mt Sinai. And in the New Testament, the most important thing is where God gives up his Son, the Lamb of God, on Mt Golgotha, on Calvary.

So what does the Law say? It says: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. It says: We know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. The law says: When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin.

The Law convicts us and the law accuses us. It shows us our sin. In Jeremiah we read: Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? God’s law shatters our stony hearts, and smashes up our pride like a hammer and burns up our self-righteousness like a fire. It shows us that we are by nature children of wrath.

And then in the Gospel of Mark, what is the first thing that Jesus says, when he goes out to preach? He says: Repent, and believe the Gospel. When he says, “repent”, he is preaching to you the law. He is saying, no matter who you are, and what you have done, you must become different than you are now, you must change your ways. But then Jesus says: Believe the Gospel. In other words, He says: Trust me, trust my promises, I will save you. Before Jesus came, John the Baptist went out preaching, and saying: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. In other words: Every valley must be lifted and every hill made low. John says: Let your hearts be crushed, and hear about your sin. But then comes the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Then God’s voice will say: This is my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. And so, the law prepares us for Jesus. The preaching against sin prepares us to meet our Saviour, who saves us from sin. After Jesus is raised from the dead, he commands his apostles to go out and preach the Law and the Gospel. He says: Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

So if all we do is go and preach the law by itself, then it brings nothing but hell and despair and death. This is what happened to Judas: he knew the law of God, but he didn’t know the Gospel. Romans 7:10 says: For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

But then once the law has been preached, the Gospel then brings consolation, and forgiveness. The door of heaven is opened for us. And Psalm 130:7 says: With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. It doesn’t just say: redemption, but plentiful redemption, abundant, overflowing. The Gospel affects us and touches us in so many different ways in our whole lives that we never would have expected. Anyone who thinks: “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the Gospel before”, has never heard the Gospel before, because the Gospel is always fresh, it is always new, it is always creating, it is always life-giving. And God doesn’t just give us the Gospel in one way, but he gives it in many, many different ways. Firstly, he gives us the Gospel through the spoken word, through which the forgiveness of sins is preached in the whole world. Second, he gives us the Gospel through Baptism—he gives us the physical sign of water on our bodies together with his word to bring us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. God wants to make sure that we know that our salvation depends not on our choosing, and our feelings, and our experiences, but on his word, on his promise. That’s what baptism is—it is God taking everything that Jesus accomplished on the cross and in his resurrection and he puts it on you, right now, in your life, in the history of you. Third, God also gives us the Gospel through the Lord’s Supper—if you thought baptism was enough, God also wants to give you living food for the road, to strengthen you all the way through your Christian life, by giving you the body and blood of his Son for you to eat and to drink. He doesn’t only give you to forgiveness of sins in the word and in baptism, but also in the Lord’s Supper too, as a living medicine. Also, God gives you the Gospel through the Office of the Keys, when the pastors of the church speak absolution, and open the doors of the kingdom of heaven for you, by declaring to you the free forgiveness of your sins. And also, God gives you the Gospel through your fellow Christians, through the comfort and consolation and conversations that we can have to build each other up, just as Jesus says: Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. So what a generous, abundant God we have who lavishes his Gospel upon us in so many different and wonderful ways!

So, the Gospel is the word of God that speaks to us that Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification [SA II I 1-2]. St Paul says that God raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Jesus alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and God has laid on him the iniquities of us all. Now, all of us, every single person who has ever lived, except Jesus himself, is a sinner. St Paul says: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…by his blood. Now what does this mean, “by his grace”, or “as a gift”? It means that the only thing you can do is believe it. You can’t do anything to achieve this. You can’t do anything to get it by any work, or law, and you can’t earn it, or merit it, by anything that you do. And God won’t even give you the power to be able to earn it or achieve it. If you pray to God, and say: “God, send me the power to be able to work for and earn your forgiveness”, he won’t answer it. Because you would be asking him to make yourself your own Saviour, and you wouldn’t need Jesus. So it is faith alone that justifies us: not faith plus love, not faith plus works, not faith plus being holy, not faith plus all your prayers—no, just faith, just good old-fashioned faith—faith which might be strong, or faith that might be weak. Whether faith is strong or weak doesn’t matter, because you’re not saved by strength or weakness but by faith in Jesus, and He is the strong one.

And so St Paul says: We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. And we must be the most stubborn of all people when we have learnt this teaching, and we must compromise not an inch on this teaching, or budge the tiniest amount, because otherwise we would be mixing our Saviour’s work on the cross with our filthy second-rate work. And when we have made ourselves into a Saviour, we have lost the faith. It’s so easy for the sinful flesh to take over in the church, it’s so easy for outward friendliness to want to prevail over truth, it’s so easy for the church to drown God’s voice out by speaking the same message as the world. But there is no other name—no other name—given under heaven by which we must be saved.

And so God has given us a new and a clean heart. God will and does account us completely and totally righteous and holy because of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and our Mediator. When God looks at you, he doesn’t see you and all your sin, he sees you with your Saviour, and he’s sees Jesus’ righteousness completely covering you over. And even though we still struggle and live with sin every day, God does not punish it or bring it to mind, because Jesus has already dealt with it and Jesus has already paid for it.

So take heart. Be of good cheer! God says to you: You are my beloved son and daughter. He says this just as he said it to his own Son at his baptism and when his face and clothes shone in the transfiguration. You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased. Amen.

Dear Jesus, how can we thank you enough for everything that you have done for us? There is nothing that we can bring you, there is nothing that we can offer you, that could be anywhere close to equalling the great sacrifice that you have made for us. Strengthen our faith, dear Jesus, and keep our eyes always fixed on you. Amen.

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[1] See Wilhelm Loehe, Questions and Answers to the Six Parts of the Small Catechism of Martin Luther, Columbia: Duffie, 1893, p 118.

Pentecost XVIII (Proper 22 A) [Matthew 21:33-46] (8-Oct-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son”. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”

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

In today’s reading, we read about a master of a house who plants a vineyard. Jesus says: Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

Here in this parable we see a master of a house. The master of the house is God the Father himself. He is the one who plants a vineyard, he is the one who owns this vineyard, he is the one who builds a hedge around it, he is the one who digs the winepress, he is the one who builds a tower, and he is the one who leases his vineyard to the tenants that he chooses. The word “tenant” here doesn’t simply refer to someone who rents to property, but someone who also works it. This is a share-farming arrangement—there is a property owner, and then there are workers and farmers who come into work the farm. It’s just as if someone around our area owns a piece of land with a sugar cane plantation, but they are not able to work it, and so they get someone else to work the plantation for them.

Also, we see in our reading that not only does God the Father plant a vineyard, but he also puts a hedge around it. It is important that the vineyard is protected from wild animals. Once I remember staying on a farm in South Australia which had a vineyard on the property, and the fence next to it wasn’t very secure, and the neighbour’s cows would come into the vineyard and eat the grapes! It was quite a nuisance for the vineyard owners to have to keep leading the cows back next door! — Also, God the Father builds a winepress in the middle of his vineyard. What’s the point of having a vineyard if they’re not making something? So, this winepress is where all the action happens in the vineyard—this is where they press the grapes into a pulp, and make the wines. — God also builds a tower – what’s the tower for? For the workers to watch. They can make sure that there’s no people coming, or animals coming, or fires coming that might affect the vineyard.

So just as Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a vineyard, so also we can see that there are different jobs that need to be done in the kingdom. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: Your kingdom come. Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, writes: God’s kingdom comes when our Heavenly Father sends us the Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy word and live godly lives here in time and there in eternity. Right at the heart of the kingdom of God is the God’s Word, and God sends us his Holy Spirit to believe that word, so that we lead our lives according to that Word.

So in the vineyard there is also a hedge around it. God’s word needs to be protected—it needs to be guarded and fenced in, so that we are very clear about what is in the vineyard and what is outside the vineyard. We need to make sure that the vineyard is well-fenced and snake-proof, so that the devil doesn’t come in and alter God’s word, or twist it around to make it say what it doesn’t say. But also, in this vineyard there is a winepress. The word of God must be preached – we must be crushed up by God’s law, and confronted with the truth about who we are as sinners. All of our pride must be stomped under God’s feet with his gumboots, but all of this happens not to destroy the fruit, but so that the grapes will grow and mature. It’s only the crushed grapes that are then collected and saved by the workers, put in bottles, and left to ferment into wine. And so God also wants his wonderful gospel to be preached to us too, the message of the free forgiveness of our sins for Christ’s sake, and for it to permeate and ferment our whole life through. Jesus was crushed on the cross for us, and is now raised from the dead. Jesus also raises us up and gives us new life, just like the crushed grapes are now given new life, and made into something completely new. -- This vineyard also has a tower in it. The tenants of God’s kingdom need to sit up high and be able to see outside the vineyard and make sure the vineyard is protected. Here we can see that it is part of the task of managing God’s vineyard to carefully watch what is outside his kingdom and make sure that none of it comes in. Then when we can see where the fence might need repairing. In the kingdom of heaven, people watch and pray. We watch what is going on in the world, and also we pray that the kingdom of God may not be infiltrated by error and falsehood.

Now, let’s read what happens in the next part of our reading: When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

What happens here? Well, nothing went wrong with the vineyard—it was a good vineyard, and God had planted it well. Nothing went wrong with the fence. The fence was still working well and no wild animals had got in. Nothing went wrong with the winepress—everything was in fine working order. Also, nothing went wrong with the tower—it still stood high over the vineyard. Everything that God himself had built and put in order was fine. But the problem was with the tenants. It’s not that they weren’t working in the vineyard, but they started to think that they were the property owners now, and not the tenants anymore. They kill their master’s servants, and finally they even kill their master’s son.

Then Jesus says: When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” You can see here at the end of the parable, God the Father, as the owner of the vineyard, punishes the unfaithful tenants, and kicks them out of his vineyard and he leases his vineyard out to new tenants. The old tenants prevent the property owner, like an owner of a vineyard, from coming to collect the bottles of beautifully-aged wine which we made from the grapes in his vineyard. These tenants even killed the owner’s son, so that they could keep all the produce, and the vineyard, for themselves. The new tenants will work joyfully for the owner of the vineyard – and there’s a wonderful sharing of the produce. The owner of the vineyard sends his messengers, and on behalf of the owner, collects the wine for selling and distributing. Even the workers in the vineyard get to share in the owner’s work, and are rewarded for their work.

Now this parable has two applications. First of all, it applies to God’s chosen people of the Old Testament, the Jewish people. But second, it also applies to the church throughout history. So first of all, let’s see how this parable first of all applies to

I.                   The Jews.

In the first five books of the Bible, we see how God chose the Jewish people to be the custodians of his kingdom. God called Abraham, and brought him to the land of Canaan. His grandson, Jacob had 12 sons, who became to heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Levites, were chosen to be the priests, and the guardians of the worship and the tabernacle and later the temple. If we read the book of Exodus, we read about how God brought his chosen people out of Egypt, and gave them his law, in great detail, about how they should guard his word and his worship.

But God didn’t simply want his people to keep a whole lot of outward regulations and ceremonies. He also wanted his word to sink deep into their hearts, and produce the wonderful fruit of faith. Abraham had trusted God’s word so many years ago. And we read: Abraham believed God, and he counted it to him as righteousness. In Deuteronomy, we read where Moses tells the people before they go into the promised land: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command today shall be on your heart. God wants his people to give their complete devotion to him, and to return to him the wonderful fruit of his vineyard, like aged wines.

But then what happened? God had not employed them as owners of the vineyard, but only managers. But instead they began to consider themselves to be the owners. God had sent his people many prophets throughout the years, who had called them to repentance. The prophets had called God’s people to share with their God the fruit of the harvest. But there was no harvest – instead they rejected the prophets. Jesus says: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

God’s chosen people, the Jewish people, put themselves in the place of God, and saw the prophets as nothing but a threat to their existence. They thought that God could nothing without them. They insist that the land of Canaan is their land, because of Abraham, not God’s land for them to look after. And then when prophets had come to the land, they had killed them. When Jesus came, both Jews and Gentiles worked together to have him killed, kicked out of the city of Jerusalem, and killed like a common criminal, and nailed to the cross.

What then happened as a result? In the year 70 AD, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was destroyed, and to this day it has never been rebuilt.

Even after the Second World War, the Jewish people received the land of Israel back as a nation state. But where the temple once stood stands one of the largest Muslim mosques in the world, and one could only imagine that World War III would start if the Jewish people today decided to destroy that mosque and rebuilt the temple. Many Christians support the Jews, at the expense of the Palestinians, even Christian Palestinians. Many Christians support Palestinians, at the expense of the Jews. The kingdom of heaven is not a matter of politics. The kingdom of heaven is a matter of the word of God, it is about Jesus our Saviour, and faith in him. And so, even though there continues to be terrible trouble in the Middle-East to this day, the solution is not for the Arabs to crush the Jews, or the Jews to crush the Arabs, but for both Jews and Arabs to receive Christ as their crucified Saviour, together with Christian people of all nations. It is only with Jesus that there can be Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth. In Colossians, we read that Jesus made peace by the blood of his cross.

In the early books of the bible, we read how the kingdom of God was given to the Jews alone. But then towards the end of the bible, we see all these wonderful letters. To whom? To Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, and Hebrews. You see, God had taken away the kingdom of God away from the Jews only, and given it instead to the Jews who received Christ, the Son of God. And then He also grafted in many believers from other nations. The Jews are not forgotten—the church today is not an anti-Jewish group. Not at all! The church is made up of people from all nations, including Jews. In fact, in started off with Jews, and expanded all throughout the world. All the books in the bible, even in the New Testament, were written by Jews, like Paul and Peter and James and John. The church doesn’t belong to one ethnic group anymore, and even today, the kingdom of God has expanded even to places that the apostles didn’t even know existed, like Australia. In recent years, there have been missions to some of the most remote people on earth, to the Mongolians, to the Nepalese, to tribes still unreached in Africa, in South America. Even today in Australia, the Gospel is still yet to be preached to a new generation of people, who seem to be being “protected” more and more from hearing the Gospel.

So let’s now come to how this parable applies even to

II.                 The Church today.

The church today is called to be a custodian of God’s vineyard. But sometimes we can start to put our own human wisdom in place of God’s word. We can start to think that God won’t do anything unless we do it for him. We start to think that the Holy Spirit doesn’t know how to call people, and so we exchange his word for entertainment. We water down his word so that the wine can’t mature properly. When true messengers of God come our way, whether they be pastors or laypeople, we can so easily remain stuck in our comfortable lives, instead of listening to God’s call to repentance, and presenting a harvest back to him. God sends people all throughout history, who speak the word of God afresh for us, and when they do this, we must listen. Because if we reject God’s word, then we reject Jesus himself, and if we reject the Son, then reject the owner of the vineyard also. Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.

Sometimes, even in the church, Christians can reject Jesus, and rob God of his own property, because they want it for themselves, and turn it into their own little social club, as if it’s all about them. The church is not a social club built around us, it is the mouthpiece for our living God. And when we turn this mouthpiece into something else, then faith is completely eradicated from people, and it is given to other people. Even in our culture—in European, western culture—the Christian faith was once at the very core of the civilisation. And now, in our country, the name of Jesus for many people is nothing more than a swear-word. Now it is not Europe where most of the world’s Christians are to be found any more, but Africa and other places. But what about them? Will they remain faithful to God’s word? Africa is a continent that is full of false prophets too. God knows full well how to take his kingdom away from one group of people and to rain it down upon another.

So it is of utmost importance for us Christians to keep the faith. It is not for us to make Christianity into our own brand. We cannot work by ourselves, but with God every step of the way, and let him shape and change us, and it is his word that must sink into our hearts and minds. If we don’t remain faithful to God’s word, then the church won’t be here anymore when people come looking for it. There might be a church building, but the church won’t necessarily be inside it. But if there is a church inside the building, then it can only be a group of sinners who trust their Saviour, who look for their hope and their salvation from Jesus, their Good Shepherd. Any other group of people is not a church, and it is only a matter of time before they become an angry group of dangerous tenants.

In the church, we do nothing but plant seeds and water the seed. God is the one who gives the growth. And so in the meantime, let’s work together with God in that task, being shaped and formed by his word—in changing our minds in repentance, and receiving the wonderful gift of the free forgiveness of every single one of our sins, and we look forward to that wonderful time when Jesus will return and share with us the joy of his harvest. Amen.

Dear Jesus, when you come to your Father’s vineyard, we want to receive you with joy, and share in your harvest. Send us your Holy Spirit, and keep us faithful to you. Amen.