Trinity IV [Luke 6:36-42] (27-June-2021)

                              

This sermon was preached at St Peter's Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am.

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

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36)

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.

 
 

Jesus says at the beginning of our reading today: Be merciful, even as your Father in merciful. We learn here a couple of things: first, that our heavenly Father is merciful. And also, Jesus teaches us to imitate that mercy.

Let’s, first of all, consider how God is merciful. We use all kinds of words to describe God. For example, we say that God is good, he is loving, he is gracious, he is patient and long-suffering. We also say that he is merciful. We often read in the Old Testament, where it says that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

It’s one thing to say that God is good and loving, and he is. But it’s quite another thing to say that he is gracious and merciful. The fact that God is gracious and merciful doesn’t just say something about God, but it also says something about us.

You see, in the beginning, God was so good and loving, that he decided to create human beings in his image and likeness. And this was an incredibly wonderful thing! He imprinted his own characteristics into the first people, the first man and woman, to reflect his own goodness and love back to him. We read: God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Just as God was good, so also he let everything that he had made share that goodness.

But then, the first humans fell into sin. They were tempted by Satan, the devil, the evil one, and turned against God, in such a way that they changed his word around and were deceived into thinking that God did not mean what he had said. And so, they fell into sin, and became full of sin. Their descendants were also sinners, right down to us, and we not only share in their sin, but we also add and heap up plenty of our own sin.

And so, God is not just good and loving, but he is also gracious and merciful. Because, God’s grace is his goodness towards us, even though we haven’t deserved it at all. God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world, to make a full payment for sin, and to atone for sin, to die for sin and to lay down his life and his blood for us. And because of what Christ has done for us, God is good toward us, and shows his grace.

God is also merciful towards us. He sees us in our sin with all our problems, with all our corruption, and all the trouble that we have brought upon ourselves and such like, and he reaches out to us and saves us. And so, because of what Christ has done for us, God looks at us with his grace, with his favour, with his mercy. Even though we don’t deserve it, even though we had rejected him, even though we were full of sin of our doing, God is merciful to us. He gives us a Saviour, and he forgives us all our sin, and even promises to do so because of Christ, and for his sake, and he charges our account and all of our sin to Christ, and he takes all of our Christ’s righteousness and holiness and purity and he clothes us with it.

We Christians are God’s baptised children. We have been saved from sin, death, hell, and from the power of the devil. And now that we have become Christians, we still struggle with our sin, but God forgives us. And as we continue in our life as Christians, we need to constantly learn from God, and from his word, what a Christian life really looks like, because it is a different life from what we had before. It is not a life that comes from our own hearts, but the Christian life is a life that comes from God’s Holy Spirit, who then changes our hearts. And so, our whole life as Christians, is one of learning to put to death our sin and our old self, our old Adam, our old man, as the Scripture puts it. But also, as we do that, as we bring our sin to God in repentance, God works in us by the power of the Holy Spirit a completely new person, a completely new self, a new Adam, a new man or woman.

Now, God saves us simply through faith in Christ alone, and not because of any of our own good works. But then, God also gives us good works to do as a gift, because he wants to change our whole hearts, our whole attitudes, our whole selves, and he wants us to show and demonstrate the love which he has shown to us to other people. And this is what Jesus is teaching us in our reading today. He says: Be merciful, even as your Father in merciful.

Just as God the Father has been merciful in so many ways to you, so Jesus wants to lead you by the hand and show you how you can now live a life of thankfulness to God, in showing that same mercy to all kinds of other people who need you in their lives. God wants to create in you a clean heart, a new heart, a heart that is like his heart, a heart that burns in love, and which reaches out in mercy and compassion to other people in their need.

Now, you might not actually think that you are all that merciful. Well, of course you’re not. At least, nobody is as merciful as God himself. But now, as a Christian, you have been baptised into God’s family, and you are one of his children. And so, he wants you to sit on his lap, and learn his characteristics, and his traits, and the things that are precious and valuable to him. Just as the world and its people are valuable and precious to God, and just as he continually shows mercy to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways, so also God wants the world and its people to be valuable and precious to you, and he wants to open your eyes, in such a way that you can see the needs of other people, and wants to give you a new heart which reaches our in mercy in all kinds of ways to them.

Now, Jesus in his sermon in Luke here today, also gives us lots of things to think about and consider when it comes to this mercy, that he wants us to learn from his Father, and show to others.

He says: Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Now, let’s think about these first two things about judging and condemning.

We need to understand this saying of Jesus very carefully. Sometimes Jesus forbids something, when he actually does permit it, in particular circumstances. For example, the Fifth Commandment says: You shall not murder. In general, human beings are forbidden from killing other human beings. So, if you want to take revenge upon someone else, you are not permitted to kill them. You are not permitted to kill someone when you think that they are no longer of any earthly use, but rather you should care for them and look after them. You are not permitted to kill a baby in its mother’s womb, and things like that. All these things come under the heading, “you shall not murder.” However, we also read in the Scripture that a policeman or a soldier is allowed to kill as part of their particular calling and vocation. St Paul writes in Romans 13: He is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carried our God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. So, for example, if there is a terrorist, who comes into a public place and starts shooting people with a gun, that is a called murder. But if a policeman or the army come along and kill that terrorist or that gunman, he is doing a good thing in protecting the citizens of the country from harm. In this case, the commandment not to kill doesn’t apply. Instead, a policeman or a soldier should be ready to kill someone for everyone’s good and safety.

Also, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, not to swear an oath. What we need to understand is that in those days, people used to swear oaths all the time, and they thought that they only needed to tell the truth if they promised or swore that they were telling the truth. If they didn’t swear, then they didn’t need to swear. Jesus says, rather, let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

However, Jesus himself swears oaths, and actually, he does it constantly, not because when he doesn’t he’s not telling the truth, but because he wants us to be absolutely certain of what he has to day. Jesus swears oaths, when he says: Truly, truly, I say to you. He says this all the time. Also, if we’re asked to go to court, we might be asked to swear an oath. And this is a good thing, and an important thing, because telling the truth in court, in a legal case, is the most important thing, and everyone needs to be certain that what we say is true. So there’s no problem for Christians in this sense to swear, or to take an oath on the bible, or something like that. But in our every day lives, in all our normal dealings with people, there’s no need to swear an oath.

Also, in our reading today, Jesus says: Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. As a general rule, this is true. But there are some people who are called to judge and condemn in certain situations. For example, a judge, in a court! Their job is to judge and to give sentences, and things like that. Could you imagine if there’s a criminal on trial, and the judge sentences him to 20 years in prison, and he says to the judge: Judge not, and you not will not be judged! Obviously, Jesus is not talking about judges, who have a duty and vocation and calling to judge.

But also, in many places in the bible, pastors are called to speak a word of God of judgment. St Paul says to Timothy: All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. When we need to speak a word for reproof and for correction, we are called to speak a word of judgment.

Also, all Christians are called to judge a pastors’ teaching, and his sermons. It’s a right thing to do! Christians are called to discern between true and false prophets, between shepherds and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Very many times, we Christians need to hold someone to account if they have taught falsely. Also, sometimes, we are called to go alongside of someone like a brother or sister, and help them to see that what they are doing is the wrong thing, and to put them on the right path. All these things are not what Jesus is talking about when he says: Judge not. Even John the Baptist and Jesus himself spoke very sharply and harshly to the Pharisees, and called them a brood of vipers! Sometimes these things are necessary. We are called constantly to judge what is right and true, and discern who are true and false teachers.

The reality is, that God has already made a judgment in advance. We do not need to make any further judgment. God has spoken, his Word says it, and that settles it. We Christians are called to speak the truth, and to speak it in love. But the reality is that many people use these words of Jesus: “Judge not, and you will not judged”, as a way to shut people up, when they don’t want to hear the Word of God. Because you see, the Word of God does judge people. The Law of God very clearly teaches us what is right and what is wrong, how we should live, and we should not live.

Actually, the Law of God doesn’t just point us back to when Moses received the 10 Commandments with the thunder and lightening on Mt Sinai. The Law of God points us back to the Garden of Eden, before there was sin. The Law of God is actually the beautiful, perfect order of God in the world, and it is his wonderful, precious gift. However, because of sin, people hate the law because it shows us what’s wrong with us, and shows us where we’ve strayed from that perfection, from that beauty. It shows us that there is an angel with the flaming, flashing sword, preventing us from entering back into the Garden of Eden.

And so, when people hear the Law of God, it’s only to be expected that they should feel judged. But God did not just set up his Law, but he also commanded it to be preached.

Today, there are many Christians all throughout the world, who are being persecuted because they have said “no” to something. Sometimes, Christians are persecuted in their own churches, for saying “no”. Daniel, for example, said “no” to bowing down to the king’s statue in Babylon. Many Christians are learning to say “no” to modern, progressive, interpretation of the bible. Many Christians have had to say “no” to false teaching, or false teachers. Many Christians have had to say “no” in the face of all kinds of moral issues, like gay marriage, or abortion, or euthanasia. And whenever someone says “no”, people feel judged. And when they harden their heart, they throw the words of Jesus back over their shoulders, saying, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” What they really mean is: “We don’t want to hear the word of God.”

But Jesus also really does say these words to us! Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. He says these things because he wants us to take no joy in telling others that they are wrong, just so that we can be so proud of being right. We need to share the truth with people, and sometimes we need to show to people that they’re walking away from God and contrary to his word. But we do this, because we know that somewhere along the line God needed to share his truth with us first, and needed to draw us back from walking in the wrong direction. God shows his mercy to us first, so that we can show his mercy to others.

We must never speak to someone as if they are simply at fault because they are not as perfect as us. We are still struggling in this life, just as they are. Only Christ is perfect, and we strive to follow him.

And so, in all these things, when Jesus says: Judge not, condemn not, forgive, give, we always need to keep it in mind that it is only by God’s great mercy toward us in Jesus, that he does not judge, condemn or withhold his forgiveness from us. And so, we commend ourselves to Jesus, that we would learn from him, how to treat people in this way, in the way that Jesus had reached out to us and treated us.

Jesus wants to encourage us to treat people in a merciful and compassionate way, and so he says: Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. Jesus is not teaching salvation by works here. He is not saying, “If you want to be forgiven by God, you have to go and forgive other people first, and only by forgiving people, can you earn God’s forgiveness.” Not at all. All he’s saying is that when you forgive people, you can take confidence in the fact that God has forgiven you. Your forgiveness has flowed from God’s forgiveness. You have shared what you have already received from him, and so you can also trust that he will forgive you again.

At the end of our reading, Jesus tells us three parables about being merciful. He says: Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? When we are merciful to others, we recognise that God rescued us from our blindness. We, because we now see clearly, can lead others into God’s light. If we think we that we are so holy, but those people are so rotten, then we are still blind. 

Jesus tells us a second parable: A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is full trained will be like his teacher. Jesus is saying here that we are constantly learning to be merciful from Jesus and from the Father. We learn from him, and we rely on him to show mercy to us, so that we can learn it in real life, in very practical ways, in order to share God’s mercy with others.

Jesus tells us a third parable: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

Here we see very clearly what Jesus means, when he says: Judge not, and you will not be judged. He is not telling us that we should not judge what is right and wrong, or lead people away from what is wrong to what is right. Sometimes we do need to tell people that they are in sin. But whenever we feel that we need to do this, we should always look at our own sins first. We are in just as much need of God’s mercy as the other person. Sometimes, we are even in much greater need of God’s mercy than the other person. Sometimes, we can see a speck in someone else’s eye, but not the log in our own. So, we should always judge ourselves and our own sin before we presume to tell others about theirs.

Let’s thank God for his wonderful mercy toward us, for the wonderful compassion he constantly shows to us, and let’s ask him to teach us and to lead us to be merciful, just as he is merciful. Amen.

  

And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.