Lent IV B [John 3:14-21] (11-Mar-2018)

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.                                                                                                          

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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.

Our Gospel today is very well-known, and contains the most famous bible verse, John 3:16. Our reading speaks about faith, but then also it speaks why faith is actually needed. It says: Whoever believes in him should have eternal life. And also: Whoever believes in him is not condemned. We have here a positive thing: the gift of eternal life. But also, we are saved from eternal death, from condemnation, from judgment.

Our text today begins where Jesus says: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. In the book of Numbers, there are many different occasions where the people of Israel were grumbling against God and complained. On this occasion, God sent to them fiery serpents which bit them, and many people died. When the people repented, God told Moses: Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. All they needed for being healed was not to crawl up to the serpent, but simply to look at the serpent. Now Jesus compares himself to this bronze serpent: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The serpent was put up on a pole, and also Jesus was put up on a cross. The serpents were the people’s punishment, and a serpent just like the one that bit them was put on that pole. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, he took our punishment with him, so that when we think about Jesus on the cross, we should remember that it is both him and our punishment that was nailed there. In Colossians, it says that God set aside the whole record of our sin by nailing it to the cross.

Jesus says: Whoever believes in him may have eternal life. The Israelites only looked at the bronze serpent and they were healed. As long as they looked at their wounds, they would die. Now we have been bitten by Satan, who has led us into sin, and now our whole thinking has been corrupted and tainted by sin. When we are convicted by the Holy Spirit, we see that we have a mortal wound inside killing us from the inside out. But if we look to ourselves to be saved and our own wounds, we die. But when we look to Jesus, we live, trusting that he has borne our sins for us. The Israelites simply looked and were healed for this life. But when we hear God’s perfect word about his only Son Jesus, and trust that word, we are healed for the whole of eternity.

And so Jesus says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It’s an amazing thing that God not only created the world, but he also loves the world. And his love is not just a feeling, but he actually did something and acted upon that love: he actually gave his only Son. The human race had fallen into sin and separated itself from God. But God was not content to leave it like that, because he loved the world. It is so much a part of God’s character and being that he should love us, because as John writes, God is love.

Now we might imagine many ways that we might show love to the world. But we are not God, but God is. God knows the best way to show it: He gave his only Son. All of that wonderful, pure love of God is tied up in this one person: his only Son. If you want to find God’s love, you must find his only Son. St Paul even describes Jesus’ life as that time when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared. Now why only one Son? Because God doesn’t want to split up his love. He pours it all out in full into this one Jesus, and then offers him up as the one perfect sacrifice.

Now at the beginning of the bible, God said to Adam: You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. This doesn’t seem like a great moral issue, whether or not to eat a piece of fruit. But it’s important simply because God himself commanded it—that’s it! And in advance God said what would happen if they disobeyed it: you shall surely die. But they did disobey, so they did die. We have also broken God’s law, and so we are also worthy of death, and will die.

Paul says in Romans: The wages of sin is death. Death is the payment we get for our sin. Just as a worker gets his wages at the end of a day’s work, so also the wages at the end of a life full of sin is death. And we also read in Romans: We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But then, it says: but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are justified by his grace as a gift. Whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life. God’s gift is life that extends beyond this life and into his wonderful presence for ever.

And everything simply depends of faith. It says: Whoever believes in him. It doesn’t depend on your works at all, because none of your works are perfect. Even your good works are corrupt. It doesn’t depend on your choice. Choosing is still something that you do. Faith is simply receiving the gift that God gives you. Faith says: God’s word says that he so loved the world that he gave his only Son. This word is true, and God never lies. He said it, and that’s it. If he says he loves “the world”, then I know he loves me, because I am part of the world, and he gave his only Son for me, because he gave his only Son for sinners like me. That’s faith.

Now so far in our reading, Jesus teaches us about things in pairs: he teaches one thing over here, and one thing over there. He says: Whoever believes in him should not die, but have eternal life. He talks here about death, and then about eternal life. Now we come to the next part of our reading, where Jesus says: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order than the world might be saved through him. Here he talks about judgment or condemnation, but on the other hand salvation. God did not send his Son into the word to condemn the world (on one hand), but (on the other hand) that the world might be saved through him.

And so we read here that there is death (and eternal death) and there is also eternal life. God condemns and he saves. Later Jesus speaks about whoever believes in him and whoever does not believe. He talks about light and darkness. When Jesus talks about death, he is speaking about hell. When he speaks about eternal life, he is speaking about heaven and the resurrection. There is no half-half. There is no half-death, half-life. There’s no half-light, half-darkness. There’s no half-heaven, half-hell. There’s no purgatory or half-way place. There is only death or life, condemnation or salvation, believing or not believing, light or darkness, heaven or hell. Shakespeare wrote: To be or not to be, that is the question. Jesus says: To believe or not to believe, that is the question.

One thing that many Christians today talk about is whether everyone will be saved. If God so loved the world, why isn’t the whole world automatically saved? Why did God need to send his Son into the world? Why can’t he just forgive us without Jesus needing to die? These are important questions.

One of the things that God speaks to us is his law, or his commandments. He says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… and You shall love your neighbour as yourself. This is God’s standard, and on the basis of this standard he promises to reward those who obey that standard.

But God also threatens to punish those who break his law. We read in 2 Thessalonians: God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

However, in our culture, we have a lot of difficulty with this. Many people almost don’t really believe in justice. If a criminal commits a crime, he or she is often imprisoned not so as to punish them, but to rehabilitate them, and make them better people. Many people think that the purpose of prison is to fix people, not punish people. We even call it “correctional services”. However, “justice” means that a person is punished in proportion to their crime. A murderer gets a heavier punishment than someone who steals a loaf of bread. And God threatens punishment, because his law is holy and he cares about his law. James says: Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

So God is a strict judge, not because he is a mad tyrant, but because his law is a good and beautiful thing and it should be kept. The book of Exodus shows us what God’s justice is: a life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. But doesn’t Jesus say that we shouldn’t demand justice? Doesn’t he say turn the other cheek? Yes, and yes! But that’s because Jesus has now taken all of the justice against sin on himself, and when something isn’t done justly, we don’t need to sue people and demand justice. Jesus says: You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil.

So God is a strict, just judge, but he is also a loving Father. Our reading today teaches both: God so loved the world. And it also says: He gave his only Son. He gave his only Son, because of his love, and because he wants to show to us his justice which has been dealt with. On the cross, we see God enacting his justice: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We deserved curses, punishment, death. But God puts all of his righteous curse, his righteous punishment, and the righteous death penalty on his Son. And when Jesus took all of this, and was about to die, he said: It is finished.

And so we read: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. When we look at God’s law and we realise that we haven’t kept it, and that we deserve punishment and justice to be carried out on us, we can still go to our heavenly Father, knowing that he has loved us so much that he even sent to us his only Son. And the sentence that was carried out upon Jesus is completely sufficient to pay the price of all the sin in the world. All that is required of us is that we look up from our snake-bites to Jesus and all our wounds, our sin, our guilt is completely healed for all eternity.

So the reading says: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. We learn that God threatens to punish sin because he cares about his law. His good and perfect law matters. But also, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, because he cares about sinners. Sinful human beings like you and I matter to God and he wants to save us. But why does it matter whether or not we have faith?

We might think: If God so loved the world, and those who don’t believe in Jesus will be condemned, why does he condemn those who don’t believe in Jesus? Paul wrote to Timothy: God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Why doesn’t he just save everyone automatically? Because he cares about his Son, and his Son matters. God’s law matters, we sinners matter, and also Jesus matters. And so we read: And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world. (This is talking about Jesus! He is the light who has come into the world). And people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

We Christians know what a wonderful Saviour Jesus is! And if only everyone knew, and if only everyone believed. Our faith shouldn’t make us proud, but should fill us with compassion for those who don’t believe, and for a desire to pray for them and share the Gospel with them as we have the opportunity. But many people harden their hearts to God’s word, and to the Gospel. Jesus is the light of the world, but they prefer darkness instead. Because of our sinful nature, and our corrupt hearts, many people refuse to listen to Jesus and to bask in his light. They are afraid of being found out and exposed for who they really are.

But Jesus knows who we really are. He knows our sin, he knows our shame, and our corruption. And it is a shameful thing for someone to know our deepest, darkest secrets. Imagine if all your thoughts were projected for everyone to read on a screen! And yet, when we are with Jesus in his kingdom, he covers over everything. He has died for everything, he has rescued you from darkness and brought you into his light.

We read: But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. We might think: “but my works aren’t true! Many of them are evil! I’ve done no better than the next person!” And you’re right! But there is something that God has worked in you that is better. Jesus says: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom you have sent. God has revealed Jesus to you in his word. And when Jesus covers over all you sin and forgives it, as he has promised, then there is nothing to be afraid of when we come into the light. It will be revealed that God has sent you his Holy Spirit and worked his gift of faith in you.

And so we read: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God loves the world, and that he means he loves you. He shows you that your debt has been paid for and your account has been cancelled by giving his only Son. Jesus has died on the cross, and he has offered his life for you, and shed his blood for you. And this word is true, and God does not lie. Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. We are spared from death, judgment, and darkness and are given the free gift of eternal life, not because of any good thing that we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. He is our Saviour, and so we put our trust in him. Amen.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your great love, for the wonderful gift of your Son, and for your promise of eternal life. Amen.

Pentecost XXII (Proper 27 A) [Matthew 25:1-13] (12-Nov-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.

But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

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

In our Gospel reading today, we read a very rich parable of Jesus, the Parable of the Ten Virgins. We read: Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. The scene that Jesus paints here is one of ten virgins who are bridesmaids waiting for the groom to arrive so that they can go into a wedding reception, or a wedding banquet. At weddings, it is always important that things run on time, and there are a lot of jokes about brides running late. If a bride arrives early, the car might drive around the block a few times so that they arrive at the church at the right time. But in our parable, it is a groom—a bridegroom—that everyone is waiting for, and he is so late that everyone falls asleep.

In our reading, we read that the ten virgins went to meet the bridegroom. And later we read: At midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ So who is the bridegroom in this reading? The bridegroom is Jesus himself. One of the first things we read about in the book of Genesis is the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with God himself as the match-maker and the celebrant. And then, right at the end of the bible, we read in the book of Revelation: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A couple of chapters earlier, we read where an angel says: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Right back in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah, we read about a faithful servant of God speaking of God like their husband: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. In Ephesians, Paul has a lot to say about this: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

And so you can see this wonderful reality described in the bible here of Christ as the bridegroom, and the church as his bride. St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:2: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. He is not speaking only to the Corinthians who were outwardly celibate and virgins, but to the whole church here. And in the church at Corinth, there were virgins and widows, married people, and also people who had converted to Christ from prostitution, who were adulterers and who had slept around, and also Paul even mentions people who had converted to Jesus after having committed incest. But when these people repented and turned to Christ, they became virgins again, not because of themselves and their own righteousness and purity, but because of Christ’s righteousness which covered them. As it says in Isaiah: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In our reading, we read about the ten virgins: Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

On one hand, in the bible, the church is always depicted as Christ’s bride. But in this reading the bride isn’t mentioned, only these virgins, these bridesmaids. And so, we learn from this that in this life, in the church on earth, the bride of Christ is hidden, veiled. The church is often not a glorious place at all. It often seems quite ordinary, even a bit uninteresting and boring and commonplace. Sometimes in the church, there are fights and disagreements. From the outside, the church seems to have a lot of hypocrites. Many people don’t want anything to do with the church, because they see a community of ordinary sinners, and if God were really in charge of the world, why would he bother wasting his time with that lot?

But in this life, we don’t see the bride in all her glory. We only see ten virgins, five of them are wise and five of them are foolish. On one hand, the church is found wherever Christ’s word and the Gospel is preached in its truth and purity and where his sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are carried out according to Christ’s command and institution. The Word and the Sacraments are the Holy Spirit’s means that he uses to create faith in people. But on the other hand, not everyone who hears the gospel believes it. But faith is not something that you produce in yourself, but it is something that the Holy Spirit works in your heart. You might even think: “I want to believe, but I can’t”. St Paul writes that God wills and works in us to his good pleasure. If you want to believe, it means that God is already working in you, and you didn’t even know it. Thank him for working in you—he will continue to work in you, and he has already produced faith in your heart.

Now, the Holy Spirit is not a toy. He is the living God himself, and the Spirit of the Living God, and the Spirit of the living Jesus, who has risen from the dead. The Holy Spirit will not be manipulated. And so he works whenever and wherever he pleases in those who hear the Gospel. In John we read: The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. What this means is that just as we might be sitting inside one day and can hear the wind outside, so also when we hear the Word of God, we are listening to God’s own wind, the Holy Spirit. But just as you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going, so also we can’t see the Holy Spirit coming, and we can’t see the Holy Spirit working in this person and that person. As Paul says: I preached, [someone else] watered, but God gave the growth.

And so, we see this happen on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples, but not everyone who sees this happening believes it or recognises it. 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.” Some were interested, but some mocked. When Paul preached in Athens, we read: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So what we learn here is that we never know how the Holy Spirit is going to work. We should never second-guess him and say: That person’s never going to listen. We simply speak the word and go home, but the Holy Spirit then continues to work and create faith in people.

So on one hand, the word of God and the Holy Spirit comes to us from outside of us. And all of us hear the word of God altogether. But God doesn’t speak his word in such a way that it hits you on the head like a rock and bounces off. He calls you to believe it. And so, even though all kinds of people might come to church and hear the word, God calls each individual to be saved personally. Later in our reading we read: As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

We learn a few things here. Firstly, we learn that Christ calls us to receive the gift of salvation personally. When the time comes, it will be too late for the individual virgins to share their oil with each other. We can’t rely on others. We can’t say: I’m saved, because I go to church with bla-bla-bla, and he’s a good guy. Or: I’m saved because my grandma is a Christian. Or: I’m saved, because my grandfather, or my son, is a pastor. Or: I’m saved because I go to the church Martin Luther started, and he knew what it was all about. Or: I’m saved because come from such-and-such a country. No: we can’t get our righteousness from each other. We can only receive our salvation from Jesus and him alone. Now, sometimes, when a person dies, we don’t about their salvation, and so we might commend them to God in prayer and to his mercy. But this does not mean that our good works or our prayers can earn salvation for someone else. Some of you might have a relative or a friend who is not saved and is an unbeliever. Of course, we should pray for them every day and not give up. But we don’t pray that we would be their saviour, but that Jesus would be their Saviour. So salvation is through Jesus and Jesus alone. Peter says in Acts: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So the oil cannot be shared between fellow virgins. It can only be received from Christ and the Holy Spirit, through the living and active word of God.

But secondly, there is a very important teaching here that not everyone will be saved. This is a very unpopular thing to say, but we must learn from the Scripture and not from our own ideas that there will be a judgment, and that each person will be judged by God. There are a number of parables where Jesus teaches this: one of them is the wheat and the weeds, where at the end, the wheat and weeds are separated into different piles. Another parable like this is about the drag net which pulls in all kinds of fish, and then they are sorted into the good and the bad. And here in the parable of the ten virgins, there are two types of virgins: the wise and the foolish. The wise virgins are ready and prepared and they go into the wedding feast, but then there are the foolish virgins who are not ready and it is too late for them, and then the door is shut. So you can see that there is a judgment.

Now today there are many people who don’t believe this. First of all, many people say that there is no distinction between God and his creation. They say that God is everything, God is the universe, or that God is in everything. The first verse of the bible contradicts this and says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator, and the heaven and the earth are his creation. Second, many people say that the Holy Spirit is in everyone. This is not true. Everyone is born with a conscience, everyone is born with a soul, but to be saved, Jesus says you must be born again, a second time, in Holy Baptism, and God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift. Instead of being united around Jesus and his word, many people today just want to be united in their feelings and experiences, and so there would be no difference between the Christian faith and any other faith. But Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If this isn’t true, then Jesus is a liar, and he’s not the true God. If the words of Jesus are not absolute truth, then nothing in this world is right or wrong, there is no good or bad, no heaven or hell, and of course, the church has no mission, and the missionary zeal of the church completely dries up.

Instead, the bible teaches us that God is the Creator, and he has made heaven and earth as his creation, which is distinct from him. Jesus is true God who entered into this creation and took on human flesh, and then died on the cross and made a payment and an atonement for sin. Through faith in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. In the end, we will be judged; but through Jesus, forgiveness and eternal life has been won for us, and is ours through faith. Jesus is our Mediator, our Advocate, our Defender. The Holy Spirit brings us the Gospel, and through the Gospel the Holy Spirit creates faith in us. The Holy Spirit is the oil in the lamps, and the light of the Gospel in our hearts is the light. And so while we have the light of the Gospel shining among us on this earth, we need to make good use of the time we have to fill up our flasks with God’s oil. If we leave it, and refuse to believe the Gospel, there may be a time, then, when it is too late for us.

And so, at the very end of our reading, Jesus says: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Jesus here is calling us to repent and to reconcile ourselves with God now, in this life, while we have the Gospel. Psalm 95 says: Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Isaiah says: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. St Paul says in Romans: The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. And in Galatians we read: As we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone. The time for acquiring faith, and believing in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit is now. It is not next year, not next month, not tomorrow. When we hear the Gospel, we can’t guarantee that it will be there for us when we need it. We might say: I’ll read the bible at home another day, but who knows if later you’ll go blind in your old age? People might say: I won’t listen in church all that carefully, but then later on they go deaf and it’s too late? They might say: I’d like to come to church, but then later they find themselves unable to come when they want to.

Or someone might say: I’m going to church at Easter. I haven’t gone to church for a long time. And then they go along, and the preacher tells everyone that Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead after all. It’s too late – the Gospel isn’t preached in that church any more, and the glory of God has departed from that place. They rejected God earlier, and when they sought him later, they couldn’t find him anymore. They might call for a pastor to come and see them on their deathbed, but then they can’t find anyone to come, because by that time, either no Christians live there anymore, or the Christians who do are too lazy and apathetic to come.

The time of grace is now. And while we have the Gospel, our Lord Jesus doesn’t call us to be apathetic, but to fill up, to stock up our vessels, and to keep our lamps burning. And when our lamps burn brightly, and when they burn with the wonderful light of God’s word and his Gospel, then the words will be fulfilled: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Others may see the light in the lamps, and will say: I want to go and fill up on the same oil as they. I want to fill my lamp with the same word of God, and the same Gospel, and the same Holy Spirit.

And so, let’s be ready and prepared. Let’s continually learn God’s word, receive the free forgiveness of sins, and to fill up our vessels continually, so that when the time comes we can wake from our sleep and hear the words: Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him’. And those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. Amen.

Dear Jesus, our loving bridegroom, keep us watchful and ready, and continually fill our lamps with your precious Word and your Holy Spirit. Wake us up from our sleep, forgive us all our sins, and lead us into the wedding banquet of eternal life. Amen.

Sermon for All Saints (5-Nov-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.

May you be strengthened with his power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

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

When you hear the word “saint”, what do you normally think of? I think most people probably think of particularly significant Christian people who lived a wonderful life on this earth, who have now died.

Now the word “saint” actually means a “holy person”. When we talk about saints, it can mean two different things: it can mean those Christian people who have now died, but it can also mean Christian people who are still living, and who are wrestling in this life, and struggling with their sin and their problems. The first kind of saint—a saint who has left this earthly life—is a person who is now free of sin, but the second kind of saint—a Christian person who is still alive—is a person who is still wrestling with their sin. The second kind of saint is also a sinner at the same time as being a saint, whereas the first kind is not a sinner anymore because they have been set free from sin having passed through death. But we’ll come back to this in a minute.

Let’s talk about the communion of saints. In the Apostle’s Creed, we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”. And this is actually another name for the church itself. Now how does a person become a saint, and become part of this communion of saints? Well—Jesus sends out his workers with his Holy Spirit to gather a church to Himself, using the word of God, and the Sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. So Jesus himself actually calls us to be part of his kingdom, to be part of his fellowship, to be part of his communion, through his living word, which is spoken on earth. That’s what the church is here for: to make sure that God’s word is spoken here on earth, so that sinners may come to Jesus and be made part of his kingdom. Sinners—like you and me—enter into the kingdom of Jesus by being baptised, by being born again by water and the Spirit, or as St Paul says, being washed with water and the word. Holy Baptism is that wonderful event where Jesus gathers us to himself and brings us into his kingdom, and gives us his Holy Spirit. And Jesus doesn’t just set us out on the road to heaven, but he also feeds us along the way, and gives us his body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. And so, Jesus continually gathers us together and strengthens us on the road.

Now, the word of God, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are not given to the church on earth as some kind of magic charm. Jesus doesn’t want us to look at his word and at baptism or at the Lord’s Supper as if we’re some cow in a paddock, starting at a new blade of grass in the field. No—the word of God—which is also the thing that empowers baptism and the Lord’s Supper—calls us to faith. The reason why God speaks his word, and baptises us and gives us the Lord’s Supper, is so that we believe in it! In fact, through God’s word, the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. God gives us his word of law—to call us to repent, and to change our lives, and live differently. This word shows us that we are sinners. But then he also gives us sinners his word of Gospel—which points us to Christ, and what he has done for us in his death and resurrection from the dead. And it is the Gospel that makes us saints, that makes us holy people—not because we are already perfect or because we had made such an good effort, but because of Christ and his holiness. Christ then takes his righteousness and his holiness and he completely covers over all of our sin with it. Our whole lives as Christians is then learning to recognise our sin, to put it behind us, and to receive the forgiveness of sins. A Christian person, or a holy person, or a saint, is not someone who has achieved perfection in this life, because that is impossible. The only person who has lived a completely sinless life is Jesus. But when we trust in Jesus, and his sinlessness, and his holiness, then God takes your account and adds all of your sin to Jesus’ account. He charges the bill to Jesus, and Jesus paid it in full with his blood. And then God takes all of the righteousness, and holiness, and perfection that belongs to Jesus, and he adds it to your account. This is what it means in Genesis 15, where we read that Abraham believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Because of Jesus, God has counted his righteousness to your account. This means that are now free to begin a Christian life, a saintly, holy life. You will never achieve perfection in this life, but you will only begin it, one step and one day at a time, with Jesus your Saviour guiding you along the way, and forgiving all your new sins and mess-ups along the way.

Now, even though God calls us through his word and his sacraments, it is only the Holy Spirit who creates faith in people. There are some people who hear and are baptised, and who come to the Lord’s Supper, but don’t believe in them. They people are not saints, but are hypocrites. They are only part of the church in an outward, external way. This is a communion which includes believers and non-believers, saints and non-saints. But there is also an internal, hidden, spiritual communion of saints, which exists only among those who believe the promises of God in His word, and believe in God’s work in their baptism, and believe in Jesus’ work and presence and gifts in the Lord’s Supper.

But then, the bible uses the word “saints” in two ways, as we mentioned before. The first way is to mean those who trust in Jesus in this life and are still fighting against sin and the devil, and are still living their Christian life under the cross. But the second way the bible uses the word “saints” is to mean those people who have endured their hardship but are now in heaven, praising God. So for example, in Acts we read that Peter came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. This is the first meaning, referring to people like us, who are both saints and sinners at the same time. Many of the letters of Paul are addressed to the saints who are at Corinth, or at Rome, or wherever. But then we also have examples of the second meaning, such as when after Jesus died there was an earthquake, and it says: many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Here “saints” means those who were no longer sinners, but had died.

So, when we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”, what are we talking about? Are we talking about a communion of people on this earth who are both saints and sinners like us, or are we talking about a communion of people in heaven who have finished their struggle with sin and who are now perfect? The answer is that both we Christians who are alive and those Christians who are dead are together one communion of saints. St Paul says that we Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. So when we call the church “the communion of saints”, we mean not just the members of the church that are still doing battle in this life, and fighting the good fight of faith, and wrestling against their sin, but also the church in heaven that is now perfect and glorious. We are altogether one church, one communion of saints. There are not two communions, but only one communion. There are not two churches, but one church. Sometimes we call the church on earth the “church militant” and the church in heaven the “church triumphant”. We are all one church, we are just on different sides of the grave. We are still struggling, but their struggle is completely over now.

In Hebrews chapter 12, the writer reveals to us something that is very special about what it is that we are part of when we gather here as the church. We read: You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to the multitude of many thousands of angels and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven; and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Now, we could talk about those verses all day, but listen to those words that we have come to the multitude of many thousands of angels, to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven…to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Those who have died in the Christian faith are with Jesus, and we also in this life on earth come to meet the same Jesus. We Christians don’t just share all kinds of wonderful blessings of the Holy Spirit with each other here on this earth in the church, but we also belong to the same fellowship, the same communion of those holy people and saints who are already in heaven. In Ephesians 2, it says that God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Colossians, we read that our heavenly Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. To be transferred out of darkness into Jesus’ kingdom means to enjoy now the fellowship not just with other Christians on this earth, but also to be one fellowship with all those who have already died and are now in Paradise with Jesus.

In our order of service that we use week after week, we say some words before the Lord’s Supper which reflect this teaching. When we have the Lord’s Supper, we sing a song called the “Holy, holy, holy”, or in Latin, it is called the “Sanctus”. This song is sung by angels in the bible. We read about the angels singing these words in the book of Isaiah and also in Revelation. But before we sing this, the pastor says that we are singing “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven”. Not only are the angels singing with us but also those who have died in the faith, the company of heaven. This is a wonderful confession of faith, and it shows us just what the church on earth is. But it’s not as if the church in heaven are simply joining in with us—the worship of God is going on constantly in heaven, and when we join together as Christians to worship him, we are simply joining in with them. They add their voices to ours, and we add our voices to theirs.

But before we finish this sermon today, I’d like to mention one more thing. When it comes to understanding what it means to live a holy life and to share in God’s holiness, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. When the first people, Adam and Eve, were created, they were perfect, holy, and pure. God had created them in his image. This is the first state or condition of the human race. And what a wonderful thing it must have been to live like that and to have been there!

But then, after that, things changed: there was the fall. Adam and Eve sinned, and since that time, every single human being (except Jesus himself) was conceived and born in sin. Before the fall, there was no sin. But after the fall, then there was sin, and the human race came under the judgment of God.

But then, later, something else changed: there came a Saviour. Jesus died for us on the cross, and he won for us the forgiveness of sins, and he sends us the Holy Spirit. Now, as Christians in this life, it’s not as though we now live without sin, but our sin is forgiven, and is not charged to our account anymore. So we live then as people who are both holy, and saints, but who also live struggling and wrestling against our sin.

So what happens when we die? Well, our bodies and our souls are separated, and for the first time, we will be completely free of our sin. On one hand, we will depart to be with Christ, as it says in Philippians 1. Just like Jesus promised to the thief on the cross, on the day of his death, Today you will be with me in Paradise. But this is not the end. Because God didn’t simply create us as spirits, or souls, but he created us with bodies. In Genesis 2, it says: then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So what’s going to happen to our bodies? Are they just empty shells, empty husks? No—the Scripture also promises a resurrection of the dead. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must on immortality.

Now, when we go the shop and buy a packet of chips, we throw away the packet in the bin. But God does not treat our bodies like an empty chip packet! He created our bodies, and so in a glorious way, at the end of the world, he promises to glorify our earthly bodies in a new way, and to reunite and redeem our bodies from the dust and the ashes and the ground, and raise them up, and reunite them with our spirits and souls. On one hand, when we die, our souls go to be with Jesus in heaven. On the other hand, our bodies will be buried in the ground. But there will also be a time when body and soul is reunited in a glorious and wonderful way, and our bodies will be raised from the dead. How we will go through this after we have died, we don’t know. At least, we know that we won’t be waiting for all this out in some sort of corridor, or in purgatory, but in heaven with Jesus. But remember, that when that time comes, we will enter not into a life with minutes and days and hours, but as the bible says, eternal life. God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  St Paul also says in Philippians: Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Do you see the wonderful victory of the resurrection of the dead in this passage? Even in 1 Corinthians 15, St Paul says that Christ is the firstborn to rise from the dead. This means that the reason Christ rose from the dead was so that he would be the first, and to point your eyes forward to the day when you also will be risen from the dead. This is what we say in the creed when we say: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Now, on the other hand, there is another way in which people look at these things, which is not correct. Instead of seeing Adam and Eve created in the “image of God”, people see humans as having been created as “little gods”. Then when the fall happened, they believe that the problem is that people forget that were created as little gods, and their sin is not that they disobey God, but that they just don’t live up their potential. Then instead of treating Jesus as their Saviour, they see him just as their teacher, who came to remind us humans of the knowledge that we forgot that we really were created as “little gods” after all. And then, when we die, what happens? Instead of believing that they then become free from their sin, they believe that that as “little gods” they are now free from their bodies. This means that they think the body is a bad thing, and just an empty chip packet to be thrown away. But if the body is a bad thing, why did Jesus have one? Why did he choose to have nails and spears put through it? God created us human beings with both body and soul, and he has his Son to redeem us in body and soul, and he will also make us holy in body and soul. And so, this is why, after the Lord’s Supper, we say: The body of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy precious blood strengthen and preserve you in body and soul to life eternal.

So let’s praise our God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for drawing us together in faith into one communion of saints, with all believing Christians throughout the world and all those who have died in Christ. And let’s also praise him for the promise that he has made to us to raise us up with him on the last day together with all those who have died in the faith, who are alive with him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, once again today we come to you to sing our “Holy, holy, holy” with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. Strengthen our faith by the power of your Holy Spirit, until that time when we depart to be with you, and enjoy life together with you in Paradise with all your saints. Amen.

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 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.