190526 Sermon on John 16:23-33 (Easter 6) May 26, 2019

190526 Sermon on John 16:23-33 (Easter 6) May 26, 2019

In our Gospel reading Jesus says, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give it to you.”  Immediately we assume that that can’t be true.  What if I asked for this?  What if I asked for that?  There are dozens of things that we don’t think God would give us.  Maybe our interpretation of this verse is mistaken.

But there are other statements from Jesus that back it up.  In Matthew 7 and Luke 9 you have those familiar words: “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives and whoever seeks finds and to him who knocks the door shall be opened.”  Jesus doesn’t place any conditions on what you can and cannot ask for.  Ask, seek, knock, and it will be given to you.

During Holy Week Jesus cursed a fig tree that did not have any figs on it (because it was not the season for figs) and it withered.  His disciples were astonished at this and Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.  And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” 

And so when Jesus says, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give it to you,” this is not out of keeping with what he says elsewhere.

What, then, can these words mean?  First let’s talk about how these words sound to our reason.  It sounds like what Jesus is giving to us is a wishing well or a blank check or a magic word.  Instead of abracadabra all we need to say is “in Jesus’ name,” and poof our wishes are granted.  There is quite a bit of fictional literature that has been written with wishes being granted as the subject of it.  That’s because it is interesting to think about what you might wish for.

So what would you wish for?  Money, good looks, power, good health.  These are the more respectable kinds of things that people are allowed to say out loud.  There are other answers too, though.  Maybe there’s someone that you’d like to have put in his or her place.  Maybe there’s someone that you’d like to have removed from the land of the living.  And there’s the liquor store and the porn shop and that person that you would like to have sexually.

Nobody has to teach us this way of thinking where we want whatever our desires might be to be fulfilled.  It is already present in the new-born baby.  Babies are very selfish creatures.  They want everything to be just so, and if it isn’t just so, they are going to let you know about it.  Little children continue on this path.  They want to have whatever they want and they will just take what they want out of the hands of whoever happens to be holding it.  It is a lot of work to teach children how to share.  Nobody likes sharing.  It is a curbing of our will, and we want to be able to do whatever we want to do.

Would we be happier if we could do whatever we want to do?  The answer is absolutely not.  Children whose wills are not curbed by parents and other authorities turn out to be miserable wretches.  They get hooked on this and that and nobody wants to be around them because they only live for themselves.  They can’t hold down jobs and often end up in prisons.

We can also see this great unhappiness with the countless stories of people who have won the lottery.  God save each and every one of you from winning the lottery.  The reason why people play the lottery is because they think that it will make their wishes come true.  They will finally have the power to impose their will that is so often hampered otherwise by a lack of resources.  But the wishing is always better than the getting.  It’s not uncommon at all that lottery winners end up divorced, without any real friends, and sometimes they even manage to lose all the millions and millions of dollars that they had won.

So when we hear Jesus say that whatever we ask the Father for in Jesus’s name, that this will be given to us, and our reason immediately kicks in and wonders whether we have won the lottery, but then thinks that that is too good to be true, we have to realize how off base our reason is.  To doubt Jesus’s words because we don’t think that he will give us whatever we want, and therefore dismiss his words are untrue, is foolish.

In the context of one of the passages about prayer that I mentioned at the start of this sermon Jesus asks a rhetorical question: “Which of you, if your son were to ask for a fish, would give him a scorpion instead?”  God giving us everything that we wanted in this life would not make us happier.  We would be less happy.  And then we would go to hell to boot.  If that isn’t a scorpion instead of a fish, then I don’t know what is!—and we shouldn’t expect our heavenly Father to give us poison.

Our greatest needs are not that we should have more power or more money or more pleasure or more comfort or better health.  Our greatest need is to be forgiven and made righteous before God.  We are all sick to death with the evil heart that we have had since before we were babies and that we would still like to have as the driving force in our life.  We have to be saved from these evil desires—not to have them grow all the stronger.

And so what Jesus’s words mean about asking the Father in his name is that our heavenly Father wishes for us to have bread that gives us life instead of scorpions that give us poison.  We are prone to think that Jesus’s words must be false, because we can think of all kinds of things that we don’t think that God would give us.  But we must fight against that impulse.  It is foolish to think that way because God does not love death and destruction, but life.  Just because God might not give us things that we would like to use to kill ourselves either physically or spiritually or both, does not mean that Jesus’s words aren’t true.  Jesus isn’t a liar like us or like the devil.  Whatever Jesus says you can be sure that it is completely true.  Therefore it is true when he says that whatever we ask in his name the Father will give us.

Now I don’t want to give the wrong impression: the good things that God gives us will certainly include many and very abundant earthly blessings.  But these are not the main thing or the most important thing.  What would it profit a man if he were even to be given the entire world with all of its riches so that nobody else even had a red cent but he were to lose his soul?  It would all be for naught.  Mountains of cash are more likely to come from the prince of this world rather than our heavenly Father who has prepared an inheritance for us that is not of this world. 

Part and parcel of God giving us the true riches that thieves cannot steal and moths cannot destroy is even a decrease in our outward quality of life.  For what can it possibly mean to bear a cross than that our will is going to be hampered and thwarted?  The cross is death to the old Adam, but it is good that he should die.  For it is either his evil spirit that will drive our actions or the Lord and Giver of life—the Holy Spirit—who will work life in our mortal bodies.

When we think, therefore, about the good things that we might wish for in Jesus’s name, we should think of what is really needed and necessary.  To learn what these are we have been given the Lord’s Prayer.  One time the disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray.”  The Lord’s Prayer was Jesus’s response.  The things that are asked for in this prayer are very much weighted towards spiritual goods rather than earthly goods. 

With these petitions we pray that the Word of God be taught in its truth and purity and that we as children of God would lead holy lives according to it.  It is a prayer that we would be given the Holy Spirit so that we can believe that pure and true Word and live in a godly way.  It is a prayer that the Father’s will be done rather than my will or the devil’s will or the world’s will.  Even the petition where we ask for daily bread—which includes everything that is necessary to support this body and life—we are only asking for the day, and so we are not so much asking God for mountains of cash, but that we should be thankful and content.  We ask that God would not look at our sins or deny our prayer because of them, but that he would deal with us by grace, and that we may be gracious to those who sin against us.  We pray that we are not led into temptation and delivered from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and that when our last hour comes he would take us from this valley of sorrow to himself in heaven.

What we are asking for in the Lord’s Prayer is good and wholesome bread that nourishes, strengthens, and gives life, rather than poison.  None of us are going to be disappointed when God’s work with us is done and we are sanctified in heaven with hearts that no longer have any sin.  At that time, if we are able to look back at the way that we thought while we lived this life, we will see how stupid and foolish and evil our petty lusts and desires were—even if those desires were that we should be the richest, smartest, most beautiful person on the planet.  A clean heart and a right spirit is so much better than these things and they are harder to attain—after all, it took the very blood of God to bring it about.  In comparison to the blood bought redemption of Jesus it is as though we are asking for garbage and excrement when we are looking to have our fleshly desires fulfilled.

And so with all boldness and confidence we should come before our heavenly Father as dear children ask their dear father.  You have that astounding ability.  Notice in our reading how Jesus says that he will not ask the Father on our behalf.  The Father himself loves you, because you have believed that Jesus has come from him, and what Jesus has done was so that you could be reconciled to the Father, and you have loved Jesus.  Therefore, the Father himself loves you.  This was not because you were a good boy or girl.  It is because the Father sent his Son.  You did not choose him, but he chose you, and saw to it that you should hear of the Savior, be baptized, and by the power of the Holy Spirit believe that what God says and promises is true.

Just as we are prone to believe that it can’t be true that the Father should give us whatever we ask in Jesus’s name because it doesn’t seem possible, so also it doesn’t seem possible that we should really be loved by God.  With all our foul sins and all our broken promises of reform, we are laid low with a heavy burden of guilt.  We are in need of the kind encouragement that Jesus gives us in our reading.  You have been forgiven of all your sins and God does not hold them to your account because Jesus was punished in your place.  You have the status of a child of God and therefore also access to the Creator of the universe.  This amazing ability is infinitely greater than winning the lottery or tossing a mountain into the sea. 

Do not tread the blood of Jesus underfoot by not believing that your forgiveness is full and complete and that he has made you a child of God.  Perhaps we might pray that God would help us to believe this in the midst of our sins and misery—that our joy would be full.  We have sorrow now, but when we see Jesus we will rejoice and nobody will take our joy from us.

190519 Sermon on John 16:5-15 (Easter 5) May 19, 2019

190519 Sermon on John 16:5-15 (Easter 5) May 19, 2019

Early on the morning of Good Friday the Jewish leaders brought Jesus bound and scuffed up and covered in spit to Pontius Pilate.  Pilate was not happy to see them.  He is thoroughly annoyed.  He had better things to do than make judgments about religious matters.  He had roads to build and people to tax to the glory of the Roman Empire to see to.  But the Jews wanted Jesus dead and that was an authority that they no longer had for themselves.  Only the Roman government could put to death.  And so Pilate had to interview Jesus and pass judgment upon him.

Pilate’s first question to Jesus is, “Are you the king of the Jews?”  This, of course, was not a serious question.  He believed he knew the answer before he asked it.  Just looking at the man plainly showed that this was no royal person.  But Pilate had to do his examination, and this is what the Jews claimed Jesus was saying.  Jesus answered that his kingdom was not of this world.  If it were of this world, then he could summon his angels and the earth could be unseated from its foundation.  But things being as they are he was subject to the evil that the Jews wished to impose and was therefore before Pilate. 

Pilate sarcastically responds, “So you are a king then?”  Again, Pilate does not ask this question seriously.  He thought he had a foolish delusional man before him.  If he had even for a moment taken Jesus’s claims of divinity and kingship seriously, then he wouldn’t have dreamed of treating Jesus the way that he does with the whipping and mocking and finally the crucifixion.  I think he was smirking when he said, “So you are a king then?”  Jesus answers, “You said it.  I was born and I have come for this purpose—to bear witness to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”  But Pilate is not impressed.  He rolls his eyes at this religious fervency and mumbles, “What is truth?”

Pilate’s attitude is familiar to us.  We live in a time where many more people are like Pilate instead of like Jesus’s Jewish enemies.  The chief priests and scribes hated Jesus with a white hot hatred.  Their blood was boiling and they wanted Jesus dead.  They were hot.  Pilate was cool.  Pilate was “above it all.”  He wasn’t going to get drawn into a debate about truth.  He had pleasanter things to do.  He also was perfectly fine with letting Jesus go: “Live, and let live.”  He believed that religion should be something that draws people together instead of pulling them apart.  He didn’t want his happy little life to be unnecessarily disturbed by getting too serious about religion.

So long as a person only cares about what happens in this world and in this life, this cool attitude can work pretty well.  It provides a great deal of peace to those who embrace it.  Why worry about what is true or not true?  Why worry about God and his Word?  Why not instead pursue happiness and living life to its fullest before you kick the bucket? 

In order to enjoy the maximum amount of peace it is best that thoughts of what happens after death or how we creatures will be judged by our Creator should never even come to mind.  But if some uncouth fellow rudely makes it so you can’t ignore such things, then immediately dismiss them as fanatics and nutjobs.  Put the same smirk on your face as Pilate had when he asked Jesus, “So, you’re the king of the Jews are you?  Uh huh.”

But being a smart aleck is no guarantee of actually being smart.  Believing that you are “above it all” may very well be a mistaken notion.  I’ve yet to meet the person who is “above” being judged by their Creator.  And yet there are so very many people who act as though they were “above it all.”  The example of Pilate shows that “being cool” is no guarantee of being right.  He thought Jesus was a nut, but he was wrong about that.  These folks who are so cool, calm, and collected give the impression of being educated, wise, and “above it all,” but they are no smarter than anybody else.  They are caught in a lie that will end disastrously for them unless they are somehow brought into the truth.  They will remain dead and lost and in their trespasses and sins.

In stark contrast to the lies that give the world so much peace so long as they play their cards right is the Holy Spirit whom Jesus speaks about in our Gospel reading today.  Jesus calls him the Spirit of truth, who will lead the disciples into all truth.  Here we do not see the coolness and skepticism of Pilate who stands on the sidelines and wonders, “What is truth?”  The Holy Spirit comes with a might rushing wind at Pentecost and is powerfully present in St. Peter’s preaching of Jesus Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins.  The Holy Spirit does not hem and haw and beat around the bush.  His yes is yes and his no is no.  He alone is truth.  All other teachers scatter the sheep. 

And the Holy Spirit goes right to the heart of our existence—he preaches and bestows the Triune God.  He takes what is Jesus’s and declares it to us.  All that the Father has is Jesus’s.  And so what the Holy Spirit gives us is nothing other than God with all that he is and has.  We do not realize the greatness of what is given to us when we are baptized or when we are given Jesus’s body to eat and his blood to drink.  We do not realize the astounding way that God has intertwined himself into our lives and for our benefit.  For us and for our salvation the Son became man so that through him we are forgiven of our wrongdoings, and made righteous.  The Holy Spirit reveals to the world the love that God has for sinners in that he sent his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and his continuing abiding presence with Christians and the Christian Church is not sufficiently appreciated.  People incorrectly think that there is a huge gulf between the Bible and now, between the time of the apostles and now.  People are disappointed that we do not see tongues of flame or are not given the ability to speak in languages that we had otherwise not known.  The Christians known as Pentecostals are so impatient with God about these gifts that they covet so much that they either fake speaking in tongues and other outward signs, or (and this is much worse, but I suspect also more likely) they invite into their heart some kinds of evil spirits to lead them astray into believing in themselves and their signs and their own piety instead of in the Lord Jesus Christ.  These folks often become enemies of the Lord Jesus because they preach the signs of Pentecost much more than the actual content of Pentecost which is the salvation of sinners that has been accomplished in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Anyone who can’t or doesn’t do the signs that they so pride themselves for is probably an unbeliever—so they say or imply.  There is no end to the devil’s invention of lies. 

The Holy Spirit’s work at the time of the apostles is the same as it is today so long as we are willing to be directed by God’s Word and not led astray by our foolish reason or desire for novelty.  Jesus speaks of this work of the Holy Spirit in our Gospel reading this morning in a wonderful way.  The Holy Spirit will convict the world and expose all their lies and foolishness.  The world is so off base in its beliefs about what life is all about.  The world thinks that it knows what it is talking about, but it doesn’t know anything unless it will submit to being taught by the Holy Spirit.

The truth that the Holy Spirit has to give is all about Jesus, as Jesus’s words in our Gospel reading show.  Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world “concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”  With these words we can see that Jesus is at the heart of everything.

Jesus defines sin as not believing in him.  The world knows full well that murder, adultery, and the other transgressions of the second table of the Law are sins.  They are blind, though, to their unbelief being sin.  But it is the most important and root sin, because apart from Jesus we can do nothing that is good.  Even if we are able to accomplish something that looks good on the outside, it is going to be filled with evil on the inside.  Who can know the evil of the heart of man?  Unless through faith in Jesus we are forgiven and sanctified, there is no hope of being anything other than a damned sinner.

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of lacking righteousness because they do not have Christ’s righteousness.  True righteousness is God's righteousness when he sends his Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, to suffer, die, and rise three days later; to ascend into heaven and distribute this righteousness of his from the right hand of God until he comes again to judge the living and the dead.  Included in Jesus’s words, “because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer” is the accomplishment of everything that Jesus came to do.  Only Jesus is righteous.  We sing that in our Gloria in our liturgy: “Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord…”  The Holy Spirit preaches that if we want righteousness that is genuine, then Jesus is the only place where we are going to get it.

The Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.  This also is very much tied up with our Lord Jesus whom the Holy Spirit has come to impress upon the world.  Jesus is the one who has defeated the devil, the ruler of this world.  Jesus, therefore, has upset and overturned his lying and his murderous ways.  The devil wishes for people to remain in lies and to remain in ignorance and unbelief of the one true God.  It was by lies that he overcame our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and he continues to whisper his lullaby to all people and we are all too eager to listen to him.  He says: “Shh.  You won’t surely die.  You won’t be judged.  Just go on doing what you have been doing.  Everything’s fine.”  The devil is so powerful and persuasive that no one could get out from under his thumb otherwise, but Jesus has defeated him by his precious suffering and death and his glorious resurrection and ascension. 

The Holy Spirit is a breath of fresh air to us.  We have been cursed with death and damnation for our sins.  But the Holy Spirit announces that God has taken our side and destroyed death and hell by putting it upon himself in Jesus.  You are not God’s enemies.  You are not even strangers and aliens to him.  You are his friends.  Yes, the Scriptures even speak of us being his own children.  Here you can see how it is true when Jesus tells the disciples it is to his advantage that he should go away.  For then the Holy Spirit comes in power to reveal to you who God is and what his attitude is toward you for Jesus’s sake.  This is the truth.

But what of those who are so very common among us who ask together with Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?”  All that we can tell them is that they are wrong with their fake promises—their fake, lying gospel.  They are hoping and dreaming that they will never die.  They are hoping and dreaming that they won’t be judged by their Maker.  All their attention, therefore, is directed towards this life and the quality of it.  The ruler of this world has them in his grip. 

The truth of God offers them an escape, but if they will not renounce the devil then they have chosen their lot.  We cannot let their coolness and sarcasm and this-worldliness damper the fire of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is busy convicting the world of its lies and announcing to it the truth of who God is and what he is like.  All who want to be Christians must be on his side.  We have to fight against the urge that exists within us to side with those who are cool—for it is true: they do know how to live an easy, carefree life.  But is this really surprising that it is so?  If lies weren’t attractive and persuasive, then who would believe them?  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.  He takes delight in making strong statements about Jesus the Savior.  All who are of the truth hear his voice.

190512 Sermon on Lamentations 3:22-33, John 16:16-22 (Easter 4) May 12, 2019

190512 Sermon on Lamentations 3:22-33, John 16:16-22 (Easter 4) May 12, 2019

The strength of our life of faith that we have as Christians is the most important thing in our lives.  What I mean by the life of faith is the way that we trust in Jesus.  When this is strong we are holding onto Christ very firmly.  When this life of faith is weak, then we are not.  It can even get to the point where we might think that we are still holding on to Christ by faith, but that turns out to be self-delusion.  It is possible that without our knowing it, without our intending it, we have lost Christ in preference to other things.

The list is very long of the other things that can be held dear in a person’s heart.  Maybe we can start to diagnose what is being held dear in your life by asking, “What makes life worth living?”  Most people are going to answer that question with good things that have absolutely nothing wrong with them in and of themselves.  Making discoveries, being productive, having a family, loving your spouse, eating, drinking, buying, selling—the list is very long and depends on the person, their background, and their temperament. 

But these good things become evil for us in the way that they make our hearts distant from God.  The first and greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.”  What makes life worth living?  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  That’s how it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.  This truth was clear in the beginning before the fall into sin.  It will be clear again when sin and all evil is confined forever in hell.  But it is not so clear to us now except when it is made known by the Holy Spirit.  Without the Holy Spirit everyone is going to be devoted to the good things of creation and keep out of mind the Creator. 

This is what comes natural to us and is comfortable for our Old Adam.  It is comfortable for our Old Adam to keep God at a distance while enjoying whatever progress we can make for ourselves from the good things of this life.  It shouldn’t be this way, but sin has made it so.  Our guilty consciences have made it so.  Awareness of guilt makes us want to keep the judge far away.  And so we see this tendency of our fallen human nature right away in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve wanted to continue to make a life for themselves.  They wanted to continue to make lemonade out of the lemons that had brought upon themselves.  That was far, far preferable to them than coming into the presence of the living God.  Because they were devoid of faith and the Holy Spirit, they would have preferred to go on with their lives as they were and never had to face God. 

This was very foolish, but it is a foolishness that we all share.  It was foolish because God did not throw them into hell.  He promised them a Savior who would come from Eve.  He would crush the serpent’s head and set them and their children free from their slavery to idolatry and unbelief.  The curse for sin was going to fall upon Jesus instead of upon the sinners of the world.  Through faith in him they and all who would follow after them in faith would not experience death in its fullness because the wrath of God for sin was poured out on Jesus in our place.  This was the very thing that Adam and Eve were terrified about.  They were afraid that they had lost God forever and were stuck with the devil.  Glad tidings of great joy that is for all people was proclaimed to our father and mother that day.  They were reconciled to God even though they were sinners because God was going to do the reconciling.  Peace with God was already restored for Adam and Eve right after the fall—a peace to be held to by faith. 

This, then, for them was the most important thing in their life just as it is for us their children.  Insofar as we hold to Christ firmly we are strong.  Insofar as we fill our heart with other things we are weak.  Our weakness can become such that unintentionally we choose other good things instead of Christ.  The goal of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh is that we should do just that.  The devil doesn’t care if we devote our lives to high things that are respectable or low things that are shameful, so long as we are not devoted to the one thing that is needful.  Without God’s working in our lives and without his Word and the almighty power of the Holy Spirit, nobody would believe.  But God has continued to intervene in the lives of his saints so that they repent, and repent again and again, and return to Christ the Savior as our highest good.

Our readings today give us the opportunity to learn about one of the very important ways that God will work in the lives of his saints, bringing about their salvation by keeping them in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  What we shall consider today is the way God often takes away things in which we put our love and trust so that we may continue to believe and set our heart on him. 

Our Old Testament reading is from the book of Lamentations.  This was written by the prophet Jeremiah when the Babylonians destroyed God’s people.  The Temple was torn down.  The leaders were killed or carted away into exile.  Everything was lost.  Seemingly even the one true religion was lost, for how could a Church continue to exist without any leaders?  The title for this book, “Lamentations,” was not chosen by accident.  The prophet is full of sorrow and despair not just because of the loss of earthly treasures, but also the loss of spiritual goods.

But as God was treading out the winepress of Jeremiah’s heart he produces a fine vintage of good words that have been a delight for God’s people ever since in their times of trouble: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  In the midst of sadness, despair, and misery Jeremiah sings of God’s mercy and faithfulness.  The Lord will not cast off his people forever.  He causes grief—and Jeremiah was certainly a witness to the terror the Lord can bring—but he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.  For he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.  That means the same thing as what God says elsewhere: “God does not take delight in the death of the wicked, but that they should be turned from their evil way and live.”  When God punishes for sin, it is meant for repentance and faith and joy in his mercy. 

At the time of Jeremiah God humbled his people with dreadful severity.  But it was better that that should happen, than that things should go on the way that they had.  His people were rich and happy and long-lived up to this point, but their hearts were far from God.  When God smote them with his chastising rod it was not because he hated them.  To be sure, he was angry with them for their sin, but he did not hate them.  A good and loving father will be angry when his children go astray, but that is because he loves them.  It is when a father does not love his children that he will ignore them when they sin. 

So it is also with God.  So long as God continues to discipline us and humble us we should consider ourselves blessed, but if God withdraws himself from us and lets us do and get away with whatever we want—that is when we should be worried.  The worst of God’s wrath is not when he smites us with diseases and disasters.  The worst of God’s wrath is when he says, “Fine!  Have it your way: If that’s the way that you want to think, believe, and act, then just go right on doing that.  Fill your heart with idols.  You will not be called back.  You will know nothing of the true God.”  That is the hardening of heart.  May God afflict us with whatever else, but not that!

Just as God dealt with his people in the Bible, so also he deals with us his people today.  He chastises and afflicts to humble us and bring us into sorrow and contrition for our sins.  He takes away those things that clog up our hearts so that we may return to him.  But the chastisement is not enough.  In order for God’s chastising hand to be for our good we must above all have God’s Word so that we can understand it.  Without God’s Word people think that stuff happens by random chance.  Or they are not brought to awareness of their sins and their great need.  Or even if people were to know these things, they wouldn’t know anything of the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases, and so they wouldn’t know to turn to the one who has laid his heavy hand upon them and to ask him for mercy.  Without God’s Word we are worse than blind and deaf.  Without God’s Word we cannot rightly understand what happens in our life whatsoever.  We will continue our pursuit of happiness apart from God instead of facing him.

Facing God will bring you blessing.  Don’t hide in the bushes.  Don’t hide behind luck or chance or medicine or progress or any other way you might construct meaning out of this life for yourself.  Our father and our mother were afraid to face the God whom they had offended with their sins.  They were terrified.  But it was particularly in their terror and despair that God filled their heart with Jesus who restored to them more than they could have possibly hoped for.

When misfortune comes your way, or when the cross is laid upon you—when you are persecuted or rejected, when you are laid low with disease, disaster, and failure—when these afflictions come upon you, you should not consider yourself cast off from God as though your quality of life were your god.  It may just be that the quality of your life has been too rich for your good and for your salvation.  When affliction comes upon you examine your life, confess your sins, and put your hope in God. 

There will be a lot of people in heaven who will realize that they were saved by being humbled in just such a way.  They will see that if they had not been brought low by this or that, then they would have continued on their merry unbelieving way.  But what they discovered against their will with their afflictions was the God of all comfort, who comforted them in their troubles.  Praise trickled out from the winepress of their heart: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  And now in heaven their joy is full.

With all the bitterness that we experience as a result of our sin in this life it is important to remember the fullness of joy that awaits us.  Jesus gives us a powerful picture of that in our Gospel reading today that mothers might understand better than the rest.  Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to go away and that they will weep and lament.  But then he will see them again and their joy will be full.  He likens it to a mother who is giving birth.  She has sorrow and sadness and pain when the hour has come to deliver the child.  This is a frightening experience.  There’s no going back.  There’s only going forward.  And going forward means more pain and danger.  But once the baby is born she forgets all about the pain because of the joy that she has in the new life that has come into the world.

That’s a good picture.  Were you joyful at the birth of your children?  Was your heart filled with love?  Well realize that this isn’t good enough to convey what happens in heaven.  With this picture we are only dealing with something partial and earthly and limited.  When we see Jesus face to face in the joys of paradise we will be in communion with the source of all goodness and love.  Then the troubles and afflictions and disappointments of this earthly life will be forgotten.  However bad they might be they are blotted out by the joy that is set before us in Christ.

And so you should not despair when these labor pains come upon you.  They are the signs that God is bringing about your birth as children of God into your final inheritance.  They last but a little while.  When they come to an end, the fullness of your life will be given to you.  In this way your heavenly Father is keeping you strong in the life of faith—firmly clinging to Jesus.  Even if we are surrounded by pain and sadness, firmly clinging to Jesus is the best possible spot for us to be in.

190505 Sermon on John 10:11-16 (Easter 3) May 5, 2019

190505 Sermon on John 10:11-16 (Easter 3) May 5, 2019

One of the principles that Americans have held most dear is the freedom of religion.  The government does not force anyone to go to any particular church.  The government isn’t even supposed to advise the citizens which church to go to.  This is a personal matter for us Americans.  Some go one place.  Others go someplace else.  This has also enabled the churches to manage their own affairs according to their own lights.  That is the greatest blessing that has come with the formation of our American government.  Our church would not be the way that it is—we would not be able to believe, teach, and confess the Bible the way that we do—if what we do was dictated by the will of the majority. 

The state churches of Europe, where the government is involved in the teachings and practices of the Christian churches, have totally apostatized.  They won’t believe anything that has not been cleared by the skeptics who have the power in the universities.  The governmental control caused the educational institutions and the positions of authority in the churches to be filled by skeptics.  But in our country we have had the ability to choose the professors and leaders whom we want.  This has allowed us to choose believers to occupy these positions, and even some very outspoken, aggressive believers—especially in times past.  Whatever strength and health that still remain in our church was made possible by this freedom.

But the freedom of religion has also had its negative effects as well.  The worst of these is the powerful impression that is given to people that religion is unimportant.  When things are not required by those who are in authority over us we can’t help but unwittingly think that these things are more or less unimportant.  The government cares about schooling and laws and paying taxes.  Accordingly you find that the average citizen considers this stuff important.  They don’t play around with it.  But the government says nothing about religion.  Everybody can do what they want. 

This gives the impression that religion is like other things that the government doesn’t care about.  The government doesn’t care where you go on vacation.  It doesn’t care what food you eat.  It doesn’t care what car you drive.  We all know that it would be silly to argue with people about their vacations, food, and forms of transportation.  This is the way that people also look at religion.  It is as though religion is a dessert.  You can take it or leave it.  Our own people in our congregations are not immune to this either.  In our families jobs and schools and sports and a whole bunch of other things are much more important than what is taught in church.

The freedom of religion means that we are on our own when it comes to impressing upon our people the importance of what we believe.  If fathers, especially (to whom the duty is given), but also mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and other authorities God puts into the lives of our people do not show reverence for the Gospel, then it is only natural and inevitable that it will fade away.  That is the tradeoff with the freedom of religion.  We are free to believe, teach, and confess as we please, but we also are responsible for how we conduct ourselves.  The government won’t do it for us.  If we don’t do it, then it will die out.

Another negative effect of the freedom of religion is similar.  Our people are given the strong impression that what is taught in churches doesn’t really matter.  One church says this, another says that.  You say tomato, I say tomato.  Who cares?  There are bigger fish to fry.  Subtly and unintentionally our people are taken in by the idea that the Word of God doesn’t actually have anything to say about how we live our life.  Each can believe and do as he or she pleases, because that’s what the government says.

But this is one place where God’s Word very explicitly and emphatically disagrees with our founding fathers if they are understood in such a way where it doesn’t matter what a person believes or does.  The second commandment strictly forbids people from claiming to be speaking God’s word and operating under the cover of God’s name, but then to speak lies instead of the truth.  There is no greater sin that can be committed outwardly than when people claim to be speaking the truth about God and his Word, but they are not.  Instead they are twisting the Scriptures or even vomiting up the stuff that comes from their own brains. 

It matters whether God is triune—one God in three persons.  There are a lot of folks who claim to be Christians, but they do not teach this.  And so even though they swear up and down that they are Christians they are actually worshipping some other god or gods even while using the Christian vocabulary that sounds so familiar.

Or there are some Christians who say that baptism doesn’t save.  Well, does it or doesn’t it?  Or the Lord’s Supper is mere bread and wine.  If that is the case, then surely we can’t trust bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins.  Or is the pope the vicar of Christ on earth, and are we duty bound to be served by priests who have received a special anointment from him that enables them to sacrifice the mass?  Are we saved by Jesus's atonement on the cross alone or is there something that we need to add to it?  Or do we need to prepare ourselves to receive his grace or was our baptism as a child not good enough and we need to be baptized again as an adult?

If a poll were conducted on these matters the overwhelming answer would undoubtedly be, “Who cares!?”  A lot of smart people would want us to believe that this apathy is a great advance—that we aren’t fighting about these kinds of things anymore.  They want to portray it as a great advancement that we have made in our learning.  But that is not what it is at all.  It is just plain laziness and boredom.  People don’t want to go to the trouble to find out what is true.  People are apathetic because they believe that this stuff doesn’t matter.  They have no fear of God or of the devil.  This uncaring attitude is not an advancement.  It is a degeneration.  But this way of looking at things is incredibly widespread. 

When we take up our Gospel reading, therefore, most can understand very little of the truth contained therein.  What they take in is a pleasant idea, a pleasant picture.  Jesus is the good Shepherd.  He is a good option for people, therefore, if they should ever need him.  But all the seriousness and danger has been emptied out of the picture.  Sheep are helpless against wolves.  They have no fangs or claws and they aren’t hardly fast enough to get away.  Jesus is the good Shepherd because he fights the wolf and lays down his life for the sheep.  Either the good Shepherd protects the sheep or the sheep are dead.  There is no middle ground. 

That makes Jesus more important than even those medicines or technologies or other advancements that could save our earthly lives.  He saves us from the devil and hell.  We are even more impotent in fighting against these fierce foes as we are against death.  Nobody can win the war against death, and so what chance is there that we sheep can defeat these other enemies that go along with it.  Jesus, the good Shepherd, is therefore not just an option or a dessert, whom you can take or leave and it makes little difference either way.  Heaven and hell is on the line.

The way that we interact with the good Shepherd is also very important.  Jesus says that his sheep know him and they follow his voice.  Jesus’s voice is the Word of God.  But the true Word of God has to compete with all kinds of other voices.  Some of these voices are outside of the Church and would have you believe false things about life and its meaning.  Some of these voices are within the Church and would have you disbelieve the things that you should believe in, and believe in things that you shouldn’t believe. 

For example, there are voices that say that baptism is only a sign of your obedience or that being baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is not valid, but that you must be baptized in Jesus’s name.  These people disturb believers’ faith in the very place that it should be—in God’s saving actions towards us in baptism according to his very own Word and institution.  If that isn’t a case of thwarting Jesus’s voice, then I don’t know what is.  Jesus says one thing, but they say another.  And it is not as though he is unclear.  He tells the apostles to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  He says “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, whoever does not believe will be condemned.”  But these enemies of Christ turn people away from what Jesus has told us to believe in to other things that will fail.  Your baptism in the name of the Father and the of the Son and of the Holy Spirit will not fail you, so long as you continue to believe it.  You have Jesus’s own promise in that regard.  I’d much rather trust Jesus than some so-called expert.

The devil’s specialty is to engage in these kinds of spiritual lies.  Our flesh has its lusts.  The world offers us empty philosophy.  The devil is right in the heart of the Church and engages in deceptions whenever and wherever he can.  This is why the Christian Church is so fragmented.  The truth unites, but these lies drive apart.  And he is an incredibly good liar.  A very large amount of my preaching and teaching with you is for the purpose of exposing these lies so that you may hold to the truth.  He is even such a good liar that there isn’t a single Christian who perfectly withstands them all. 

And so it is necessary for us to clean out our ears so that we can hear the voice of the good Shepherd.  We would go a long way towards that goal of listening to Jesus if we shake off the common notions held all around us that religion or Church isn’t really a big deal—that there are much more important matters to which we should attend—stuff that makes money, for example.  And also that it doesn’t matter what the churches teach—that they are all pretty much the same.  Maybe they seem the same to those who deliberately don’t pay attention, but they are by no means the same.  And to realize that they are not the same and that these differences matter is part of being instructed by the voice of Jesus.  How can you tell the difference between Jesus’s voice and liars’ voices if you never learn from God’s Word what that voice actually is?

In order for the voice of Jesus to continue to be heard among us we have to recognize that there are higher requirements that are placed upon us than there are for other citizens.  It’s normal and natural to just go with the flow and to allow the authorities to tell you what is important and not, what you should and shouldn’t do.  But in this country we have freedom of religion, which is a very great blessing.  Our authorities aren’t going to tell anybody anything about going to Church.  And with the increasing dechristianization that is overtaking one family after another, other places of authority in our families are no longer impressing the importance of hearing Jesus’s voice.  Therefore, we must be deliberate and intentional in our speaking and teaching and examples.  Nobody is going to do it for us.  If we don’t do it, then it won’t get done.  It is a very good thing that the government keeps its nose out of our business as a church, but then we also have to recognize our responsibility.

Engaging in this work is not for the purpose of maintaining a culture or heritage—kind of like a museum—as though being German or Scandinavian or even Lutheran is what is important.  What’s at stake is the voice of the good Shepherd.  That voice is heard through Christians—fathers, mothers, friends, fellow members of the congregation, pastors and professors.  That voice is the way that we are able to follow Jesus.  Without that voice we are lost and defenseless.  And so we must change the way that we think and have this change also carry over into our lives.