Sermon manuscript:
Everyone wants a good life. Everyone wants health, wealth,
entertainment, a fullness of meaning, love, peace, and many other things like
these. Over the centuries there have been many traditions that have promised to
further this endeavor towards life and having life to the full. The Greeks had
their traditions. The Romans had theirs. The Chinese, the Japanese, all people
everywhere have had their traditions that have promised to give the good things
of life if the rules of their tradition were followed.
There is one more tradition that we must also talk about. It
is not very old. It’s only about 300 years old. It is by far and away the most
important and relevant tradition for all of us and for the entire world because
it is the dominant one right now. Unlike the religions of other times and
places the tradition that we are living in doesn’t really have a name. Sometimes
it’s called modernism. Its main beliefs are in the study of science and
economics. What this tradition has been teaching for a long time is that our
greatest hope for happiness is in producing more and more. The way we produce
more and more is by discovering things about nature and manipulating nature to
get what we want out of it. Then there’s just the matter of how all the wealth
should be managed and distributed. How does a person get the most wealth? That
is where the study of economics comes in.
There’s certainly no denying that huge strides have been
made in the last 300 years. We have learned so much about the laws and
principles that govern the natural world, and how these can be turned towards
our own advantage. What was especially impactful was learning how to use the seemingly
limitless sources of power provided by coal, oil, natural gas, and so on. That
was when we started to practically swim in merchandise. If a good life consists
of wealth, health, entertainment, and so on, then it is as though this modern
way of thinking as brought us to the endpoint of history.
That makes us believe that up until now, or about 300 years
ago, people were poor and stupid. We modern people are of a different sort. We
know better, and we have the technology to prove it. The only branches of
learning that are taken seriously in the university have to do with science or
economics. That is because these are the sacred subjects. If you want to have
any hope of being blessed then master these hard sciences.
The belief that happiness comes from mastering the powers of
nature or mastering the forces of the economy has taken the world by storm.
This belief claims absolute supremacy for itself. Every other way of thinking about
happiness is pre-modern and stupid and irrelevant. People can believe in God as
a hobby, perhaps, but everybody knows that that’s like being a Liberal Arts
major. You’ll end up working at McDonalds because praying, for example, won’t
do you any good. In order to get ahead in life you have to drop all those old,
disproven things. Get the right degree, start the right company, buy the
hottest stocks. Then you’d be able to afford the newest and best. Then you’ll
be happy, that is to say, blessed.
The power and popularity of this way of thinking is so
pervasive that I’ve wondered if it is the fulfillment of Jesus’s end-times
prophecy. He said that in the end-times the signs and wonders that are
performed will be so powerful and persuasive that they should deceive the
elect, if that were possible. Toilets and hydraulics and computers are so life
changing that they are almost magical. Because they are so life changing,
people take them as being proof that what ancient people used to believe in
must be foolish. It is widely believed that the non-existence of God has been
proven and that his revelation in the Bible has been proven to be false.
But this is a lie, a trick. Never, ever has the
non-existence of God been proven. Not even close. There have never been any
experiments or discoveries that have made God cease to exist or discredited his
revelation in the Bible. You could look into such things for yourselves, if you
were so inclined, but hardly anybody does, because it’s hard and it’s a lot of
work. There’s almost no end to it. It’s much easier to just take other peoples’
word for it—professors and celebrities and YouTube videos and such. These other
people will just give you their conclusions, and they want you to believe in
them because of their clout and prestige. Generally speaking these other people
have much more clout and fame than I ever will. Their popularity or power
doesn’t necessarily mean that they are telling you the truth, however.
Consider poor, old, St. Paul. He didn’t have much clout or
fame. He worked with his hands for a living, making tents—not a very
prestigious job. He wasn’t the pastor of a mega church. His congregations were
so small that they met in people’s houses. He was by no means popular. Neither
the Jews nor the Greeks liked him. He was made fun of, beaten, whipped, stoned,
thrown in prison, kicked out of one city after another, and finally he had his
head chopped off as though he were an awful and dangerous criminal.
Why was he hated so much? Because he told people that the
things that they were trusting in weren’t going to work. The Greeks, with their
traditions, weren’t going to work. The Romans, with their traditions, weren’t going
to work. So we must speak also today if we are going to be followers of Christ
like Paul was. Our modern way of life isn’t going to work. The things that we are
believing in are going to let us down. What won’t let us down is our faith in
Christ, who has worked, who is working, and who will work to bring to
completion his plan of salvation.
If you think about it, there are two ways a person can live.
A person can go along with all the thoughts and rules and beliefs of the people
around us or a person can live in Christ. A person can believe that happiness
or blessedness will come from taking the advice of the world around us, or a
person can believe that blessedness is theirs already in their Lord Jesus
Christ who has purchased them and given them an incorruptible inheritance. You
can’t really choose both, because no man can be a servant of two masters. One
or the other will always be preferred over the other.
And so Paul’s words in our Epistle reading are directly
applicable to us and to our times, even though he wrote these words nearly
2,000 years ago. He says, “See to it that no one takes you captive through
philosophy and empty deceit, which are in accord with human tradition, namely,
the basic principles of the world, but not in accord with Christ.” Now, a
lot of people get thrown off by that word “philosophy.” Paul says, “Do not
be taken captive through philosophy,” and folks think, “I’ve never cracked
open a philosophy book in my entire life. I don’t have any philosophy.”
Oh, but you do! If you have any thoughts whatsoever about
life, then you have a philosophy. If you have thoughts about what will make you
happy, then you have a philosophy. Everybody is a philosopher, it’s just a
matter of whether their philosophy is any good, whether it accords with the
truth, whether the philosophy will actually be effective.
Paul says, “Do not be taken captive through philosophy
and empty deceit. Such philosophies are in accord with human tradition. Such
philosophies may even be in accord with the basic principles of the world. But
they are not in accord with Christ.” These words are perfectly applicable
to us. Why do we have the philosophies we do? It is because of tradition. We
are taught by our teachers what we are supposed to believe about life. What is life
all about? How do we get ahead in life? These are the things that our teachers
teach us. The modern times in which we live have just as much of a tradition as
any other time and place has had. We are taught our tradition for how to look
at the world.
Furthermore Paul says that these philosophies that might
take us captive can be in accord with the basic principles of the world. That
is to say those philosophies might be true in some sense. They might match up
with the how things are, the basic principles of the world. This, also, is
extremely applicable to us. We pride ourselves on having a very fine
understanding of how the world works, especially the natural world—and for good
reason. Our civilization has looked into the tiniest of tiny things. Our newly
launched telescopes have looked into the biggest of big things. We know many
things about many things, and these may even fully accord with the truth.
However, as Paul says, our understanding is not in accord
with Christ. That is to say, our understanding is not in accord with the greatest
event in history that changes absolutely everything else. It is not in accord
with Son of God becoming man, suffering, dying, and rising; ascending, and
coming again to judge the living and the dead.
What would it profit a man to gain a perfect understanding
of all things, to have that understanding be true to how things really are, but
to fail to understand Christ? Christ is the great gem, the absolute centerpiece
of everything. Jesus is the bread of life, the light of the world, the
resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the
greatest revelation of God, of who he is, and what his will is. What can it
profit a man to understand creation perfectly, but to have no understanding of
the Creator, because he has no understanding of Jesus? Paul says, “All the
fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ.” If you do not understand
Jesus, then you cannot know God.
On the other hand, if you know Christ, then you know God.
The wisest philosopher is foolish compared to the baptized child. The baptized
child has been buried with Christ, and raised with Christ, and knows where true
blessing and happiness is to be found, namely, in our Father who art in heaven.
The wisest philosopher may know many things about many
things, but it is all vanity and a chasing after the wind. Their heart will
remain polluted with self-interest and sin. There’s no way for us to purge
ourselves of the guilt that we incur upon ourselves or to make our hearts pure
and good. Wealth and prestige and power might anesthetize us so that we do not
think about this. We might tell ourselves that it doesn’t matter and that we
need not worry about it—that’s what those old people used to worry about, but
they were poor and stupid. But does all this thinking really get rid of such
glaring personal failings and flaws?
In contrast, note what Paul says that God has done in
Christ. He says: “Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us
all our trespasses.” How did God do this? He goes on: “God erased the
record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. There was a
record of our debts, our failings, our shameful wrong-doings according to God’s
own Law. But God took this record of our sins away by nailing it to the
cross.” Jesus was punished in our place, thereby bringing about
reconciliation for the whole world with the Creator. Jesus has reconciled you. This
is the greatest gem of knowledge: You are a forgiven sinner for Jesus’s sake,
loved by God.
Since you have this bright, shining sun of truth in Jesus,
you must not give yourselves over to philosophies or human traditions or even
things that are in accord with how things work on this earth, but that are in the
process of passing away. You might know all natural knowledge and all economic
laws so that you may purchase a mountain and move it from here to there. One
day that mountain will be no more, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
You must understand your life in such a way where Christ is all in all, and
everything else is but the small stuff that we can sweat if need be.
You know: Sweat the small stuff like the devil, like your
own death, like your own damnation for the awful sins that you’ve committed.
You can sweat stuff like that as being small because of the overwhelming power
of Christ’s blood. Then, of course, we can sweat the even much smaller stuff
like world peace, the progress of civilization, whomever it is that happens to
be seated in the halls of power. And then, finally, we might mention the small
stuff like what you will eat or drink or wear, or what you are supposed to do
to be blessed and happy in this earthly life.
Christ is king. Christ is risen. Christ will triumph. He is
your philosophy and way of life. Paul says, “Continue to walk in him. Be
rooted in him. Be built up in him. Be strengthened in your belief that you will
be blessed in him so that you will overflow with thanksgiving to God.”
Among all the traditions, among all the philosophies, Jesus is the only way to
almighty and everlasting life. Amen.
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