Clothed With Garments of Salvation

Clothed With the Garments of Salvation     

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

     As many of you know, this is my last Sunday here at Zion as pastor.  This will be what some people would call my farewell sermon.  As you have come to know over the years, my sermons have never been centered in some kind of political or social agenda.  My task as a Lutheran pastor has always been to preach the Word.  The motto of Concordia Theological Seminary where I studied for the pastoral ministry was “Preach the Word.”  I have always taken that very seriously.  When I began preparing for this Sunday several weeks ago, I took a look at the Scripture readings appointed for today and I had to smile.  I don’t know if you caught it when they were read before but there were some lines that would seem to lend themselves well to my situation today.  The Epistle lesson started off with the words, “When the fullness of time had come.”  That would seem to speak to a time to retire.  The Gospel lesson has the words of Simeon when he saw the Christ Child, “Lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace.”  This one also could be applied to a final sermon.  However, to do that with either of those lessons would be taking them out of context and twisting them to fit a different set of circumstances.  To use Scripture out of its context is never a good thing and it is not something I want to do today or any time I have the privilege of preaching the Word.

     Instead, I have chosen the Old Testament lesson for today.  It expresses the joy that is in the heart of one who has come to understand and appreciate the blessings of salvation that God has given to His people.  It expresses the joy that is in my heart and I pray that you have that same kind of joy in your heart on this Sunday after Christmas and throughout the year and throughout your life.

     The prophet Isaiah had the privilege to speak for God to call the people of Israel to repentance but also to encourage the people in their times of difficulty.  As he did that, he also was inspired by the Holy Spirit to prophesy about the coming Messiah and what that would mean for the people of God.  This text starts with the words, “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.”  Think of what that means.  The picture language is not too hard to figure out.  You know what it means to be clothed.  You know what it means to be covered.  This should be the cry of every believer.  I greatly rejoice that I am clothed with the garments of salvation.  I am covered with the robe of righteousness.  That truly is reason for rejoicing. 

      The problem is that in our world, even often in the church, the reason for our rejoicing is not quite understood.  To really understand what this means you have to consider the opposite of what Isaiah is saying.  If you are not clothed with the garments of salvation, you are left on your own. You would have to stand before God with all of your sin showing.  The excuses that you try to make about your sinful behavior can not cover up the reality of your sin.  All the denials in the world will not cover up your sinful nature.  The only thing that will allow you to stand before God is the garment of salvation that has been purchased for you by your Savior, Jesus.  Unfortunately there are many people who don’t understand that.  Human reason would tell you that you have to stand before God on your own merits.  Even if they are not perfect, your good intentions ought to stand for something.  Your hard work ought earn you a few points.  There’s not much comfort in that kind of thinking.  You would never be certain that you had done enough.  When there is no security, there is no joy. 

     Often there is no real appreciation for the great gift that we have been given in that garment of salvation.  That fact becomes obvious when you observe people who have no joy in their life.  One who does not appreciate the gift of salvation is often one who is not willing to show love and forgiveness to others.  This shows itself in holding grudges, ignoring those in need, and insisting on having your own way.  There is also no rejoicing in a life that is self-centered because others are always disappointing you. 

     If you saw a bit of yourself in ether of those descriptions, you realize that you are still a sinner.  If you didn’t see yourself in those descriptions you are probably not being honest with yourself because we are all sinners.  We all need to hear the message of Law and Gospel that reminds us of our sin and then brings us the sweet message of love and forgiveness that is ours in Christ Jesus.  By His perfect life and His death on the cross, we have been clothed with the garment of salvation.  You have to remember that when this was written, most people wore an inner garment and an outer garment that covered a person completely.  That is a good picture of the kind of garment of salvation that Isaiah describes.  Our sins are covered over completely by Jesus.  To make that even more clear, Isaiah, is a way that was typical of Hebrew poetry, continues by saying that God 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.  The robe of righteousness covers over our imperfections with the perfection of Christ Jesus.  Think of how a bridegroom and his bride adorn themselves.  For a brief time they appear before one another looking better than they ever have in their lives.  It is done to give the appearance of wealth and beauty when perhaps there wasn’t much to start with.  The robe of righteousness covers our unrighteousness but it is not just for a brief time.  It is for eternity.  Covered in Christ’s righteousness we can stand before God and He sees us as righteous because Jesus has done all that is necessary to make that possible.  When you understand and appreciate how wonderful that blessing is, you can’t help but be joyful.

     With Isaiah you can rejoice greatly.  That joyful spirit will be evident in the way you live your life.  First of all, you will live with a thankful heart.  Your thankfulness will show itself in the way that you are willing to share with the Lord your time, your talents and your resources to help carry that message of salvation out to the world, a world that does not understand or appreciate the great blessing that comes from the gift of the garments of salvation in which God has clothed you. 

     Secondly, your joy will show itself in your willingness to serve the Lord and His church with talents that each has been given for the building up of the church.  Not all are gifted the same way but in every church, the gifts are there to do the Lord’s work of expanding the kingdom of God through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those Means of Grace as the ways in which the Holy Spirit works to brings you to faith and keeps you in the faith and empower you to do the good works that God has prepared ahead of time for you to do. 

     In verse 2 of chapter 62, Isaiah mentions that the nations shall see your righteousness.  People will notice the rejoicing that is in your life when you understand and appreciate the garment of salvation and the robe of righteousness that you wear.  They will see the difference that is made in your life.  May that be an opportunity for you to witness to your Savior Jesus who came into the world when the fullness of time had come.  May it also be a time for you to say with Simeon, “Lord, now You are letting your servant depart in peace.  My eyes have seen Your salvation.”  It has been my privilege to proclaim that to you here for nine years.  It is my prayer that you will continue to joyfully proclaim that message of righteousness and salvation in your lives until the Lord calls you home.   Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

1st Sunday after Christmas 

God Is Love

God Is Love

I John 4:7-16

     What a night!  This is a night like no other night in the whole year.  There is excitement in the air.  There is an anticipation of special things that will take place this night that will bring joy to everyone’s heart.  I have a question for you.  What is the one word that describes Christmas?  I suppose there could be all kinds of answers to that question.  Some of the answers would depend on how old you are.  The younger ones might say “presents.”  Some might say, “Music.”  Some might say, “Decorations.”  Some might say, “Family.”  Some might say, “Savior.”  Some might say, “Jesus.”  After hearing the Epistle lesson from I John 4, I think we might have to conclude that the one word that describes Christmas is “Love.” 

     If you listened carefully to the reading of the Epistle lesson, you probably heard the word love used sixteen times in those nine verses.  If you count the word “beloved,” then it goes up to eighteen times.  Just from that it’s hard to argue against “love” being the word of the day.  The love that the Apostle John is describing is a love that is very special.  It is a love that comes from God.  It is a love that knows all about the one being loved and loves in spite of the sin and rebellion that are a part of our nature.  John describes how that love has shown itself in several of the verses of our text.  For example, in verse 9 he says, “God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.”  In verse 10 He says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins.”  In verse 16 we hear, “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him.” 

     Through God’s love, we have new life.  The old is gone, the new has come.  If you have never thought about that before, you may wonder how all that works.  Apart from God and His love, your life is an endless search for meaning and purpose.  You seem drawn to satisfying all your human desires but it seems like you never really reach that level of happiness and fulfillment that you are looking for.  In fact, earthly happiness always seems to be just out of reach.  You find yourself thinking that there has to be more to life than this endless quest for self-satisfaction.  Love can be fleeting.  It seems to change with time.  It never seems to be returned in the same way that it is given.  You may begin to wonder what love really means.  That almost sounds like a song title and it probably is because most of the love that you hear in popular songs is a physical, earthly kind of love that can be very elusive. 

     But God’s love is different than the love we generally hear about in popular culture.  God’s love is a love of action.  It is founded in His nature.  God is love.  He loved us so much that in His great compassion for our fallen condition, He sent His only Son into the world to save us from the consequences of that fallen condition.  In order to do that, the Son needed to come down to earth to be like one of us.  Since the Son was true God from all eternity, it would take a miraculous birth to make it all happen.  God sent the angel Gabriel to a virgin named Mary, a young girl living in the town of Nazareth of Galilee.  It seemed like an out-of-the-way place but it was foretold by the prophets that the Messiah would come from Galilee.  There was a slight problem in all of this.  Mary was betrothed to a good man named Joseph, a local carpenter.  They had not begun their life together as husband and wife and so there were some questions in his mind when Mary was with child.  Again an angel appeared to him in a dream to explain the whole situation.  The child was the Son of God.  He was also to be born of a human mother so that He would be true Man.  This was necessary so that He could live under the Law and keep it perfectly. 

     Because of the Roman census, Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem, their ancestral home because they were from the family of David.  It was there that the child was born in rather unusual circumstances.  The census brought crowds of people to even the small towns like Bethlehem.  It is that birth of the child, announced by angels to simple shepherds, that we celebrate tonight.  That birth was all according to God’s plan.  We can say that because the prophets of old had foretold it, and the specifics were announced by angels, God’s messengers. The coming of the Son of God was a big thing, even though it went relatively unnoticed by the rest of the world.  Now it is still a big thing but the real meaning of this celebration is downplayed by the rest of the world. 

     He also had to be a true Man so that He could carry out God’s plan for our salvation.  Only as true man could He could suffer and die as the punishment for our sins.  Yet He had to be true God so that suffering and death and resurrection could be the satisfaction or propitiation for the sins of the whole world.  That is real love.  That is the love that God demonstrated for you and for me and for the whole world. 

     John then adds an important point as we consider the love that God has shown to us.  “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  As you consider the tremendous blessing that you have because God took this action on your behalf, you are moved to show that some kind of love to one another.  When I say “the same kind of love.” I mean that your love for one another should imitate the love that God has shown to us.  That is a love that knows all about the one who is loved, sins and faults and imperfections, and loves anyway.  It is a love that is a giving love.  It is a love that expects nothing in return.  It is a love that is unconditional.  There are no “ifs” or “whens” or any other qualifications before that kind of love is shown.  That can be really hard sometimes for you when you are still influenced by your sinful nature but with the power of the Holy Spirit you can overcome that selfish nature and show that special kind of love to others.  John speaks to that in verse 13, where he says, “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”  The Spirit works in us through the Means of Grace. Through the Word and the Sacraments, we are given the power of the Spirit to show the love that has first been shown to us. 

     It is that love that we celebrate tonight.  We do it with all the joy that is in us.  We do it with special decorations and special worship.  We celebrate the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.  We celebrate because we have been the recipients of that love and joyfully and confidently confess our faith in Jesus as our Savior.  John concludes in the last verse of our text: “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.”  What a wonderful blessing to know that in and through Jesus, God abides in us.  He is in us not only when we feel the love in times like this, but also in the times when our sin weighs us down, in the times when we don’t feel all that great.  He is there because He is love and His love for us never fails.  It is strong enough to overcome our weakness.  It is strong enough to pull us back when we seem to wandering.  It is strong enough to see us to our life’s end.  His love is eternal.  It is strong enough to reflect from us to others as we share the love that we have first received from God.  Truly, He showed that love when He sent His only Son to be your Savior.  May your celebration reflect that love not only tonight be throughout your life.  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio  

Christmas Eve

Sanctified

Sanctified                                                        II Thessalonians 5:16-28

      Imagine for a moment you are the Apostle Paul.  You had close relationship with the believers in Thessalonica but were forced to leave because of persecutions.  Now some time later you wanted to write a letter to them to encourage them to remain firm in their faith and to be a strong influence for the Gospel in the whole region of Macedonia.  As your letter was drawing to a close, you would want to leave them with some solid words of advice.  What do you suppose you would want to say to them? 

     The words of our text, the Epistle lesson for today, show us just what Paul had to say to his dear friends.  His words of advice pick up in verse 16.  “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  Think of that.  This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  When you understand the blessings that you have from God in Christ Jesus, the blessings of the forgiveness of sins, a blessing that you certainly don’t deserve, the blessing of reconciliation with God by His grace and the sure and certain hope of heaven through Jesus Christ, you can’t help but rejoice always.  You can give thanks in all circumstances, not just in the good times but in the difficult times as well.  He says in all circumstances.  Pray without ceasing.  When you think of prayer as talking with God, you can understand what Paul meant by praying without ceasing.  You have the opportunity to be in constant contact with God through prayer.  Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that golden opportunity? 

     He continues with some good advice when it comes to hearing God’s Word.  “Do not quench the Spirit.”  Do not try to put out the fire of the Spirit that purifies the heart and strengthens your faith.  When you think about the importance of the Holy Spirit in your faith and life, you can see how important it is to keep the Spirit’s flame alive in you.  “Do not despise prophecies.”  Prophecies come from one who is speaking for God.  Because there are many false prophets out there, it is important that you test what you hear.  Those that are consistent with what God has revealed to us will be good.  Those that contradict the clear message of God will be evil.  One of the tricks of the devil is to proclaim that something is from God when it actually is intended to draw you away from the truth of God’s Word.  That is why it is important to test what you hear against what God’s has already made known. 

     Those words of advice come from a heart that cares deeply for the spiritual welfare of those who are to receive this letter.  The point that is made over and over is that you need to let the Spirit do His work in you.  The work of the Holy Spirit is called Sanctification.  That’s a big word that has as its root a word that means holy.  Sanctification means to make holy.  It is something that is done to you.  You are made holy, something that you can not accomplish on your own.  Because of the inherited sin that is a part of every one of us, you could never make yourself holy.  It is something that the Holy Spirit does in you.   That is why St. Paul can say, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

     That word “completely” indicates to us that the whole work of making us holy is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It begins by bringing us to faith in the first place.  In most cases, that happens through the blessing of Baptism.  It continues throughout life as the Holy Spirit works through the other means of grace, namely the Word and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, to keep us in the true faith.  The Spirit also works in us through those same means to strengthen your faith and empower you to live a God-pleasing life as you wait for the time when Jesus will come again.   That’s what it means that He will sanctify you completely.

     The reason that Paul includes this in the last part of His letter is that it is so contrary to what your human nature tries to tell you.  Your human nature tends to want to take all the credit for the things that only the Holy Spirit can do.  Human nature, which tries to figure everything out logically, would rather have you think that you come to faith through your own will.  It tries to tell you that you become a follower of Jesus when you let down your defenses and decide to give yourself to the Lord.  That makes your faith not a matter of sanctification, but rather your own work.  Sanctification, remember, is a description of something that is done to you.  If it is thought of as something that you can do for yourself, then you would also have to say that keeping your faith strong is also a matter of the things that you do in order to remain firm in the faith.  You would then be convinced that you would have to work hard at keeping your faith strong enough so that you don’t fall away.  If you would fall away, it would be because you didn’t work hard enough at it.  The logical extension of that is that you can live a God-pleasing life through your own good works and as a result, God should be pleased with your good effort and reward you for all your hard work.  The error of that kind of thinking, which is quite common in our world today, just as it has always been, is that you are never sure if you have been good enough or worked hard enough to earn God’s approval.  It rejects the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification and, worst of all, it ignores Christ’s work of redemption.   Our human nature can be a dangerous thing, especially when it interferes with God’s plan of salvation that is clearly taught in the Scriptures.  That’s why it is so important for us to stay close to God’s Word.  There we find the truth.  There we find what we need to know and believe about our relationship with God in Christ Jesus. 

     There is something else that Paul mentions in his final words of this first letter to the Thessalonians.  He prays that your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Being kept blameless is also part of the work of the Holy Spirit.  You are blameless because God declares you blameless because of what Jesus did for you.  He lived the perfect life that you could not live because of your sinful human nature.  He then died as the punishment for your sins.  Because of God’s grace you are then declared righteous or blameless.  You are kept blameless through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Paul then adds, “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.”  He doesn’t say, “Come on now, work hard and you can do it.”  He says that He who called you is faithful and He will do it.  What a difference!

     You are kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is that reference to the coming of Jesus that makes this an important Advent Scripture lesson.  You are waiting for the second coming of Jesus.  You can’t forget that in all of the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season.  We celebrate that God sent His only Son to the world to bring about our salvation through His life, death and resurrection, but we can’t let that overshadow the reality that one day, He will come again.  He calls you to be prepared.  He calls you to give thanks for the Father’s love, for the Son’s work of redemption and the Spirit’s work of sanctification as you wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.   Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

December 14, 2014

The Third Sunday in Advent  

     

Come to Save Us

Come to Save Us

Psalm 80:1-7

     Christmas time is a time of traditions.  The songs of the Christmas season bring back memories of Christmas celebrations often when we were children.  The tradition of giving presents reminds of the great gift that we have through the gift of the Christ Child.  We are also reminded of the gifts that were brought by the Wise Men to the young child Jesus.  Of course, one of the great traditions of Christmas time is the food that is prepared from recipes that are passed down from generation to generation. 

     One woman told her pastor as she was leaving church on the First Sunday in Advent that when she hears the words of the Collect for that Sunday, which begins with the words of our text, “Stir up your might, O Lord and come,” she knows that it is time to start baking her Christmas cookies.  The pastor looked a bit confused so she explained that when you say, “Stir up,” it’s time for me to stir up my ingredients.

      All of the Christmas traditions help us to remember Christmas celebrations of the past and they tie us to the generations that have gone before us.  They also have special meaning because they generally have some connection to the real meaning of this time of the year.  We are starting a new church year and we are focusing on the birth of the Christ Child.  This was the fulfillment of the prophecies about the coming of the One who would bring salvation to the world.  To really appreciate the significance of the coming of the Son of God into the world, you have to look at what the people of the Old Testament thought about God’s promise of a Savior.  It was something that God’s people had been looking forward to for centuries so a passage like the Psalm that we read together this evening helps us to see what they thought.  It shows us how God was preparing their hearts for the time when the Savior would come.  As we consider these words for a few moments tonight, may we come away with a better understanding of what the coming of Jesus meant for the people of ancient times but also what His coming means for us today as well.

     Back to the words, “Stir up your might (or power) and come to save us.”  This was the cry of the people of Israel to be saved.  At first that might sound strange to us when we think of the children of Israel as God’s chosen people.  Why would they need to be saved?  The truth was that even though they were God’s chosen people, their hearts were far from the Lord.  They had fallen away from Him.  They had adopted the pagan worship of their neighbors.  They were a rebellious people.  In order to bring them back to their senses and to the worship of the true God, they were punished as God sent foreign powers like the Assyrians to conquer their land.  The Psalm mentioned the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.  These made up the Northern Kingdom of Israel and they were the ones who were conquered first.  Some of the people had fled south to Jerusalem and it is thought that this Psalm came from that time period.  They were asking God to stir up his might and come to save them.  It is a fitting passage for the Advent season because it calls upon God to come and save us.  The coming of the Lord is what the Advent season is all about.  We celebrate the coming of the Savior with repentant and joyful hearts because we know that His coming meant that God’s plan for our salvation had been carried out when His only Son came down from heaven to save us.  Our Christmas joy is meaningless if it is not grounded in the fact that God heard the prayers of His people and sent His only Son in power and might to defeat sin, death and the power of the devil. 

     This 80^th Psalm is still an appropriate Psalm for the people of God to use as a prayer.  Even though you might consider yourself part of  God’s chosen people by virtue of your Baptism, you still may find yourself in situations where you need God’s help.  You still may find yourself straying from the truth of God’s Word in favor of the philosophies and practices of the world around you.  Isn’t it interesting how in every age, the ways of the world seem so attractive to God’s people that they are tempted to follow after them.  That’s how the devil works.  For the children of Israel, it was the practices of the pagans who lived around them that seemed like so much more fun than the constant bringing of sacrifices to make atonement for their sins.  Today, it always seems to us that the unbelieving world has a lot more fun that those who try to follow God’s ways.  Philosophies are planted in our head through the various worldly media that you deserve to have fun.  Go to Sin City because what happens there, stays there.  If you hear that often enough, you tend to start believing it.  Soon you have new priorities in your life and you find yourself farther and farther away from God.  When God’s law speaks to your heart, however it comes to you, it convicts you of your sin and you find that you are helpless on your own.  The words of the Psalm continue to apply in our time as it describes how your enemies laugh among themselves because of you.  The devil and his crew are overjoyed that they have been able to entice you away from God.  You then cry to the Lord, “Stir up your might and come to save me.” 

     Your only hope is to look to God and His mercy to be saved from the downward spiral that will eventually leave you in the deepest depths in hell.   In God’s plan for your rescue, He did send down His only Son to become like us.  He took on human form so that He could live under the same law that God had established for His people.  Because He is true God, the Son could keep that Law perfectly for you.  He endured all of the temptations that you face.  He was tempted by the same basic temptations that come to all people.  Yet He resisted them in order to do the Father’s will.  He truly did lead a perfect life in your place.  He then allowed Himself to be brutally beaten and nailed to a cross as the punishment for your sins.  Then in His almighty power, He rose from the grave to demonstrate that the power of the grave could not keep Him.  As a result, His victory becomes your victory and you are saved. 

     You are saved because your heavenly Father declares you righteous.  You are justified by God’s grace, His undeserved love for you.  He does this because Jesus came down and lived that perfect life and died on the cross in your place.  The blessings of all of that become yours through faith, through believing and trusting that what Jesus did was for you.  Even the faith to believe and trust comes from the power of the Holy Spirit.  Remember the words that Martin Luther used to start the Explanation of the Third Article of the Apostle’s Creed,  “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”  He did stir up His might and power and come to save you.  You also need to remember that He will come again some day in all His power and glory and will judge the world in righteousness.  He will take all believers to their heavenly home.  That is why we can still pray the prayer in the Psalm, “Stir up your power and come to save us.”

     As you prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus once again this year, may you keep your mind focused on the blessings that Jesus came to bring.  May you resist the temptation to let the things of this world became so important that you forget that you are still waiting for Jesus to come down again.  May His second coming be a time of joyful anticipation as you look forward to the eternal peace and unending joy that will be yours in His presence.  It is all possible because of what was accomplished for you at His first coming.  That gives you hope.  It gives you peace.  It gives you joy as you celebrate with your family and friends at home and in church the coming of the Lord to save.  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

December 3, 2014

Mid-Week Advent Service

      

Shall We Be Saved?

“Shall We Be Saved?”                                                      Isaiah 64:1-9

     We have come to the beginning of the New Church Year.  I guess I could say “Happy New Year!”  As you know, the Church Year does not follow the calendar year.  Instead it follows the major Church festivals.  Seasons of the Church Year are related to the celebrations of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.  Since Jesus’ birth seems like a logical place to start, then a season of preparation for Jesus’ coming would seem reasonable.  There are really two main themes for the Advent season, which gets its name from Latin and means to come to.  We prepare our hearts for Jesus to come to us.  His first coming has already happened of course so we can’t really prepare for that but we can consider what that coming means for us.  While we do that, we also have to remember that Jesus will be coming again and we need to prepare our hearts for that time when He will come to judge the world and take His people to their heavenly home.  That theme carries over from the last part of the church year when we also talk about the end times.  Advent is a time for us to consider all of what Jesus did for us and what He will do when the final promise is fulfilled through His second coming. 

     Through it all, Advent is considered one of the penitential seasons, a time for repentance as we consider what Jesus did to bring us back to the Father.  Our Old Testament lesson for today calls us to join with God’s people in a prayer for mercy.  When we consider our sin and how it is an offense to God, we may ask the question that we find in the text.  “Shall we be saved?”  That question often comes to mind when we are faced with the reality of our sin.  Can I be saved?  Have I been too rebellious?  Could God really love me after all I have done?  Thankfully there is a positive answer to that question and as we consider the message of Isaiah the Prophet, may we see how that will have an effect on our Advent preparations.

      In our text, the prophet leads the people of Israel in a prayer that acknowledges their sin.  For a long time the people of Israel had put God’s mercy to the test.  They had followed after false gods.  They had mixed pagan worship with the God-given acts of worship and just generally had been a rebellious people.  The only way that they would be shaken from their spiritual slumber would be if God would suddenly come down and bring some kind of destruction on them.  During the time of Isaiah, that destruction came from foreign powers that came in and destroyed their land and carried many of the people off into captivity in Babylon. 

     While the destruction and the captivity was a drastic call to repentance, it was necessary in order to remind them that God was still in charge.  In the words of verse five the people cry out, “Behold you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been along time, and shall we be saved?”  The lament then continued in the next verses where they spoke of being unclean.  Their righteous acts are even like a polluted garment.  “We fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.  There is no one who calls upon your name who rouses himself to take hold of you.”  Those are the words of a people who know that they have sinned.  They have admitted their sin and that is the first step in repentance.  They look to God even though they know that they don’t deserve anything from Him but punishment. 

     Hearing a cry like that ought to make you feel a bit uncomfortable.  It shouldn’t be hard for you to relate to the sins of the people of Israel during Isaiah’s time because they are the sins of people of all time.  The inherited sin that brought about all of those sinful behaviors is in each of you.  Left to yourself, you would have to say right along with the people of old that you are also unclean, your righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.  You may wonder if you will be saved.

     But the prophet Isaiah continues by acknowledging that there is hope.  “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  What a wonderful reminder!  You are our Father.  A father loves his children dearly.  He does not like the disobedient and rebellious behaviors of his children but he disciplines them in love.  The whole purpose of punishment is to help them to see the error of their ways and bring them back in repentance.  That is why we look to God as our Father.  He has created us and He loves us with an everlasting love.  He may discipline us  for a time but it is in love that we often have to deal with suffering.  He does want us to be saved.  He wants what is best for us and that is to be brought back into His loving arms for all eternity.  He also recognizes our inability to do what is necessary for us to be reconciled to Him on our own.  We may try but all of our efforts are going to fail because of our continued sinful behaviors that stem from that sinful nature that is a part of our being. 

     At the beginning of the reading for today, the cry of the people was, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.”  Actually that was God’s plan from the beginning.  When sin entered the world, God promised that the seed of the woman would destroy the seed of the devil.  That first Gospel promise would be fulfilled when God would sent His only Son into the world.  True God from all eternity came down from heaven to earth to be one of us so that He could take our place.  He took out place under the Law and kept it perfectly.  He then suffered a horrible death on the cross as the punishment for our sins.  The Son was then raised from the dead to show His victory over sin, death and the devil.  His victory is our victory as well.  He then sent the Holy Spirit to work faith in our hearts to believe and trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior so that we could be saved from all that we deserve because of our sin. 

      Here we can recall the words of the prophet again when he says that we are the clay and the Lord is the potter.  We are the work of His hand.  He has taken us and molded us into His special people.  He is the creator and He shapes us into His own special vessels.  We are the work of His hand and therefore we live to serve the purpose that He has in mind for us.  The answer to the question about being saved is an emphatic, “Yes!”  We have been saved by God’s grace alone.  He declares us righteous because of His great love, so great that He sent His only Son to earth to take our place under the law and on the cross. He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit in the Means of Grace to believe in Jesus and respond His love. 

     That is what we celebrate as we remember Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.  Jesus came to be our Savior.  That is what moves us to true repentance whenever God’s love is brought home to us as we hear His word.  As we hear the Advent prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, we can remember that it was God’s plan to save us.  As we hear the Advent Gospel lessons about John the Baptist calling people to repentance, that was part of God’s plan to save us.  As we celebrate the birth of the Savior, that was the fulfillment of God’s promise to send His own Son to be our Savior.  Throughout the Advent season, though, we have to remember that there is one more prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled.  We have to remember that Jesus will come again, just as He promised.  May we keep in mind that God is our Father.  He loves us and cares for us and has provided for our salvation.  Because of His great love, there should be no doubt in our minds that, yes, we will be saved.    Amen.

And the peace which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Fall At Jesus' Feet

Fall At Jesus’ Feet 

Luke 17:11-19

     The Gospel lesson for Thanksgiving is the familiar story of the healing of the ten lepers.  As you heard, one came back to give thanks and Jesus commented “Were not ten cleansed?  Where are the other nine?”  I don’t know if you have noticed, but this is always the Gospel lesson for Thanksgiving.  The thankful leper is always a good example for us of the thankfulness that should be in our hearts when we think about all of the blessings that we have received from our gracious God.  As many times as I have read this passage over the years, there is one detail that is often overlooked in the telling of this story from the life and ministry of Jesus.  We know that the man returned to give thanks to Jesus but the text also tells us that he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.  As we think about the thankful leper on this Thanksgiving Eve, may we consider what it means for our lives of thankfulness to fall at Jesus’ feet.

     When you think about it, your thankfulness is often very shallow.  When you receive some kind of blessing from God, often through the love and kindness of others, you may have thankful thoughts.  You might think to yourself, “Wasn’t that nice,” and then you move on to the next important thing that comes up in your life.  You may say the words that express your thankfulness to God or to someone else who has done something for you.  Saying the words can be easy.  It’s like when you were young and someone had to remind you, “What do you say?”  Then you mumble some words that sound like “Thank you.” That may be good training but it can also reinforce that idea that you can say things when you don’t really mean them. 

     When you think about the other nine lepers, you see a good example of people who may have been thankful that they were healed but they were too busy to come back and give thanks to Jesus because they had other things to do.  They were busy going to the priests to begin the rituals that would validate their cleansing.  Getting back to a normal life was their first priority.  It’s not too hard to find yourself falling into that category also.  Even as we observe a national holiday that is set aside as a time for giving thanks, we find ourselves so busy that the giving of thanks becomes an after-thought because we are so busy.  It has become quite common to think of Thanksgiving as a day for the three “F’s”:  Family, Food and Football.   The order you put them in is up to you.  Now it seems there is another “F” that occupies the day: Figuring out your shopping strategy for Black Friday.  Where is the giving of thanks? 

     As think of the Gospel lesson again, the thankful leper demonstrated his thanks to Jesus for his healing.  The others were no doubt overjoyed about the healing that they experienced because it meant that they were no longer considered unclean.  They could return to their families.  They could return to their trades.  They could return to society.  They had too many things on their minds to come back thank Jesus for what He did.  There was one though, when he realized the miracle that had taken place, turned back and praised God with a loud voice and when he approached Jesus he fell face down at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.  I would guess that there were tears of joy running down his face as he came back.  He praised God with a loud voice.  His shouts of “Hallelujah” mixed with the sobs of joy touched the hearts of the disciples who witnessed this miraculous sign. 

     The action of falling at Jesus’ feet though demonstrated his true, humble submission to Jesus as Lord.  He recognized Jesus as a merciful, gracious and powerful Lord.  All the blessings that he would experience as a result of being made clean from the leprosy began to flood over him and he was overwhelmed with gratitude to the point that simply saying thank you was not enough.  To fall at Jesus’ feet acknowledged that he knew that all he had and all he was came from God’s almighty and gracious hand. 

     When you think about your thankfulness, not just because it is Thanksgiving time, is it the kind of thankfulness that causes you to praise the Lord with a loud voice and fall at Jesus’ feet?  Of course it would be difficult for us to actually duplicate what the thankful leper did but do you really demonstrate your thankfulness to Jesus for all of the blessings that you have.  I don’t think any of you have had leprosy and had to live a life isolated from your family and friends because you were considered ceremonially unclean.  But you share a common affliction that can only be cured by Jesus.  That affliction is sin.  You have been carrying around that sickness since you were conceived.  There is nothing that you can do to get rid of it but Jesus has done what was necessary to remove that sickness from you.  Your sins have been forgiven by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as your substitute. The cross has become for you a symbol of the washing away of your sins.  The blessing of that washing is yours through faith.  As Jesus said to the thankful leper, “Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well.  He demonstrated his faith by humbly submitting himself to Jesus, lying face down at Jesus’ feet. 

     It is Jesus’ love for you that causes you to fall at his feet in humble submission to His will.  That could include daily worship through prayer and hearing of God’s Word.  It would include regular worship with God’s people where you have the opportunity to praise God with a loud voice as you recognize the great blessings that you have received, namely the blessing of the forgiveness of your sins, reconciliation with God, and the assurance of eternal life in heaven.  In the bigger picture of things that you experience in your life, there is nothing that can compare to the eternal blessings that you have through the merciful and gracious hand of God.  The thankful leper could look ahead to the many earthly blessings that would be his as a result of being cleansed of his leprosy.

       We don’t know if he understood the eternal implications of his encounter with Jesus, but we do know what they are.  You have to ask yourself if you have truly been thankful for the blessings that you have received.  Have you, in a sense, fallen at Jesus’ feet to show your thankfulness?  My guess is that you have fallen short of that kind of humble submission to Jesus in response to His love.  If you are honest with yourself, you would have to admit that your thankfulness has probably been a bit lacking.  It is then that you need remember that the reason for your thankfulness is that Jesus came into the world to give His life for you so that by His suffering and death on the cross and His resurrection, your sins could be forgiven, even those sins of taking His blessings for granted.  Jesus died for all sins.  He has given you the Holy Spirit so that you can believe and trust in Him for the forgiveness that you need.  That power of the Spirit then moves you to show your thankfulness to God by acts of humble service to those around you.  You can’t literally fall at Jesus’ feet like the thankful leper, but you can humbly submit your life to Jesus as you help to bring healing, both physical and spiritual to those around you. 

     I would guess that the thankful leper and probably the other nine had some pretty good stories to tell about what happened to them along the road between Samaria and Galilee.  After they went to the priests and began appearing in their home towns cleansed of leprosy they talked about the man who told them to go and show themselves to the priest because they had been cured of their terrible disease.  They had been cleansed.  Well guess what?  You have been cleansed of your sin-sickness.  You have been forgiven.  You have the gift of heaven to look forward to.  Is that important to you?  Of course it is.  Are you thankful for that gift?  Of course you are.  Then fall at Jesus’ feet and thank Him for all He has done.  Rejoice at the words that Jesus says to you.  “Rise and go your way.  Your faith has made you well.”  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

Thanksgiving Eve

"Let Earth Receive Her King"

“Let Earth Receive Her King” 

Matthew 25:31-46

     When you noticed that the sermon hymn was going to be “Joy to the World”, your first thought may have been, “Oh no!  First it’s the stores that are pushing Christmas so early, then the radio stations have started playing Christmas music already.  Now the Pastor has us singing Christmas songs before Advent.  What next?”   Actually, I’m not jumping the gun by choosing this hymn this weekend.  Earlier this year, my Sunday morning Bible Class did a study of several hymns, looking at the background and taking a close look at the words of the hymns.  “Joy to the World” was one of the hymns that we studied.  In looking up the history of the hymn, I found that Isaac Watts, who wrote a new hymn almost every Sunday to fit the Scripture readings, actually wrote this hymn for the Last Sunday of the Church Year.  It wasn’t intended to be a Christmas hymn at all.  Over the years, churches began to use it as a Christmas hymn and now it is one of the favorites.  It didn’t start out that way though.  To sing it this weekend on the last Sunday of the Church year is very appropriate.  If you look carefully at the words, it talks about receiving the King.  It talks about a time when no more sins or sorrows grow.  It talks of a time when the nations will be made to acknowledge glory of His righteousness.  That all talks about things that will happen when Jesus comes again.  There will be great rejoicing at that time for the people of God.  For the believers it will be a time to repeat the sounding joy. 

     The Gospel lesson for today is another of the lessons that Jesus taught about the end times.  Two weeks ago we heard about the wise and foolish virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom to come.  The lesson was that you need to keep your faith strong.  Have the fuel for your lamp of faith as you waiting for Jesus’ return.  Last week we heard the next section from Matthew 25 about the talents and the difference between those who saw the Master as loving and merciful and the one who saw the Master as a hard and evil man.  Today’s Gospel lesson explains what will happen in the end when Jesus comes in all His glory.  He reinforces that reality that He will be coming again.  There should be no doubt in the minds of the faithful that Jesus will return.  Even when it seemed to the believers that He wasn’t coming because it didn’t happen as soon as they hoped, they should not lose heart.  He will come again.  He spoke about it repeatedly and we know that His Word is the truth.  That is an important lesson for you today as well.  It is now over two thousand years later and He hasn’t come yet.  Should we despair and give up hope?  Not at all.  God’s people had to wait centuries for the Messiah to come the first time.  It shouldn’t surprise us that we are still waiting for Him to return.  The call to be prepared is still there. 

     The second thing that is brought out as Jesus spoke to His disciples is that there will be a separation of the people of the world when He comes.  He used an image that was familiar to people of that day.  As a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, so He will separate people.  Those who are on His right are those who will have the place of honor and privilege.  Those on the left are condemned.  The last verse of the reading tells us that those on the left will go to eternal punishment. 

     This reinforces that teaching that there will be difference at the time of the final judgment.  This is nothing new for those who had been paying attention.  Remember that this section was the final portion of a lengthy discussion of the end times.  It actually started near the beginning of Chapter 24 and continued to the end of Chapter 25.  The last three lessons that I mentioned before all talked about the difference between the faithful and the unfaithful.  The foolish virgins were left out of the marriage feast, a picture of heaven.  The servant who buried his talent was cast into utter darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a picture of hell. 

     Now Jesus becomes clearer in His description of the difference between the sheep, the faithful, and the goats, the unfaithful.  The faithful gave evidence of their faith through acts of love and service to those in need.  The unfaithful demonstrated their lack of faith by their lack of love and service to others.  You have to be careful when you hear this passage that you don’t jump to the conclusion that this passage teaches some kind of works righteousness, in other words, the idea that you get to heaven because you have done a lot of good works.  That would be inconsistent with all that Jesus taught and with all that the other Scripture writers taught about salvation.  Interpretation of the Scriptures must always be consistent with the rest of what Scripture says.  We know that we are justified, or declared righteous, by God’s grace, His undeserved love for us, for Christ’s sake, because His lived a perfect life for us and died on the cross as the punishment for our sins, and the blessings of His work for us become ours through faith, itself a gift worked in us by the Holy Spirit.  Recall Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you are 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.”  By grace you have been saved from eternal punishment because of your sins.  Grace is God’s undeserved love for you.  The salvation through Christ has come first.  Then come the good works that are a response to God’s great undeserved love.  When you truly appreciate the blessings that you have been given by having your sins forgiven, you will respond to that blessing with acts of love and mercy toward others.  That is what Jesus was saying.  The ones who were given the kingdom were actually surprised because they didn’t think that they had done anything for the King but His response was that when they did these things for the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. Those works of mercy and kindness were simply done because they reflected the love of God in their life, the love that they had already received from God’s merciful hand. 

     Those on the other side were also surprised when they were consigned to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  Their response was, “What?  We didn’t do anything.”  Jesus came back with the condemnation.  “You are right.  You didn’t do anything.”  There was no response of faith because there was no faith.  When someone tries to base a hope of salvation on works, there may be a great deal of self-satisfaction but none of those works are enough to merit salvation before God.  Because you thought that you could earn your own salvation, there was no compassion for others.  There was no real love and concern for those in need.  There was no response to God’s great love because you figured that you don’t need it.  You thought that you could do it on your own.  You can see how all of what Jesus described depends first on saving faith which trusts completely in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  By grace you are saved through faith in Jesus.  It is a gift from God. 

     That’s what it means to be prepared for the coming of the Lord.  That is what makes the coming of the Lord such a joyful time for the believer.  That is what makes it possible for us to look forward to the coming of the Lord with joy and not dread.  We wait with true faith in our hearts, a faith that responds to God’s love with a life of love and mercy that reaches out to touch the lives of those who are hungry and thirsty for the Gospel.  We love because God first loved us and gave up His only Son for us.  He is the one who rules all things, especially His church here on earth.  He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love.  All nations will be gathered before Him.  He will separate the believers from the unbelievers like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  It is then that all will acknowledge the glory of His righteousness that stands in our place and the wonder of His love that ushers the believers into eternal life.  For those on His left, it will be too late.  They will know what they missed by their stubborn insistence that they don’t need anyone’s help.  The believers, on the other hand, will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.  Together we shall sing the praises of our King for all eternity.   Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

The Last Sunday of the Church Year 

   

Prepare Your Hearts

Prepare Your Hearts

Matthew 25:1-13

     Here we are in the second Sunday of November.  We survived the time change.  We made it through the elections and all of the campaign ads and phone calls.  In two and a half weeks it will be Thanksgiving.  I would guess that there are a number of you who are planning to visit family at that time and you will be travelling.  For some it may just be a day trip but for others you may be gone several days.  Imagine for a moment that you have the car all packed and you are ready to go.  As you pull out of the driveway and start down the street you go through the check list.  Did we forget anything?  Did we turn out the lights?  Did you remember your phone charger?  Did we remember those things that we wanted to show grandma and grandpa?  Everything checks out and you are on your way.  Then there is that one thing that you forgot.  Did you fill up the car with gas?  How easy it could be to forget one of the most important things in all the rush.  You need fuel to get where you want to go.

     In a way, that was like the situation in the parable that Jesus told about the last days.  This parable of the ten virgins was drawn from the experience of the people in order to teach them something about preparing their hearts for the end time.  You get to learn a little about wedding customs but the thing that you need to learn is that each of you needs to be ready for the Lord’s coming and when that time comes there will be no second chances.  You need to be ready when the Lord’s trumpet calls.  In all things you need to recognize how the Lord has blessed you so that you can be prepared for whatever He has planned for you. 

     As you heard, this parable puts us in the middle of a wedding during the time of Jesus.  Part of the typical wedding celebration of that day was a grand procession to the place where the wedding feast was to take place.  Young women were chosen to accompany this procession and especially if it were to happen after dark, they would carry lamps which would light the way and give everything a festive touch.  These lamps were probably more like torches carried on poles.  At the top would be rags soaked in olive oil which served as the fuel.  A good supply of oil would be needed to keep the torches burning throughout the time of waiting and the procession.  We are told that five of the young women were foolish and five were wise.  The foolish ones brought their lamps but not extra oil.  The wise ones had oil in jars that they brought along.  When the procession finally was ready the five who did not bring oil were caught in the embarrassing position of having their lamps go out.  They tried to borrow some oil from the others but that would then not leave enough for any of them to complete their task.  In the end they were left out of the wedding banquet. 

     In looking at any parable, it is important for us to pick up on the one main point that Jesus was trying to make.  As we hear this story it becomes pretty clear that Jesus wanted to show the importance of having your hearts prepared for His coming. The difference between the wise and the foolish virgins was the degree of their preparation.  You have to remember that Jesus was talking to His disciples here.  It was not one of those times when Jesus had to deal with the religious leaders of the people who were out to get Him.  This was told to the disciples.  That makes this even more important for you to listen very carefully to the lesson that Jesus wanted to teach.  All of the young women had lamps.  They all started with some oil.  They all slept as they waited for the bridegroom to come.  This would tell us that to start with they were all essentially the same.  This would tell us that many people start out in the faith and then carry on with the many ordinary activities of life.  But the difference comes in the preparedness for the long haul.  The wise ones had fuel enough for the whole evening.  The foolish ones thought they could get by on their original supply.  They didn’t make use of the fuel that would have been easily available to them beforehand.  When the bridegroom finally came, it was too late for them to get more oil and join the procession and come in to the wedding.

     It was not just a careless mistake on the part of the foolish ones.  There was no second chance at that point for them.  So it will be when Jesus comes again.  You need to be prepared for His coming.  That preparation amounts to simply having saving faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  Those who believe in Him when He comes will be a part of the great procession to the heavenly banquet with Christ and His bride the Church.  Those who have allowed their faith to slip, those who have fallen away, those who have placed their trust in themselves and their own works or any other thing, will be shut out.  It will be too late at that time to run off and try to get the one thing needful that was offered so freely before.

     God has given us so many chances that those who reject that gift of grace can only be described by the word that Jesus Himself used, foolish.  Yet those who reject the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit are everywhere.  Again as we look closely at the parable you need to recognize that Jesus was saying that the foolish ones are even among us.  Even though some may be in line for the procession, their hearts may not be ready for the Lord’s return because they have continually rejected the source of power that is necessary for true faith to fill the heart.  That power comes from the Holy Spirit who works through the Means of Grace, the Word and the Sacraments, to fill your heart with the oil of faith that makes you ready to wait as long as it takes for the Savior to come.  That Spirit-endowed faith not only makes you ready to go when the Lord calls you but it also sustains you for the wait.

     Through that gift of the Holy Spirit, you are prepared to live your life for the Lord as you wait for His return.  That means that you are also ready to serve the Lord in ways that He has made clear in His Word.  A little later in this same chapter, Jesus spoke about the ways in which we serve Him by serving others.  Showing kindness and compassion to those in need, strengthening and building one another in the Lord, spreading the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, praying for and supporting the work of the church are all part of the life of faith as you wait for the time when our Savior will come to judge the world and take His people to our eternal home.  The power to do all those things comes from God.  You need to recognize that great source of spiritual fuel and make use of it in your life.  If you don’t, you are like the foolish virgins who waited with no supply of fuel for their lamps.

      You may have every intention of being a wedding guest when the invitation goes out but without the faith that trusts in Jesus Christ alone, you will be like those who come late and find the doors shut. You may wonder what went wrong but the truth is that there was no oil for your lamp.  There was no real faith and trust in Christ alone.  That is why Jesus told a parable like this to His disciples.  We know that at least one of them did not believe.  Judas betrayed Him in the end.  Jesus’ warning was to all who are His followers.  Stay filled with the power of the Holy Spirit by making good use of the Word and the Sacraments so that your faith will remain strong.  Let that faith show itself in action as you serve the Lord by serving those around you.  Use the power of the Spirit to share the Gospel with others in the time that the Lord will give you.  Just like the young women in the parable, we don’t know when the Bridegroom with come.  We don’t know when Jesus will come again but He calls you to prepare your heart with the spiritual fuel that has been so freely provided.  Then you will be able to join the heavenly celebration of the marriage of Christ and His Bride, the Church, for all eternity.   Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

22nd Sunday after Pentecost       

Fragrant Sacrifices and Offerings

Fragrant Sacrifices and Offerings                              Ephesians 5:2

     As you may have noticed in the worship folder for today, the theme of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League for this year is “Fragrant Offerings and Sacrifices.”  As we celebrate with the LWML this weekend and recognize their service to the church, may this theme text help us to see how we all by faith in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and enabled to be fragrant sacrifices and offerings to the Lord in His Kingdom.

     The letter the Ephesians is one of those letters that was written when Paul was in prison in Rome.  In spite of his own dire circumstances, he writes a word of joyful encouragement to the saints.  Paul was certainly one who could appreciate the difficulties that could be part of a life of faith.  Since his conversion on the road to Damascus, his life had changed dramatically.  In the Epistle lesson a couple of weeks ago, Paul described himself before his conversion.  Recall that he said, “circumcised on the eighth day; of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” 

     But Paul had come to the realization that all the faithful in Christ have come to understand through the power of the Holy Spirit, namely that none of our labor is acceptable to God.  We understand that none of our earthly work is acceptable in God’s sight.  All our works are as filthy rags before God contrary to what many people think about their great achievements.  On our own, of our effort, none of our works rise to the Lord as fragrant offerings or are acceptable to our Father in heaven as pleasing sacrifices.  Our God sees all our work as filthy rags, not one worthy of earning any attention from Him.

     In a sermon on this text by Martin Luther, he said, “This expression Paul takes from the Old Testament.  There the temporal sacrifices are described as being a ‘sweet-smelling savor’ unto God: that is, they are acceptable and well-pleasing to him; but not, as the Jews imagined, because of the value of the work or of the sacrifices in themselves.  For such thought they were chastised by the prophets often enough.  They were acceptable on the ground of the true sacrifice which they foreshadowed and encircled.”  Dr. Luther had a good understanding that none of our works reach God as fragrant sacrifices and offerings.  Those kinds of offerings never did reach the Lord even in the Old Testament.

     He does continue though, “They (Israel’s sacrifices) were acceptable on the ground of the true sacrifice which they foreshowed and encircled.  Paul’s thought is this: The sacrifices of the Old Testament have passed.  Now all sacrifices are powerless but that of Christ himself.; he is the sweet-smelling savor.  This sacrifice is pleasing to God.  He gladly accepts it and would have us be confident it is an acceptable offering in our stead.”

     That means that you are faced with the reality of your fallen condition.  You reminded that you are at the same time righteous and a sinner.  You have the terrible stain of sin on you and at the same time have the wonderful promise of resurrection glory on you through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This wonderful fragrant and gracious sacrifice on your behalf is the one that God receives as a fragrant offering and sacrifice.  This is the ultimate sacrificial offering but there are many others worked by our Lord Jesus in obedience to the Father.

     For example, in the beginning the Holy Spirit came to a virgin named Mary and a Son was born to her and Joseph who is named Jesus.  Prophecy had proclaimed the birth of this Child and angels sang about the birth of this child.  The shepherds and wise men rejoiced at the birth of the Child and our Father received this miraculous birth as a fragrant sacrifice and offering.  This Jesus at eight days old was dedicated back to His Father in the rite of circumcision, a fragrant offering to the Lord.  There was a wedding that was running short of wine and Jesus turned water into the best wine and the Father catches a scent of a fragrant offering.  Do you see what was happening?

     Blind people see, deaf people hear, lame people have the limbs restored, sick people are healed, lepers are cleansed, demons are cast out, mute people speak, the hungry are fed, demon possessed are  delivered, captives are set free, severed ears restored, and if that were not enough, resurrection and life become the new normal.  Our Father receives all these acts as fragrant sacrifices and offerings. All of this led up to the final sacrifice when Jesus’ blood was shed.  The perfect offering is so sweet and fragrant that it has the power to cover and remove the sin of the whole world for all time.

     That is the plan and design of God.  Jesus Christ, the perfect fragrant offering and sacrifice, the Lamb of God, was slain for all.  Not only are their names written in the book of the Lamb and in the heart of the Father but their works of faith, good works prepared beforehand that they would do, rise to throne of our Father as fragrant sacrifices and offerings.    

     It is important that you understand that when you, in obedience to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, “in your going, make disciples,” in other words, share the Gospel with someone in need of encouragement, the Father receives that as a fragrant sacrifice and offering.  When you, baptized, redeemed, Spirit-filled, consecrated brothers and sisters in Christ, particularly those who contribute your pennies, nickels, dimes quarters and dollars in the interest of missions, Our Father receives every single sacrificial mite as a fragrant sacrifice and offering.  When we all in faithful obedience, study the Word of God to show ourselves approved, when we dwell together in unity, when we faithfully hold the confession of the church in this perverse generation, when we speak faith, when we love one another, fragrant sacrifices and offerings rise up to our merciful, holy and gracious God and Father.

     Every act of obedience, every work of the saints of God, every act of faith, every word spoken in faith rises up to the Father as a sweet-smelling, sacrificial offering.  We have the awesome privilege of bringing joy to the heart of our heavenly Father by those acts of sacrificial love.  But that’s not all.  St. Paul says in Romans 12, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  It’s not just the things that you do in faith that are that fragrant sacrifice and offering.  St. Paul talks about your body.  In other words, your whole self is that fragrant sacrifice and offering to God.  All that you are, all that you say, all that you do in faith in response to God’s great love rises to God as a sweet smelling offering of love.  This gives new meaning to our life in the Lord.  It eliminates the idea that I can switch on my religious life one day and switch it off when it is not convenient.  It also makes clear to me that what I do in my everyday life can also be a fragrant sacrifice and offering when it is done in faith and gives glory to God.  When I am serving the good of others in my job, taking care of the needs of my family and friends, or serving in the church, I am offering my whole self to the Lord as a fragrant sacrifice and offering.

     With that understanding, as saints of God, let us strive with all our Spirit-filled faith to infuse the heavens with fragrant sacrifices and offerings by not simply doing, but by being those sacrifices and offerings that rise up to our loving God and Father.  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

Adapted from the Sermon for LWML Sunday

October 19, 2014

     

A People Producing Fruit

A People Producing Fruit

Matthew 21:33-46

    If you want to make people feel really uncomfortable, let them know, in a round-about way, that you know something that they did wrong.  The worse the offense, the more uncomfortable they will feel.  You confront them in such a way that you don’t exactly come out and accuse them, you let them feel the heat as they draw the conclusion that their little secret is out of the bag.  That’s what Jesus did in the Gospel lesson for today.  Among the people listening to Him in the temple area were the chief priests and elders of the people who were challenging His authority.  He responded to them by telling them a parable that, in the end, confronted them with the reality that they and their ancestors had been acting on their own human nature and not obeying the will of God.  As you heard in the Gospel reading, Jesus told the parable about the master who planted a vineyard and then leased the land to tenants who were then supposed to take care of the grapes and hand over the fruit when it was harvested.  In their greed, they killed the servants who were sent by the master until finally the master sent his own son and the wicked tenants killed the son.  He concluded by asking a question.  “What will he do to those tenants?”

The obvious answer was that the master would put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.  This is where the religious leaders of the people began to feel the heat.  They began to realize that they were the wicked tenants in the parable.  They were the ones who killed the servants, who were actually the prophets who called people to repentance and obedience.  They would be the ones who would take the responsibility for the death of the Son in just a few days.  They really felt the pressure of guilt when Jesus came right out and said that the Kingdom would be taken away from them and given to a people producing fruit. 

     Sadly, the reaction of the religious leaders was not repentance for their sins.  When they realized that this parable was really a condemnation of their idea of what it meant to be religious and how they were actually rejecting God’s mercy when they were rejecting Him as the Messiah, their reaction was not one of humble submission to God’s grace and a confession of their sins.  It was actually the opposite.  They were so entrenched in their ways that began to plot a way in which they could have Jesus arrested.  As they discussed their intentions, they also realized that the people would not support them because too many of them saw Jesus as a true prophet sent from God.  They would have to wait for another time.  Later in the week, their plan would come together when Judas conspired with them to arrest Jesus at night when there wouldn’t be as many people around. 

     Isn’t it interesting how people react when they find themselves caught in their sin?  Human nature and pride kick in and instead of honestly acknowledging sin, the reaction is to fight back.  We’ve got to stop this guy.  He’s hitting too close to home.  Things haven’t changed from the Biblical times.  When the prophets of the Old Testament called people to repentance, they were often abused and some were put to death.  Even John the Baptist lost his life when he confronted King Herod with his sin.  Now the Father in heaven has sent His own Son to confront sin and call people to repentance and what was the response of the religious leaders of the people?  Let’s have him arrested.  Let us find a way to silence this one who is challenging the good thing we’ve got going here.  It might not be exactly what God wants us to be doing but sure has been profitable for us.  We’ve got to stop this guy.

     People are just the same today though.  In our “feel good” society, no one wants to hear about sin.  No one wants to be called to repentance because that means that I have to admit that I have done something wrong.  “As I see it, I do everything the right way because it works for my advantage and therefore it must be right.  Don’t try to tell me I have sinned!”  When that kind of attitude dominates your thinking, there is no room for repentance.  When there is no room for repentance there is no need for a Savior.  If you see no reason for a Savior, you don’t see why Jesus had to come into the world and it becomes irrelevant.  That should help you to see why so many people in our world today see no use for the church.  God is seen as an on-call servant who is always ready to give you what you want to make your life more comfortable and that’s about it.  That kind of thinking changes God’s place in the parable from the Master to the servant.  The natural progression of that kind of thinking then is that if God doesn’t give me what I want then what good is He.  God becomes irrelevant and of course then the church becomes irrelevant.  People who get caught up in this kind of thinking start to drop out of the church and the result is that purely secular thinking becomes the dominant philosophy in society. 

     What the world needs to hear the most is what the world is trying to avoid.  You need to hear the Law and feel your guilt before you can feel the need for rescue from the punishment that you deserve for your sin.  It is only then that you ready to hear the good news that God loves you even though you don’t deserve it and He showed that love by sending His only Son to be your substitute.   He lived the perfect life that you could not live and then took your punishment to the cross and gave up His life.  He then rose again from the dead to show His victory over sin, death and the power of the devil.  His victory is your victory. 

     God wants to give the kingdom to a people who will produce fruit.  The kingdom was taken from those who were more concerned with building their own kingdom than producing fruit for the kingdom of God.  Just like the purpose of an apple tree is to produce fruit, more apples, so the purpose of the people of the kingdom of God is to produce more people for the kingdom.  We can carry the idea of planting apple trees a little bit farther.  Apple trees grow where apple seeds are planted.  In the same way, the seed must be planted in order for people to come in contact with the Holy Spirit who makes it possible for the seeds to grow.  In the case of the kingdom of God, the seed is the Word of God, either by hearing it or by receiving the power of the Holy Spirit through the blessings of Baptism where the washing with water is connected to the words and promises of God.  The seed is nourished and begins to grow into a plant that eventually will produce fruit. 

       As faithful fruit-bearers in God’s kingdom, it would make sense then to plant seeds.  Many people are surprised when they realize how many times each day you have an opportunity to plant a seed.  A kind word, a simple reference to God’s blessings, a cross placed in a highly visible spot in your home can all be a way in which you can plant a seed.  A greeting card with an appropriate Bible verse can plant a seed.  An unexpected kindness or gift can plant a seed.  Once seeds are planted, they need to be nourished.  An invitation to worship, an invitation to an event with a Christian theme, like our Boar’s Head Christmas Festival, can be a step toward nurturing the seedling that can then grow into a plant.  All along the way, the Holy Spirit continues to work through the sharing of the Word and fruit begins to grow.  The important thing to remember in this process is that fruit-bearing is for the kingdom of God.  It is not like those whom Jesus encountered who were more interested in building their own kingdom.  As good stewards of God’s blessings, you have the privilege of taking a small part in the building of His Kingdom.  You plant the seeds.  You nourish the plants with the Means of Grace and give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to make them grow.  You rejoice with the Church when fruit is produced because God’s Kingdom grows and like the fruit that produces more seed, the Kingdom will continue to grow.     

      Fresh apples are abundant at this time of the year.  Whenever you see one, remember that God has given you the privilege to produce fruit for His Kingdom.  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

The 17th Sunday after Pentecost

A Life Worthy of the Gospel of Christ

Live a Life Worthy of the Gospel of Christ

Philippians 1:12-14, 19-30

     It seems that everyday when you hear the national and international news there is something being reported about radical terrorist groups that in one way or another try to send a message that they want to take over the world.  Some of this comes from a religious zeal to eliminate Christianity that goes back to the middle ages and before.  It shouldn’t be surprising to us that the Christian faith has been under attack because the devil would like nothing better than to persuade Christians to give up their faith in Jesus and turn instead to human ideas of finding eternal peace and happiness.  In that way, the devil will have control.  That same kind of opposition to the Gospel of Christ was active from the very beginning of the Christian faith.  Jesus faced that opposition and it led to His death on the cross.  The early Christians faced opposition from the Jews and later the Romans and others who saw Christianity as a challenge to their pagan beliefs.  Religious persecution is nothing new.  The issue for us today is how do we respond to opposition to our faith.  In our Epistle lesson for today, Paul calls the Philippian Christians and Christians of all time including us today to “Let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ.”  As we think about what that means for our lives today, may we be strengthened and encouraged as we face increased opposition in a hostile world.

     When you are faced with opposition to what you believe and hold dear, there are a number of ways that you can respond.  Often your human nature will kick in and you rely only on the instinct to survive.  You might even panic and struggle with what you are going to do.  Sometimes you just live in fear.  You become afraid to do anything because you are afraid of what someone might say.  You are afraid that you might lose something if you stand up for your beliefs.  All of that fear simply indicates a lack of trust in the Lord to be with you.  As much as you hear how the Lord watches over you and will give His angels charge over you, when panic sets in, the first thing that your human nature does is try to figure out how you will get yourself out of this problem.  You forget God’s promises.

     Another coping mechanism that human nature encourages is to simply go along with the flow.  It’s the safe thing to do.  You see how others are prospering because they have adopted the ways of the world and it seems like the logical thing to go along as well.  This is probably one of the most common responses to opposition to the faith.  It happens all the time.  We have all fallen victim to this subtle trick of the devil.  In the end, this happens because of a lack of conviction.  You know the facts of the faith but you have a hard time putting your faith into action, especially in the face of opposition. 

     A third kind of strategy that flows from human thinking is to compromise.  After all, in our world today, compromise is seen as solution in many areas of life.  It’s what politics is all about.  Two opposing view points ultimately compromise to get anything accomplished in the government.  Compromise is necessary in order to come to some settlement on contract disputes.  Compromise even helps to bring peace in families.  Compromise is seen to be the best solution when there are opposing points of view.  But can you compromise the truth of God’s Word?  Can you compromise the truth of the Gospel of Christ?  Some churches have done that as they attempted to be more responsive to society.  But to compromise on the truth of God’s word shows a lack of trust in God’s wisdom.  When you believe and trust that God’s Word is the truth, there can be no compromise.

     For those sins of lack of trust in God’s promises, lack of conviction in what you claim to believe and teach, and lack of trust in God’s wisdom, you need to come often to God and confess your sins and seek His forgiveness in the name of Jesus.  If you are going to live in a manner that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ, you must begin with an acknowledgement of these sins and all the others that plague you daily.  That is one of the reasons that regular time for worship and personal devotion are so important for those who want to live a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ.  As you come in all humility, you are assured of the grace of God, His undeserved love for you, and the forgiveness that has been won for you by Jesus.  It is that forgiveness then that strengthens you for your daily walk. 

     When you stay close to your sources of spiritual strength, the Means of Grace, the Word and the Sacraments, you are reminded that you are committed to serve Christ.  You are not here simply to serve yourself and to try and make it through life without anything unpleasant ever happening to you.  A life that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ is a life that remembers that Jesus suffered and died for you.  Out of love for that great sacrifice, you want to respond with a life that is devoted to serving the One who gave His life so that you could be reconciled to God and be assured of spending eternity in heaven in His presence. 

     You serve the One who not only died for you but also rose again to demonstrate His victory over sin and death and the power of the devil, those same powers of evil that bring opposition and persecution into your life.  He has won the victory over them.  They can not defeat you.  Think of what a shot of courage it is to know that the war has already been won.  You may have to fight in the battles but the ultimate victory has been won by the One you serve.  The Gospel of Christ is victorious over the lies and tricks of the devil.

      The One you serve also has empowered you to stand firm in the face of persecution and suffering.  He has not simply sent you out on the battle field without armor and weapons.  He has placed you in His Church where you are prepared for battle by His Word and the Sacraments.  By the water of Holy Baptism you became a part of God’s family and you were given the blessings of the forgiveness of sins that frees you to live a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ.  You have the blessing of being able to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar for the forgiveness of sins and strength for your life.  You are encouraged by your brothers and sisters in Christ as you struggle together against the forces that would try to destroy you.  Together you can live a life that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ which Paul called a clear sign of the destruction of your enemies as well as a sign of your salvation. 

     Paul calls us to stand firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving for the faith of the Gospel.  A united stand for the Gospel sends a clear message to the world that we stand for the truth.  No fear, no giving in, no compromise of the truth.  The Gospel of Christ, that message of repentance and forgiveness through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is more powerful than any other message that is out there. 

     Paul also wanted you to know that until the time when Jesus comes again for the final judgment, there will still be struggles.  We have seen down through history that the devil is still active and will try all kinds of evil tricks and subtle strategies to get God’s people to become discouraged and fall away.  Paul presents himself as an example of the kinds of opposition and persecution that can happen when you stand up for the truth, when your manner of life is worthy of the Gospel of Christ.  But that did not deter him.  He was writing to the Christians in Philippi from a prison in Rome.  Yet he was filled with encouragement for his fellow believers.  As Paul also said, “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  The glory of eternity in heaven far outweighs the momentary troubles of this life.  While we are still here, may you use all of the blessings that God provides for His people to be strengthened and encouraged to let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ.  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, OH  

Pentecost 15