The Thirteen Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:15-27
In Christ Jesus, who by His blood purifies our consciences from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:14), dear fellow redeemed:
When Martin Luther was ordered to recant, to take back, everything he had written up to that time in 1521, he replied, “[M]y conscience is captive to the Word of God… I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience” (quoted in Kittelson’s Luther the Reformer, 161). For Luther, conscience and the Word of God were so bound up together, that to go against one would be to go against the other.
God gave us a conscience which He informs by the moral law written on our hearts. That moral law totally agrees with and is sharpened by the Ten Commandments recorded in the pages of Scripture. When our conscience is operating properly, it will help keep us in line with the Law of God. And if we are living according to the Law of God, we will have a clear conscience. But as you and I well know, living according to God’s Law is not the easiest thing to do.
When we hear about the Good Samaritan, we might think of him as a professional do-gooder, whose heart was filled with an endless supply of love, patience, and compassion to help a person in need. It seems to us that a person like this must have enjoyed a clear conscience. He was just so good. But let’s bring him back into the real world. Let’s imagine he was something like us.
The Samaritan may have had other concerns and responsibilities occupying his mind. He may have been mulling over troubles at work as he traveled. Maybe he was in danger of losing his job. Maybe he was poor and hardly able to provide for his family. Maybe he and his wife hadn’t spoken for days or weeks. Maybe his parents were beginning to need care he wasn’t sure how to provide. Maybe he was stressed and unhappy and didn’t think his life could get any more complicated or any worse. Then there was this man lying by the side of the road. Could he really handle another problem right now? Should he just pass by on the other side? Would anyone know if he did? His conscience compelled him to stop.
You can’t be a Christian without having struggles of conscience. Those struggles, those inner conflicts, are actually a blessing. If you no longer felt conflict inside, the tug and pull of what is right or wrong, then your faith would be in great danger. Life in this fallen world is not meant to be comfortable for those who believe in Jesus. He plainly said, “In the world you will have tribulation” (Jn. 16:33), and “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mt. 16:24).
Naaman felt this struggle and conflict. As soon as he was converted, he began to be concerned about having a clear conscience. His flesh was cleansed of its leprosy, and he came back to Elisha confessing the name of the true God. But though he was now clean, Naaman was bothered by something new. He would soon be leaving Israel to return to his home. The last thing he wanted was to dishonor the LORD who had miraculously healed him.
He first asked for two loads of soil, so that he could offer sacrifices to the God of the Israelites on Israelite ground. Then he brought up another issue. As the right hand man of the king, he was expected to accompany him into the temple of Rimmon, a false god. Would the LORD pardon him for doing this and even for bowing down—not out of respect for the idol but out of respect for his king? Elisha replied, “Go in peace.”
But Naaman wasn’t the only one whose conscience was troubled. Gehazi, the chief servant of Elisha, couldn’t believe his master had rejected the gifts that Naaman wished to give. Think what good that silver, gold, and fine clothing could do. After all, should the prophets have to scrape by on so little? If nothing else, couldn’t such riches be used to help the poor? This is what Judas Iscariot argued when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment (Joh. 12:4). But it wasn’t charity that drove Judas or Gehazi to speak up for the generous offerings of others. It was greed.
The love of money caused Gehazi to do great violence to his conscience. He surely reasoned it all out to quiet this inner voice. Perhaps he thought that what Naaman offered probably belonged to Israel anyway. After all, Naaman had attacked the Israelites, taking their goods, and turning them into his slaves. Wouldn’t Gehazi know how to put riches to better use than that wicked man?
Gehazi felt so sure about his purpose that he even took an oath before God that he would handle the situation in a better way than Elisha. “As the LORD lives,” he said, “I will run after him and get something from him.” Then to follow his plan through, he had to lie to Naaman and then to Elisha. Even if Gehazi convinced himself that his cause was right, his conscience was certainly not in line with the Word of God.
The tension of keeping a clear conscience was so great that Gehazi decided he would not listen anymore. We know how that feels. Every day, we are challenged by these tensions. Should I confront my boss about his dishonest business practices, or stay quiet and protect my job? Should I take the shortcuts everyone else is taking, or do what is right? Should I hide my toys so no one else can play with them, or should I share? Should I lie and keep myself out of trouble, or tell the truth?
Sometimes the cost of a clear conscience seems too great, and we make the conscious decision to go ahead with something that we know is wrong. Sure, we reason it all out to keep our conscience from screaming too loudly: “We may not be married, but we are committed.” “Who am I to say what someone else should do with her body?” “It’s not right for me to judge.” “It’s going to happen anyway whether I say something or not.” “I don’t want to be left out.” But even if our conscience is quieted somewhat, we have departed from the Word of God, and the leprosy of the unbelieving world rubs off on us. We think we can just give a little, relieve some of that tension, and still be faithful confessors of Christ.
These compromises can never deliver a clear conscience. They only make our condition worse. No amount of good intentions, compromises, or charitable efforts and good works can earn us a clear conscience. These efforts amount to selling the faith for two talents of silver and two changes of clothing which won’t help us anymore than they helped Gehazi. Then sin continues to cling to us just as leprosy clung to him.
So what can be done to get a clear conscience? If conscience is guided by the Law of God, and we have broken the Law in many, many ways, is a clear conscience even possible?
God knows the cost of a clear conscience. He knows this not because His conscience was ever dirtied or in conflict, but because He knows us sinners. He knows how utterly we failed to keep His holy Law. He knows how what He intended us to be is nothing like what we are since the fall into sin. So He resolved to send His holy Son down to earth to be “born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4-5).
Being placed under the Law, Jesus could fulfill the Law for every sinner. He could maintain a perfectly clear conscience that never departed from the holy Law of God. He was tempted in every way just as we are, but He never blurred the line between right and wrong. He never deviated from His holy task. He never set aside the Word of God—even in the smallest part—in order to appeal to more people.
He kept His conscience clear all the way through a false verdict, unmerited suffering, and a horrible death. He held fast to the promises of God; He had to follow through with God’s plan in order to redeem souls, your soul. God now declares you to be right with Him because of what Jesus did. You are now freed from the guilt of your sins. By the immeasurable price of His holy body and blood, Jesus made the payment to obtain for you a clear conscience, a conscience that is no longer imprisoned in your former darkness and sin.
So a clear conscience cannot be gotten by something you do. It is obtained by what Jesus did for you. Just as Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy in the waters of the Jordan, your conscience was cleansed in the waters of your Baptism. And that powerful cleansing remains in effect as long as you are a believer in Christ. St. Peter calls Baptism “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pe. 3:21). And the author of the book of Hebrews writes, “[S]ince we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:19,23).
Baptized into Christ, He is with you to “wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience” (1Ti. 1:18-19). He helps you to resist the temptations of this world, the devil, and your flesh, and to continuously battle to uphold the truth of His Word. You will not perfectly avoid what is wrong and do what is right. Your conscience will be sullied again by the leprosy of sin. But it is always cleansed in Christ.
Bring your troubled conscience to Him in humble repentance; acknowledge where you have fallen short; lay all your guilt before Him. Then wrap yourself up in His righteousness and grace. Know that your sins are all forgiven through the blood of Christ. The Cost of a Clear Conscience was very high, and Jesus met that cost in full for you. You can depart as Naaman did with these words of comfort in your ear: “Go in peace.”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Parable of the Good Samaritan” by Jan Wijnants, 1632-1684)
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Kings 19:9-18
In Christ Jesus, who knew exactly what to do when God sent Him down from His heavenly throne—save all people from their sins, dear fellow redeemed:
Two times the LORD asked Elijah, “What are you doing here?” “Here” was Mount Horeb, the same mountainous area where Moses received the holy Law from God. It was deep in the wilderness, south of the kingdom of Judah. Mount Horeb was a long way from Mount Carmel in the northern kingdom of Israel. Mount Carmel in the north is where the LORD showed His power over the prophets of Baal by consuming Elijah’s sacrifice with fire from heaven. When that happened, the people of Israel cried out, “The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God!” (1Ki. 18:39).
You heard about that last week. What you didn’t hear about is that Elijah commanded the Israelites to seize the prophets of Baal and kill them. The people did this; those false prophets were totally wiped out. Immediately after this, the LORD sent a great rain upon the parched land, rain that hadn’t fallen for three and a half years. Everything seemed to be changing for the better in Israel by the power of the LORD. So what was Elijah doing far away from Israel, way down south at Mount Horeb?
When Queen Jezebel learned that her prophets had been destroyed, she sent this chilling message to Elijah, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow” (19:2). She was telling Elijah that he was as good as dead. Despite his victory at Mount Carmel by the power of the LORD, Elijah was now seized with fear. He “ran for his life” as fast and as far as he could go, away from where Jezebel was.
As the days passed and the miles stretched behind him, Elijah began to feel guilty. Why did he run from the wicked queen when she was no match for the almighty LORD? How could he be such a coward? He knew that he was not worthy to be a prophet of the LORD (19:4). But as his long journey continued, and God made it clear that Elijah’s work wasn’t finished, a self-righteous anger began to well up inside Elijah.
When the LORD asked, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” he had an answer ready, almost as though it had been rehearsed. He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”
Elijah’s complaint is understandable. The pressure on him was tremendous, and he knew of no one who shared the same devotion to the LORD. Elijah felt utterly alone. He had done what God directed him to do, but what had it accomplished? King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were still in power. The people of Israel remained in their sinful ways. And Elijah had been given a death sentence. It wasn’t fair. It was too much.
I imagine you can relate to that thought: “This isn’t fair; this is too much.” You have said that when you were stretched too thin, when more was expected of you than you could deliver. Or maybe you said it when you stayed faithful to the LORD, when you said or did what was right, and your reward for it was getting attacked or punished. You have felt alone, like the weight of the world was pressing down on you, and you couldn’t see how anything would improve.
As natural as this thinking is, it is also dangerous thinking. “This isn’t fair; this is too much,” is focusing on ourselves. It is turning over and over again in our minds the wrongs that have been done to us, the injustices we have experienced, the hardships that we don’t think we deserve. Tied up in that thinking is criticism directed at the LORD. It sounds like, “God, don’t You see what is happening? Why won’t You help? Can’t You see how faithful I have been? Don’t You care about me?” We can sympathize with lonely Elijah.
And how did the LORD respond to his reasons for running and hiding out in a cave in the wilderness? He sent a strong wind that tore at the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces. Then He sent an earthquake that made Elijah shudder in his cave. Then He sent a fire blazing across the face of the mountain. But the LORD did not appear in any of these forces of nature. After the fire had passed, Elijah heard “the sound of a low whisper.” When he heard this, “he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”
For the second time, Elijah heard the LORD’s question, “What are you doing here?” And for the second time, Elijah answered just as he had before. But after having experienced the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, and with his face now wrapped in a cloak, his answer had probably lost its edge. It’s kind of comical to think of Elijah talking through his cloak, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts,” and, “I, even I only, am left,” as He stood in the presence of the holy God. He didn’t look or sound quite as defiant or justified as he had before.
And that is as it should have been. It wasn’t Elijah’s job to tell God what He should be doing differently. It wasn’t Elijah’s job to determine what the LORD should do with his efforts. It was Elijah’s job to speak God’s Word faithfully and entrust his life to the LORD. When we insist on what is fair or on what God owes us, we sound like the Pharisee in the Holy Gospel, “I thank you that I am not like other men…. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (Luk. 18:11,12). He wanted everyone to hear why God should look with favor on him. He wanted his reward.
The tax collector saw things differently. The last thing he wanted was for God to reward him for what he had done. That would mean God punishing him for his sins. He knew that is what he deserved. Instead of trying to justify himself, the tax collector humbly bowed his head and quietly prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (v. 13).
The LORD gave him the gift of repentance, which is a gift He wants to give each of us. The way He leads us to repentance is through the clear preaching of His Law. In Catechism Class last week, the students reviewed what the Law is: “The Law is that Word of God which tells us how we are to be, and what we are to do and not to do” (ELS Catechism, p. 23). But none of us likes being told what we should and shouldn’t do. That’s what makes hearing the Law painful. It exposes the sins that we would rather keep hidden. It shows us that we are not as righteous as we want to think we are.
The Law accuses us and terrifies us like the wind, earthquake, and fire that God sent on the mountain where Elijah was. The LORD described the Law as functioning like this: “Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29). The Law like a fire burns away our prideful and self-righteous thinking. The Law like a hammer breaks through the hardness and stubbornness of our hearts. St. Paul writes that the purpose of the Law is “so that every mouth may be stopped [like Elijah’s cloak wrapped around his face], and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Rom. 3:19).
But once the Law has done its work, once it has humbled us like it did Elijah and the tax collector, then we hear “the sound of a low whisper,” a gentle word, from God. He promises us that all is not lost; He has a plan. He is not here to destroy us; He is here to save. We are not alone in our guilt; He is present with forgiveness and grace. This is the message of the Gospel. The Catechism students learn that “The Gospel (the Good News) is that Word of God which reveals the salvation Christ has won for all people” (ELS Catechism, p. 39).
We need this good news because all of us have sinned. All of us have played the part of the Pharisee, wanting to be seen as righteous by the good we have done. We must bow our heads like the tax collector, each and every day, and acknowledge that we are saved solely by the mercy of God. We are saved not because we deserve it, but because in His love, God the Father sent His Son to be our Substitute and our Savior.
In our weakness and impatience we complain, “This isn’t fair; this is too much.” But Jesus went forth like a Lamb uncomplaining, bearing the guilt of the whole world, taking the entire burden on Himself. He did not run from it. He didn’t argue His innocence. He didn’t make excuses for why He couldn’t do the job. Willing, all this He suffered (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #331, v. 1).
That means your sins of fear and despair, anger and impatience, pride and self-righteousness, are all forgiven, fully paid for, blotted from your record by His holy, precious blood. Now He cleanses your heart and mind to do His will, and He cleanses your mouth for words of truth and love. He has more work for you to do in His name, just as He had more work for Elijah to do.
He told Elijah, “You are not as alone as you think.” The LORD had preserved seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal or kissed him by idolatrous worship. And He has done the same for you. He has preserved brothers and sisters in Christ in these congregations and around the world who are faithful to His Word.
His Word, both powerful and piercing in Law and calming and comforting in Gospel, will strengthen and keep you steadfast until your end, according to His gracious will.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(woodcut from “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Kings 12:26-33
In Christ Jesus, who faithfully carried out His work of redeeming love for the salvation of our weak and sinful hearts, dear fellow redeemed:
For seven years, King Solomon built a beautiful temple in Jerusalem. Its dimensions were estimated to be 90 feet in length, 30 feet in width, and 45 feet in height. The walls and floors were lined with boards of cedar and cypress. Intricate carvings were made in the wood, and then the wood was overlaid with pure gold. The Holy Place and the Most Holy Place were built within the temple. The Most Holy Place is where the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD was kept. When the Ark was brought into the temple, the LORD came in a cloud, and His glory filled the temple (1Ki. 8:10-11).
The LORD was pleased with Solomon’s faithful work. He told Solomon that if he would walk “with integrity of heart and uprightness” as David had and would follow His Commandments, then Solomon’s throne would be established over Israel forever (1Ki. 9:4-5). But He warned that if Solomon turned aside from following Him and followed other gods, his great kingdom would crumble, and even the temple would become a heap of ruins.
As the chronicle of Solomon’s life continues, we learn that he took for himself 700 wives and 300 concubines. When he was old, these wives who came from foreign lands turned his heart away from the LORD to serve their gods. Solomon built altars to their gods and joined his wives in worshipping them. So the LORD raised up adversaries against Solomon, one of whom was a man named Jeroboam. This is the Jeroboam we hear about in today’s reading.
When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam began to reign in his place. And when the people from the northern tribes of Israel asked Rehoboam to be more merciful than his father Solomon had been, Rehoboam listened to bad advice and said that he would be much harsher than his father had been. So the people in the northern tribes of Israel rebelled against Rehoboam and decided to make Jeroboam their king. This all happened according to God’s will because of Solomon’s unfaithfulness. The LORD told Jeroboam that if he would be faithful to Him, his kingdom would be firmly established.
But Jeroboam did not remain faithful, as we learn about today. He was jealous to keep his power. He worried that if the Israelites went to the temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices to the LORD, then Rehoboam might win them back. So he made a plan. He would set up new places of worship where the people could go, so they wouldn’t go to Jerusalem. He set up two calves of gold, one in Bethel and the other in Dan. And where have we heard about golden calves before? That’s the idol the Israelites made right after the LORD led them out of their slavery in Egypt.
What the Israelites said then is basically what Jeroboam said now about the golden calves, “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Jeroboam’s idolatrous plan “became a sin,” as our reading says. He promoted this idolatry by making temples on high places, appointing priests not from the Levites, and establishing a feast day “in the month that he had devised from his own heart.” This grand idea started in his heart and was guided all along the way by his heart. He would have fit right in in our culture today.
We often hear that we can’t go wrong if we just follow our heart. Following your heart is seen as the path to happiness. Ignoring what your heart tells you could lead to a lifetime of regret and unhappiness. But why do people think the heart is such a reliable guide? Has anyone’s heart ever led him wrong? Listen to how the heart is described in the time before the Flood: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Through the prophet Jeremiah, the LORD said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (17:9). Then we have Jesus’ own words about the heart: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mat. 15:19).
Clearly the heart can steer us wrong. It is not a trustworthy guide. It can and often has led us astray. So how can we know if the feelings and thoughts of our heart are good and beneficial, or if they are leading us in the wrong direction? We know this by comparing what we are thinking and feeling with what God tells us in his holy Law.
So if my heart is telling me to disobey my parents and do things they tell me I shouldn’t, then my heart is contradicting the Fourth Commandment. If my heart tells me to pursue a sexual relationship outside the blessed boundaries of marriage, then my heart is going against the Sixth Commandment. If my heart tells me to attack someone else’s reputation in an attempt to elevate myself, then my heart is violating the Eighth Commandment.
The theme of today’s service is “Beware of False Prophets.” The false prophet to be most aware of is the false prophet that lives within us, within our heart. It is the old Adam that disobeys God, and that looks with desire at what God says is sin. There are two ways that the old Adam in coordination with the devil works: One is outright opposing what God says in His Word; the other is twisting what God says in His Word.
The first is when we are tempted to reject or ignore what God says because it doesn’t agree with the way we think. We don’t want to be outsiders in the world; we want to fit in. Maybe we want to accommodate our own sin or the sin of someone else, so we write off something in the Bible as being outdated or unclear or unhelpful for the mission of the church. The other way the old Adam operates is to subtly change the Word of God, soften it, explain away something that challenges us. Maybe we excuse someone’s sin and even lend our support to it because, after all, God tells us to love our neighbor, and we interpret love as never questioning someone’s choices.
Jeroboam directly contradicted the Holy Scriptures in everything he did and said to keep the Israelites away from Jerusalem. How does Jesus tell us in today’s Holy Gospel that we will recognize false prophets? He says we will “recognize them by their fruits” (Mat. 7:16), especially by what they say. Do we say things that contradict what the Bible says? Then that is the old Adam talking and not our new man of faith.
Jesus says that those who will enter the kingdom of heaven are those who by faith do the will of His Father who is in heaven. Doing the Father’s will is believing and following exactly what He says in His Word. This is how we “hallow His name,” as we say in the Lord’s Prayer. We hallow God’s name by teaching His Word in its truth and purity and by living holy lives according to it as His dear children (Luther’s Explanation to the First Petition).
There is a reason we have to pray for this. A pure life lived according to God’s Word doesn’t come naturally to us. We struggle to hold to His Word. We struggle to do what is right. Our life is full of failures to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things” (Luther’s Explanation to the First Commandment). We have at times followed the god of self-satisfaction. We have followed the god of pride and personal glory. We have followed the god of popularity and acceptance by the world.
We pray along with King David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psa. 51:10), because we know how unclean our heart has been. David wrote these words after following his heart and succumbing to terrible sins. God forgave him those sins, just as He forgives you your sins. He knows how evil and desperately sick your heart is by nature. If it were good or even neutral, He would not have needed to send His Son to die on the cross in your place.
But He did send His Son. The coming of His Son in the flesh was necessary for you and every sinner. We needed Him to apply His perfectly pure heart to keeping the Law of God in our place, so we would be credited with His perfect love toward God and neighbor. We needed Him to hallow God’s name in every way by obeying His Father’s will and offering up His holy life for you and me.
You can’t find what you need for life and salvation in your own heart with all its wayward passions and desires. But you can find what you need in Jesus’ heart. He makes His love known to you by inviting you to partake of His means of grace, to hear His Word of truth and salvation and to feast on His holy body and blood.
What He gives you here through His Word and Sacraments may not seem as exciting or impressive as what is going on with the golden calves of prosperity, power, and pleasure that are worshipped by the world. But just as the LORD promised to be present in the Most Holy Place of the temple, so He has promised to be present here in this most holy place, where He comes to bless you with His gifts.
This is where He expresses His faithfulness to you, and where He strengthens your faithfulness to Him. This is where He cleanses your heart and pours His love into it, so it is ready for fruitful service to the people around you. This is the good plan and purpose for your life that the LORD formed in His own heart and revealed to you in His holy Word. By hearing and trusting His Word, you are submitting your heart to His will. And when you follow His heart, you will ever have His joy, His life, and His peace.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Golden Calf” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The Festival of the Reformation – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 3:19-28
In Christ Jesus, who promises that everyone who acknowledges Him before men, He also will acknowledge before His Father in heaven (Mat. 10:32), dear fellow redeemed:
We have all had the experience of trying to get ourselves out of trouble, but the more we say, the worse it gets. Maybe you broke something in the house, but instead of apologizing to your parents, you tried to pin the blame on a sibling. Or maybe you got pulled over, and your excuses for why you were speeding just made the situation worse. We are not always good at knowing when to speak and when to keep our mouths shut.
The same can be true in our spiritual life. We sometimes speak when we should be silent, and we are sometimes silent when we should speak. Today’s reading addresses both of these things. Just before our reading, St. Paul quoted from the Book of Psalms where it says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God…. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive…. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness” (3:10-11,13,14). Paul is citing God’s Law which applies to all sinners, to every single one of us.
When we hear God’s Law, we have nothing to say in response because we have failed to do what God commands us. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to sidestep responsibility for our sins. One of the hardest things for us to do is acknowledge that we have done wrong. We always want to make an excuse for why we did what we did or said what we said, excuses like:
- “He started it!”
- “If she had done what she said she would, this wouldn’t have happened!”
- “I didn’t mean to cause any harm—they’re just too sensitive!”
- “This is just how I am; I can’t help it!”
These are all statements of self-righteousness. Instead of admitting our sin and asking for forgiveness, we argue and try to pass the blame. But God’s Law does not budge. No matter how much we try to justify our actions or words, sin is sin. James 4 says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (v. 17). God’s Law does not change with the times. Misusing God’s name was a sin from the beginning, and it is still a sin. Sexual immorality is still a sin. Lying is still a sin.
We can’t talk ourselves out of the judgment of the Law. One of our hymns says it like this: “What God doth in His law demand / No man to Him could render. / Before this Judge all guilty stand; / His law speaks curse in thunder. / The law demands a perfect heart; / We were defiled in ev’ry part, / And lost was our condition” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #227, v. 2). This is what today’s reading teaches us. Paul writes, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”
He says that before the Law, every mouth is stopped. We must go silent—“zip the lip!” We have no argument to make for our righteousness. God commanded us to be perfect, and we have sinned again and again, falling far short of the glory of God. There is nothing we can do to earn our way or work our way back into God’s favor. “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight.” The verdict is clear. No matter how hard we try, we have failed. We cannot save ourselves.
Then why is it that so many Christians today think that salvation depends somehow on what they do? Though most Christians admit they are sinful, Lutherans stand mostly alone in our teaching that there is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God or get ourselves connected to Him. This has been the consistent teaching of the Lutheran Church since the time of the Reformation, and we believe it to be the historic teaching of Christ’s Church from the time of the apostles as today’s reading shows.
Martin Luther took criticism from all sides for his teaching that we are saved not by our works but only by God’s grace in Christ who perfectly kept the law for us and died to pay for our sins. The Roman Catholic theologians said that if our works are not part of salvation, then what’s to stop Christians from embracing sin if they are saved by grace alone? It must be that our works contribute in some way toward our salvation. Luther replied that good works are fruits of faith that every Christian does and should do, but it is faith in Jesus alone that saves.
The Reformed theologians told Luther that he wasn’t going far enough. He had to get rid of the empty, outward trappings of the Roman Church, such as the Sacraments. What matters, they said, is that we dedicate ourselves to God from the heart and strive to live for Him. Luther replied that if we remove the means that God has given for the formation and strengthening of our faith, we will become self-righteous Pharisees, or we will despair because we are unable to do what we have promised.
Luther’s opponents wanted him to say that we are responsible—at least in some way—for our salvation. It sounded very reasonable. Many in previous generations had taught exactly this. Luther was in a difficult spot. He could have opened his mouth and worked up some kind of compromise to try to keep everyone together. He could have aimed for personal glory and a prominent position in the church.
But he would not go against God’s Word. Standing before one of the most powerful rulers of his time, Luther refused to take back what he had written and taught. “My conscience is captive to the Word of God,” he said. “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.” Luther knew when to be silent. He had to answer to God. He would not compromise the Word of God for the sake of peace in the Church.
This is what we celebrate on Reformation Day—not so much the man since Luther was a sinner like we are. But we celebrate his faithful confession of the truth and his faithful teaching of salvation by grace alone. On the back of your bulletin, I have included a picture from the altarpiece in Wittenberg, Germany, where Luther lived. This altar painting was dedicated in 1547, one year after Luther died. It shows him preaching to the parishioners of Wittenberg. But if the picture were bigger, you could see that Luther’s mouth is closed. He is preaching by pointing.
This painting emphasizes that Luther’s work was not about him or any unique message he came up with. He preached Christ crucified like Paul and the other apostles did. It’s all about Jesus. We do not open our mouths to boast about our own good works. We do these good things quietly, for the benefit of our neighbor and for the glory of God. When we are tempted to boast or when people encourage us to be prideful, we do what the tax collector in the temple did. We humbly bow our heads and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luk. 18:13). That kind of silence about our own good works speaks volumes.
We have nothing to boast about in ourselves. But we do boast about Jesus. We boast about the salvation He won for us, not because we deserve it but because He is merciful and gracious. We deserve eternal punishment in hell. The Law condemns us. We have sinned. But God sent His Son to save us. He put Him forward “as a propitiation by His blood,” as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The holy blood that Jesus shed washes all our sin away. It washes away the sins that make us feel guilty and the imperfect works that make us feel prideful. His blood cleanses us from the many ways we have broken the perfect Law of God.
His blood was the price He paid to redeem us, to purchase us so that we might be His own. His Father accepted this payment which is why we are justified before God, declared innocent, “not guilty.” We are “justified by His grace as a gift.” The righteousness we need to stand before God does not come from us. It comes to us as a gift from God, a gift received by faith. Even our faith is a gift, worked inside us by the Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments.
This is why it is right for Paul to say in the same place that we are “justified by His grace” and “justified by faith.” It all points to Jesus. We are saved by what He did, what He accomplished, what He set out to do and finished. We will be silent about our own works which could never save us. But we will not be silent about His works which He offered as a perfect sacrifice to the Father for our redemption.
This is what Paul taught in his inspired Epistles. This is what Luther taught at the time of the Reformation. This is what we still teach by the grace of God and what we pray will be taught to generations to come. Where God calls us through His Word to be silent, we will be silent, and where He calls us to speak, we will speak—all to His glory alone.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Wittenberg altarpiece painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Younger, 1547)
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Galatians 3:15-22
In Christ Jesus, who had compassion on us and came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, dear fellow redeemed:
The Good Samaritan dressed the wounds of the Jewish man who had been beaten, brought him to an inn to take care of him, and provided funds for his ongoing care. Possibly all this happened without the beaten man’s knowledge as he slowly began to recover from his serious injuries. If he had been unaware about what had been done for him and was then informed about it, how do you think he would respond?
We would expect gratitude. He probably thought he would die on that road to Jericho when the robbers attacked him. Yet here he was getting the care he needed and regaining his strength. But suppose his attitude changed as soon as he heard who had helped him: “You say it was a Samaritan?!?” Generally speaking, the Jews and the Samaritans avoided each other. They didn’t like each other. There was a long history of animosity between them. As a rule, they would not go out of their way to help one another.
What if the Jewish man didn’t like the thought of being saved by a Samaritan? What might he do? Think about it in your own life. Imagine a person who has always rubbed you the wrong way, who has brought trouble to your life, who you might even think of as your enemy. Now imagine having a health crisis and waking up to learn that it was your enemy who called the ambulance, who sat by your hospital bed day after day until you finally woke up.
That might result in your enemy becoming your friend. Or you might be suspicious. Is he or she just trying to manipulate me somehow? What’s their angle? You might do what you could to try to cancel your debt with that person. You might say, “What did it cost you to travel to the hospital and eat in the cafeteria? I want to pay you back. Did you miss work? I can compensate you for that too.” But nothing you could do, no amount of money you could pay, would change the fact that your enemy had saved your life. What is the price tag on salvation?
This attempt to balance the scales when a great gift is received is the way many people try to level up with God. They think they can do this by the way they live their life. I expect you have talked with a number of Christians who tell you they hope to be saved because they have “tried to live a good life.” In today’s culture, “living a good life” is less and less tied to any objective standard, like God’s holy Law. It’s more of an internal calculation about what is right and wrong to me which often contradicts God’s Ten Commandments.
But even those who try to keep God’s Law to save themselves are fooling themselves if they think they have done it. God never says we should try our hardest, and that is good enough for Him. Or that as long as we generally do more good than bad, we are okay. Or that we just need to make sure we are better than the people around us.
The Law of God demands our perfection. God says that if you want to get yourself to heaven, the only way to do it is to perfectly do the right things, say the right things, and think the right things. He does not care about what the world cares about. He does not care how attractive you are, how popular you are, how successful you are. He cares about righteousness.
And you and I by our own efforts certainly are not righteous. We might be Good Samaritans in our own way, helping people in need, being generous with our time and money, lifting people up who have been beaten down. But none of these good deeds can open up the gates of heaven, so we can walk through them. Salvation cannot come by what we do because we have not perfectly kept the holy Law of God—not even close.
But St. Paul has some good news to share with us today. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he wrote that God’s gift of salvation is already ours. He explains this by taking us back to Abraham. God made a promise to Abraham. He said, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:17-18).
God made this promise not because Abraham had earned it, not because he had shown himself to be perfect. God made this promise because He is a good and merciful God who loves us, a God who promised to save sinners immediately after the first people He made fell into sin. The promise He made to Abraham was a continuation of that first promise. The gift He gives to you now stems from that first promise. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son” (Joh. 3:16).
It was only later, some 400 years after God made the promise to Abraham, that He delivered His holy Law to Moses to pass along to the people of Israel. The Law was not put in place as an alternate path to salvation, though some began to think of it this way as time went on. The Israelites later on thought they could please God by their outward behavior, even if there was no faith in their hearts. We see the same attitude in the Jewish religious leaders who actively opposed Jesus’ teaching and work. And we see the same thing today from the people who think God is pleased with them because of how well they have inwardly kept His Commandments.
But if keeping the Law is not an alternate path to salvation, then why did God give it? Paul explains that the Law of God “was added because of transgressions, until the Offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.” The LORD God gave the Law to show the people and remind them why they needed the promise.
If God had not given such a clear standard, etched in stone, what do you suppose would happen? As time passed, the understanding of His will would become weaker and weaker, and consciences would become duller and duller. Then we would have nothing to compare ourselves to but one another, and that is setting the bar pretty low.
God sets the bar high through His Law, very high—too high for us to possibly reach no matter how good we try to be. His Law shows us our sin. It condemns us. That is its chief purpose and function. The Law kills any hope we have of getting ourselves to heaven.
But God’s promise came before the Law. He promised man’s salvation apart from man’s work. He promised to provide an Offspring of Abraham, through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That Offspring was Christ, true God and true Man. When He became Man, the holy Law applied to Him too. But the Law did not break Him like it has broken us. Jesus made His righteousness clear when He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mat. 5:17).
It was a bold claim, but Jesus backed it up with perfection, perfection in His actions, words, and thoughts. He stepped in to keep the Law in our place. He shouldered our burden. He is our Good Samaritan who saw us beaten and helpless because of our sin and had compassion on us. He came to do for each and every sinner in human history what not one of us had the strength to do for ourselves. Romans 10:4 says, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
The righteousness we need to enter heaven is ours by faith in Jesus. Everything we need to be saved is supplied by Him. And He not only kept the Law for us. He also paid the consequences for our breaking of God’s Law. He suffered the wrath and punishment of God that we deserved. He endured the eternal flames of hell in our place. For every single wrong we have done, Jesus says, “I forgive you. I paid for that sin.”
Going back to the Law and relying on our own works after we have heard this, would be like the Jewish man trying to pay the Samaritan for his charity, or like trying to repay an enemy who showed us kindness as though we could undo or improve on the good that had been done. Jesus, the Son of God, perfectly lived, died, and rose again for all sinners. He is the fulfillment of that first and best promise. He is God’s gift for our fallen world and for our sinful hearts.
Of course God wants us to live according to His Commandments. He wants us to help anyone in need and show kindness to all our neighbors. But our salvation does not rely on any of that. Our salvation depends on Him. And that’s what makes us certain of it. I am saved, and you are saved because God tells us so. That’s His promise—His gift—and God’s Gift Has No Strings Attached.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from the Outdoor Service on August 25, 2024)
Presentation of the Augsburg Confession – Pr. Faugstad homily
On June 25, 1530, the Lutheran princes of Germany stood before Emperor Charles V in the German town of Augsburg and publicly read their confession of faith. They stated that they would rather die than compromise the truth of God’s Word.
Text: Romans 10:5-17
In Christ Jesus, whose perfect confession of the truth covers over our times of doubt, weakness, and faithlessness, dear fellow redeemed:
In the parts of the Augsburg Confession we have heard so far, there are two major themes that are brought up again and again. Those themes are righteousness and faith. In the Bible, “righteousness” is what it takes to be right with God. We don’t have to guess about the standard, because God has given us His standard for righteousness. He has given us ten statements—Commandments—which outline a life of righteousness.
Just ten commands—if you can live by them and keep them, you are right with God. But if you cannot keep them, then you cannot make yourself right with God. Already in the second article of the Augsburg Confession, the Reformers said this: We condemn those who “argue that a person can be justified before God by his own strength and reason” (ELH p. 9). In article four, they repeated the same thing, “We teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works” (ELH p. 9).
This teaching that there is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God does not shock us, but it certainly shocked the people in Germany and beyond in 1530. Many believed that their good works, their merits, did contribute to their righteousness before God. The Roman theologians who responded to the Augsburg Confession put it like this, “All Catholics admit that our works of themselves have no merit but God’s grace makes them worthy to earn eternal life” (“The Confutation of the Augsburg Confession” in Sources and Contexts of The Book of Concord, p. 109). So is it ultimately God’s power or our power? Is it His work or our work?
St. Paul does not leave this ambiguous or unclear in today’s reading. He writes about “the righteousness that is based on the law” and “the righteousness based on faith.” The righteousness based on the law is our attempts to do what God tells us. If we kept His Commandments perfectly, He would let us into heaven because of our own good work. But if we have not kept them perfectly, we stand condemned in our sin. It’s all or nothing. Either you are perfect according to God’s standard, or you are not.
Now “the righteousness based on faith” is not a different kind of righteousness. It is still the perfect keeping of God’s Commandments, but this righteousness comes to us apart from our works. We do not earn this righteousness; we are given this righteousness. It is the righteousness of Jesus, who did perfectly keep the Commandments. He is the only human being to accomplish this. We were all conceived and born in sin, and we continued sinning. But He was conceived in the virgin Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore He entered the world without sin.
Though in every respect He was tempted as we are, He never sinned (Heb. 4:15). He perfectly feared, loved, and trusted His heavenly Father. He perfectly loved everyone around Him. And that perfect keeping of God’s law is counted to each one of you by faith, and faith alone. Again from the Augsburg Confession, article four: “We teach that men… are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who by His death has made satisfaction for our sins” (ELH p. 9).
For this faithful confession before one of the most powerful rulers in the world, the Reformers were risking their very necks! They were willing to die for this truth. They were fully convinced that what St. Paul wrote is true: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul says nothing about God’s grace making us worthy to earn salvation, or about faith working through love that somehow earns us heaven. He speaks of the righteousness of Jesus becoming ours by faith in Him.
But where does faith come from? Is that a work you do? Paul writes, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” The power to save you and to work faith in you is in the Gospel, the good news of Jesus’ perfect life and atoning death on behalf of sinners. That is why you can be certain of your righteousness and salvation. They are gifts from God to you, received through the faith the Holy Spirit worked in you through the Word.
God has saved you. He justifies you. He caused you to believe this soul-saving truth. You Are Righteous before God by Faith. This is what the Lutheran laymen and pastors confessed 494 years ago, and by God’s enduring grace, we still confess it today to His glory alone. Amen.
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(picture of Emperor Charles V receiving the Augsburg Confession)
The Fourth Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Galatians 4:21-5:1
In Christ Jesus, through whom we have “obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (Rom. 5:2), dear fellow redeemed:
Both this week and next, you are going to hear a bit about Abraham, and how he relates to Jesus and to you. Abraham is one of the most prominent characters in the Old Testament. Christians, Muslims, and Jews all claim Abraham as a spiritual father. But as you would expect, they do not all claim him in the same way.
Christians claim him as a father of faith, whose heirs we are because we believe the promise of salvation as he did. Muslims celebrate Abraham’s righteous life and say that their own prophet Muhammed descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael. Jews make the most of their physical descent from the line of Abraham through his son Isaac. These distinctions are some of the very things Paul is addressing in his Epistle to the Galatians.
But first, a little background about Abraham. When he was seventy-five years old, God called him and his wife Sarai to leave his father’s household and go to the land of Canaan. When they arrived, the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Gen. 12:7). But to this point, they had had no children. Ten years passed, and eighty-five-year-old Abram was getting anxious. The LORD brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them…. So shall your offspring be” (15:5). And Abram believed the promise.
At the same time, it seems that Sarai was struggling. She was now seventy-five years old. If she hadn’t conceived a child to this point, how could she possibly have one now? She decided to give her female servant Hagar to Abram. If they conceived, she would consider the child of her servant as her own. Hagar did conceive, and she bore a son, Ishmael. Sarai wasn’t as pleased as she thought she would be. And this is not how God’s promise was fulfilled.
God promised a child through Abram and Sarai, and He was going to bring it about, contrary to every expectation, contrary to all human reason. So more years passed. Abram was now ninety-nine and Sarai was ten years behind him. The LORD appeared again to Abram and told him his name would now be Abraham, “for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations,” said the LORD. “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you” (Gen. 17:5-6). Sarai would become Sarah, “and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her” (v. 16).
And it happened. By that time the next year, 90-year-old Sarah and 100-year-old Abraham were holding their newborn son Isaac. He was their son, but they could not take credit for him. They knew this was pure gift from the Lord God. Abraham’s child with Hagar came from human planning. Abraham’s child with Sarah came from God’s promise.
Now here comes Paul’s question to the Galatians: Did you come to the saving faith through human effort or through divine promise? Earlier in his letter, he asked the question this way, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3:2). If their answer was “by hearing with faith,” then he had another question, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (v. 3).
The problem was that the Galatians were listening to false teachers, who told them that faith in Jesus was a good start. But unless they now followed the Old Testament rules and regulations, they could not be right with God. So were they saved by faith in what Jesus accomplished for them, or by their own efforts, or by some mixture of the two? That’s a very important question.
I think a great number of Christians today believe it is a mixture of the two—Jesus had to do His part, and we have to do ours if we hope to be saved. But that is not what we teach in the Lutheran Church, and it isn’t what St. Paul taught either. As soon as we start to trust in ourselves—even a little bit—for our salvation, we lose sight of what Jesus accomplished for us. This can happen very easily.
We can look at the bad things happening around us, the sins that so many commit right out in the open. We are rightfully alarmed and offended by these things. But there is often another thought that accompanies our concern, something like: “I would never do something like that!” or “If only others were more like me.” And then we don’t sound so different than the Pharisee with his self-righteous prayer: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luk. 18:11).
There is a difficult balance here. Of course we want to do what is good. That is what God demands of us in His Law. We should avoid temptations to sin. We should do nice things for the people around us. We should constantly strive to think, say, and do things better than we have done them in the past. But if we make progress, and if we succeed, we should remember where the power comes from to do these things, and we should remember who deserves the glory.
No matter how well we do in our own view or in the estimation of others, it is not even close to what God requires to get into His kingdom. That is the big misconception among so many Christians today. They think that God’s holiness is not so out of reach, and our works are not so far from perfection. That is not what the Lord’s prophet said. He said, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isa. 64:6). Or the psalmist, who wrote that the LORD looks down from heaven to see if there are any righteous. And what does He find? “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Psa. 14:3).
However bad the people around us appear to be, it is pure pride to think that we are better. We are not better. We have the same corrupt heart. The devil wants you to think that you are better. He wants you to take refuge in your own righteousness. He wants you to quietly judge everyone around you and never point the holy Law at your own heart. Jesus does the opposite. He sharpens the Law. He says that maybe you haven’t murdered, but have you held a grudge? Maybe you haven’t committed adultery, but have you looked at someone with lust? Or maybe you have treated your friends well, but what about your enemies?
Remaining in slavery is thinking that we can be right with God through our keeping of His Law. That makes us children of Mt. Sinai, the mountain where God gave His Commandments. But that was a terrifying place to be. The mountain was wrapped in a thick cloud with thunder and lightning and the sound of a very loud trumpet blast. Then the LORD descended on it in fire, and smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain shook (Exo. 19:16-18).
The people who think they can work their way to heaven will one day have to stand before the holy God in all His power. Then they will see how well the glory of their work matches up with His glory. It will be like comparing a child’s scribbles with the work of a master artist, or really much worse.
We cannot find our comfort and confidence through the Law. We can only find it by traveling to another mountain, the mountain of Jerusalem, Mount Zion. Abraham went there long before the holy city was established, and he brought along his son Isaac, the son of promise. God had told Abraham to offer Isaac on a mountain as a burnt offering (Gen. 22:2). As troubling as this was, Abraham obeyed. He carried the fire and knife, and Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice. “[B]ut where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” asked Isaac (v. 7). “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (v. 8).
Isaac did not die that day. God stopped Abraham just before he dropped the knife, and He provided a ram for a burnt offering instead. Some two thousand years later, Jesus the only Son of God carried His own burden of wood to the same mountaintop. There, the Lamb of God was sacrificed on the altar of the cross. There, His blood was shed to wash all the sin of all the world away.
That includes your sin, the guilt you feel for doing so little of what God’s holy Law requires, and the guilt you feel for thinking you have accomplished great things on your own. Jesus took every bit of your unrighteousness on Himself to atone for it, and in exchange He gives you every bit of His perfect righteousness. That is His promise to you by faith in Him.
You are indeed set free from your former slavery to sin, devil, and death. You don’t have to keep a record of your wrongs any more than you have to keep a record of your rights. Jesus is your righteousness. He is your life. To Him, you are no servant or slave that He might push around or give away as He pleases. He has joined Himself to you in order to give you the full inheritance of the heavenly Father.
Yes, you are no longer a child of slavery. You have been born again as a child of promise. The Lord did this for you. There is nothing you have to do to set yourself free. He won you this freedom. “Stand firm therefore,” writes St. Paul—firm in the faith, firm in Christ your Savior.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of Abraham viewing the stars from 1919 Bible primer book by Augustana Book Concern)
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Luke 10:23-37
In Christ Jesus, who always loves us, his neighbors, as himself, dear fellow redeemed:
The lawyer was not happy. After all, he was an expert in the Law. He knew what the Law said and what it meant. And yet, in a verse that came just before our text for today, Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Luke 10:21). Not only did this suggest that little children knew more about the Law than the lawyer did, but this also suggested that faith, given by God, was all that was required to understand the Holy Scriptures and to be saved. The lawyer had to prove that he understood the Law better than little children, better than Jesus. So, he put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life” (verse 25)?
The Law clearly stated what a person had to do to be saved, so if Jesus’ answer showed that he did, in fact, believe that it was by faith that a person was saved, he would prove his ignorance. However, Jesus didn’t answer the lawyer’s question. Instead, Jesus turned it on him, saying, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it” (verse 26)? While not what the lawyer was expecting, he now had a chance to prove that he understood the Law. So, he summarized the Law by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (verse 27). Jesus then responded to the lawyer by saying, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live” (verse 28).
Wait, so Jesus didn’t think that a person was saved by faith alone? That’s what Jesus’ response sounded like to the lawyer. However, that’s not what Jesus meant. He was actually trying to get the lawyer to see that he couldn’t live up to what the Law demanded and that it was purely by God’s grace and mercy that he was saved. But the lawyer didn’t see what Jesus wanted him to see. Instead, the lawyer shifted his goal to justifying himself. Jesus had told him to “do this,” but he already thought that he had. He had loved God like he should and his neighbor as himself—as long as “neighbor” was defined in a certain way. To see if Jesus saw things the way he did, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
This question was intended to prove to Jesus that the lawyer was needed to legally define what a neighbor is. After all, in the lawyer’s mind, since the Law was given by Moses to the Jews at the Mount Siani, then a neighbor had to be someone within the Jewish community, and he wanted to make that belief law. However, Jesus didn’t give the lawyer the justification he was looking for. Instead, Jesus showed that everyone is our neighbor, and therefore, (1) we’re not to show our love just to those we think deserve it, but (2) we’re to show our love to everyone, just as Jesus loves all of us.
In the parable, Jesus not only put the priest and the Levite, whom the lawyer would associate himself with, in a bad light, but he also put the Samaritan in a good light. The Samaritans were certainly not people whom the Jews would consider to be their neighbors. They were a mixed race and didn’t follow the Old Testament to the letter like the Jews did. But by using the Samaritan as the good example, Jesus made his point abundantly clear, so that even the lawyer had to admit it when he said that the one who “proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers” (verse 36) was “[t]he one who showed him mercy” (verse 37), or the good Samaritan.
When we hear accounts from the Bible like these, we can often times think to ourselves, “Yeah! You tell them Jesus!” However, we fail to realize that Jesus was not just speaking to the lawyer. He was speaking to all of us. Like the lawyer, there are those whom we don’t think deserve our love. Maybe it’s because they are murderers. Maybe it’s because they committed adultery. Maybe it’s because they didn’t keep a promise that they made. Or maybe it’s simply because they don’t belong to our group, like how the Jews viewed the Samaritans.
There are even times when we don’t think that those whom we would normally consider to be our neighbors deserve our love. In times like these, we act like the priest and the Levite, who passed by a fellow Jew in need of their help, simply because it wasn’t convenient for them. We might be willing to help someone in need, as long as it’s convenient for us or it benefits us. But, if we think that people have to deserve our love, then we also have to admit that we don’t deserve God’s love.
Since we have to keep the entire Law in order to earn God’s love, as Jesus told the lawyer, then we have to admit that we’ve failed. Sure, on the surface it may look like we’ve kept the entire Law, but Jesus shows us that it doesn’t take much to break the Law. We may think that we haven’t murdered anyone, but Jesus says that “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22). We may think that we haven’t committed adultery, but Jesus says that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). We may think that we haven’t sworn falsely, but Jesus says, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Matthew 5:37). We may think that we don’t have to show love to our enemies, like how the Jews thought they didn’t have to show love to the Samaritans, but Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). And these are just some of the ways that we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We’re like the man who was attacked by robbers; beaten, bloody, and clinging to life; except we’re not the victim. We’re that way because of the sins that we committed, and Jesus would have every right to pass us by on the other side of the road and leave us to the fate that we brought upon ourselves. But he didn’t. Instead, like the good Samaritan, he came to help us in our time of need.
During his life on earth, Jesus was a good Samaritan in every way that we failed to be. He had compassion on those in need, feeding those who were hungry, healing those who were sick, and casting out demons. He didn’t let the background of others stop him from helping them. In fact, he would often times associate with Samaritans and those whom the religious authorities considered sinners. He even showed love to his enemies, praying while he was on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). And he wasn’t concerned for his own wellbeing, putting the wellbeing of others before his own, with the ultimate example of this being that he willingly laid down his own life for our benefit. As the apostle Paul says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
On the cross, Jesus paid the price for all of the times that you didn’t show love to your neighbors. You did nothing to deserve the love that Jesus showed you, for you were completely helpless and dying on the side of the road. But Jesus washed your wounds with the waters of baptism, nursed you back to health by feeding you the medicine that is his own body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, and clothed you with his own perfect and holy garments. Because of what Jesus did for you and still does for you, you haven’t just received the forgiveness of sins that he won for you, but his perfect fulfillment of the Law has also been applied to your life. Now, the Father no longer sees the beaten and bloody sinner that you once were, but only the new man that his only begotten Son, Jesus, made you. This is the same message that Jesus was trying to get the lawyer to understand, that he had come to save sinners and open heaven to all who trust in him.
The lawyer didn’t get the answer from Jesus that he was looking for. He thought that he had a better understanding of what a neighbor is than others did, and he thought that by showing love only to those whom he thought deserved it would earn him a place in heaven. Jesus showed him that his understanding of what a neighbor is was wrong and also that he needed the grace and mercy that only God can give in order to be saved. It is a message that the lawyer needed to hear, as well as all of us. We have not loved our neighbors like we should, but Jesus has loved us. Because of his love we now live, and because of his love we love one another as he has loved us.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Parable of the Good Samaritan” by Jan Wijnants, 1632-1684)
Circumcision and Name of Jesus – Vicar Anderson sermon
Text: St. Luke 2:21
In Christ Jesus, who when the fulness of time had come, He came down from heaven, was born of flesh and under the law for you, dear fellow redeemed:
When I was studying to go into law enforcement, I went on some ride-along’s with my local police department. On those ride-along’s, I was able to hear the question asked from an officer’s point of view, “do you know the reason why I pulled you over?” This is the question that no one wants to hear because when you hear this question, it means that you have probably done something wrong. And, usually you know you did something wrong. Depending how serious the crime is, someone could find themselves in court. They might get their time reduced, or they might hear that judge bring the gavel down and say guilty. Laws keep us safe from danger. We know that these laws keep us safe yet we usually don’t like to follow them. We also see God’s laws and find ourselves relaxed in following those too. In fact, we have broken every one of them. What will He do to us? Will the perfect judge condemn us? God shows how much he cares about us with the text for today. He knows that we can’t fulfill the Law, so the lawgiver himself has come to fulfill it!
Mary and Joseph waste no time in following the commands of God. The law states that “on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised” (Leviticus 12:3). We see the care that Mary and Joseph had for the Word of God. They were devout believers in His promises. They followed what the law said concerning their new born son. However, this law is more than a Law handed down by Moses. Circumcision started long before this in the command that God gave Abraham in Genesis 17. [God] said to Abraham, “this is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised…Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant (10-12, 14.)”
What is so special about this covenant? This is God giving Abraham a promise and setting Abraham and his descendants apart from the nations around them. This promise is that God would be with him. Abraham would be the father of many nations. His name would be great! There was also the promise of the Savior that would come through him. God told him when he called him that, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12: 3). Now the Savior had come from the line of Abraham. To keep the promise given to Abraham, Jesus is circumcised, made a member of the people of the covenant, placed under the law. Jesus has no need to obey the law for himself as He is God. The law was given to the people. God told them that they are to keep these laws. When they keep the law they are showing that they trust God. It also shows how they are separate from the heathen nations. The heathen nations did despicable things. If the people of the covenant, God’s chosen people sinned, then they had to repent.
Looking in the Old Testament, it is apparent that many of the Israelites did not follow God’s law. They simply defied them. They were God’s chosen people. Yet they were often at war with God and his laws that He had given them. They were punished for their sins and when they repented, God would come to them as a loving Father to his children. As the Jews attempted and failed often to obey God’s law, they had to bring sacrifices to God. They needed many, many animals to shed their blood. This was done to look ahead to the coming one. But often the Israelites would only go through the motions with these sacrifices and were not actually sorry for their sins. Or they thought that the sacrifice was what did the job. The Israelites deserved the punishment that was given them because of the law that they had broken.
Like the Israelites of old, we see God’s law and we fail to follow them. We work very hard at it, but it never comes to fruition even if we are trying our best. We also can find ourselves going through the motions. We might not think about the prayers that we are saying. Some of the prayers that we say we might not even mean them. If we fail to repent of our sins, then our confession is meaningless. It can be easy to do that if we believe that “God will just forgive me anyway, he knows that I’m trying. He knows that I’m not as bad as other people.” If we don’t repent of sins and are sorry for them, we can go to communion and take it to our harm. This is the danger of getting set in the motions because then why should we be at church at all. This is the danger of being stuck in our sins.
This time of year is a great example of this taking place. Now is the time that people are going to start their new year’s resolutions. We will start them with great anticipation and the hope that they will stay with it. Unfortunately, we are very quick to lose interest in something that could help us. We make the promise and then we break it. We treat our sins the same. We will promise God that we will try our best to keep his law. We make a promise and then we don’t keep it. We lose interest and we keep doing them. We need someone to fulfill the law for us.
Jesus follows the commands of God not for himself, but for sinners. This event is the first time in Jesus early life that he sheds his blood. At eight days old Jesus had already shed blood for you. We know this shedding of blood would have to be more. This is the start. Jesus following the law at eight days old makes him obligated to keep the law. From His infancy to adulthood, He fulfilled the law completely for you. He then shed his blood and gave his life for you on the cross. He didn’t have to do it. He was perfect in every way. But He wanted to do it for you. Only the lawgiver, God in the flesh, could come down and keep the law for you and take away your sins. We see that in our text today. Jesus as a baby, being put under the law.
The name He was given also described His purpose. He is given a name of utmost importance. A name whose definition is the sole reason that he came down from heaven, for our salvation. Mary and Joseph were both told that they would name this child Jesus because “He will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus fulfilled the law to redeem all people. He took on the pain, woe, and suffering for all people of all time. He did not live this life for himself, he lived it for us.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians shows us how important it is that Jesus went under the law for us. Paul writes, “But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoptions as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Because of what Jesus has done, we can go to God as children go to their dear Father. God sees that the law has been completed by His son Jesus Christ. He lived out His life as an act of obedience. This act of circumcision obeyed the Old Testament law for baby boys. This was only the beginning. Jesus continued to obey the Old Testament law up to his death on the cross.
Jesus’ circumcision fulfilled the promise that was given to Abraham and his descendants. With Jesus being circumcised, being brought into the Abrahamic covenant, all families of the earth have been blessed. Now that Jesus has fulfilled the law for us, what about circumcision? Is it needed? We see the battles that Paul fought in the New Testament that this is not the case. Circumcision does not bind us to the promise, but Jesus instituted something else that does. Paul explains that we have been circumcised in another way.
“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12). Your baptism connects you to what Christ has done. In your baptism you are buried with Christ and you now walk in newness of life. Your Savior, God in the flesh, has obeyed the law for you. He began his journey as a baby, going to the cross, completing it.
No one can imagine a lawgiver being the one who has to fulfill his own law. Now we see Jesus our Savior. He was given a name that was known from eternity. He was put under the law for us. We don’t have to despair when we fall short of God’s law. He sent his only Son to obey his law willingly for us and Jesus shed his blood willingly. He is our Savior. His name tells us so. His obedience shows us so. Our sins have been washed away. At eight days old we see how much Jesus loved us. He did this for us in our place. We can begin the new year with no worries since the law has been fulfilled! Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Nativity at Night” by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490)
Christmas Eve – Pr. Faugstad homilies
Text: Galatians 4:4-5
I. But when the fullness of time had come,
Adam and Eve knew this time would come. Their son Seth and his son Enosh knew. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew. David knew. And the lowly virgin Mary knew. They knew that God would send a Savior for them, One who would crush the head of Satan and undo the curse of sin (Gen. 3:15). But when would the Savior come? Thousands of years had passed since God first promised a Savior. When would the promise be fulfilled?
The apostle Paul answers: it was “when the fullness of time had come.” Just as we cannot predict when our Lord will return again in glory, we could not have predicted when He would come in the flesh. The people of Israel were to expect the fulfillment of God’s promise at any time, just as we are to expect His promised return at any time.
God always knows the best time. There is nothing hidden from Him. He sees everything in the past and in the future as though it were happening in the present. He knew when the time was right to carry out His promised plan. All the prophecies of the Old Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit, pointed to this time.
Now was the time for a prophet like Moses to rise up (Deu. 18:15). Now was the time for the virgin to conceive and bear a Son who would be called “Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). Now was the time for a Shoot to grow from the stump of Jesse (Isa. 11:1), a righteous Branch from the royal line of David (Jer. 23:5). Now little Bethlehem would be back on the map (Mic. 5:2). Now was the time for shepherds to see the night sky light up with the glory of the Lord and hear the history-altering words of those herald angels.
Hymn: #125.1-2 – “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
II. God sent forth His Son,
“God sent forth His Son.” They are simple words, but who can truly appreciate their meaning? We might expect the righteous God to send His eternal Son to condemn this broken, sinful world. Isn’t that what we would do? If you handed the keys to a brand new car to a friend and said, “I trust that you will take good care of it.” And your friend drives around recklessly damaging everything in his path and then crashes your car and destroys it, you would be very angry. You would want justice and repayment.
And what if your friend tried to put the blame on you? “Well, it’s not like it was a very nice car. You could have done a lot better. If you had made a better plan, none of this would have happened!” That’s what Adam and Eve did; they tried to put the blame on God and each other. And we keep on doing the same thing. Each one of us has broken God’s Law more than we know, and yet we still find it easy to blame God and one another for our troubles.
How should God respond to such wickedness? He responded not with anger but with grace. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Joh. 3:16-17). That is good news—glad tidings of great joy.
Hymn: #123.1-4, 13 – “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come”
III. born of woman,
Human beings have done some great and mighty things. People have climbed the highest mountains and explored the oceans’ depths. They have built impressive structures and developed life-changing technologies. But no one with their accomplishments or inventions—no matter how great—can hold a candle to what Mary did.
Mary of Nazareth would have never been described as someone who was “going places.” She did not strive for or expect to be a “somebody.” She wanted to marry a poor craftsman, set up a warm home, and hopefully be blessed with children. All that changed when the angel Gabriel suddenly appeared saying, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” (Luk. 1:28). The angel explained that Mary had found favor with God, which tells us that she believed the promises of God’s Word.
The angel told her that she would conceive and bear a Son, whom she was to name Jesus. He would ascend the throne of His ancestor David and reign over an everlasting kingdom (vv. 31-33). “But how could a virgin bear a child?” Mary wondered. The angel said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (v. 35). That’s what made Mary so great—she was chosen by God to carry and care for the incarnate Son of God, the holy Christ-Child, who came to bring peace on earth to men.
Hymn: #113.1-2 – “A Great and Mighty Wonder”
IV. born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law,
For us, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem has a warmth to it. We put nativity scenes in our homes that make it seem like Jesus couldn’t have been born under more favorable conditions. But we must remember why this sweet baby was here. The eternal Son of God had taken on flesh, so that He might do everything for us that we had failed to do.
He was “born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.” By becoming a man, He made Himself obligated to His own holy Law. He had to live up to every rule and regulation of God, not only in His actions and words but also in His thoughts. And that is what He did. At every stage of His life—infant, toddler, child, teenager, adult—He perfectly adhered to the Law of God. He did not have anything to gain from it personally, since He was already perfect from eternity. But you and I had everything to gain by it.
No human being had ever kept the Law of God. All of us had fallen far short of God’s requirements. So the perfect, unreachable standard of God’s Law cursed us and condemned us. It told us that we had sinned against the holy God and must face His wrath. Except that God Himself intervened. He couldn’t undo the Law—His Law is perfect, and He is neither capable of nor interested in imperfection. But He could send His Son to take our place and fulfill the Law for us.
That is why God’s holy Son was here. He was here to redeem our sinful lives by His perfect life. He was here to pour out His holy blood on the cross to satisfy the righteous wrath of God. He came down from His exalted throne for no other reason than to save our fallen race.
Hymn: #127.1-2, 5-6 – “I Am So Glad When Christmas Comes”
V. so that we might receive adoption as sons.
A child who is adopted does not do anything to get adopted. He is chosen by others to be their child, live in their home, and receive their care. That is how it is with us and God. We did not choose Him; He chose us. We do not go to Him; He comes to us.
Like an orphan, you may feel as though you hardly matter to anyone. You might wonder if anyone really cares about you. You might think to yourself that everyone would be better off if you were gone. But that is not what God thinks. He created you and formed you in your mother’s womb with a care that would make even the most skilled craftsmen bow their heads in awe.
Not only that, but God sent His only Son for you, to suffer and die for you, so that you would have eternal life. He brought you to the waters of Baptism, so that you could learn how much He cares for you. He claimed you through those waters. He adopted you as His own child and put His name on you. He said to you that day, and He says it every day since then, “All that I have is yours. My holiness is yours. My life is yours. My kingdom is yours.”
Everything Jesus obtained for you by His perfect life, His innocent death, and His victorious resurrection has been given to you by your merciful Father in heaven. Jesus became your Brother in the flesh, so you would inherit everything that is His. He became a lowly Servant, so you would become an honored lord.
Hymn: #148.1, 6-8 – “Praise God the Lord, Ye Sons of Men”
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(picture from “Shepherds Visit” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)