The Third Son

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, yesterday.]

Matthew 21:23-32

When I look back on the messages I’ve preached about today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 21:23-32, through the years, I’ve mostly gotten it wrong.  My sermons have basically gone like this: “Be like the first son in Jesus’ parable and not like the second son. Amen.”

Now, that’s godly law, of course. It is right to honor our fathers and mothers and others in authority over us, which is what the fourth commandment tells us to do. Both sons failed to do this, whether initially or later.

It is right to not bear false witness, which is what the eighth commandment tells us not to do. The first son violated this command by saying yes to his father’s order to work in the field and then not doing so.

We certainly need to hear these and the rest of God’s Laws given in the Ten Commandments:

You shall have no other gods;

You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain;

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;

You shall not kill;

You shall not commit adultery;

You shall not steal;

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, spouse, workers, livestock, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

These commands are still God’s will for us and as people born into sin, each of us is liable to the fire of hell for our violation of God’s Law.

The problem, of course, is that we all know the Law and the will of God is–it’s summarized by Jesus as “Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as you love yourself”--but we don’t obey God’s Law.

“In my inner being I delight in God’s law,” the apostle Paul confesses in the New Testament book of Romans, “but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:22-23)

Knowing God’s Law informs us of God’s will for us human beings.

It may even lead us to regret our sin.

But knowing God’s Law or even having regret will not fit us for life with God.

Only the righteous will be fit for eternity with God. Jesus says, “Unless your righteousness [meaning, your innocence of sin, your perfect submission to God, your complete selflessness in relationship to others] surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

So, what’s to become of us?

How can we possibly be that righteous?

That innocent and pure and sinless?

The chief priests and the elders of Jesus’ day were sure they had cracked that code. They thought they could make themselves righteous by obeying God’s Law.

They were so certain that they had made themselves righteous that when John the Baptizer had called people to repent–that is, to turn from sin and to turn to God for forgiveness–in order to prepare for the coming of the Savior, Jesus, they refused to repent or receive John’s baptism of repentance.

Like the second son in Jesus’ parable, they claimed to say, “Yes” to God; but when God’s call to repentance and faith came to them, they said, “No.”

Meanwhile, prostitutes, corrupt tax collectors, and other notorious sinners who had been saying, “No” to God all their lives, like the first son in Jesus’ parable, heard John’s call to repentance, recognized and turned from their sin and turned to faith in God.

All of this lay in the background of today’s gospel lesson.

It takes place on the Monday of what we call “Holy Week,” the day after Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. On that day, you’ll remember, Jesus had turned the money-changers, extortionists authorized to be there by the chief priests and the elders, out of the temple, overturning their tables and loot and freeing the sheep and birds they were selling on the temple grounds.

The next day, when Jesus and His disciples show up at the temple, they ask Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things?...And who gave you this authority?” (Matthew 21:23)

Jesus wasn’t a seminary graduate. Nor was He ordained by them. Where did His authority, not only for His Palm Sunday temple tantrum, but for forgiving sinners, healing, casting out demons, and raising people from the dead, come from?

Jesus’ exchange with them is well known. Jesus tells them that before answering their question about where His authority came from, they needed to answer His question to them: Did John the Baptizer’s authority to repent people, that is, to turn them from sin and turn them to God, through water and the Word, come from? Was it from God in heaven? Or had John simply authorized himself?

If they said John’s ministry had come from God, they would have to answer why they had rejected John; if they said John was a loose cannon with no authority from God to preach or baptize repentance, they would anger many who had valued John’s ministry.

So, the chief priests and the elders refused to answer Jesus’ question. “We don’t know,” they said.

Jesus then says if they won’t answer Him, He won’t answer them. To these hard-hearted men, sure of their own righteousness, Jesus used what we call the binding key of the Law, instead of the loosing key of the Gospel.

He let the chief priests and the elders stand in condemnation for their sin because they refused to acknowledge what is true for all of us: They were sinners in need of God’s forgiveness.

But Jesus doesn’t give up easily on sinners. So, he tells the priests and the elders the parable of the two sons we hear in our lesson. The first son is like the chief priests and the elders, and maybe like you and me, saying yes to God, but then turning away. These are the people of good intentions: their spirits are willing but their flesh is weak. I can certainly be like this.

The second son is like willful sinners, and maybe like you and me sometimes, saying no to God, but then, when God’s Word works on us, calling us to turn to God and to God’s way, for forgiveness and life with God, saying yes to His grace and forgiveness.

But, friends, there’s a third Son in our Gospel lesson for today. This son, unlike the other two, isn’t a fictional creation of Jesus. This Son is very real.

This is the Son Who said to His Father after His Father told Him to go to a cross to offer His sinless life on a cross so that sinners like you and me can be forgiven and can have life with God, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [of suffering and death] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

This is the Son Who, though without sin, insisted that John the Baptizer baptize Him in the Jordan, where He took on the condemnation of our sin and our death in order “to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15)

Jesus gave up His righteousness to us, becoming sin who knew no sin, so that in the only perfect act of love and obedience this world has ever seen, rendered on the cross, He could take our guilt and give us His innocence.

He could overcome our selfishness with His selflessness.

He could take blame for our rebellion against God’s Law of love by submitting totally to God.

Jesus is the Son Who says “Yes” to God’s call to die and rise for us and then, despite the pain, the humiliation, and sorrow of it, does just that.

It’s because of Jesus and through Jesus, the faithful Son, that you and I, fickle and often faithless sons and daughters of God, can daily turn to Him, unloading our sins onto Him at the cross and be justified, made righteous and clean and eternally new in the eyes of God.

This is Christ’s promise to you, friends: the repentant receive God’s yes through Christ, no matter how many times we may have previously said, “No” to Him.

“For,” as Saint Paul writes, “ no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)

Jesus, the obedient Son, has said yes to the Father and in doing so, has said yes to you!

Because of that, you can turn to Him and live forgiven and free, today and always. Amen

Living Shrewdly

[Below, you'll find the live stream video from both of the morning worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, as well as the text of the message shared at each service. I hope you find it helpful. Have a good week!]





Luke 16:1-15

The parable that Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson has caused Christians untold confusion through the centuries. So, let’s dispel the confusion right off the top!

Through this piece of fiction created by our Lord, Jesus is NOT approving stealing or dishonesty. God never contradicts Himself. So, Jesus, God the Son, isn’t using this parable to abolish the seventh commandment–”You shall not steal”--or the eighth commandment–”You shall not bear false witness.”

The rich man in Jesus’ parable does NOT compliment the dishonest manager for lying and stealing. The text itself tells us exactly what impressed the rich man in Jesus’ story. Verse 8: “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly…” (Luke 16:8) The word “shrewdly” translates the Greek word Luke uses here, φρονίμως, which can also be translated as wisely or prudently. The rich man praised his manager’s wisdom.

All of this raises a question. What made the dishonest manager in Jesus’ story wise? And, since Jesus told this particular parable to His disciples–believers in Him, like you and me–what does it mean for disciples to be wise?

First, being wise means hearing and understanding the implication of God’s Law. After the rich man fires the manager, he tells the manager that he must give an account of all he had wasted of the manager’s possessions. God’s Law tells us that we, like the dishonest manager, must give God an account of how we have managed or stewarded the gift of life He has given to us.

Folks, every minute we breathe is a gift from God Who formed us in our mothers’ wombs. The average American will live 40,498,088 God-given minutes on this earth. God’s Law demands, as Lutheran theologian Bo Giertz once noted, that we are accountable to God for our “thoughts, words, and deeds…[our] invisible desires and hidden prideful thoughts.” Every adulterous thought, every piece of gossip, every time we have spoken God’s name in vain, any time we’ve craved the possessions, successes, or blessings enjoyed by others, whenever we have been disrespectful of our parents or others in authority, are all instances of you and I squandering and mismanaging the minutes of life God gives to us.

In another of His parables, Jesus tells the story of a rich fool who wastes the minutes of his life by building bigger barns to hold all his wealth so that he can, in complete selfishness, tell himself to eat, drink, and be merry. But, Jesus says, before the fool can finish building his new barns, God steps in and tells him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.” (Luke 12:20)

Only a fool would think that they can live a life of unrepentant sin, misusing the gift of life God has given to each of us, and not have death, the rightful punishment for sin, catch up with us. And for those tempted to think they can manage their lives in a way pleasing to God in their own power and goodness, God’s Law disabuses us of such notions. Jesus says in Matthew 5:20, “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” And, in Matthew 5:48, he tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

How many perfect people do we have here this morning? I know I’m not one.

Being wise means hearing and understanding the implication of God’s Law.

But being wise also means understanding that there’s a deeper truth God has set loose in the universe. Being wise means receiving this truth with faith acting on the basis of that truth while we still have time.

What do I mean?

In Jesus’ parable, the manager was fired one day and told by the master that he needed to bring the books to the rich man the next. What he did was not in itself commendable: He called in his master’s debtors and forgave them massively. Of the two debtors Jesus mentions in the parable, the manager took it upon himself to forgive each of these men who probably farmed on the rich man’s land, an amount equal to more than 500-days wages a piece! The manager was using his boss’ wealth to win welcoming friends for himself.

Now, this would seem to be a risky ploy by the manager! If the rich man gets wind of this scheme, he could end up not just fired, but in prison!

Of course, it turns out that the rich man does find out. And this brings the unexpected plot twist of Jesus’ story. The rich man overlooks the dishonest manager’s crimes. That’s because, even if the manager is being unscrupulous, he’s finally, maybe for the first time since the rich man hired him, actually managing the rich man’s possessions. 

There appears to be a good reason the manager knew he could take such a chance. It’s this: The manager knew the heart, the character, and the kindness of his master.

Just like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) in the parable Jesus tells just before this one in Luke’s gospel, the manager knew that his master, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, wanted to forgive him.

And, friends, the crucified and risen Jesus, God the Son, Who died and rose for our sins, demonstrates how much God wants to forgive us our sins and give us life with God as free and gracious gifts for all who believe in Jesus! God wants to do that for us even though none of us has ever consistently managed the gift of life God has granted to us with faithfulness or wisdom.

Jesus isn’t telling us that if we lie and steal, we’ll be acting wisely. He IS telling us to wise up and understand that, even more than was true of the manager in today’s parable, we can trust in the kindness and grace of the God we meet in Jesus Himself to cover our sins! The God revealed to us in Jesus is effectively telling us again today: “The time has come…The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)

The good news, or the gospel, tells us that while we have all failed to be good or sinless managers of our lives, God sent Jesus into the world and, according 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus bears the weight of our sin so that we can receive His righteousness!

In light of such love and grace and in light of our failure to measure up to the righteousness of God, the only action that makes any sense for us is to turn in repentance and faith to Jesus each day, to trust in Jesus for God’s charitable forgiveness of our sin, that is, for grace, and for life with God that begins now in this crumbling universe and continues into eternal perfection that death cannot destroy!

Those made wise by God’s Word know that when we daily–even moment by moment–throw ourselves on the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, all our misuse of this life is forgiven and we are made eternally clean and new!

God’s Word tells us: “..all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [but] all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

The one who daily turns to Jesus in trust is leading a life of God-given wisdom. Amen!

Justified by Grace Through Faith in Jesus Christ (with audio)

[This message was shared yesterday during Reformation Sunday worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Romans 3:19-28

Today is Reformation Sunday, a day that calls us to focus on the whole idea of righteousness and what it means to be righteous.

These are two words used a lot in the Church, but hardly ever in the rest of the world. But according to the Bible, the Word of God, being righteous is of eternal importance to every human being. Righteousness is the quality we must possess in order to claim an eternal place in heaven and avoid eternal consignment to hell. 

So, this business of being righteous is, to put it bluntly, the single most important thing any of us can appreciate, appropriate, or understand. And that’s no overstatement.

To be righteous means to be in sync with the Law of God, the will of God for human beings. To be righteous is to walk in the ways of God.

A young German, Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther, who lived in the sixteenth century, knew how essential being righteous is for anyone to have a relationship with God, either now or in eternity. 

Luther likely would have read words like those of Jesus in Matthew 5:20--”...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven”--and think, “I need to get busy. I need to do more good things. I need to remember more of my sins and repent for them. Otherwise, God will damn me for eternity.” Luther thought that to become righteous, he had to work at it.

The problem was that no matter how much he repented or how many good things he did, he would always remember one more unrepented sin or commit new ones after confessing the old ones or fail to do enough good or fail to do good for the right reasons. Through daily experience, Luther learned that there was nothing that he could do to attain the title of righteous.

And guess what? Luther was right. Luther couldn’t make himself righteous. 

Neither can you and I. 

When we consider the sinful things we do or think or fantasize about, we’re bound to confess with King Solomon, who writes in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “...there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” No one. 

And so, Luther looked at how far he fell short of the moral standards of righteousness embodied in the Ten Commandments and realized that he would never measure up. Life with God was out of his reach. 

Luther later confessed that there in the monastery, working at being righteous for God and realizing that he never could make himself righteous, he hated God. And in hating God, his guilt and his sense that there was nothing he could do to avoid being swallowed up by the fires of hell, only increased.

Then, something happened. At the direction of his superiors, Luther became a student and teacher of the Bible. (Dangerous things can happen to us when we start studying the Bible!) 

Through his study of God’s Word, Luther came to realize that righteousness can never come to us through our perpetually failed attempts to keep God’s Law. 

That’s what our second lesson for this joyous day, Romans 3:19-28, tells us. Take a look at what the apostle Paul, writing to Christians in the capital city of the Roman Empire in about 65 AD says, starting at verse 19: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.”

It’s good and loving for God to give us His commandments. They mark out the boundaries within which the righteous life happens, the ways in which our lives not only are more pleasing to God but also more fulfilling for us. All of us, for example, would acknowledge that it’s better for us not to steal, or covet, or live in hatred toward others. But because we can never keep God’s Law perfectly, His Law can never make us righteous. 

At the most, the Law is a mirror that shows us the awful truth with which Luther wrestled about himself, which is true of us as well, that we aren’t righteous and can’t make ourselves righteous. The Law makes all our pretense of being wonderful people pure nonsense. 

The Law is very bad news for anyone who thinks that being nice or doing good is enough to give us an in with God. But there is good news!

Verse 21: “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” 

To understand the message of these magnificent verses from our lesson, let’s consider the meanings of two words that Paul uses. They’re Greek words, of course, because Greek is the language in which Paul and the other New Testament writers composed their books and letters. 

The first word is δικαιοσύνη, which we translate as righteousness. 

The other word, which you see in verse 26, is justifies; in the Greek in which the apostle Paul wrote the verse, that word is δικαιοῦντα, a form of the verb dikaio. 

These two words share the same root., which you can detect just in hearing them pronounced: dikaio, dikaiosune.  

What these two related words tell us is that despite our sin, despite our inability to obey God’s Law or to make ourselves righteous, God GIVES Christ’s righteousness to those who trust Christ, to those in whom, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, the fire of the faith has been kindled by the good news of Jesus! 

We can’t attain the righteousness necessary to enter God’s Kingdom. 

We can't work to become righteous, but God makes righteous, He "righteous-fies," all who entrust their lives to Christ. 

Jesus has perfectly obeyed God’s Law for us and then shares the perfection of His obedience, made perfect by His death on the cross on our behalf, with those who believe in Him to make us righteous. 

Martin Luther said that when he realized that we can be justified--made righteous--not by anything we do, but only by faith in Christ through the charitable grace of God, it was as if the doors of heaven opened to Him. 

Through Christ, he came to know God not as an angry judge, but as our loving Father. 

And whenever we trust in Christ rather than ourselves, our efforts, our goodness, our achievements, our success, our worthiness, or our parents’ faith, heaven opens to us too.

Look at how Paul finishes our second lesson. Verses 27-28: “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”

Many of the self-identified Christians who get play in the media are people who seem to make a point of telling others how good they themselves are, how wholesome they are, and what good values they have, while others are evil, devoid of values. 

These phonies are braggarts, counterfeit Christians. 

If people brag about their own goodness or imply that they’ve attained righteousness by being wonderful people, they’re probably not Christians. 

Or, at the least, they’re Christians who need to repent for their sin and surrender their egos to Christ.

When Christians do brag, it’s about something else altogether. After Martin Luther died, a scrap of paper was found in his pocket, on which he had written six words: “We are beggars; this is true.” As Christians, we don’t brag about how wonderful we are. We know better. Our daily gaze in the face of God and into the mirror of God’s Law will tell us that. Instead, we brag about how wonderful God is! 

We’re not braggarts, we’re beggars: completely, utterly, totally dependent on the crucified and risen Jesus to justify us, to make us righteous, fit for life with God. Like the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 64:6), we can honestly confess: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags...” 

But we live with the joy of knowing that even when the devil, the world, and our sinful selves are forced to agree with the Law that, in our own power, we aren’t and never can be righteous, in the power of God, through the spent blood of Jesus on the cross and our faith in Him, we are justified, we are right with God, we are righteous!

And so, Paul writes elsewhere in Romans: “...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1) We’ve been set free from sin and death and condemnation. And set free, no longer under the thumb of the Law, we can focus on truly living as disciples: following Christ, drawing on the Holy Spirit’s power to love God as He has loved us and to love others as Christ has loved us.

In Christ, we are justified, we are righteous. That’s worth celebrating not just on the October Sunday closest to October 31, but every single day. Friends of Christ, happy Reformation Day!

Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Here is the audio of this message.