Who is a Saint?

[Below are the live stream videos of today's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also, you can find the text for today's message. Have a good week. God bless you!]





1 John 3:1-3

Friends in Christ, God’s Word in today’s second lesson tells us, “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” (1 John 3:3)

The “this hope” to which John refers here is that when Christ appears, that is, when He returns at the end of this old creation’s story, “we [who put our hope and trust in Christ] shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

What a promise!

We, who have given things in this world higher priority than we have given to God…

We, who have used God’s name to prop up our petty deceptions…

We, who have chosen to watch a mindless movie or attend a sporting event over worshiping God or listening to His Word…

We who have dishonored our parents or others in authority, who have swiped little things and coveted big things, who have committed adultery in mind or act, who have lied or misconstrued the actions of others to feel superior…we sinners, who are also saints, live in the hope that whenever Jesus returns to this universe and calls us from death, WE will be just like Jesus because, unlike the rest of the world, we will see Him as He is. We will see Him for Who He is, truly God and truly human, “the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

All of this begs the question: Who is a saint?

Saints are sinners who have been made clean–made pure, righteous, worthy for life with God–by God. God does this through Jesus’ death on the cross for sinners and through the faith in Jesus the Holy Spirit gives to sinners through God’s Word, whether preached, taught, read, or given to us in Holy Baptism or Holy Communion.

It’s a good thing because the Bible reminds us that unless we are made pure through faith in Jesus, we’re in eternal trouble, bound for eternal condemnation. “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

These words of Paul judge us all in some way. There’s no getting around the Bible’s verdict about you and me: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 3:23)

But only sinners can be saints.

Throughout his letters in the New Testament, the apostle Paul addresses the churches to which he writes as “saints” or “children of God.”

He calls those in the Roman church he doesn’t know “holy people.” (Romans 1:7)

He calls the church in Corinth whose members include those guilty of incest, adultery, and idolatry, among other things, and who we will in subsequent verses, forcefully call to repentance for their sins, “those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people.” (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Repeatedly, Paul calls the sinners in the churches he writes, “saints.”

Revelation 7:14 assures us that saints are sinners who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14)

Saints are those who believe that, in spite of their sins, when Jesus, “the the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” died on the cross, the world for which He died includes you and me! (John 1:29)

Jesus died for you, friends.

He died to make you righteous and holy, His saint.

The Bible assures us, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) That’s true even when we don’t feel very saintly, even when our faith is weak, maybe as small as a mustard seed!

Do you find this hard to accept? That God, through Christ, declares you, a sinner, also one of His saints who will live with Him forever?

I told the new members class yesterday that, on occasion through the years, I’ve had people tell me, “I’m too much of a sinner for God to love me or save me from sin and death.” I want to jump out of my chair and ask them, “Who do you think you are? You’re underestimating the power of God to destroy the power of sin and death over your puny life and your sins!”

I have to also say today, what I didn’t mention yesterday, that I’ve had others tell me, “You know, pastor, I’ve lived a pretty good life. I think I’ll be in heaven.” I want to jump out of my skin when I hear this and scream, “Who do you think you are? Do you think your ‘pretty good life’ adds up to the perfect righteousness needed to have a life with God?”

The Bible tells us that “we have been justified [that is, made righteous, made saints] through faith, [and so] we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Romans 5:1)

Friends, if by the power of God’s Word, you believe in Jesus as your God and your Savior, you are a saint and this day is for you. As much as it is to remember the saints who have passed from this world into the presence of Jesus.

It’s a day to celebrate what God has done for all the saints in making us His own through Christ and filling us with the hope that not only will we one day see Jesus face to face, but also by the miracle of God’s grace, we will be just like our Savior: alive, righteous, and eternally new. Amen

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 13

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 12

Reformation: Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Word Alone

[Below are the live stream videos of this morning's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, as well as the text of the message prepared for them.]





John 8:31-36

On this Reformation Sunday, we consider a simple and important question: What is a Lutheran? Lutherans have always seen Christian faith, the faith commended to us in the Bible, as having three key truths: Grace alone; Faith alone; and Word alone. What does that really mean?

When the thirty-three-year-old German monk and priest, Martin Luther, accidentally began the Reformation movement back in 1517, he found himself addressing both a religious elite who no longer cared about the Word of God, choosing to replace it with their own ideas and traditions, and Christian masses whose allegiance to the Church was as an institution and a habit, rather than a fellowship with the living God. No wonder that the elites hated Luther or that the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire put Luther under an imperial ban, meaning that anyone was authorized to kill Luther on sight!

Luther’s witness to the justification of sinful human beings by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and to the authority of the Bible as God’s Word undermined those who wanted to replace Jesus with other lords and the authority of the Bible with traditions and customs that brought them control or power.

The experience of Luther and the other church reformers was nothing new. When you read the Old Testament, you see a recurring pattern in the life of God’s chosen people, the Israelites or Jews. God would call them to repent, trust in Him for life, and follow Him, and the people, feeling weak or vulnerable or afraid, would do so. For a time. Then, once they got a little food in their bellies, a tract of land to farm, a bit of wealth or power, they would mostly forget God. Or, they would make God over into an indulgent Santa Claus who didn’t care if they repented, believed, or followed, so long as they were happy. Or, they would tinker with their faith, adding their own rules, intermingling the worship of other deities. It was to God’s people in these latter circumstances that God would send prophets to call people back to Him.

We see this rejection of God and of God’s Word in the people Jesus confronts in today’s Gospel lesson from John. Just before our lesson, Jesus foretells His crucifixion and resurrection. Then Jesus lifts up those three distinctives of Biblical faith, three distinctives that would become the three cornerstone principles of Lutheranism.

John tells us: "Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, ’If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Lutherans don't claim to have a corner on the truth market. But the Confessions of our movement, found in a book called The Book of Concord or Concordia, hold that Jesus is the Truth that sets us free. We believe that people are set free from sin, death, and futility, first of all, through God’s grace alone. Jesus doesn’t say, “Perform these deeds and I’ll set you free from sin and death.” He doesn’t say, “You’re just perfect the way you are so nothing needs to be done to make you righteous, or acceptable for life with God.” Instead, Jesus tells us that we are sinners who need to be righteous and then, on the cross, through His innocent suffering and death, does the hard work of taking our sin into His body while giving His perfect righteousness to us. He does this as a free gift, an act of grace (or charity) from God for us. We are saved by God’s grace alone. 

Lutheran Christians also believe we are saved through faith alone. Faith is how we grab hold of the grace Jesus gives us on the cross. Jesus told His fellow Jews that they would only be free to be the people of God if they trusted or believed in Him, literally the original Greek says "remain in My Word." To have faith is to remain rooted in Jesus and to draw life from Him alone. This is what Jesus is talking about when He says elsewhere, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Faith, the gift God gives by His Word, overcomes our deadliest enemies—the devil, the sinful world, and our sinful selves. As Jesus tells Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will live forever.” Then Jesus asks, “Do you believe this?”

Do you believe this? Do I? I mean, how is it possible for self-centered, untrusting people to have faith in Jesus, the Lord we’ve never actually seen? The Small Catechism tells us, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel [that is, the good news message that God the Father sent Jesus, God the Son, to save me from sin and death], enlightened me with His gifts [The Bible and the Sacraments], and sanctified and preserved me in the truth faith.” In Jesus, God not only does everything needed to save me from myself, He also creates my faith in Jesus. A Lutheran is someone who, because of God’s great grace or charity, has been given and receives the Word about Jesus that creates faith. 

Finally, Lutherans believe that we come to know God through the Word alone. Above all, we know God through “the Word made flesh,” Jesus. The Bible, the inspired Word of God, which is about Jesus from Genesis to Revelation, points us to the life God gives through Jesus. 

In Martin Luther’s day, the Church added to or ignored the witness about Jesus found in the Scriptures. Luther and the other Reformers said that the Church dared not do or say anything contrary to the will of God revealed to us in the Bible. This agrees with 2 Timothy 3:16, which says: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...” We may not like the things that God calls sin. But we Lutherans believe that when the righteous, loving God of the universe and we disagree about how we should live our lives, God is right and we are wrong. We may want to know much more than God reveals. But in the 66 books of the Bible, everything we need to know about God, about ourselves, about how to live, and about Who can be trusted, is found in the Bible.

We live in an era in which the Bible is routinely snubbed, dismissed, or misused. The Bible isn’t the writing of just one person claiming a hotline to God, as was true of the books of Islam or Mormonism. The Bible doesn’t claim to give us a means by which we can work our way to heaven or to a state of spiritual enlightenment, as is the case with eastern religions. The Bible is a library of books that tell us how God reaches out to us, saves us, loves us, and wants to be reconciled to us through the Savior He sent for us. The Bible is the Word from God that has the power to change the lives of anyone who stand under its authority. The New Testament book of Hebrews says, “...the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

God saves through grace alone, faith alone, and Word alone. It was true in 33 AD, true in 1517, true today, and true for all eternity. 

So, what is a Lutheran? At the least, Lutherans are people who stake their eternal lives on these three  truths. And when the world rejects or demeans or tries to tell us to reject the Bible's witness to these three essential truths, we must say with Luther who was commanded to recant or repudiate his witness for Christ, “"Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason…I am bound by the Scriptures…and my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God…I am neither able nor willing to recant. God help me.” 

And may God help us to be true to our Lutheran heritage, not from a commitment to tradition, but from simple faith in Jesus, the One Who has borne the cross and opened eternity for us. May we be true to our good confession as Lutherans that we are saved from our very real enemies–sin, death, and the devil–by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone! Faith in the Savior Who justifies sinners, making us innocent of our sin through His death on the cross, this faith is the best way to remember Reformation Sunday, today and always. Amen

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 11

Savior of the Helpless

[Below you can find videos of today's worship services from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, as well as the prepared text of today's message.]





Luke 18:9-17

At the end of last week’s Gospel lesson, Jesus, speaking of His second coming at the end of this world’s history, asks, “...when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 18:9-17, Jesus shows us what saving faith, faith that allows people to live with God eternally free of sin, death, and darkness in the Kingdom of God, looks like.

Our lesson can be divided into two sections. The first section, composed of verses 9-14, finds Jesus telling a parable to “some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else.”  (Luke 18:9) Jesus likely directs this parable to the Pharisees and teachers of the law–scribes–who have been hanging around Him as He makes His way to Jerusalem. There, He’ll be rejected, tortured, crucified, die, and then, be raised from the dead by God the Father. The second section of our Gospel lesson, made up of verses 15-17, tells us about Jesus’ disciples rebuking people for bringing their babies to Jesus to receive His blessing. 

In the parable, Jesus talks about two men who ascend to the temple in Jerusalem to pray. The Jewish custom was for those who prayed to stand and pray out loud. So, it wouldn’t have been difficult to eavesdrop on the prayers of anyone praying at that hour, especially if a proud person wanted to be heard.

Pharisees were respected by Jesus’ fellow Jews, pillars of first-century Judean society. This Pharisee also had a high opinion of his own righteousness. He offers a prayer of thanksgiving…thanking God for how wonderful he himself is. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” (Luke 18:11-12) Tax collectors, of course, were treasonous people who sold out their fellow Jews to work with the Romans and fatten their own wallets through extortion. The average Jew regarded tax collectors as scum. Jesus says that: “the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast [a sign of his grief for the ways he had hurt God] and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’” (Luke 18:13) While the Pharisee exhibited pride in his own righteousness, the tax collector confessed his own unrighteousness. But Jesus declares, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

Now let me ask you a question. Who do you identify with in this parable? I know who I want to identify with: the tax collector. Good Lutherans that we are, we know that “no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law”. We know that because we are born sinners incapable of perfect obedience of God’s law, the most that law can do is make us conscious of our sin. (Romans 3:20) But, isn’t it true that when we encounter people we see as modern versions of the Pharisee, we secretly thank God that we’re not as self-righteous and judgmental as them, in the bargain being self-righteous and judgmental? And don’t we, in conversation with friends, lamenting the sorry state of our sinful, fallen world, adopt the same sinful attitude of the Pharisee?: “I thank God that I’m not like that wealthy person who thinks their wealth means they have God’s approval. I thank God I’m not like those people violating God’s will by engaging in sexual intimacy outside of marriage. I thank God I’m not as big a gossip as so-and-so.” We can be the Pharisees who harbor the belief that we have a righteousness that makes us fit for life with God and makes us better than other people. I once found myself telling Ann, just after she had called me out for something I’d done, that I was a good person. I don’t know about you, but I find it scary to realize how easily I fall into the Pharisee’s self-righteous way of thinking!

Jesus says that it was the tax collector who walked away from the temple that day justified. He was declared by God innocent of sin and righteous in God’s eyes. Why? The tax collector turns to God as a helpless child and so, is justified. The Pharisee, certain of his own righteousness, is, at the end of the parable, still dead in his sin and condemned in the eyes of God.

This leads to the second section of the lesson. Here, the people Jesus needs to teach this same lesson are His own disciples, the Church. Adults in the crowds surrounding Jesus want Him to touch their babies. The disciples are incensed! Why are these people wasting Jesus’ time? What do babies know about faith? How can babies have the righteousness of faith? Maybe the disciples haven’t yet heard about what happened when the pregnant Mary, bearing Jesus in her womb, visited her relative Elizabeth, also pregnant. Elizabeth, speaking to Mary, says, “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 18:8) The baby in Elizabeth’s womb, John the Baptist, already believed in Jesus! The faith in Christ that makes sinners like you and me righteous–worthy of life with God–isn’t the result of our good works or our capacity to understand God. The faith in Christ that makes us righteous comes to us when Jesus, Who died and rose to set us free from sin and death, touches us through His Word, the waters of Holy Baptism, the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

That’s why Jesus tells the disciples rebuking people for bringing babies to Him, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:16-17) Jesus is not idealizing children here. Jesus knows the witness of God’s Word that we are born in sin. (Psalm 51:5) But He also knows that, like the tax collector, conscious of the gap between himself in his sin and God in His sinless righteousness, babies are helpless. It’s to the helpless that the perfect, sinless righteousness of Jesus is given!

I was sorry that I couldn’t make it to the Whole Truth dinner this past week. It’s amazing to spend time with those served by Whole Truth, people recovering from addiction. They’ve been to the depths. They understand how helpless they are, how much they need Jesus. Like the apostle Paul, they can say “when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10) Emptied of any delusions about having strength to live in their own power, they daily turn to Christ for His power and strength, love and grace, to fill them. May we be so helpless! It is helpless people like these–and like repentant tax collectors and babies in their parents’ arms–who are most ready to receive the gift Jesus has for us: the gift of righteousness not through our doing but through what Jesus has already done for us on the cross and our faith in Him. It is people like these who know that they are (and we are) “justified by faith [in Christ] apart from the works of the law.”

God’s Law is unchanging, friends. Only those who are righteous–innocent of sin–will gain entrance into His eternal kingdom. That’s bad news for us if we propose to come to God like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, bragging about all our godly deeds. But the good news, the gospel, is this: God gives Jesus’ perfect righteousness to all who turn to Him like a tax collector conscious of his sin, in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. And God gives saving faith even to little babies touched by His grace and help. It’s to the humble and the helpless who receive the gifts of Word and water and bread and wine, that God’s kingdom comes. May we learn each day to be helpless children who want nothing more than Jesus and the forgiveness, grace, and mercy that only He, crucified and risen God the Son, can give. Amen

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 10

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 9

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 8

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 7

Grace That Yields Thanks and Praise

[Below, you'll find the live stream videos of both the 8:45 and 11:00 AM worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also in this post is the text as prepared to be shared during the services. Have a good week!]





Luke 17:11-19

Our gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 17:11-19, is particularly well-known among Lutheran Christians, I think because it often serves as the text for our Thanksgiving celebrations.

The lesson does talk about being thankful. But if we come away from this passage thinking that if we’re thankful, Christ will save us from sin and death, we completely miss the point. Such an interpretation would turn Jesus into a new lawgiver who demands that we earn salvation. But you and I know that we cannot be saved and will not be saved by anything that we do. Nor can we be made holy in God’s sight by anything that we do. 

To those tempted to think that we can be saved by works, Jesus says, “​​Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him [God the Father] who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

If we could be saved from sin, death, and futility by good things that we do or by the attitudes we adopt, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to go to the cross to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. And we would have no need of the Word that makes it possible for us to trust in Him or to be claimed by Him in Holy Baptism, where the Word of Jesus meets the water, or to receive Him in Holy Communion, where that Word meets the bread and the wine to yield the body and blood of Jesus Himself.

Christ has done everything needed to save you and me from sin and death in His own death and resurrection. Then the Holy Spirit, preaching the Word about Christ to us in the Word and in the Sacraments, brings us the gift of faith, trust that Jesus did this even for you and me. This is how we are saved and how we are set apart to grow as people of God: by God’s grace through a faith in Christ alone, constructed within us by the Holy Spirit through His Word. 

God doesn’t need our thanks. God doesn’t need our faith in Christ. But when we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ, we will be thankful. Thankfulness to God will be present in those who have been saved from sin and death to live with God for all eternity.

We see thankfulness for God’s mercy and grace in Christ in a seemingly unlikely person in today’s gospel lesson. Take a look at it, please. Verse 11: “Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’”

In those days, you know, lepers were forced to move away from their families and communities for fear that others might be afflicted with the same often disfiguring skin condition. They lived in colonies on the edges of towns, dependent on people who, from a distance, might bring them food or other necessities. This particular colony of ten lepers included both Jesus’ countrymen and at least one Samaritan. Samaritans were, as you know, often hated and disdained by Jesus’ fellow Jews. But when people go through common horrors, the petty prejudices we stoke when we don’t feel vulnerable often evaporate.

In my first parish, a man was seriously injured when a barrel exploded and crashed into his skull. In the ICU waiting room were all sorts of people waiting for word on their loved ones. There were African-Americans, Latino Americans, Arab Americans, and people from cities, small towns, and farms. There were people who, in the normal course of life, might not have had any contact with each other. But human vulnerability and pain had thrown them together. It didn’t take long for them to talk together and pray together, finding comfort in God together. Their differences evaporated. (If that sounds like Christ’s Church to you, it should.) The lepers from different places formed a community of the vulnerable, the outcast.

Verse 14: “When [Jesus] saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.” Leviticus 14 required that a priest had to certify that a leprous person had been cured before she or he could resume their normal lives or be in worship at the temple or the local synagogue. This law would have sent Jews to Jerusalem and Samaritans to Mount Gerizim, where they could offer the necessary sacrifices. That’s behind Jesus’ directive to the men.

But more to the point of today’s gospel lesson, we should ask ourselves, “What exactly did the lepers do to deserve to be healed?” We might all ask: “What did I do, what could I do to be saved from sin, death, and darkness?” The answer to these questions and others like them that we might ask is the same: NOTHING!

There is nothing that we can do to earn God’s grace, His undeserved favor, or any of His blessings.

The other day, my wife and I went shopping. I could tell I was getting on her nerves, which I’ve been doing now for forty-eight years. My impulse was to justify myself and tell her how she had no reason to be upset with me. Instead, I prayed, “Thank You, God, that You gave me a wife who puts up with me.” There is no way I earned such a blessing in my life!

As all ten lepers should have learned that day on the frontier between Galilee and Samaria, the blessings God gives through Jesus are not deserved and cannot be earned. The fact is that while ten lepers were cleansed--or healed, only one of them was saved. At least on that day, only one came to believe in Jesus as God the Son, Who alone, brings salvation from our sins and life with God that never ends. Nine seemed to view their return to normalcy as only their just due.

Verse 15: “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”

Those last words of Jesus in this passage are the key to understanding the whole thing. You see, what He actually told the man, according to the Greek in which Luke wrote his gospel, was, “Rise [the word Jesus uses here is a cognate of the Greek New Testament word for resurrection. Rise], your faith has saved you!” Friends, you can bet your whole life on this fundamental truth: WHETHER YOU ARE IN GOOD HEALTH OR BAD, WHETHER YOU LIVE OR DIE, YOUR FAITH IN CHRIST SAVES YOU!

Ten of the lepers were healed, but only one of them was saved. Ten received grace; one had faith. Ten heard the saving Word of God in Christ; one believed. Ten had the kingdom of God come to them; only one entered that kingdom.

The thankful Samaritan wasn’t saved because he was thankful; he was thankful because Christ had saved him by giving him the gift of faith.

The healed Samaritan came to faith in Christ the same way we come to faith in Christ: His Word comes to us and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe!

Thankfulness is a hallmark of all disciples of Jesus. The Samaritan was so overwhelmed by God’s grace and goodness that not giving praise to God and falling at Jesus’ feet would have been unthinkable to him. 

When the Word of God came to the leprous Samaritan, he was desperate enough, helpless enough, and vulnerable enough, that when God’s undeserved grace came to him through Jesus, he proved to be precisely the kind of good soil that Jesus says elsewhere is needed for the seed of faith to take root and grow. The gift of faith in Christ made him thankful for being healed and that faith saved him.

Friends, Jesus died and rose to save you, that you would believe in Him as He comes to you in the Word and in the Sacraments, bringing you the forgiveness of sin, the assurance of His love for you, the certainty of His presence with you, and the knowledge that, through Him and your faith in Him, you will live in God’s Kingdom forever. May we, like the leprous Samaritan, be desperate enough, helpless enough, and vulnerable enough to receive Jesus with faith. 

And may we always be thankful. Amen