The Sure Foundation

[Below you'll find live stream video of today's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. You'll also see the text of the message shared. The traditional service was a wild, but satisfying ride, including a baptism!]

Matthew 21:33-46

Over the past few Sundays, we’ve listened in on Jesus’ confrontation with “the chief priests and the elders.” Today, identified as “the chief priests and the Pharisees,” that confrontation continues in our Gospel lesson. These leaders of God’s people are offended by Jesus, claiming Jesus has no authority to forgive sin, perform miracles, or claim to be the King of the world.

This morning, Jesus tells another parable, a story, the beginning of which would have been familiar to everyone around Him. You can see similar stories told by the prophet in Isaiah 5 and by Asaph, a musician in the court of King David, in Psalm 80.

In all three stories, we’re told how God graciously planted His people in Israel the land He promised to them. And in all three cases, something goes terribly wrong.

According to Isaiah, when God turned to the vineyard Israel, He “looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.” (Isaiah 5:2) In other words, God saw an Israel that had turned its back on God to worship false idols, the gods of other peoples. For its idolatry and all the sins that flowed from it, God allowed His people to be conquered and turned out of their land.

Asaph sees a nation that has turned away from God, relying instead on false idols, self-sufficiency, and military and economic power. For, this Psalm 80 says God will break “down [Jerusalem’s] walls so that all who pass by pick its grapes” and, referring to enemy peoples around ancient Israel, says that “boars from the forest ravage it, and insects from the fields feed on it.” (Psalm 80:13)

In these two passages from the Old Testament, God was reminding His people that salvation and oneness with God were not the product of their behavior, goodness, or strength. They were saved solely by God Who gives forgiveness and new life as a gift to be received by faith alone.

This is why the Old Testament says of Abraham, not yet renamed by God, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

When God saved Israel and planted it in the world, just as when God saved you and me in Holy Baptism and gave us faith in Christ through the Word and sustained that faith in the sacrament of Holy Communion, it wasn’t because the ones saved were, in themselves or by their actions, holy and righteous, it’s because the God Who saves us from sin, death, and futility is holy and righteous. It’s because God gives His holiness and righteousness to sinners by grace through the faith in Him that His Holy Spirit creates in us.

In speaking to the religious leaders of first-century Judea, Jesus creates a different twist to the ancient story of God’s people.

In Jesus’ telling, the “landowner,” clearly God, rents out to farmers, clearly Israel, a vineyard, which He prepared and protected, then went elsewhere. When harvest time came, the landowner expected to receive fruits from his land and investment, just as God expects to see the fruit of His righteousness and His forgiveness manifested in our lives.

But, as you know, the landowner sent many different people to collect what the farmers owed and each of his servants were beaten, killed, or stoned, just like the prophets God sent to His people Israel to call them back to saving faith.

Finally, the landowner decides to send his son to collect the harvest. “They will respect my son,” he reasons. (Matthew 21:37)

You know what happens.

The farmers think that if they kill off the son of the landowner, clearly representing Jesus, they will be free of the owner; they will, to speak clearly what Jesus means here, be their own gods, free of the authority of almighty God.

And that friends, is the goal of all human-centered religion: to be the makers of our own righteousness, to be gods ourselves, without accountability to God.

Humanly-centered religion, whether secular or clothed in the pretense of piety, says with the poet, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

And it always leads to death and damnation for one simple reason: One day, we will all stand before the God we meet in Christ for judgment.

Those who try to claim a place in eternity because they think they’ve been good people or because their grandfather was involved in mission work or they gave money to the church, will stand naked in their sin and be sent to hell.

Those who can say with the saints, the forgiven sinners who trust in the God revealed in Jesus, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,” will be welcomed to live eternally with God.

Matthew says the religious elites realize Jesus had told this parable about them, secure in their self-generated goodness and unrepentant rule-keeping as well as their descendance from Abraham.

When Jesus asks them what the landowner will do to those who killed the landowner’s son, just as they will soon join the Gentiles in killing God the Son, they say, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end…and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” (Matthew 21:41)

Antisemitic people over the ages have used these words to say that Gentile Christians have superseded Jews as God’s people. But this is not what Jesus says. It’s what the Jewish chief priests and elders say.

Trust, faith, in the Messiah and Lord pointed to by the entire Old Testament and revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, brings salvation to Jews and Gentiles like. The apostle Paul, himself a Jew, says “it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise [that is, the promise of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone] who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” (Romans 9:8)

Jesus says that the landowner–God Himself–responds to those, both Jew and Gentile whose sin put His Son on the cross to die, very differently. He shows them this through Psalm 118: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes…” (Matthew 21:42)

There are those who try to commend themselves to God for their own effort, supposed goodness, and ingenuity. Like us, such people have an inborn penchant to turning from God and doing things their own way. They turn a deaf ear to Jesus’ call to repent and believe in Him for forgiveness and life with God that never ends. Whether in this life or, absent repentance and faith, in eternity, the self-reliant will be smashed by Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who bears the full weight of a holy and mighty God.

But there are those who, like you here this morning, have heard the Gospel Word about Jesus and believe that Jesus is the cornerstone for everlasting life with God.

You know that you can build your life on Him.

You know Jesus’ promise about Himself: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life…” and so, He has become the foundation for all your hopes. Jesus has become the One Who tells you that because He died on the cross for you, all Your sins are forgiven. (John 3:36)

Jesus has become the One Who assures you that He is always with you. (Matthew 28:20)

Jesus has become the One Who tells you as He told the grieving Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die…” (John 11:25-26)

In Jesus, you and I see THE foundation of our eternal help “and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Keep your eyes on Jesus, friends.

He brings forgiveness to sinners, hope to the repentant, life to the dead and the dying and He will never let you down.

Amen

The Cost of Following Jesus

[Below is the message shared yesterday during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, as well as the live stream video of our two worship services. Have a blessed week!]

Luke 14:25-35

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 14:25-35, are hard to hear.

If we’re to follow Jesus–in other words, if we’re going to receive forgiveness of sin and everlasting life with God, is Jesus telling us we have to hate our parents, spouses, kids, siblings, and our very own lives?

Is He abrogating the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother”? (Exodus 20:12)

Is He telling us that He was only kidding when He summarized God’s Law–”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…[and] Love your neighbor as yourself”? (Matthew 22:37, 39)

Or, is the God we know in Jesus Christ spouting one of those alleged inconsistencies that the uninformed and disbelieving claim to detect in Scripture?

As to this last question, let’s be clear. Both the Old and New Testaments say that God is consistent and unchangeable. God is the one, Psalm 55:19 affirms, “...with Whom there is no change.” And in the book of James in the New Testament, we’re told that in God, “...there is no variation or shifting shadow…” (James 1:17) So, when we encounter what we think is an inconsistency from God, shrugging our shoulders or deciding to follow the God of our imaginative preferences or give up on God altogether are not options.

Assuming it’s our desire to follow Jesus, let’s unflinchingly consider what He tells us this morning.

The context in which Jesus speaks His words is, as always, important. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. He knows that this journey He’s taking to Jerusalem won’t be a walk in the park. Jesus didn’t come to bring the human race a Hallmark Channel coziness that, at most, can keep us comfortable until we die. The wages of sin is still death and our sin–yours and mine–must be dealt with if we’re to be the people God intends for us to be or if we are to have eternity with God. (Romans 6:23) That’s what Jesus has come to do. The crowd, like us maybe, sees Jesus as a messianic hero, someone who can make hard lives easy. But Jesus wants much more for us than to make us happy in this condemned universe. Jesus has come “to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) He’s come to find and eternally restore to God, lost people who are in bondage to sin and incapable of freeing themselves. To save us, Jesus’ journey will lead Him to a cross. There, Jesus, sinless and pure, will take the punishment of death we deserve.

Just before today’s lesson, Jesus told His parable of the great banquet. In it, He said that God invites all people, even those deemed unworthy by the world, to come to His banquet. (Luke 14:12-24) God wants everyone to hear and believe the good news that through Jesus, anyone who repents of sin and believes in Jesus will have everlasting life with God.

And right after speaking the words in our lesson, Jesus tells three parables about God seeking and saving the lost: the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost (or prodigal) son. (Luke 15:1-32) God loves and wants to save all people. And at the cross, Jesus will do everything necessary to save us from sin, death, and condemnation.

But now, in today’s lesson, Jesus speaks hard truths. He says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)

It’s important to understand that the word translated here as hate is, in the original Greek in which Luke wrote his gospel, μισεῖ (misei). It’s a comparative term reflective of the Aramaic and Hebrew languages native to Jesus and His fellow first century Jews. It means, “love less, esteem less, value less.”

Jesus is not saying that we should dishonor our parents, be contemptuous of our families, or mistreat the bodies He’s given to us.

He’s telling us that we cannot let the love that we have for our spouses, families, children, or our own well being prevent us from doing what He told us to do earlier in Luke’s gospel: deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. (Luke 9:23)

Now, knowing that the word translated as hate is comparative doesn’t make what Jesus says any less challenging! And what He says is far more practical than we may realize.

There are people in marriages to spouses who want to go out to brunch on Sunday mornings rather than worship God.

There are parents who daily face the easy path of submitting to the culture and the demands of sports and music and activities rather than seeing that their children are in worship, Sunday School, or Catechism whenever possible.

There are family members who tell us that if we don’t endorse their sinful lifestyle, they don’t want to have anything to do with us anymore.

Now, believe me, I am not insulting anyone here. Nor am I making light of the challenges people face. I’ve faced some of these same challenges in my own life.

I’m simply pointing out that our daily lives can bring home the issue Jesus addresses this morning. Daily, we’re confronted with life and death questions. Like, who do we value most: Jesus or our spouses? Jesus or our significant others? Jesus or our kids? Jesus or our parents? Jesus or our comfort? Jesus or our careers? Jesus or our acceptance by others? Jesus or our lives?

Friends, I confess that when I read Jesus’ words, I am convicted. I look into the mirror of God’s Law and I see that while I have never been guilty of hating Jesus, I have been guilty of putting other things ahead of Him and His will for my life. Usually without noticing it. God, forgive me!

“When Christ calls a man,” Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted, “He bids Him come and die.” If we are to rise with Jesus and live with God eternally, we must also die to ourselves and turn to Jesus: our only hope, our only Lord.

Now let’s be clear. Jesus offers us the free gift of God’s forgiveness of our sin and eternal life with God. There is nothing we must do and nothing we can do to earn this gift.

Jesus has already earned it at the cross.

He’s already destroyed the devil’s dominion over God’s creation, already conquered the power of sin to condemn us to life without God, already torn down the dividing wall between God and us, already earned the righteousness–the rightness with God–necessary for us to be acceptable to heaven. Jesus already has done everything necessary to save the lost and bring them–to bring us–into God’s everlasting kingdom.

In Jesus Christ, we really are free from all condemnation! “There is nothing for me to do,” notes one Lutheran theologian, “but to appropriate this [victory won by Jesus] to myself.”

This appropriation is what Jesus means when He tells us to believe in Him. And the Bible says that even our belief, our faith, in Jesus comes to us as a free gift of the Holy Spirit working in the Word and Sacraments. 

So, Jesus is telling us today to listen for His voice when the devil, the world, our sinful selves, and even the people we love, may seek to drown Him out.

Listen when Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2)

Listen when He says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36)

Listen when His Word tells you, “[baptism] saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21)

Listen when Jesus says, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me…This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20)

By these and all the words of God we have in Scripture, God empowers us to appropriate–to receive and to believe–all that Jesus has earned for us and all Jesus has promised to us through His cross and resurrection!

An old saying tells us, “Buyer, beware.” Jesus isn’t selling us anything, of course. He’s come to give us life with God freely.

But today, He is telling us, “Believers and prospective believers, beware.” That’s what He means by His parables telling us to count the cost of being His disciple.

Jesus hasn’t come to accessorize your life. He’s not like a new haircut, handbag, car, grill, or, for that matter, political philosophy.

He’s come to be your life. That’s what He means when He says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) There is no such thing as life or eternal life apart from Jesus. Without Jesus, we’re eternally dead. Jesus has come to give you a whole new and different life, a life that will not end.

And that will entail killing off your old sinful self. He starts doing that at the moment you are baptized. And, as He calls you to daily repentance and renewal, He’ll keep doing it until the day you leave this earth. He will kill off your old self so that your new self, the person God made you to be, can daily rise until that day, this old creation’s last day, when, Jesus says, “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live…” (John 5:25)

There’s a cost to life with Jesus. It means accepting the conviction and death of our old selves, our old ways, our sinful nature.

But to those who listen and follow, it will also mean life and resurrection with God!

This past Tuesday, at Donna’s funeral, we remembered the words of Jesus to the grieving Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Whatever the cost to our egos, our comfort, or our relationships, may we daily hear and trust in Jesus and so live with Him forever. Amen