The Word That Saves You

[Below, you'll find both live stream video of today's single worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church and the text of the message shared today. Have a good and blessed week!]



Matthew 14:22-33

One of the joys of being a parish pastor, a joy that the Bible tells us can be shared by any Christian willing to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, is in what’s called the Office of the Keys.

We exercise the Office of the Keys whenever someone, in the name and under the lordship of Jesus, confesses their sins, turns from them, seeks the assurance of God’s forgiveness from us, and we are able to proclaim God’s forgiveness of all their sins to them.

Jesus has given this office to the Church and, while all members of the Church can exercise it, the Church has given particular responsibility to pastors to do so.

Jesus does this, for example, in John 20:23, when He tells the Church: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

And Jesus also says in Matthew 18:18: “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

God, it turns out, is not against us sinners.

God is for sinners, like you and me.

He wants to free all sinners from the bondage to sin from which we cannot free ourselves.

That’s why Jesus, God the Son, came into our world and, enfleshed as the Man without sin, took our sins, all of our sins, into Himself, absorbing the death and condemnation we deserve, on His cross so that we could have His righteousness and life forever.

When penitent sinners are told, “Because of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven,” they are hearing the Word from Jesus Christ Himself. They can believe that their sins are forgiven.

Nothing more needs to be said.

No questions need to be asked.

Through Jesus, we are free of sin, condemnation, and death.

“If the Son sets you free,” Jesus says of Himself, “you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

But I’ve noticed something that sometimes happens to sinners when God’s Word of forgiveness, His Word of absolution, comes to us.

A woman came to see me, mostly to confess a sin for which she felt guilty, a sin that had happened decades before.

I told her that her guilt for the sin was appropriate, but that, as she turned to Jesus Christ, she could be assured of God’s forgiveness.

I reminded her of biblical promises like, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…” (1 Timothy 1:15)

“In Christ,” I told her, “all your sins are forgiven.” Her guilt, I assured her, was erased by the grace of God extended to us through Christ!

The woman wept for a few moments and then said, “I wish that I could believe that.”

There was little more I could say to her now. I’d given her Christ’s Word that she was forgiven, that Jesus, God the Son, had taken her sin away. But here she was taking it  back again!

At the end of our second lesson for today, the apostle Paul tells us, “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17) That woman ignored the Word about Christ and so could not and would not believe that she was saved from sin and death and forgiven through Him. She insisted on believing the words of the devil, the world, and her sinful self that told her that forgiveness couldn’t possibly be that simple, that she needed to do more, that she needed to be more for her to be out from under condemnation and death. Jesus was offering her forgiveness and new life with God as a gift and she wanted to earn it.

That woman isn’t alone. Years ago, a man told me that he liked reading a particular Christian author. Why? “Because,” he said, “he always makes me feel guilty. And after I get guilty, I can get busy working on my salvation and holy living.”

The Bible tells us that Jesus, by going to the cross and rising from the tomb, has already secured our salvation, our justification, and our holy lives, our sanctification. Our call is to simply attend to His Word, given to us in the Bible and the Sacraments…to keep receiving these gifts, because it is by these gifts, that God gives us the gift of faith and strengthens that faith. (This is why regular worship with the Church is essential to being a follower of Jesus. There’s no such thing as a solo Christian.) Hebrews 10:10 says, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” You don’t have to do anything to make that happen.

We see a person like this woman and this man in the apostle Peter in today’s Gospel lesson.

After feeding the 5000-plus, Jesus sends the disciples away by boat, dismisses the crowd, and goes to a mountain to pray alone. Deep into the night, toward dawn, the disciples are still in their boat on the sea during a raging storm. Don’t confuse this with an earlier incident in which Jesus slept through a storm that terrified the disciples. Matthew tells us about that incident too. This time though, we have no indication that the disciples were afraid of the storm. They seem to feel they have everything under control. They’re competent, have it together, and they know exactly what they’re doing. Jesus is about to show them differently.

“Shortly before dawn,” Matthew says, “Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.” When the disciples catch sight of this, they’re terrified!

A lot of people think they would have liked to lived back when Jesus walked on the earth. They think they would see Him and see His kind, sweet visage.

But, listen, friends: unrepentant sinners, like the disciples who had so recently suggested that, rather than helping the needy crowd around them, Jesus should send them away so they could buy their own food, never find it pleasant to be in the presence of the perfect, holy, righteous Son of God. That’s why they were terrified. But the New Testament says that, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

Those who refuse to live in daily repentance and faith in Christ stand naked in their sins, unprotected from God’s wrath and condemnation. When the disciples see Jesus, they think He’s a ghost. They cry out in fear.

But then, Jesus tells them, literally, in verse 27: “Take courage. I AM. Do not fear.” “Take courage. Yahweh. Do not be afraid.”

Friends, although He is God and we are sinful human beings, Jesus speaks a Word that conquers our sin, sets us free from death, and gives us peace.

The disciples are right to initially feel terrified in coming face to face with Jesus. He is God. He is, as the theologian of the last century, Paul Tillich said, “wholly Other”: completely different from us, completely holy, completely righteous, completely perfect.

The disciples are seeing the Messiah Who will one day judge the living and the dead.

They see Jesus in His raw deity.

They recognize the distance between Him, in His righteousness and purity, and them, in their unrepentant, proud, arrogant, self-sufficient sinfulness.

But the God we know in Jesus has no desire to damn them–or us–for sin, no desire to see us die, separated from God, consumed by wrath from which He otherwise protects us.

So, Jesus speaks a comforting Gospel Word to you and me even now: “Do not fear. I take the wrath you deserve into myself. Your sins are forgiven.”

So, to the first disciples, terrified in the boat, Jesus speaks His Gospel Word of promise. That should be enough to calm the fears of all.

But, there in the boat is one who still isn’t sure: Peter, out stand-in.

Even after Jesus’ Word of absolution, Peter is unbelieving. Peter doesn’t trust Jesus or His Word. Like the man who told me he liked the author who left him feeling guilty, Peter wants Jesus to give him a program by which he, not Jesus, can overcome his guilt, sin, and fear. He wants Jesus to prove He’s the Messiah Peter wants and he wants to prove what a righteous person he is even without the Messiah, Jesus.

And, so he says, “Lord, if it’s you,...tell me to come to you on the water.” (Matthew 14:28)

“Come,” Jesus tells Peter.

Jesus, in effect, is saying, “OK, Peter, you won’t believe that My Word is enough to save you? You need proof that My Word can even save an unrepentant sinner like you? Come out here and take a walk on the water.”

Of course, as soon as Peter turns his attention to the wind, he’s back to feeling terrified again and begins to sink. Jesus catches Peter and upbraids Him: “You of little faith,...why did you doubt?”

Friends, do not doubt!

You were saved from sin and death at Holy Baptism, when Jesus fished you from the water and claimed you as His own.

Your salvation is confirmed every time you are able, by the power of the Holy Spirit, working in God’s Word, to confess that Jesus is your Lord.

The Word has come to you again and again during sermons, family devotion times, Bible studies, and Holy Communion.

This Word has spoken through God’s Law to show you your sin and through Christ’s Gospel to give you the gifts of repentance, saving faith, forgiveness, and new life.

Jesus tells us, “...my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:40)

Friends, this morning it is again my joy to exercise the Office of the Keys and tell you who repent and turn to Jesus, “Do not be afraid. You are not condemned. Christ died and rose for you. In Him, you are forgiven!” Amen

Our Great Reward

[Below you'll find the message shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also here you'll find live stream video of both our 8:45 AM traditional and 11:00 AM modern worship services. A highlight of the day was welcoming five new members into the fellowship of the church!]

Matthew 10:34-42

At the start of today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the twelve apostles He’s sending with His Word–and He tells us: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) These are jarring words.

But Jesus goes on to be even more jarring, claiming words from the prophet Micah for himself: “For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’” (Matthew 10:35-36)

These words seem strange to us in two ways, I think.

First, we remember that the angels sang on the night of Jesus’ birth: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14) Didn’t Jesus, God the Son, come into our world to make peace between God and we sinful human beings?

Second, didn’t God make families fundamental to human life, giving the family first billing in the second table of the ten commandments: “Honor your father and your mother”?

The answer to both of those questions is Yes.

But not everyone wants God’s peace.

As Christians, we know and cherish what Paul talks about in our second lesson, from Romans 7: that by the grace of God given to us in Christ under which we were washed at Holy Baptism, we “died to the [condemnation of the] law [for our sin]” and belong to Jesus, Who will one day raise us up to live with God forever. (Romans 7:4)

God has already done this for us as a gift that we are simply called to receive in faith.

And even the power to believe–to have faith–in Christ is a gift from God, given in His Word. The Bible says, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

But sometimes, even members of our own families will resist the Gospel Word about Christ. They will refuse to trust in Christ.

When I was a teenager, already an atheist myself, I watched my aunt break down in tears as one of my cousins told her he didn’t need God. He had heard the Word about Christ many times. He had seen the peace that the adults and even friends in his life had through faith in Jesus. But he wasn’t buying it.

For many people, the Gospel doesn’t make sense.

Some see the hatred, prejudice, injustice, suffering, and death in this world and can’t imagine that there is a loving and omnipotent God Who, they imagine, does nothing to change things. They don’t realize that God has already done everything necessary to change things, to give us life and peace, one person at a time. He’s done this through Jesus, Who says: “​​Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life…” (John 6:40) This isn’t a call to wait for the sweet by-and-by. It’s a declaration from God that as you trust in Christ, you are set free to live life to the full without fear of condemnation, setbacks, or even death! You can even fight things like hatred, prejudices, injustice, suffering, and death without fear of the world because you know you belong to Jesus Christ for all eternity!

Others can make no sense of the Gospel–the good news of new and everlasting life with God through Christ–because they’ve been schooled in the ways of a hard world. They’ve been taught that anything worth having must be bought, earned, stolen, or swindled. They think the project of their lives is to keep themselves–and maybe their kids–as comfortable as possible until they die. That’s it. There is no room or desire for Jesus in such a worldview.

Still others can’t imagine that any of their sins–from gossip to sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, from petty dishonesty in personal business dealings to using God’s name as a punchline–could possibly concern a holy God they’ve never seen.

For people like these, Jesus’ will sound like nonsense when He says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. [literally, the eternal reign of God is here now in Me and the Gospel Word about Me].” (Matthew 4:17)

They’ll find it hard to believe that Christ is as close as His Word or as close as the water of Holy Baptism or the bread and the wine of Holy Communion.

His emissaries–parents, pastors, friends, family–will tell these folks, “The kingdom of heaven has come near [in Jesus]” and they’ll resist. (Matthew 10:7)

Or turn a deaf ear.

Or maybe lash out.

Or maybe even betray you!

Of course, no Christian filled with Jesus’ compassionate Spirit will be satisfied knowing that we have everlasting life with God and not want to share it with others. We won’t want to let others’ negative reactions to Christ’s Gospel keep us from sharing it!

So, Christians will want to see their children and grandchildren, all the children in their families, baptized. In Baptism, children are covered with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Their spirits are crucified and raised and the Holy Spirit is unleashed in children’s lives that they may come to the point where they confess Jesus as their Lord. “Baptism…” the apostle Peter says, “saves you…It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21)

Christians will want to let family members see that Christ is their hope and their life. Peter also told Christian women that their disbelieving husbands “may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” (1 Peter 3:2)

And Christians will also want to be able to share the hope of Christ’s Gospel with family members when they have the chance. Peter also writes, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15)

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus tells Christians, “Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.” (Matthew 10:41)

Considering just the prophets for a moment: If you’ve ever read the Old Testament, you know that God’s prophets weren’t always rewarded in enjoyable ways. (Neither have those been made righteous by God’s grace in Christ, by the way.)

When we, like the prophets, speak God’s Word, we must first speak His Law that all people are sinners, deserving of eternal punishment and separation from God, before we speak God’s Word of promise, His Gospel, that our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life with God through Jesus.

These words call us, and all people, to repent–to turn from sin–and to believe in Jesus as our only God and Savior.

The prophets were often slighted, hunted down, condemned, killed.

That was how the world rewarded them for their faithfulness.

It’s how the world today, even the worlds of our families, often reward Christians. Jesus doesn’t sugar coat that truth and neither should we.

But God has another reward for our faithfulness to Christ.

It’s the reward of which the prophet Isaiah spoke seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, pointing to Jesus, God the Son, Himself, Isaiah wrote: “See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” (Isaiah 40:10-11)

Jesus promises us, “the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13)

In Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven, friends. That’s your reward from God.

And in Jesus Christ, you know, intimately and personally, the God of all Creation Who saves you to be His forever. That too is your reward from God.

And in Jesus, you know that God is with you always. He will never abandon you. That also is God’s reward to you.

In the end, Jesus is your reward, friends!

And He is all the reward you and I could ever want or will ever need.

Amen

[I'm grateful for the scholarship of Drs. John Hoyum and Steve Paulson and others in the development of today's message.]

You Are Loved By God (Your Neighbor Is Too)

[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 find the prepared text of the message shared during both services. Have a blessed week!]

Matthew 9:35-10:8

Dear friends, this morning Jesus Christ, God the Son, wants you to know that you are deeply loved by God.

You are the apple of God’s eye.

It’s your sin Christ bore on the cross to set you free from condemnation and death.

It’s for you that He died.

It’s for you that He rose from the dead.

The God we meet in Jesus isn’t One Who turns up His nose at our sinful, selfish natures or our sinful, selfish thoughts, actions, or lives.

He doesn’t turn away.

He doesn’t abandon you.

Instead, God the Son wears human flesh with sinless perfection.

And He does this not to taunt you for your imperfections nor to damn you for being His betrayers.

Or for worshiping at the altars of false gods like our egos.

Or for hearing His Word with contempt or indifference.

Or for murdering others with our words, committing adultery with our minds, or stealing from others in our fantasies.

Instead, Jesus comes into our world to save us.

He sets us free from the condemnation of God’s Law that none of us measures up to.

He gives us life with God that never ends.

He comes to us to make us righteous–innocent, justified, fit to live in God’s presence for all eternity.

That’s why the apostle Paul writes: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4, English Standard Version]

And, “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, NIV)

Paul isn’t saying that if you’re a Christian, you have a free pass to sin unrepentantly. He is saying that when you daily take refuge in Christ, trusting Him to justify you by grace through faith in Him, sinner though you are and sinner though you will be until Jesus calls you from the grave, God’s Law will not condemn you and you will be saved for life with God for eternity.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus is going around the villages and towns of Galilee, loving people in three ways. These are three ways He is loving you this morning too.

First, He teaches in their synagogues. As Jesus worships God the Father with His fellow Jews, He teaches them. Jesus doesn’t teach them the Law. They already know the moral law of God that is written on every human being’s heart. It’s likely rather that Jesus teaches them, as He did the people at His home synagogue in Nazareth, what God had revealed about a Savior Who would be the Messiah or the Christ, God’s Anointed King: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [Luke 4:18-19]

Next, Matthew tells us this morning, Jesus proclaims the good news–the gospel–of the Messiah’s coming, of Jesus’ coming, by saying, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21) Jesus is the Gospel. Jesus is our good news. He is the promised King Who makes all who, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in His Word, believe in Him, part of His everlasting Kingdom.

Third, Jesus heals every disease and sickness, or more literally every illness and weakness. This doesn’t mean that those to whom Jesus restores health and strength will live forever in their sins in this sinful world. Poor old Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead, tells us that. Ever after he’d died and been brought back to life, he had to go life in this sinful world and death all over again. What Jesus healing every illness and weakness does mean is that He gives to those who believe in Him the power to live through the challenges and even horrors and death of this world to live with Him in an eternity with God where there will be no more mourning or pain and every tear will be wiped from our eyes. (Revelation 21:4)

This is the Gospel of love Jesus gives to you this morning.

But Jesus’ love isn’t just for you and me.

It’s for everyone.

For family members who have hurt you.

For people in the other political party who drive you to distraction.

For those who lead unrepentantly sinful lives.

Jesus loves them and everyone else as much He loves you. He wants them with Him forever no less than He wants you with Him forever. 

We know this today when we hear what Matthew tells us: “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion [The word here is ἐσπλαγχνίσθη, more literally meaning Jesus’ gut was stirred to pity] on them, because they were harassed and helpless [literally, flayed and cast off], like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36)

All around Him, Jesus sees people in distress, wandering far from God.

Some are flayed, vexed, gutted, by the horrors of a world in which nobody has taught them about God’s love for them and so, view life as a succession of meaningless events interspersed with occasional thrills and laughs, leading only to death.

Jesus also sees other people who are helpless. Their only “knowledge” of God is the Law of Moses, the law of right and wrong and because, even though they they may have spent their whole lives in churches, have never encountered the Jesus Who embraces sinners, are lost to God. This is the Jesus Who wants to tell them: “Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:40)

Jesus wants all people, starting with the descendants of Abraham, to be set free by this good news.

So, Jesus tells His first disciples and you and me, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 10:37-38)

According to Jesus, all the vexed, gutted people and all those people convinced that God will never have anything to do with them–all the cynics, atheists, and Christian legalists, all the narcissists and hedonists, all the hopeless who think they aren’t and can’t be loved by God and all the spiritually indifferent–are harvest.

All people are ripe for hearing, receiving, and believing in the gospel.

Ripe for being told God loves them.

Ripe to hear what Peter told the Pentecost crowd: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved…” (Acts 2:21)

Dear friends in Christ, God loves you with a passion, depth, and commitment you and I could never have imagined, but which we can see in the crucified and risen Jesus. Jesus has already done everything needed to save you now and forever for eternal life with God!

Jesus loves your neighbor too. You, who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus, are called to pray that God the Holy Spirit will send Christian disciples–believers in Jesus–into the world to share our good news so that God can create saving faith in the ripe harvest of people out beyond the walls of our church buildings.

And if what Jesus does in today’s Gospel lesson when He calls twelve of the disciples to be His apostles is any indication, He may even call you to share His Gospel with others.

If so, may you be so moved by gratitude for God’s grace and by compassion for your Christ-less neighbor that you tell God, as the Old Testament prophet told Him long ago, “Here am I, [Lord]. Send me!” Send me! (Isaiah 6:8) Amen

[Graphic from Sola Publishing, used by permission through their SOWER subscription service.]