Sermons

What is preaching? St. Paul writes in Romans: “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14-15)

Therefore our Lutheran Confessions state: “It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain forever. This is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.” (Augsburg Confession VII:1-3)

There are 257 posts filed in Sermons (this is page 29 of 86).

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist ’12 – Luke 1:57-80

23. June 2012
The Nativity of St. John the Baptist
Isaiah 40:1-5; Acts 13:13-26; Luke 1:57-80

No one knows what to think of John. Yes, as we hear in Advent, he’s an odd fellow, camel hair, dieting on locusts and honey, and preaching and baptizing in the wilderness. The strangeness of John began long before that. John’s ancestry is one of note. His father is a pastor and his mother a pastor’s kid. Preachers beget preachers. The Word of God dwelt richly in his family, with his father serving and his mother listening. And as you know, pastors aren’t normal and their children even less so.

Yet, even pastors and their families struggle with the same manner of sin, disease, and death as the layperson in the pew. Elizabeth is no exception. She is barren, infertile, and unable to conceive. Not the sort that God can use—whole, undefiled—right? Well, not unless you think of Sarah, Rebekah, Hanna, Rachel, and Michal. Come to think of it, God seems to think barrenness, a consequence of the curse, to not be a barrier to His working great things, much like our sin, death, and not even the power of the devil can stop Him from saving us. Strange and wonderful.

All changes when Zechariah is visited by the angel Gabriel. Even the priest is scared of the messengers of God. We don’t blame him. An angel swings a flaming sword to bar entrance to Eden. Angels show up and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. An angel wrestles Jacob all night. Angels are terrifying. Yet, what seems strange to the people is now common appearance. God sends angels, that is, messengers, to terrify us every week. Zechariah prays but is rightly terrified with God speaks. We should fear God and so does John’s father.

But this is no normal angel. This angel comes with good news. He is an evangelical angel, a messenger of the Gospel. He comes and announces that Zechariah and Elizabeth will conceive! John is the miracle baby, the “surprise” child that the elder parents didn’t expect. Much like his cousin Jesus whose conception came by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, John was given to unlikely parents. But that’s how God works. He miracles with even unlikely and underserving folks, especially with them. He glories in weakness. He gives joy where we least expect it and gladness in the midst of sorrow.

And God’s blessings are infectious. They are given and they multiply. He blesses this barren couple and many rejoice. He gives a small infant child and God makes him great before the Lord. A child is born where no child is expected and the whole community rejoices. Such is the way of God, giving gifts personally but also overflowing into the whole people of God.

John is strange and wonderful. He is blessed with the same Spirit that conceives his cousin. The Spirit of the Father and the Son comes forth from Mary’s womb and causes John to rejoice in the presence of the savior. He is unlike anyone since the days of Elijah, the great prophet who defeated the prophets of Baal, who condemned wicked Jezebel and called Ahab to repentance. John is like every prophet before but greater, turning the hearts of the fathers to care for the spiritual health of their children, calling to transgressor to repent of his wickedness, and pointing all to the promise fulfilled in Jesus.

But this is not easy to believe. For no woman conceives, barren or fertile, but by a miraculous creative Word of God. No prophets has come in the greatness of Elijah. Angels almost never have come bearing good news. We doubt God’s holy messengers. We do not believe God can create from nothing. We do not think a Word of God can bring about exactly what it says. No different for Zechariah.

Even faithful Zechariah let his stupid reason cloud his faith. The angel Gabriel speaks and the response is “what? are you nuts?” Ah, Zechariah, we know how you feel. God the Father says: Behold, I wash you with water and the Word and you are now my beloved. We ought to say amen, that is, it shall be so! Instead we say, I only see water and hear plain words. Ah, foolish Christian! This is God speaking and promising! When He speaks, it shall be so! And so it was for John’s parents, having heard the Word, doubted or hid themselves.

While doubt may have clouded these faithful parent’s will, they dutifully served God by following His command to be fruitful and multiply, trusting this Word even when age and barrenness seemed to prevent it. God glories in weakness. He gives according to His good and gracious will. And so Zechariah and Elizabeth returned to the way of the Lord, walking blamelessly in this command and bearing a child where God has now spoken. Strange conception? To be sure. Miracle baby? Absolutely! Surprising to us? Not anymore. We know that God works His wonderful act of salvation through weakness, poverty, messy, and infertile means. He makes the weak strong, the poor rich, the broken whole, and the barren fertile by His holy Word sent by His messengers.

This is not some distant future event but an ever present reality. God glories in you when you struggle with your sin and plead to Him for mercy. As you confess that you are without any merit or worthiness, utterly poor in spirit, God blesses you with the richness of forgiveness. Your hardened heart is a barren, parched wasteland without love for God, and yet, miraculously, by God’s own grace and favor, He speaks and thereby creates a new and clean heart within you. This Word blesses you with rich supply, restores you to righteousness, and gives you love for God and neighbor. And stranger yet, this Word comes to you from the mouth of fellow sinful men, appointed to God to carry it worth by their own weak voices and poor spirits.

But God’s Word comes not only through his holy prophets, apostles, and pastors, it first comes from the father. Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. (Incidentally, exactly as Gabriel told Zechariah they would!) And on the eight day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered [because dad could not; remember: his tongue was tied by the angel for doubt], “No; he shall be called John.” 

The Word of God, given by the angel, is spoken by Elizabeth. But the people did not want to hear it. And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

Yes, St. John the Baptizer’s prophetic ministry in the wilderness was odd. Camel hair, locusts, baptizing in the Jordan… strange. But the story of his birth is just as bizarre. A barren and aged couple conceives. Angels visit during the Divine Service. The father and priest’s speech is bound. The child, filled with the Holy Spirit, leaps in his mother’s womb. And his name is John. Strange and wonderful.

While much is learned from the birth and life of St. John, just like his cousin, his importance is not merely his ancestry, his miraculous conception, or his name. St. John is remembered by the church for what he does. And even before the child grew and became strong in the spirit, his father Zechariah prophesies what he does. He sings the great Benedictus which we still sing in Morning Prayer and Matins. And as hymns go, He speaks of the great and awesome works of God in His son Jesus and even through His holy prophet John.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people. Who? Jesus. Does what? Visits in the flesh and by His death redeems. Redeems who? YOU. And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Who is He? Jesus, the son of Mary and thus son of David. What is He? The very source of salvation. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. How do we know he is the one? Jesus fulfills what was spoken by the prophets. Who does he redeem us from? Our enemies and all haters of God. What compels Jesus to do this? To show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham. What was the promise to Abraham? To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. Why has Jesus saved us? He restores us to life again with him by granting us His Word and Spirit for repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

Ah, but how does this happen? How does one know to repent? How does one know he is forgiven? First, St. John is sent. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Why is he sent but to prepare the way for Jesus. How? To give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. Why would God do this? Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. And no ordinary sunlight but a special sun, the Morningstar, Christ, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

What are we to think, then, of St. John? He is a bit strange from conception to ministry. But he is the one sent to prepare the way for Jesus. He comes speaking a holy Word of preparation: “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God!” The whole playing field is leveled. Jew, Gentile, man, woman, white, black, all are leveled, humbled by his call to repentance. Everyone humbled so that in Christ’s own forgiveness, all who believe in His name are exalted.

So also, God still send to you his angel, his messenger, his prophet—with strange stories, odd names, and bizarre families. Listen to him. For in this message, odd as the messenger may be, there is forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus. I am not he. I shouldn’t even touch his sandals. Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold, the horn of salvation, the way of peace, the sunrise from on high, the holy visitation.

In Name of the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana

The Sunday of the Great Banquet ’12 – Luke 14:15-24

16. June 2012
The Sunday of the Great Banquet
Luke 14:15-24

Repentance is an act of humility. Repent. Confess the sin that plagues your conscience or at least admit your name is Sinner. Say it. Lay open your shame and guilt before God. There is no more humble thing to do that to take off the fig leaves and tell God who you are and what you did. Adam and his wife Eve couldn’t do it. They hid and made God come after them, so ashamed they were.

Come to think of it, we’re little different. We’re completely indifferent to the true God and His Holy Word. We hide in our homes, in our cars, at work, at the park, anywhere. We hide from Him for shame and guilt. We cover ourselves with all sorts of clothing of our own making, inadequately covering our sin and never quite able to avoid the piercing stare of Jesus. He is the Light that no darkness can avoid, escape, or overcome. You cannot hide from God. Your sins are known. Your old name of Sinner is spoken.

Adam and Eve feared God, hiding in the bushes. You cower in fear, unwilling to confess the secret shame. Why? Repent! But Pastor… I’m too busy. I don’t have time. It’s not that big of a deal. No one was hurt. I’m over it. I can work it out. I just need time. I’ll try harder next time. Excuses, that’s what they are. Excuses to exalt yourself over God. Excuses to love yourself. Excuses and lies. As the saying goes: You can run but you can’t hide.

Fear of judgment isn’t going to work, at least not by itself. No one repents because they know they’re wrong. No one repents because God’s slaps them on wrist or chastens them with the rod of iron. But that’s not God’s final word. It’s not His ultimate work.

“Properly speaking, repentance consists of these two parts: one is contrition, that is, terror smiting the conscience with the knowledge of sin, and the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution, believes that sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terror.” [The Augsburg Confession, XII.3-5]

It is true, the Law terrifies you, shames you, and lays guilt upon you. God lays us low in the sorrow over our sinfulness. But the second part of repentance, faith, is the result of the Gospel. We hear of God’s love and sure promises for us, and we rejoice in His gifts and believe His promises. “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Promises and gifts. Good things!

Our God loves us but not with some generic kind of love. Not with heart shaped Valentines, a pat on the back, or even nice stuff. No, He loves us in a way that cannot be repaid. He loves is in a way that is completely outside the realm of our possibility. He loves us as with generosity undeserved and gifts unmerited. He loves us with a great banquet, no cover charge, no secret invite, not special status. He gives to those who have nothing to give in return.

Jesus tells us a parable: A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.” Do you see? Repent and believe the Gospel. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Come, for everything is now ready. Your sin is atoned for in Jesus death for you. Your death is destroyed by His cross. Your life will never end at resurrection of the just. Come, for He has gifts for you. Drop your self-appointed works. Destroy your idols. Forget about pulling up the bootstraps. Come, for everything is now ready. Come, and be fed with food and drink unlike any other.

Ah, but this sounds to good to be true. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have married a wife, and therefore cannot come.” 

Excuses. All good sounding ones, too. I have stuff to do at home. I have work. I have family needs. These are all the sorts of excuses I hear as pastor why people don’t come to church, or arrogantly leave before Bible study, or complain about “extra” services. Pastor, I have stuff to do. I’m too busy. I need to work. I need a vacation. I’ve enough Jesus to last me a little while.

How does Jesus respond to this? The servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry. That’s right, Jesus is angry. Many are called. Many have the invite in hand, baptized into His name. Many though, spurn the invite and refuse to come to the banquet. He hates their excuses. He is angry at those who think vacation is more important that receiving His blessings in the Divine Service. He is mad as hell at those who think the study of His Word is optional to the Christian life, even when He sends a man to you to do this very thing. And while He is patient for a time despite His anger, but that patience will run thin. Eventually He will move on and have enough of the invitees hard-hearts.

So He said to His servant, “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” Do you see? There is no entitlement in the Christian church. Calling yourself Christian does not make you one. Your membership is this congregation does not mean a lick if you ignore the gifts. Saying you are Christian, all the while opening spurning the gifts of faith is rejecting the invite to the feast. Your neglect of God’s gifts—the Divine Service, Christ’s Absolution, your Baptism, and the Holy Communion—treating God’s gifts like they are some kind of optional thing. This is a denial of the God’s gracious invitation. You are saying “no thank you” to the rich man, the king who has plundered Satan and wants to give you His great gifts. Come, for everything is now ready and you say, “I’ve got better things to do, places to go, and people to see.”

Repent! You have not loved God with your whole heart, mind, and strength. Otherwise you’d be beating down those doors every day of the week, begging to hear Jesus’s invite again, and come like the poor, crippled, lame, and blind that you are. Repent, and come out of hiding in the hedges. Repent and stop the busy travels on the highway, your hustle and bustle and all the stupid excuses.

Repent and receive. Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight. Our Lord desires to feed you from His table. He has laid out a banquet spread before you, with His succulent Word prepared as rich liturgy, sweet hymns, satisfying proclamation. He wets your parched lips with the water of life. He gives you the finest wine of His blood for the forgiveness of sins. He feeds your hungry soul with bread of life. He even sets in His stead a steward of this food of mystery. This steward calls Come, for everything is now ready so that you are never tempted to neglect the feast. The Lord and master of the feast is here. You are fed and nourished. And not just today but day in and day out.

You are invited by the Word to the great banquet. You are carried by the Word made flesh to the banquet hall. You are Spirit-compelled by the Word of promise to come. Receive rich food and drink. Receive the Bread of Life come down from heaven. Drink deeply from the wells of salvation, from the river of life that flows through the new Jerusalem. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

In Name of the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana

The Sunday of the Rich Man and Lazarus 2012

10. June 2012
The First Sunday after Trinity – Baptism of Vincent Nowaczyk
Luke 16:19-31

Every single person who walks through those sanctuary doors has the wrong idea. Every single one, every single week. You came this morning with wrong ideas about life. You have the wrong ideas about death. You think wrongly about faith and church. Your mind is confused by the many whisperings of worldly liars. Your heart is torn from its true love to instead lust after guilty pleasures and false idols.

Perhaps you think I’m harsh. Jesus begs to differ. He says, “there is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins” (Ecc. 7:20). He also says, “All men are liars” (Ps 116:11). This knowledge is absolutely necessary. Without believing in this real defect, the magnitude of Christ’s grace cannot be understood. “Those who are well have no need of a physician”(Mt 9:12; Mk 2:17). “All the righteousness of man is mere hypocrisy before God unless we acknowledge that of itself the heart is lacking in love, fear, and trust in God” (Ap II 33).

Jesus has some harsh words for you. Yet, just as loving Father disciplines those whom He heals, so Jesus doesn’t leave in the pit, in the Sheol of despair. You cry out “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” That’s not the wrong idea. That’s precisely the right idea of faith. That’s why you’re here. To have God’s Word wreck, destroy, and utterly demolish your wrong ideas about life, death, church, God, love, and stuff.

“How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” And God, by the way, it seems like its taking an terribly long time. Life sucks. Death stinks. The church is full of hypocrites. I don’t much understand you. I have so little to love. And stuff, well, I ain’t got any.

Wrong. Wrong ideas. The lies of sinful men. The idolatry of yourself. Stop listening to your rotten soul. Stop grieving all the day for the treasures that moth and rust can destroy. Call upon the Lord in the day of trouble. Let Him lighten your heart, to consider and answer you. Let Him light up your eyes with the truth, lest your enemy Sin overtake you, lest Death prevails over you, lest the Devil rejoice that you are shaken. “O Lord, I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” Turn to the Lord and live.

So it goes in our Lord’s parable. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linens and who feasted sumptuously every day. In other words, the 1%. He’s got it all, not a care in the world. Every luxury provided for. Health–good. Wealth–plenty. Prosperity–abundant. But he is a beggar, utterly poor in the things of God. He does not call on God in a time of need, for he has none. He does not need the Great Physician since he’s seems healthy. He needs not be dressed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness. His purple and fine linen of his own making are comfortable and stylish.

This man is rich in the things of this world and yet poor in the things of God. Who needs to pray for daily bread with the perfect capitalistic market society gives him everything he wants? He trusts in doctors and not in God’s providential and protective hand working through them. And really, when you look as good as he does, why should he even fear what God sees? He’s a beggar without even knowing it.

At his gate was a laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.Here’s the 99%, the suffering majority. Poor in body and spirit. Suffering in his body. Needing even a small bite what the 1% greedily is enjoying in his banquet hall unto gluttony. Poor, miserable, pitiable. He is even despised by men, cared for only by dogs. They are this man’s only friend. Truly a beggar but as history will show, rich all the same.

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. This poor worm of man was carried by angels to rest in the loving embrace of his patriarch Abraham. Where is his father Abraham but seated at the eternal feast, with rich heavenly food and a cup overflowing with divine grace. This man who was poor in this life and yet received a wedding garment washed in the Lamb’s own blood. His body was covered with sores for a time and yet received a resurrected body for eternal life. His mouth longed to be filled with the crumbs from the rich man’s table but this hunger was forever satisfied with the crumbs that fall from our dear Lord’s table.

The rich man also died and was buried. His resurrection was unto Hades, and being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. Why? While He feasted sumptuously, clothed himself like a GQ model, and set himself up for a life of luxury he neglected the truth. He was actually a beggar. A rotten sinner. A liar. A hater of God. When it comes to His standing before the judgment seat, he looks little different than the sore-infested beggar laying at his gate.

You and I all come from radically different backgrounds. Some are given much. Some have little. Some have never been sick in their life. Others can’t seem to shake the last sickness before the next one strikes. Some come dressed in fine suits and others with barely the polo shirt to their name. And yet, we do well to heed Luther’s final words: we are all beggars, this is true.

Not one of us has anything to contribute to salvation. Not a good work, an act of charity, a loving embrace, or even a faithful prayer. Not one of us has decided for Jesus, chosen to follow Jesus, or even accepted Jesus into our hearts. We are all beggars, this is true. “How long, O LORD?” is the cry of poor Lazarus. “How long, O LORD?” is the cry of every beggar.

There is not one righteous (Romans 6:3). Everyone of us is a liar. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Sinners. Yet, even sinners are not without good things. Good things? Like what? Clothing? Shoes? House? Home? Nope. Jesus did not build your hotrod. Jesus does not give you your perfect life now. Jesus gives you truly good things—your perfect life into eternity.

Abraham said [to the rich man in Hades], “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.” Trust not in princes, they are but mortal. Trust not in wealth which is here today and gone tomorrow. Trust not in health for all men die. Trust not in clothing for it rots just like the flesh. We are all beggars, this is true. Trust in what, then? How are we to know that God loves us?

All you who are unrighteous in thought, word, and deed—liars and haters of God—why are you here? You have heard the Word of God and want to live. You don’t want the just punishment for your sins, the suffering you deserve, nor the death of the wicked. You desire God—His love, His salvation, His grace, and His mercy. You are hear for you know you are beggars; this is true. “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.”

You know there a great chasm fixed between Abraham, Lazarus, and the whole heavenly host—and the rich now poor man and the whole host of the damned in torment of Hades. You know and fear this righteous judgment. For truly we are all beggars, deserving nothing but the same sort of death and punishment.

Unlike the “rich” man, we know that true joy, true happiness, indeed true love and salvation are in the riches of heaven. There is no amount of health, wealth, or good things in this life that prepares for the life to come. Only the riches of God’s grace given only in Jesus Christ’s shed blood can take even you, poor Lazarus, unto Abraham’s bosom. Only God’s own salvation given can take you into heaven.

All the wrong ideas, the lies, and the idols are confiscated at the font, forgotten by the voice of Christ, exorcised from the pulpit, and healed through the medicine of Christ’s own body and blood. Only by these means of grace, daily and richly received are you rich for heaven. The light of Christ illuminates your heart with the bright radiance of His glory, glory of the only-begotten of God, crucified, dead, risen and ascended for you!

Receive the heavenly riches just as little Vincent. We are all beggars, this is true. Receive the robe of Christ’s righteousness in your baptismal waters. Receive healing of body and soul in the resurrection of the dead. Receive life everlasting in heaven. Receive the rich food of your salvation. Receive, trust, rejoice, and sing!

In Name of the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana