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 7 of 86).

Laetare (Lent 4) – John 6:1-15

10. March 2013
Laetare (Lent 4)
John 6:1-15

We are in the midst of difficult times as a congregation. We overspent our offering receipts from last year by eight thousand dollars, drawing these funds from our reserve. The current economic climate has not improved and 2013 offerings are already falling significantly behind last year. The “writing is on the wall” and significant revisions are needed to this year’s budget to prevent the depletion of our entire reserve. Difficult choices were made and we’ll need to continue to be attentive as the year goes on.

Some think we should, as a congregation, “go gracefully into the sunset,” a euphemism for closing. Others think that we should continue to slash the budget. Others think we can do fundraisers to make up the deficit. Some say that we should cut the pastor and return to a vacancy situation. Some would have us investigate how to share pastor(s) or merge with another parish. Fiscally and physically speaking, one can understand these suggestions. Responsible and frugal actions should be taken as responsible stewards of God’s material gifts, gathering up the what remains of His miraculous barley loaves.

Something critical is missing in these discussions. There is a great spiritual danger lurking underneath the surface. Answer this question: Who built this church? If you answer, “we did,” you’re both right and wrong. You’re right in that your hands, monies, and time invested in the life of this congregation. But you’re also wrong. The holy Christian church is not made with money, or hands, or even time but by God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Church is built upon Jesus: the Word of Jesus, the washing in the blood of Jesus, the forgiving touch of Jesus, and the bread and wine sacramentally united to the body and blood of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies the Christian church on earth and keep it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. We do not confess that building, utility bills, organs, lighting projects, air conditioning, parking lots, nor fellowship times make or break churches. Buildings come and go along with the congregations within them. Air conditioning systems break, roofs leak, pews get matted and torn, and hymnals fall apart. The things of this earth see rust, moth, and decay. But the church remains forever, built upon the immovable and sure prophetic Word. Your faith cannot be starved by physical hunger nor the Holy Church destroyed when steeples crumble.

God is providential and always gives us precisely what we need to hear, taste, and see. The Holy Spirit opens our ears to hear and our hearts to understand, applying the Word of Truth to our lives. Today’s Holy Gospel is no different. It is no coincidence that today’s lesson is given during the trying time of Lent. It’s no coincidence that today’s Holy Gospel fell a week after an “emergency” congregation meeting slash congregational spending. The Word of Jesus needs to be heard by us today for our confidence and comfort in the face of difficult times.

We have a bread problem. We’re hungry and we we’re going to satisfy the need. Compared  to some we’re quite full and yet we still desire more and more. We’ve dined sumptuously on rich food, of marrow and wine. We have amassed closets of clothing. We build bigger and better houses. We “upgrade” our cars, our computers, and even our spouse. The engorgement never ends There’s a hunger deep inside us and it is never satisfied.

Saying “no” to the hunger is next to impossible. The cravings of our stomach, our heart, and our mind overwhelm us. They are irresistible. “Feed me,” says the ravenous beast within. Only later do we realize that satisfying our appetite actually increased it. “I used to get by on much less,” some say. “How did we ever live without that, “ others ponder. Our greedy sinner selves are insatiable.

This misplaced desire leads to sin and death. To want what is not given is to covet. To take what is not yours is to steal. To lust after another leads to adultery. To damage another’s reputation is to artificially inflate yours. To hate is to take life. To break God’s holy Law is desire what is not yours to have, to do, or gain. You do not want to know both good and evil but to have clean and pure heart, holy in thought, word, and deed.

Desire is not in itself evil. Only when desire is perverted into use contrary to God is it sinful. It is God-pleasing to desire your husband or wife. For your spouse been given to you for your blessing. It is God-pleasing to show love to the neighbor. This desire is a fruit of God’s love for you. It is God-pleasing to desire to help and not harm the reputation and income of the other. It is God-pleasing to desire to protect and wisely use the many gifts of body and soul He has given you.

Thus, desire can be used to be faithful to God and love neighbor. Or desire can be twisted to love oneself and hate God. Desire is always distorted. Because we are both sinners in the flesh and holy and righteous in the blood of Jesus, our desires are at odd. We both are faithful and despise God. We love and hate our neighbor. Simultaneously. Duplicitously. Even when we love what is given, we also seek to use it for our own self-interest. Even while we love our neighbor, we secretly would rather have nothing to do with him.

Confident that your desires are holy and right can only come from the Holy Word. Only by listening to the voice of Jesus can you accurately weigh your thoughts and deeds. The Word exposes the wickedness of the flesh, crushing the old Adam to death. The Word raises up a new Man, righteous and pure in the blood of Jesus. This Word is a refining fire, a two-edged sword, a bone-saw that exposes the joint and the marrow. The faithful desire to hear this Word so that their sin would be annihilated by Christ’s death and holiness be given by Christ’s Spirit.

The faithful act beyond reason and pursue this Word at all costs. They give up bread, clothing, home, family, and even their life to hear and meditate upon this Word. They will sacrifice everything to sit at the feet of Jesus and receive His life-giving bread. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) By their Baptism they have undergone a priority reversal. Those under the curse think of themselves first and God enters the frame only to fill in the needed blanks. Those redeemed in Christ, “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) knowing full well that all else will be given to due measure.

Thus five-thousand men (with women and children) left everything behind and followed Jesus into the wilderness. They pursued Him to hear His every Word and receive His gifts. They were not concerned about food for the journey, shoes to make the distance, water for the desert, or even a blanket to sit upon. They desired rightly every Word that proceeded from the mouth of Jesus. Whether they knew it or not, Jesus would take care of them. The would be fed with the Holy Word, bread from heaven, for their aching souls and barley loaves, bread of the earth, for their aching bellies. Like their fathers in the wilderness, they would have meat and bread as they needed. God even provided a soft grassy earth from them to recline and feast upon the Him.

You may have the inclination to wring your hands in despair or panic, to worry about what tomorrow may bring, or to give up and throw in the towel on Grace Lutheran Church. May it not be so! Hear the Word of Jesus: “Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” (Psalm 34:9-10) Learn from the faithful whose holy desire led them to purse Jesus into the wilderness, rightly desiring first to hear the Word of God, confident that Jesus would later take care of their other needs.

We do not know what is in store for our body, our life, or our congregation.We trust that He will preserve His Word and our faith until our end or He comes again. The fact that we here at all is testimony to the miracle of God’s grace and mercy. We give thanks for the multitude of blessings the Father has given our body and life. But we all the more store up the treasures of Jesus Christ, desiring first His Word and the holy Sacraments, confident that upon this bread from heaven, the church will remain forever.

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

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

“Hear the Word of God and Keep It” – Luke 11:14-28 – Oculi 2013

02. March 2013
Oculi
Luke 11:14-28

As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” 

To keep the Word is to hide within the Word. The woman in the crowd thought that faithfulness is serving Jesus. She uplifts the Mother of Our Lord for childbearing and nursing. St. Mary is to be revered for hearing the Word from the angel Gabriel and bearing that eternal Word. For Jesus we and all the saints are to be revered for the same reason. We have heard this Word and we keep near and dear. We clothe ourselves in Jesus and treasure Him in our hearts by faith.

“The most effective help against the devil, the world, and all evil thoughts.. [is] to be occupied with God’s Word, to speak it, and meditate on it.” (LC, Preface 10) There sweet smell of Christ’s sacrifice is the only effective repellent against the devil and his wiles and his ways. Jesus defends us from all our mortal foes when he continually speaks His Word and grants us faith to cherish it.

Our bodies are dwelling places just as this sanctuary is home for this congregation. This is why Jesus casts out demons. They cannot dwell in a body home that has been reserved for Him. By nature this home is a dwelling place for the Devil. Only by the stronger man’s finger is the evil one cast out. Holy Baptism exorcises the Devil and all his angels and the strong name of the Trinity takes up its residence in you. Where the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is given, there the Godhead dwells by faith.

What of the homes exorcised of the devil in Baptism but this faith is not nurtured? What of those baptized but infrequently, reluctantly, or never hear the Word, receive forgiveness of their sins, and eat and drink Christ’s body and blood? What of those who have been freed, swept, and cleaned? These empty homes need Jesus. He tells us in the Gospel:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

Jesus is telling us how those who are saved and then stop receiving the Holy Spirit. As St. Peter said it, to paraphrase, better never to be a Christian than to reject the faith once received (2 Peter 2:20ff). They are the house cleared of its demonic possession but then left without Christ’s continual filling of the home with His Spirit. A vacant home invites the devil’s host to return and with more evil than before.

Yes, God will “punish those who deliberately turn away from the holy commandment and involve themselves again in the filth of this world (2 Pet. 2:20), prepare their hearts for Satan (Luke 11:24, 25), and outrage the Holy Spirit (Heb. 10:29), and that he would harden, blind, and for ever damn them if they continue therein.” (FC XI 83)

This is God’s alien work. Even allowing people to fall into blindness, hardness of heart, and under demonic power is not to damn them eternally. No, it that He would receive into grace all who repent and believe in Christ. It is a call to repentance. When we struggle against our flesh this is the call to confess our sins, by which God crucifies our flesh again and makes us alive by the Spirit. When the devil rages and torments us, this is a call to dwell again richly in the Word by which we quench all his fiery darts. When the world seeks to pollute you or the holy Church, only God’s Word is the true defense and shield.

There is no middle ground in the battle between God and devil, between flesh and spirit, and between church and the world. We’d like to think that we can straddle the fence, play both sides, or dabble as our mortal enemies are mostly harmless. Two weeks ago Jesus showed us how there is no capitulation to the devil. He warred against the evil foe in the wilderness and won. None of the evil one’s three temptations were reasonable or faithful. At every turn, the chief of liars deceived, cajoled, and baited to choose the wrong side in a losing battle.  At every temptation, Jesus turned the devil away by the Word of God, thereby defeating him.

When it comes to the battle between God and Satan, “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” This is no surprise to us. We know the Law given by Moses. God commanded we have no other gods, that we hallow the name of the Holy Trinity only, and that we worship Him only in spirit and truth. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind—and Him only shall your serve. Even with the command and perhaps despite of it, we flirt with idols. We call upon the name of guru, president, or mock savior for help. Our worship and prayers fail and falter. As a spiritual warrior we look more like Barney Fife than a Navy Seal—bumbling, idiotic, and mistaken.

There is no middle ground. There is no picking and choosing. No neutrality. You cannot say, “there is my victor Jesus!” and deny His gift of Holy Baptism. You cannot call Jesus your only Lord and deny His forgiveness and to forgive others. You cannot live in Jesus if you fail to receive His life-giving body and blood. There is no such thing as a Christian who doesn’t receive Christ in the Holy Scriptures and blessed Sacraments. If you’re with Him in His Word you will receive Him in His instituted means. If refuse the means of giving His life by His very Word, then you’re against Him and scattering faith into the wind.

Thanks be to God that the battle is not up to us. God is faithful and He will do it. He saves us without our reason or strength. He gives us faith to trust that Jesus’s death is enough to satisfy all God’s wrath. The battle is already won. The victory is done. Christ has triumphed over Devil and every idol and gives us this victory in His body and blood. That is to say, our victory over Satan doesn’t come by our striving to win but rather receiving the spoils in Christ.

He is the stronger man who binds this strong man. Jesus is the finger of God whose mighty touch casts out demons, cleanses of iniquity, and raises the dead. This is what Jesus does. He casts out Satan’s demonic hold through Holy Baptism. “Out unclean spirit and make room for the Holy Spirit!” He waters the parched desert of our heart with His living water. We are wandering pilgrims, journeying through the valley of the shadow of death. He nourishes us with bread from heaven, the sustenance of His Word. As we constantly stumble and fall, He rescues us from the pit in Holy Absolution. Our self-inflicted wounds need a constant source of healing and He gives us His body and blood to eat and to drink as medicine. “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

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

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