Love one another while the world hates you

Posted on October 28, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of Sts. Simon & Jude

1 Peter 1:3-9 + John 15:17-21

While it’s the occasion of the Apostles Simon and Jude that brings us together this evening, we’ll use their day as an opportunity to focus, not on them so much, but on some beautiful words of Jesus that the two of them were there to hear with their own ears, before they eventually went out into the world to preach the gospel to all creation.

Simon and Jude (or Judas Thaddeus) were among the eleven apostles who were there with Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed, after Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, had left. They were there with Him in the upper room. They had their feet washed by Jesus. They celebrated the Passover meal with Him. They participated in the New Supper that was instituted that night, the New Testament in Jesus’ blood. And then they were there to hear Jesus’ departing sermon, recorded for us only by the Apostle John, Jesus’ final instructions to His disciples before they arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, where He would be arrested and hauled off to be tried, tortured, and crucified. In His departing words to His faithful apostles, Jesus leaves them with one final command: Love one another.

“Love.” Not necessarily “like.” You aren’t commanded to like anyone’s personality or to like how they look or how they talk. Love. To be devoted to someone, devoted to seeking their best interests, devoted to helping and serving and caring for someone. To turn away from yourself and your needs, toward someone else, to be willing and even glad to give from what is yours in service to another.

Jesus’ apostles already knew God’s commandment through Moses, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. That was the summary of the whole Law, to love God wholly and to love one’s neighbor perfectly, every neighbor equally, from family member to fellow Israelite to stranger and foreigner. They were to love in obedience to the Law, which, in turn, was to show them their sin, to show them how loveless they really were at heart.

But this commandment in John’s Gospel is different. In chapter 13, Jesus issued the same command to “love one another” and called it a “new commandment.” New, because it wasn’t a command to shame them or to accuse them; it wasn’t a command to “do this or fall under God’s wrath and curse!” It was a command, from the Lord to His brothers, to His “friends,” as He had just called them in the verses before our text, a command to follow Him, their dear Lord, who was about to walk the ultimate path of love for His friends. Follow Me!, He says. Love one another as I have loved you, committing all I have, even My own life, to your eternal good.

Love one another. That was the other thing that made this command “new.” This is not like Moses’ command to love your neighbor as yourself. It’s a command to love your fellow Christians, not “as you love yourself,” but “as I have loved you.” To be devoted to your brothers and sisters in Christ as your close friends and allies in this Church Militant, in the battle against our enemies—the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh—to consider one another to be beloved family members in Christ.

How can you tell that “one another” doesn’t refer to all your fellow human beings? Because of what follows. He contrasts His disciples on the one hand with the world on the other, that is, with those who are worldly-minded, who don’t believe in Him, who have not been chosen out of the world by Him. You, Jesus reminds them, have been brought to Me by the Father through the Spirit. You have been given, as Peter said in the First Lesson, new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is incorruptible, and undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by God’s power, through faith, for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. You have been made children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ and in Christ. You have been brought together into one body, “My body,” Jesus says. “If I, the Head of the body, have loved you and all My Father’s children in this way, you must love one another as I do, as I have, as I will.”

And even more, you must love one another because no one else will. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Why would the world hate them so much? Because they belonged to Jesus, and spoke truthfully about Jesus, and spoke like Jesus, and acted like Jesus did in the world. In other words, because they were no longer of the world. They no longer belonged to the world, or belonged in the world, or spoke or acted like the people of the world. They had been chosen out of the world, as all baptized Christians have been, baptized out of the world, made citizens of the heavenly City, and so they, we, are now foreigners and aliens among the sons of the serpent. The citizens of heaven belong to Christ, and we get our understanding of right and wrong and good and evil from God, not from the world. The citizens of the world, the unbelievers, get their understanding of morality from themselves, from their darkened, deadened consciences, or worse yet, from their father, the devil. What God calls good, the world calls evil, and what the world calls evil, God calls good. So the world is left hating those who expose its darkness, eager to rid itself of those who just don’t belong here or fit in here anymore.

That was certainly true of Jesus. Good Friday fully revealed the extent of the world’s hatred of Him. The three centuries that followed fully revealed how much the world also hated His apostles and those who followed in the footsteps of the apostles. Ridicule was the least of their problems. They were attacked with vicious hatred, lied about, stolen from, beaten, and mercilessly tortured while crowds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, cheered and gnashed their teeth at those horrible, horrible Christians. That was how the world treated them.

The last thing Jesus wanted was for His Christians to turn on one another, to add to the world’s persecution by having Christians persecute one another or mistreat one another or burden one another with more hatred or grief. Instead, He wanted them to have a “safe place” on earth, if you will, not perfectly safe, obviously, but He wanted them to have a group of people they could rely on to care for them, to be there for them, to love them in the midst of the world’s hatred, a group of God’s people on earth for God’s people on earth, with whom God’s people will spend eternity after this world finally comes to an end.

In another place, Jesus tells His disciples to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He doesn’t want us to return the world’s hatred with more hatred. He wants us to treat even our enemies with love, and to seek to help them to leave the citizenry of the world and to become citizens of heaven, as we are. If we are to love our enemies, how much more does He expect us to love our allies! To love one another from the heart, to love those with whom you will spend eternity.

This is why it’s such a serious problem when churches experience strife and discord and contentions in their midst, when that which was intended to be a safe haven and harbor turns into a source of pain and persecution. Given Christ’s commandment that we love one another, there’s only one thing that rises to the level of rightfully disrupting the bond of love and mutual support among Christians, and that’s the doctrine of Christ itself. Some would place even that underneath the bond of so-called “love,” preferring to preserve unity at the expense of the Word of Christ. But you know that the Word of Christ has to come first, and that the love of Christians must be subordinate to His Word, must flow from His Word, must be built upon His Word as the foundation. To tolerate doctrinal errors in a Christian congregation is one of the most unloving things we could do.

But what a great gift and blessing it is when Christians, united in their confession of the doctrine of Christ, love and support one another, when Christians truly care for one another and, in love, overlook the human and sometimes sinful shortcomings of their brothers and sisters—as Peter writes, Love will cover a multitude of sins.

So love one another, on the one hand, and accept the world’s hatred, on the other. Don’t let it surprise you. Don’t let it weigh you down. Don’t let it cause you to hate the world back. Embrace the fact that you no longer belong here, in this world, that you’ve been made different, that you’ve been made to stand out in it. And, as the world hates you, and hates your fellow Christians, make it your goal to give your fellow Christians all the help and support they need to live in the midst of this hate-filled world. Be the safe haven God intended you to be for one another in this world, until this little while of being grieved by various trials, including being on the receiving end of the world’s hatred, is finally over and you enter into that incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading inheritance that is reserved in heaven for you. Until then, rejoice that you have been made children of God, and that you get to be treated as Jesus was treated in this world, and that you have been given fellow Christians around you, whether few or many, whom you have the privilege, and the commandment, to love with the love of Christ. Amen.

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The Reformation restored freedom

Posted on October 25, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation

Galatians 2:16-21 + John 8:31-36

You heard Jesus say it today in the Gospel: If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Again, He said: Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. This is Jesus’ promise to everyone who believes in Him, to everyone who abides in His word: Freedom. Freedom is the birthright (or the re-birthright) of every Christian. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, Paul writes.

Freedom was also the theme of the Evangelical Reformation of the Church—“Evangelical” meaning “Gospel-centered.” (The original Lutherans didn’t call themselves Lutherans but Evangelicals. And now, frankly, both titles have been largely coopted by groups that are neither authentically Lutheran nor Evangelical.) But turning our thoughts back to the Lutherans/Evangelicals of the 16th century, the Reformation they fought for, suffered for, and carried out, by God’s grace, was all about freedom. Because, for roughly a thousand years at that point, Christians had been subjected to several kinds of spiritual slavery and tyranny, each one attacking the truth of the Word of God, each one robbing Christians of their God-given freedom.

First, and probably most egregious, was the slavery of works-righteousness, the slavery of the Law as the path to salvation, the tyranny that deprived Christians of the free forgiveness of sins and of the certainty of salvation that believers in Christ are meant to have. The promise of the Gospel, God’s promise to freely forgive sins to those who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, was being systematically withheld from Christians across the Holy Roman Empire, being all but silenced throughout the Roman Church. Instead, sinners were taught that justification before God (that is, the reversal of our well-deserved condemnation) depended on how many good works they did, how many Our Fathers or Hail Mary’s they said, how obediently they fasted, how many prayers they prayed to the saints, how many Masses they sponsored, and, in some cases, how much money they paid to the priests and popes. Faith in Christ was good and well, but it didn’t save you. It didn’t justify you. You had to make satisfaction for your own sins, adding that to the “incomplete” atonement made by Christ. You had to earn your own part of forgiveness, either in this life, or after this life, in that imaginary place they called “purgatory.”

Oh, the teaching about purgatory was its own kind of slavery and tyranny. Christians were led to believe that their deceased loved ones were all suffering in that place of fire, and that they all had the same fire to look forward to when they died. The only little bit of hope they were given, was that if they said enough prayers, if they did enough good deeds, if they suffered enough in this life, and, again, if they paid enough money for Masses, and for the pope’s indulgences, they could shorten that time of soul-suffering in purgatory, both for their loved ones, and for themselves.

Where did the notion of purgatory even come from, since it isn’t taught in Scripture? Or prayers to Mary, for that matter? Or the invocation of the saints? None of that is found in Scripture. It was all part of another form of tyranny: the tyranny of tradition. The Roman Church of the 16th century, not unlike the Roman Church and the Eastern Church still today, did not even try to use the Scriptures as the only foundation of teaching in the Church. The Scriptures were placed beneath the oral traditions that had accumulated in the Church for many centuries, together with sayings of certain Church fathers, or decisions of certain councils or popes. Christians were enslaved to the teachings and traditions of men, some of which were useful, some of which were useless, some of which were abusive, and others of which were outright antichristian, like the teaching of purgatory, or prayers to the saints. The mantra of the Roman Church was not, “Abide in the word of Jesus and you will know the truth!” or “Search the Scriptures!” It was, “Listen to the Church, and do not question us!”

Related to this was the tyranny of the papacy itself, the tyranny of an imposed hierarchy over the parish priests and over the Christians themselves. Christians were led to believe that the bishop of Rome was not only the bishop of certain Christians in Rome, but of all Christians everywhere—the Head of the Church, the Vicar (or substitute) of Christ on earth, the “holy father” over all Christians, who had the divine right to judge all doctrine, to create new doctrines that were binding on all Christians, to impose fasting and other practices on all Christians, and, yes, to issue indulgences throughout the world and to spring souls out of purgatory—for a price.

For centuries, Christians had been trapped behind all these forms of tyranny, like prisoners behind bars, unable to change them, unable to escape, unable even to see the bars on their spiritual prison, because they had been taught that those bars weren’t bars but blessings.

But one by one, the Evangelicals began to break down those bars. A few faithful men had started rattling the bars over these and other abuses already in the 15th century, but it was Martin Luther who really got the wrecking ball rolling in 1517 with his 95 Theses, daring to challenge the pope’s authority to issue indulgences, and his audacity in selling them for money. And within about fifteen years, the freedom for which Christ had set us free was restored to those in the Church who were willing to have it.

The Reformation restored the freedom God offers from slavery to the Law and to works-righteousness.   Not freedom to sin, but the freedom to hear and believe the Gospel, that is, to see all your sins placed upon Christ, the Lamb of God, who bears all their punishment in your place. Not freedom to sin, but freedom from guilt, and from a guilty conscience, because God freely forgives all who repent and believe in Jesus. Not freedom to sin, but freedom from doing works of penance, or any works at all for the purpose of earning a pardon from God. Not freedom to sin, but freedom to do good works that flow from faith and from sins forgiven.

The Reformation also restored the freedom God offers from slavery to the fear of purgatory. Because, according to Scripture, there is no such place. Either a person dies clinging to Christ Jesus in faith, in which case, his or her soul is escorted directly to Paradise with God, or a person dies in sin and impenitence, in which case, his or her soul is taken to its permanent place of suffering in hell. In either case, there is nothing the living can or should do to affect the fate of the dead, no prayers that must be said, no Masses that must be purchased, no indulgences that must be bought. We’ve been set free from that burden. Instead, the living are now freed to do what we can for the living, repenting before it’s too late, calling sinners to repentance while there is still time, calling unbelievers to faith, and tending to our own souls by faithfully using the Means of Grace, free from the delusion that we can somehow make up for our sins later on, in purgatory.

The Reformation also restored the freedom God offers from the tyranny of tradition, especially where tradition has introduced error and false teaching. That includes the false teaching that Christians can or should approach the heavenly saints for help they should be seeking from God alone. It includes the false teaching that makes popes and councils and church fathers into a new and infallible source of doctrine. It includes the false teaching that the Mass is a sacrifice that Christians must offer to God in order to atone for our sins. We’ve been set free, not to ignore doctrine, but to learn our doctrine from the inspired Scriptures themselves, which cannot err or lead us astray. We’ve been set free, not to interpret the Scriptures in a hundred different ways, as each one sees fit, which is the bane of most of so-called Protestantism, but to use Scripture to interpret Scripture, and to use the church fathers and councils, not as infallible sources, but as God-given guides along the way. We’ve been set free, not to torch everything we’ve been handed from previous generations of Christians, but to evaluate it all on the basis of Scripture, free to use what we find useful together, and free to dispose of that which does not edify, and of that which fails to teach the truth. We’ve been set free, not to dishonor or disparage the saints, but to honor them by not turning them into idols, free now to approach God the Father directly, through the mediation of Christ Jesus, our Lord, who is the one Mediator between God and man. We’ve been set free, not to abandon the Sacraments, but to use them according to Christ’s command, not as a sacrifice we offer to God to atone for our sins, but as God’s instrument for applying Christ’s already-perfectly-accomplished atonement to us, individually.

And the Reformation also restored the freedom God offers from the tyranny of a man, of a pope, and from the slavery to a manmade hierarchy. We’ve been set free, not from the Church, but from the false teaching of the Roman bishop and from the Roman Catholic Church, Inc. We’ve been set free, not from the office of the ministry or from having a pastor, but from the tyrannical ministry of distant popes and bishops. We’ve been set free, not from having a Head of the Church, but from calling any man but the Lord Jesus Christ the Church’s Head.

And so, dear Christians, dear Evangelicals, you who call yourselves Lutherans, not to honor Luther or to follow Luther, but to identify yourselves before the world as those who have been set free by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for which Luther fought, and which Luther faithfully preached: Stand in the freedom for which Christ has set you free, and don’t let anyone move you from it. Give thanks to God, not only for Martin Luther, but for the Lutheran Confessions that he and other men wrote down, to preserve them for future generations, the Confessions that so clearly and so joyfully proclaim the truth of God’s Word, and the agreement of our doctrine with the doctrine of the universal Church from the very beginning. Resolve to read and study those Confessions more and more, even as you renew your commitment to knowing the Scriptures better and better. We may not be a big Lutheran Church, tied to the even bigger Lutheran synods. But as long as you abide in the word of Jesus, you are truly His disciples. And you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free. Amen.

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All Israel will be saved

Posted on October 21, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Trinity 20

Romans 11:25-36

We come back again this evening to a Lesson from Romans 11, which we also considered together last year during this same week of the Church Year. It’s good for us to study it, because the devil has spread a lot of false doctrine into the world by influencing people to misinterpret St. Paul’s words in Romans 9-11, where he focuses on Israel’s place in God’s plan of salvation. These false teachings concerning Israel have had devastating consequences on the Church, and on the nations of the world. So Christians need to be able to answer these questions: Where does Israel fit into God’s plan of salvation? And what does the Apostle Paul mean when he says that “all Israel will be saved”?

You all know what Old Testament Israel was: the people descended from Israel, that is, Jacob—the people whom God brought into a special covenant with Himself at Mt. Sinai and eventually brought into the land of Canaan, giving it to them to possess. We can refer to them as “genetic Israel.” But He made that covenant with them for a very specific purpose: to teach that one group of people on earth to know Him rightly, so that they might be ready to receive His Son when it was time to send Him into the world. It was always about the coming Christ, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of the woman from Genesis 3, who would be a blessing to all the families of the earth. And Israel got to know Him, ahead of time, through the prophecies about Him, and through the Law of Moses that taught them about God, about sin, about the need for atonement, and about the need for a priestly mediator between God and man. All the prophecies, the Law, the Old Testament sacrifices, and the priesthood itself, pointed the people of Israel ahead to the coming Christ.

And, as you heard on Sunday, when God sent His Son into the world, He faithfully sent Him to the Jews. And then, He sent His servants, the apostles, first to the Jews, to invite them to celebrate the arrival of Christ the Savior. But the people of Israel did the unthinkable: They rejected their own Christ. God had planted His Son in the soil of Israel, like a fertile olive tree, and He had cultivated the Israelites as natural branches that grew forth from that tree for over a thousand years. But when those branches rejected Jesus as the Christ, they rejected the very tree from which they had grown, and were, therefore, cut off from Christ, like branches that are cut off from an olive tree.

That’s the illustration St. Paul uses in Romans 11, in the verses leading up to our Lesson this evening. Israel according to the flesh, that is, the genetic descendants of Israel, who had rejected Christ, had been cut off from Christ, cut off from the true Israel that is Christ Himself. The genetic Israelites were no longer the true Israelites.

But as a result, it freed up the apostles to take the Gospel forth to the Gentiles. And many of those Gentiles believed the Gospel and were grafted into God’s kingdom, like wild olive branches that are grafted into a cultivated olive tree. Yes, they were like wild branches, having grown up as pagans in a pagan world, worshiping idols, with all sorts of pagan beliefs and pagan rituals, steeped in adultery and every form of sexual immorality and lawlessness. But those wild olive branches repented when they heard the Gospel and were grafted into Christ and His kingdom through faith, so that they became true Israelites, even though they weren’t genetic Israelites.

What Paul warns the Gentile Christians about in these chapters of the book of Romans is growing haughty, is considering themselves superior to genetic Israel, as if the Gentile Christians were inherently better than the Jewish unbelievers. No, Paul reminds them, and us, that we only stand by God’s mercy. The Gentiles had been completely unworthy of salvation. But God allowed the Gospel to come to them, after the Jews rejected it, and accepted them when they believed the Gospel. You Gentiles used to be the disobedient ones. But now that Israel has become disobedient by rejecting Christ, you Gentiles have received mercy, not because you were deserving of it, but because God wanted to show mercy to you who were undeserving.

Well, now, Paul says, the tables have been turned. You have been shown mercy now, as the Israelites had in Old Testament times, and they have been cut off from the olive tree that is Christ. But here is what God wants to do. Now that the Jews have become disobedient, now that they have been cut off from the kingdom of God, God wants to attract them back to the olive tree of Christ through the mercy He has shown to you. He doesn’t want to have them remain cut off forever. He wants His mercy to draw them back, and you should want it, too, because your Father wants it, and because it’s only by God’s mercy that you yourselves have the gift of salvation.

So let’s answer our questions. Who is “Israel” and how does “Israel” fit into God’s plan of salvation? The answer is this: God’s kingdom is made up of all believers in Christ Jesus. That kingdom of believers is the true Israel. That true Israel includes some who are genetic Israelites, and many who are not genetic Israelites, but who have become adopted children of Abraham (and children of Israel!) through faith in Christ Jesus, who is the God of Abraham, and the God of Israel. The Jews received a special dose of God’s mercy in the Old Testament, while He chose not to focus on the Gentiles. And the Gentiles, at the time of St. Paul, were then receiving a special dose of God’s mercy, while God chose to turn away from the Jews who had rejected Him. But the time would come, and has now come, when “Jew” and “Gentile” are essentially meaningless terms. The only “Israel” that now matters is the spiritual one, the true Israel, the kingdom of Christ, made up of genetic Israelites and adopted Israelites. And God wants all men, from every nation, to enter that kingdom and be saved. There is no other way to God. There is no other path to salvation. Jesus is the Door. Jesus is the Gate. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.

In our current times, this truth helps us to avoid both sinful extremes: the one that holds up genetic Israelites as if they still held a special place in God’s plan of salvation, and also the other extreme that holds the Jews in hatred and contempt, as if God didn’t want them to be saved anymore. The truth stands that God wants all men to be saved. And His call, His invitation to the wedding banquet of Christ, is indeed “irrevocable,” as Paul says in today’s Lesson. God’s call to the Jews still stands. “Come to the wedding! Come to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved!” Just understand that, as Jesus said in Sunday’s Gospel, many are called, but few are chosen. Few will come to Christ and remain with Him until the end.

Those who remain are the true Israel, made up of people from every nation, tribe, and language, including some from the nation of Israel. And so, in this way, “All Israel will be saved.” That is, all the elect children of God, those who have come to feast of salvation in Christ and who remain there until the end, clothed with faith in the Lord Jesus. God chose that Israel in eternity to be with Him forever, and He will not bring this wicked world to an end until they have all been called, and have all come to His wedding banquet. They—we who hold firmly to Christ—are the citizens of the New Jerusalem, not the old one by the Mediterranean Sea that has been destroyed multiple times and will be destroyed again, but the one that will soon come down from heaven, and will never be destroyed. And in this way all Israel will be saved, including you. Amen.

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How to ensure you are among the chosen few

Posted on October 18, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 20

Ephesians 5:15-21 + Matthew 22:1-14

Many are called, but few are chosen, Jesus said. The called, in this context, are those who have been invited to repent of their sins, believe in the Lord Jesus for salvation, and enter into His Holy Christian Church, where they can join in the celebration of God’s goodness and love. The chosen are the called who get to stay in God’s presence and keep celebrating for all eternity. Another word for “chosen” is “elect.” And a lot of people have gone astray from the Christian faith by twisting the doctrine of election, while many other people are simply baffled and confused by it. But there’s no excuse for going astray, and there’s no reason to remain baffled. Because this one parable in today’s Gospel teaches you practically everything you need to know about God’s doctrine of election. And if you pay attention to it, you won’t go astray. But it’s not enough to understand the doctrine. We also want to be sure to apply it beneficially in our lives. Because here in this parable, you will learn how to ensure that you are among the chosen few.

To do that, let’s ask and answer some questions. First, are you among the called, among the invited? You wouldn’t have been, if you had been a Gentile (a non-Jew) living in Old Testament times. After the flood, and after mankind’s rebellion, again, at the Tower of Babel, God let the nations go their own way. They didn’t seek Him anymore, and so He gave them over to their sinful desires and their lust for idols. He chose, in His grand plan, to focus on one family, on one nation, to reveal Himself to them, nurture them, and make sure they all received a calling, an invitation ahead of time to His banquet of salvation in the coming Christ.

So it is that the called, in Old Testament times, were almost exclusively the children of Abraham, the group that would eventually become known as the children of Israel, and later still, the Jews. They’re the ones represented in the first part of Jesus’ parable, “those who had been invited,” while the Gentiles, the non-Jews, before the time of Christ, were almost exclusively in the category of those were not called, and therefore, also not chosen.

Now, people like to speculate, why would God leave so many people uncalled? But, if you would be a disciple of Christ instead of a teacher of Christ, then you have to leave that question unanswered, because God doesn’t answer it directly. What He has revealed is that all have sinned, no one deserves a second chance, no one is owed a way of salvation, and no one, by nature, is seeking the true God anyway.

What one might answer, without contradicting Scripture, is that God knew, in His eternal foreknowledge, which covers the whole future, which includes, not only the things that will happen, but also the things that would happen or could happen, not only the decisions that people will make, but also the decisions that people would make under different circumstances—God knew that those Old Testament Gentiles, who remained uncalled, uninvited to the feast, would not go to the feast, even if they had been invited, even as most of the Jews, who were called, didn’t go when they were invited. That is a plausible explanation that’s consistent with Scripture, but again, God doesn’t reveal the answer or spell it out for us, and so we humbly leave it to His judgment.

What we are to be concerned with are those who have been called, because that’s where Jesus leads us in this parable. Notice, He doesn’t say a word about those who were never invited to the wedding feast. He simply begins with those who were.

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who arranged a wedding banquet for his son. The king and his son clearly stand for God the Father and His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And he sent his servants to call to the wedding those who had been invited. When Jesus came into the world as man, the Father sent angels, wise men, a Simeon and an Anna, and, especially, John the Baptist to point the Jews, those who had been invited since the time of Abraham, to Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. But they were unwilling to come. In the parable, none of the invited guests wanted to come. In reality, some Jews did believe in Jesus and began to follow Him, but the vast majority kept Jesus at arm’s length, at best, hated Him, at worst.

Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See! I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding!”’ But they disregarded it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. This sending out continued even after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. He sent out His apostles to the Jews who had crucified Jesus, still calling them to come, come into the Christian Church. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins! And still, the vast majority of them wouldn’t come. Some just ignored the apostles. Others seized them, mistreated them, and killed them.

Notice the king’s reaction to their rejection of the invitation. When the king heard about it, he was angry. And he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. He’s angry. He sends out his armies to burn down their city—an allusion to the coming destruction of Jerusalem. What the king doesn’t say is, “Well, I never wanted them to come anyway. My invitation was a sham. They weren’t actually invited!” That sounds ridiculous. But that’s, sadly, what the Calvinists and Reformed tend to do with the doctrine of election. They claim that if God had truly wanted the lost to be saved, then they would be saved, because God always gets what He wants. So God must have never intended for the lost to be saved. In fact, they say, it was He who chose them to be eternally damned and formed them only for the purpose of damning them. And, since He never intended to save them, or to offer them salvation, they go on to teach the horrible doctrine called “limited atonement,” that Jesus never even made atonement for their sins, that He didn’t suffer for them, didn’t die for them, and never wanted them to be saved. His atoning sacrifice was “limited” to the chosen few.

But that doesn’t fit with the parable, does it? The king wanted these invited guests to come, earnestly and repeatedly invited them, and was angry when they refused, and even angrier when they mistreated his servants. So, too, God the Father truly wants all men to be saved, as Scripture clearly says. And He truly gave His Son into death as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. And He truly means it every time the Gospel is preached. He wants all who hear the Gospel, all who are called, to come!

When the originally invited guests didn’t want to come to the wedding, in the parable, the king sent out his servants to invite others. Go into the streets and invite to the wedding whomever you find. You see? Everyone is to be called, invited. The Gospel is to be preached to everyone, to “all creation,” as Jesus says, to “all nations,” to “all the world.” That means the Gentiles are now to be included in the invitation. But also Jews. In fact, in the early days of the New Testament, the apostles went to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles. The Gospel is intended for everyone. The call is intended for everyone. And everyone who hears the preaching of the Gospel can say with absolute certainty, “I have been called.”

So, that’s true for all of you here, isn’t it? Are you among the called? Absolutely. Can you be sure that the Gospel is meant for you? Absolutely.

The next question is, have you refused the call, or have you attended the wedding banquet? If you’ve been baptized and have become a member of the Christian Church, then you have attended! You are, right now, sitting at the feast of God’s goodness in Christ. You are, right now, enjoying God’s favor and standing in God’s forgiveness continually. Many of those who are called reject the call, like the original group in the parable. They never join God’s Church at all. They remain outside the Church, and, thus outside of God’s salvation in Christ. But many others do join the Church, and yet still, according to the parable, not all of them will be found among the (relatively) few who are chosen to remain.

The banquet tables were filled with guests.  But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who was not wearing a wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

You see, it’s not enough just to be present at the feast, just to be an outward member of the Church. The guests are given a wedding garment to wear, and it must be worn. And if it’s not, that person will be forever removed from God’s presence. This wedding garment is the God-given faith that continually clings to Christ Jesus, that continually wears the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Outward membership in the Church is essential. But so is a living faith within the heart of each church member. The King can see into the heart. When He comes at the last day, He will visit His Church and inspect the guests, not for how many good works you’ve performed, but for a penitent and believing heart.

So that’s, ultimately the question. You here, are definitely among the called. You’re also among those who have accepted the invitation. Now, are you wearing the wedding garment? And, just as importantly, will you still be wearing it when the King returns? In other words, are you among the chosen few?

If you’ve turned away from sin in your heart and are turned toward Christ, looking to Him, the Lamb of God, to bear your sins, to reconcile you to God, and to give you the gift of eternal life, then, yes, you are wearing the wedding garment of faith. Now, God, in His eternal plan, has not only seen to it ahead of time that you were called, and converted to the faith, and brought into His holy Church. He has also provided for everything you need to remain in the faith until the end.

He’s given you the Means of Grace—the ministry of His Word and Sacraments, to keep your faith steady and your heart firm. He’s given you ready access to His ear so that you can ask Him for all the help you need. He’s given you His Holy Spirit to dwell within you, to walk with you, and to guide you into leading a life of daily contrition, repentance, and devotion to God’s commandments.

So, how do you ensure that you are among the few who are chosen to remain in God’s kingdom forever? Make it your earnest intention to use faithfully the gifts you have received, to pray diligently, and to abide in God’s goodness. And you can be sure that God will strengthen, increase, and support to the end the good work which He has begun in you, so that you are among the few who will remain with Him for eternity. Amen.

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The new life of the forgiven

Posted on October 14, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Trinity 19

Isaiah 44:21-23 + Ephesians 4:22-28

“Take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven you!” The paralytic from Sunday’s Gospel heard those very words from Jesus. And then he heard other words: Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And, healed by the powerful word of Jesus, he did. He arose, picked up his bed, and went home. But imagine if, instead, the paralytic had not risen, had not picked up his bed, and had not gone home, responding instead to Jesus, “You don’t get to tell me what to do!” That would be, unthinkable, outrageous, scandalous. Could a person really receive forgiveness from Jesus, and then turn around and defy Him like that, refusing such a simple instruction, which was meant to be a blessing to the man, on top of it?

Sadly, many do, and they wrongly think they’ll hold onto that “forgiven” status before God, even as they go on to defy His word and commandments. But that’s not what we Christians have been taught to do. On Sunday, we emphasized the Gospel of Jesus forgiving and healing the paralytic. This evening, let’s turn back to the Epistle you heard on Sunday, and again tonight, and reflect on what God has to say about the new life of the forgiven.

You Christians—which is the same thing as to say, “you sinners who have been forgiven through faith in Christ”—were taught to put off the old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. The first thing you were taught was to recognize and repent of your sins. The second thing you were taught was to flee in faith in Christ Jesus, who made satisfaction for your sins on the cross and in whom alone God the Father offers a place of refuge from His wrath and condemnation. As Paul writes to the Romans, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Which is the same thing as to say, There is now only forgiveness of sins and justification for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But you were not taught to stop there and pay attention to nothing further. You were taught, as Paul says, to put off the old man, which belongs to your former manner of life. How does he describe the old man here? He is “corrupt through deceitful desires.” The old man, also known as the sinful flesh, or the sinful nature, is the nature we’re all born with—the only nature we’re born with, the flesh or the nature we inherited from our parents, and they from theirs, back to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin. It’s corrupt, twisted, mangled, and ugly. It’s characterized by deceitful desires, like Eve’s deceitful desire to disobey God in order to gain knowledge for herself and become God-like. Those desires were something new for Eve, but for us, we’ve lived with them our whole lives, thinking we can be happy if we just follow those desires where they lead. But they’re “deceitful” desires. Because they don’t actually lead to happiness. Look at the state of the world, the state of our country, of our own community, where mankind has pursued every twisted, wicked desire imaginable. Has it made the world a better place or a worse place? Are people happier now than ever before? Just the opposite.

Paul describes those fleshly desires in other places: The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh…Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Those are the very things we witness all around us in the world, everywhere, as if such things were normal. And they are normal for the unbeliever. They used to be normal for the believer, in our “former manner of life.” But that must no longer be the case.

Put off the old man, like a filthy robe that has been dragged through the mud and the muck. Take it off and don’t walk through the sewage any longer.

Instead, Paul writes, you were taught to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. That’s a continual, ongoing renewal he’s talking about. It has to be. Because your old man is always there trying to climb up into your mind and point you in the way he wants to go. That’s why you need to be made new continually by the Holy Spirit, working with your spirit, to point you in a different direction, every day.

You were taught to put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Remember, Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God in the beginning. But they lost that image and likeness. Their own image became twisted and corrupt. That’s the image and likeness that now passes down to us and to our children. But now a new man has been created in each and every Christian, one that resembles the likeness of Adam before the fall, one that resembles God Himself. There is no filth in that image, only purity, only goodness, only selflessness, only love, and the desire to obey God and to please Him. Put on that new man every day, that is, set your mind to living that new and godly life. Make decisions based on the likeness of the new man, not the old man. Put to death the deeds of the flesh, and live the life God gave you for God.

Paul gives just a few examples of this in the verses that follow. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Everything that has to do with falsehood, and deception, and lies must be put away, put aside, taken off and left to lie in the dust. Instead, speak the truth at all times. But don’t be satisfied with that. Make sure that, when you speak the truth, it is done out of love for the hearer, not out of condescension or mockery, not carelessly, or with a desire to harm.

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Anger is not necessarily sinful, but it can easily become sinful if it leads one to abandon love, to forsake mercy. Anger can be like food that feeds the old man and keeps him stewing on how he’s been offended or neglected. Instead, do not let the sun go down on your anger. That is, deal with whatever or whoever it was that offended you that same day. Forgive wherever possible, and where not possible, give the offense to God. Because when the Christian lets anger take root and grow in his heart, he’s giving the devil an opportunity to hack away at his faith until there’s nothing left but bitterness and unbelief.

Finally, here in our Lesson, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Christians may be former thieves. They may be former lots of things. As Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians, Some of you were fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners. But, he adds, you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. In other words, you have been forgiven. And that means that you have been called to a live a new kind of life, one that is no longer characterized by sin, but by the righteousness of God, with which you have been clothed, and to which you have been called.

Put off the old man. Put on the new. That is the daily task of those who have been forgiven, of those who have been baptized, because, Paul writes, we were buried with Christ through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Amen.

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