Evaluating the ministers of God

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 8

Jeremiah 15:19-21  +  Acts 20:17-38  +  Matthew 7:22-29

We pick up the theme established in Sunday’s Gospel of evaluating those who come to you as prophets or ministers of Christ. Watching out for false prophets, and evaluating the fruit of every minister, to know it he’s a good or a bad tree.

We have before us two ministers this evening, in addition to Jesus Himself: the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah and the New Testament apostle Paul. Let’s spend a few moments studying the pattern set by these two good trees and learning what to look for in a minister.

Jeremiah was a true prophet, charged with possibly the most difficult task any prophet has had to carry out: to warn Israel, as a nation that was simultaneously the people of God, at their lowest point in history—their spiritually lowest point, that is. They had completely abandoned the Law of Moses and the God who gave it, and Jeremiah had to announce the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of Israel as a consequence of their idolatry and impenitence. He was left practically all alone, denouncing the sins of Israel and foretelling their doom. Jeremiah was a true prophet producing good fruit, accepted by God—but rejected and hated by the people.

And it got to him. The words you heard in the First Lesson weren’t spoken by God to Israel, but to Jeremiah. If you return, then I will bring you back. Return from what? Well, right before that, Jeremiah had been praying, I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, Nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, For You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual And my wound incurable, Which refuses to be healed? Will You really be to me like an unreliable stream, As waters that fail? In other words, I did what You sent me to do, Lord, and I’m lonely and rejected because of it. Why do You make me suffer so? Will You really prove unreliable in the end?

Even a true prophet can slip, and Jeremiah did. Not too terribly, not too far, because the Lord called him back before he could slip any further. But even a prophet who is suffering unjustly at the hands of wicked people doesn’t get to insinuate that the Lord is treating him unjustly or that the Lord is unreliable.

So Jeremiah is called to return, to repent. And when he does (and he did) the Lord promises to bring him back, to speak for the Lord again. But he’s warned not to go running back to the people for comfort or expecting their friendship or their support. Instead, they are to return to Jeremiah. They are to look to him to speak God’s Word to them, and they are to believe him when he does.

But they won’t, and God knows that. So he promises to make Jeremiah a fortified bronze wall, able to withstand all the attacks and opposition of the people. They will fight against you, But they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you.

Now, no Christian preacher will be exactly in the position Jeremiah was in. But there will be some similarities. In every time and place, ministers of Christ are called upon to denounce sin, both of the world and of the Church at large and of an individual church. Sometimes it will just be a few people who grow angry with him and oppose him. Sometimes he will end up practically all alone in his denunciation, to the point that everyone else hates him.

He’ll also be hated for preaching the Gospel, that Christ alone is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind, that His doctrine is true and reliable, that sinners are justified solely by faith in Christ. Even that message angers those who won’t believe it.

In either case, when a preacher is persecuted for preaching God’s Word, then the preacher also has God’s promise of help and deliverance. If he is left alone, then God will be his companion. If he needs to be a fortified bronze wall, then that’s what God will make him. Only he must guard himself against sin, especially the sin of despair and of accusing God of any sort of unfaithfulness.

Then we come to the apostle Paul in the book of Acts as he met one last time with the elders of Ephesus, and we see again what a good tree looks like, what a faithful Christian minister does. As Paul says, you know how I served the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials. Humility is a mark of a true preacher. And Paul’s tears of sorrow for those who remained in unbelief and his tears of joy for those who believed were evidence of his genuine concern. And the trials he willingly underwent proved that he actually believed what he preached.

I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ… I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Expect a minister to teach you everything, the whole counsel of God, the parts you find important and the parts you think of as insignificant. Preaching publicly and also from house to house where appropriate. Testifying to Jews and Greeks and to every skin color and race that he encounters, without despising or looking down on anyone. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ—that summarizes the heart of the good preacher’s message. Repentance and faith. Sin and grace. Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Chains and tribulations await me. But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Again, Paul’s willingness to face real suffering and real pain sets the pattern for all who would be good trees, and that willingness to suffer loss for the sake of the Gospel is some of the good fruit you should be looking for in every minister. But notice that he isn’t devoid of joy, but wishes to finish his race with joy. There should be joy in a minister, too. Not perkiness, not a smile always glued to his face. But the joy of the Gospel has to be there, just as the Gospel of the grace of God itself has to be there as the focus of his preaching.

Then Paul warns about the false prophets, just as Jesus did in Sunday’s Gospel. After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. You always have to be paying attention. No synod is safe forever. No church body, no individual church is automatically safe from false teachers rising up. Pastors have to watch out for it in themselves and in other preachers. Laymen have to be keeping watch, too.

Would you believe that this verse including St. Paul’s warning was recently applied to me and the members of the CLM who left the ELDoNA? “Speaking perverse things, drawing away the disciples after themselves.” I don’t know what the “perverse things” are supposed to be, since no one ever explained. And it seems that the encouragements we have given to those still within the diocese to leave it behind because of the dangerous path that it’s on—those are seen as “drawing away the disciples after themselves.” The thing is, we don’t want disciples for ourselves. We just want to be faithful ministers of Christ and faithful overseers over the flocks entrusted to our care.

But so be it. We know the truth. You know the truth. And most importantly, God knows the truth, and He is able to strengthen His people in the truth. So the faithful minister commends his people to God with confidence, just as Paul did: I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Finally, and this is especially appropriate in our day and age, Paul shows us the faithful minister’s attitude toward getting rich off the ministry: I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel…Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me. I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

When ministers walk in the footsteps of Jeremiah and Paul, they do well. And when you, the people of God, expect ministers to walk in their footsteps, judge them to be good trees, and then do what they tell you in God’s name, then you also do well. That’s part of building on the rock, as you heard in Jesus’ parable this evening. When you put His words into practice, including His word to evaluate the ministers who come to you in God’s name, then you are like the man who built his house on the rock, and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Amen.