Hear and keep the word of the Stronger Man

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Oculi – Lent 3

Ephesians 5:1-9  +  Luke 11:14-28

There were at least three beliefs about Jesus floating around Israel as He carried out His earthly ministry. He’s either out of His mind, or He’s working with the demons, or He’s the very Son of God. Believe it or not, it was His own earthly family who thought, for a time, that He was out of His mind. St. Mark tells us that in His Gospel just before he records the same events you heard in today’s Gospel from St. Luke. The scribes and Pharisees thought He was in league with the demons, as you heard in today’s Gospel. And, as St. Matthew records this same event, there were still others who believed that Jesus was the promised Christ, the Son of David, the very Son of God. But what those people thought about Jesus isn’t nearly as important today as what you think about Jesus, what you believe about Jesus, because the only way you escape the devil’s control and the devil’s kingdom is by believing in Jesus as the Son of God, as the only One who is stronger than the devil.

Jesus was casting out demons again as our Gospel begins. This one was both blind and mute, holding the poor possessed man in a terrible state of isolation. Jesus used no incantations, no sacred objects, no magic spells. He didn’t even command the demon to depart “in the name of God.” He did it in His own almighty name, and the demon had to obey. That display of divine power caused some in the crowd to conclude, “Could this be the Son of David?”

But the scribes and Pharisees were quick to dissuade those people from believing in Jesus. He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Why did they think that? Well, they saw supernatural power at work, and there are only two sources of supernatural power: God (who also empowers His holy angels), or the devil and his demons, who still retain some of the power God gave them in the beginning, before they turned against Him. The unbelieving Jews just couldn’t accept that Jesus was the very Son of God, just as they couldn’t accept His word which declared that all men, including them, were in need of a Savior from sin, because no one is good enough to earn his own salvation. Since they rejected Jesus’ word, they saw Him as a false prophet, in league with the devil, while they viewed themselves as being on God’s side.

But Jesus showed them how absurd their accusation was. (Worse than absurd, actually, because by claiming that Jesus’ power was from the devil, they were actually committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, because it was the Holy Spirit of God who was the One who was truly at work in Jesus’ miracles, and they were branding Him “Beelzebub.”)

His first argument was this: Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to ruin, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebub. It was foolish to claim that Satan was helping Jesus to drive out Satan. That would show division among Satan’s ranks, weakness, and it would mean that his kingdom would soon self-destruct, just like any kingdom or house divided against itself eventually does (which makes one wonder how much longer our own divided country can possibly survive!). But Satan’s kingdom isn’t divided. He and all his demons are united in their love for wickedness and in their war against God and against the people of God. Satan’s kingdom is strong. He’s strong. And his kingdom will not self-destruct. The only way for men to be rescued from Satan’s powerful kingdom is if someone comes in from the outside, someone stronger than Satan, someone who actually has our best interests at heart. That’s Jesus.

He continues His argument: And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, well-armed, guards his palace, his possessions are secure. But when a man who is stronger than he comes against him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted and divides the spoils. To me, it seems clear that what Jesus means is that, although some of the Jews were going around attempting to cast out demons, they weren’t very successful. But Jesus was, every single time! That proved that He was using not the power of the devil but the “Finger of God” to cast out demons, which Matthew’s Gospel identifies as the Holy Spirit. His power over the demons was not proof that He was working under the devil. It was proof that He was stronger than the devil. Only Jesus was able to rescue people out of the devil’s kingdom.

And the same is true today. Whether the devil holds people under his direct control or whether he simply counts them among his children who are trapped inside his kingdom and, therefore, outside the kingdom of God, he and his demons are just as powerful today as they ever were. His grip on mankind remains firm, and his lies are potent. Look at how he deceives the nations! Look at the rising violence and addiction in the world, the widespread acceptance of wickedness and the widespread rejection of truth. Look at how the witness of the genuine Christian Church has been all but silenced. All this is Satan’s doing, aided by his demons and helped along by his allies among men. How can the Church prevail in the midst of all this? How can anyone still escape from the devil’s grasp? Only if there’s Someone stronger than the devil at work, Someone who actually has our best interests at heart. That’s Jesus.

And there’s no in between when it comes to Him. As He says in the Gospel, Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. You’re either with Him by believing that He is the very Son of God and by keeping His Word, or you’re against Him, in league with the devil. You’re either gathering with Him, confessing Him before men as the very Son of God so that they come into His kingdom, or you’re scattering people, pushing them away from Him by promoting Him as anything less than the very Son of God.

Here I’d like to share with you a wise observation from C.S. Lewis, because, apart from the three reactions to Jesus that we mentioned above, which Lewis also mentions here as real possibilities, there is a fourth, absolutely ridiculous attitude toward Jesus that is very common today, just as it was common in 1952, when Lewis wrote these words. It’s the perception of Jesus as a great moral teacher who is not the Son of God. As Lewis writes, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity). You’re not rescued from the devil’s kingdom or protected from the demons by having nice thoughts about Jesus, by thinking highly of His moral teachings, or by picking and choosing which doctrines of Scripture you’ll believe or discard. Only faith in Christ Jesus as true God and true Man, who bore our sins, suffered and died for them, and rose again from the dead, only faith in His promise to deliver us from the devil’s kingdom will actually result in a person being rescued.

But even after being rescued, there is still a risk of being recaptured! Whenever an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house out of which I came.’ And when it arrives, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first.” What does it mean that a demon goes back and finds its house “swept and put in order”? It means that the person who was at first rescued from the devil allows a vacancy to remain in his heart. Maybe he’s straightened up his life. Maybe he’s not indulging in open wickedness anymore. But unless the Word of Christ dwells in a person richly, unless the Spirit of Christ dwells in a person’s heart by faith, he remains vulnerable to the devil’s attacks.

So what to do? Jesus tells us in the final words of today’s Gospel. And it happened that, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from 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.” There it is. That’s the recipe, that’s the answer. That’s how to fill your heart so that the devil has no room to get in. Hear the word of God and keep it. It’s a simple thing, really, but it’s also a lifelong thing, to keep hearing God’s Word, and not just the verses you happen to like, but the whole thing, the whole of Scripture, and the preaching of it which God’s ministers provide, if they are faithful. And not only to hear it, but to ponder it, think about it, and then “keep” it. Treasure it. Hold it close. Do what it says. Or, as St. Paul put it in today’s Epistle, Be imitators of God. Walk in love. Walk as children of light. Then you will be blessed, happy, fortunate, enviable, because where the Word of God is heard and kept, there is the Spirit of God, and the Father, and the Son, making their home with the one who believes. And where God is—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—there the devil has no power. May the word of Christ dwell in you richly, that you may know Jesus rightly, follow Him steadfastly, and be preserved from every evil. Amen.

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Small Catechism: The Lord’s Prayer

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon on the Third Chief Part of the Small Catechism

1 Chronicles 29:10-18  +  Matthew 6:5-15

In the Ten Commandments, we learn the will of our God for His children, the rules of His house, while we remain on the earth. In the Creed, we confess who our God is and what He has done and still does for us and for our salvation. In the Third Chief Part of the Small Catechism, we learn how to pray to our God in the Lord’s Prayer, and from what better place could we learn it than from the Son of God Himself?

It seems that the Lord Jesus taught His disciples this prayer on at least two occasions, maybe more. You heard the context of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s Gospel just a moment ago. In Luke’s Gospel, where the Lord’s Prayer is also recorded, the context is much simpler. One of Jesus’ disciples came to Him with a request: Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And the Lord proceeded to teach them the Lord’s Prayer.

In Matthew’s Gospel, it’s given in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus begins by teaching His disciples two ways not to pray. Not like the hypocrites, who are more concerned about looking good before men then about approaching God with genuine faith and with sincere requests. No, don’t pray like that, Jesus says, not to be praised or honored among men. And not like the “heathen,” that is, the pagan Gentiles, who repeat little mantras or phrases over and over, as if their gods would only listen if they said the right words enough times. No, don’t pray like that, Jesus says, as if you had to inform God of your needs and then coax Him to help with endless repetitions.

Instead, He says, pray in this way:

Our Father, the One who is in heaven. We call this the “address” or the “invocation” part of the Lord’s Prayer. And right away, Jesus makes it clear who can pray in the first place. Only the children of God can pray, or at least, pray successfully. God is the Creator of all, but He is not the true Father of all, because all men are born in sin, born outside the family of God, hostile to the true God, unable to fear Him, to love Him, or to trust in Him, and, therefore, unable to pray to Him, even as He is unwilling to listen to the prayers of His enemies. But, to those who believe in the name of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, He has given the right to become children of God. When we come to the Father through Jesus, He wants us to know that our prayers are acceptable to Him, because we are acceptable to Him, through our faith-connection to Jesus, who is the most acceptable of all. He wants us to know that He claims us and loves us as His own children. And so, by teaching us to pray to “our Father,” Jesus is teaching us, as beloved children of God, to ask our beloved Father for certain things—seven of them, in fact, expressed in the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

The First Petition: Father, may Your name be hallowed or “sanctified” or “made holy.” Your name is already holy, already set apart from every other name. But we ask in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also, in two ways. First, help us treat Your name as holy and sacred by making sure that Your name is taught purely among us. Second, help us to treat Your name as holy and sacred by making sure that we, as Your children who bear Your name, lead holy lives according to Your Word. Our Father’s name is blasphemed and profaned among many who call themselves Christians, through false teaching, which keeps people from knowing God rightly, and through the openly wicked lives that some Christians lead, which also sends the wrong message about who God is and what it means to be His children. So it’s vital that we pray for our Father’s help, so that we may bring glory to His name by our teaching and by our living—glory, and not disgrace.

The Second Petition: Father, may Your kingdom come. It already comes, where and when the Spirit of God wills. It would come whether we prayed for it or not. But here we ask, Father, may it come to us also. Grant us Your Holy Spirit, to dwell in our hearts as individuals, to dwell among us as a church, so that by Your grace we may believe Your holy Word, and lead godly lives, here in time, and there in eternity. Help us to submit to the kingship of the Lord Jesus. Keep us in His kingdom. Use us to spread His kingdom in the world. And may His kingdom, His holy Church, prevail against the very gates of hell, so that the devil’s kingdom may finally be crushed to pieces as the kingdom of Christ fills the world.

The Third Petition: Father, may Your will be done here on earth, among us, Your children, just as it’s done above in heaven by our cousins, the holy angels, whose every thought, whose every intention is to serve You and do Your will, as You have revealed it to us in the Holy Scriptures. And, at the same time, break and hinder every evil plan and every evil will—like the will of the devil, the world, and our flesh. They would keep us from hallowing Your name, Father. They would prevent Your kingdom from coming among us through their lies and through their temptations. Hinder them, and strengthen us, and keep us steadfast in Your Word and faith until the end. And to all our prayers and petitions, Father, when we ask for things You haven’t promised to give, let it be understood that we ask not for our will, but always and only for Your will to be done.

The Fourth Petition: Father, we ask You, again today, for our daily bread. It’s a simple request to give us what we need to sustain our earthly life, whether it’s food or drink, or clothing, or shelter, or the people we need in our lives so that we can flourish. Father, You know what we need better than we do. You know what we need even before we ask. So take our petition for daily bread as a thanksgiving, because we acknowledge that all we have comes from You, and we trust in You to determine what we need and to give it to us each and every day. We ask only for what we need today, Father, trusting that tomorrow is in Your capable hands.

The Fifth Petition: Father, we know and confess to You that, even though You have made us our children and have forgiven us our sins in Holy Baptism, we are not worthy of anything for which we ask, nor have we earned it, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. But as Your dear Son has instructed us, we ask again today that You would forgive us our trespasses and sins, only on the basis of Your grace and goodness. And since we know that You have commanded us to truly forgive from the heart those who sin against us when they come to us in repentance, we will do it. We ask only that You would forgive us in the same way.

The Sixth Petition: Father, lead us not into temptation. We know that You never lead anyone into sin, but we ask in this petition that You would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world and our flesh may not deceive us, nor mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice; and although we are often troubled by these things, we ask that You would lead us safely through all the temptations and make us victorious in the end.

The Seventh Petition: Father, You know that we are surrounded by evil in this world. Some of it we see and feel, much of it happens behind our backs and without our knowledge. There are so many threats to our bodies and souls, such powerful forces, raging against us that we could not hope to survive on our own. And so we pray, deliver us from evil in this world, from every sort of evil of body and soul, of property and honor; and finally, when our last hour comes, grant us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Yourself in heaven.

Some (but not all) Greek texts of Matthew 6 also include a beautiful doxology, a word of praise to conclude the Lord’s Prayer—words which we are happy to include, even though they aren’t included in the Catechism: For Yours, Father, is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. We know, dear Father in heaven, that these petitions are acceptable to You and are heard by You; for through Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, You have commanded us to pray in this way and have promised to hear us. And so we conclude our prayer today, Amen, Amen, Yes, yes, it shall be so! And we’ll say the same thing again when we say this prayer tomorrow. Amen.

 

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Faith overcomes all the demons

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Reminiscere – Lent 2

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

We met the chief demon in last week’s Gospel, the devil himself, also known as the tempter and Satan. This week, we meet lesser demons in the Gospel. But they’re no less harmful. We meet a woman from outside of Israel whose daughter is severely tormented by demons. Demons can afflict people in various ways. In some cases, they’re able to completely possess an unbeliever’s body, and it’s likely that the Canaanite woman’s daughter had been an unbeliever, as that woman herself likely was for much of her life. But demons also have ways of tormenting believers, influencing believers, and, most certainly, tempting believers to sin, and they already have a strong ally in our own sinful flesh.

But the devil’s temptations often become God’s tool for saving people. What the devil does to destroy us and to separate us from God, God uses to bring unbelievers into contact with Him so that, sometimes, they become believers. As for God, He tempts no one, but He does test His children, even as He tested His own Son in the wilderness, in order to strengthen us, to build up our perseverance and character, to bring us closer to Him and His Word, and to accomplish other purposes that we may never even know about. So the temptations and the testing continue in today’s Gospel. They were brutal. And what was it that overcame all the temptations and testing? What was it that overcame the demons? Faith. Faith overcomes all the demons.

The Gentile woman and her daughter from the region of Tyre and Sidon (to the north of Israel) almost certainly started out as unbelievers, who had been raised their whole lives to worship idols, to believe falsehoods, and to live in sin and depravity. That was their upbringing. But when the woman’s daughter was attacked by the demons, it caused her to go looking for help. And we can surmise from her behavior in the Gospel, and from the way she addressed Jesus as “Son of David,” that she had learned about the LORD God of Israel, and of His promises to send the Son of David, the Christ, as a mighty champion, as the one who would save Israel, but whose salvation extended beyond the borders of Israel. She had learned, even in her foreign country, about Jesus and His goodness and power. She had heard that He was the promised Messiah. And faith came by hearing. Faith overcame her pagan heritage and her unchurched upbringing and the demonic lies that she had believed her whole life. See how already the Lord was turning the torments of the demons into something beneficial!

When the woman heard that Jesus had entered her territory, outside of Israel, she knew she had to find Him and seek His help. She cried out to Him over and over again, “O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is dreadfully tormented by demons.” You might think that the Lord would have jumped at the chance to help her. But sometimes faith needs to be exercised and stretched so that it grows, or else, if it always gets what it asks for immediately, it may well shrivel up and die. So Jesus tests her new-found faith by not replying to her. He said not a word in reply. Surely the demons were there, tempting the woman to doubt His kindness, to doubt His mercy—as you also may be tempted to doubt when God doesn’t seem to reply when you pray to Him for help. But faith overcame the demons, and she just kept crying out for help.

Then another test to her faith arose, this time from Jesus’ own disciples. As she kept crying out for mercy, Jesus’ disciples came and begged him, “Send her away! She is crying out after us!” Surely the demons were there, tempting the woman to take offense at the disciples’ unloving behavior, at their heartless indifference to her suffering, tempting her to despair of Jesus’ help and to run away in shame—as you also may be tempted to turn away from God when other Christians behave badly, as they sometimes do. But faith overcame the demons, and she stayed right where she was, without anger, without despair, ignoring the behavior of the disciples, focusing only on Jesus, still expecting to receive from Him the help she so desperately needed.

Jesus then responded, but not in a positive way. He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Now, how to understand those words? Well, Jesus was sent first to the house of Israel, to gather their lost sheep, the ones who had fallen away from the faith and needed to be brought back. 99% of His earthly ministry was devoted to serving the people of Israel, because that’s what He had promised in the Old Testament to do for them. But the Old Testament had prophesied that He would also gather people from the Gentiles into His kingdom. And He had already helped other Gentiles by this point in His ministry. How would the woman understand His words? Surely the demons were there, tempting her to take His words as a dismissal, tempting her to despair, tempting her to give up on God, or to find some sort of sinful racism in Jesus where it didn’t exist—even as the demons may tempt you to think that Jesus came to help everybody except for you, either despairing of His help or charging Him with unfairness. But faith overcame the demons, and the woman fell down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!”

Jesus replied with one final test. He answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Clearly He was referring to the Jews as the children and to the Gentiles as the dogs. It isn’t right to take the mercy that was promised to the Israelites, that was intended for the Israelites, and redirect it to the Gentiles. But, of course, that reply implies that God’s mercy is limited! And it isn’t! As the Scripture says, The Lord’s mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness! His mercy endures forever. Still, the demons were surely there, tempting the woman to become indignant with Jesus, tempting her to take offense at being compared to a dog, tempting her to become jealous of the people of Israel who got to sit at God’s table as His children—even as they may tempt you to give up on God’s mercy, or to become jealous when it seems as if God favored other people over you. But, once again, faith overcame the demons, and the woman walked through the door Jesus had left open for her, Yes, Lord. But the dogs do eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.

Then, finally, after the woman had passed all the tests, after faith had conquered every demon, Jesus spoke those words of praise that He had only spoken once before, also to a non-Jew, Great is your faith! And because faith stayed attached to Jesus, glued to Jesus, as it were, the demons who were torturing the woman’s daughter were also overcome. “Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus’ praise of that woman’s faith overcame still other demons that were tempting Jesus’ disciples and would tempt Christians in the future. The Jews—the children sitting at the table!—were regularly tempted to see the Gentiles as inferior, to treat them like dirt, and to praise themselves for being life-long law-keepers. The disciples might have been tempted to dismiss the Gentiles, to ignore them at best or to mistreat them at worst. But Jesus’ praise of this Gentile woman would ring in their ears in the years to come, because they had seen and would continue to see that very few in the house of Israel showed the kind of great faith that the Gentile woman showed in today’s Gospel, and none of them were praised as directly by Jesus for their faith as she was. And so this brief encounter recorded in today’s Gospel has been responsible for overcoming untold numbers of demons over the ages, whenever the demons have tempted Christians to look down on another person for their race, their heritage, their background, or their upbringing. The Holy Spirit shows that great faith can dwell in anyone, and where faith in Jesus exists, there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free—or black or white or rich or poor—for all believers are one in Christ Jesus.

In today’s world, the kind of unwavering faith shown by the woman in today’s Gospel, the kind that withstands temptation and that holds up under testing, is extraordinarily uncommon, and, as a result, the demons are having their way among men, whether by internal possession, or external oppression, or the influence toward violence, or the instigation to disbelieve God and to believe any and every lie. Worse still, the demons are having their way among many who call themselves Christians but who refuse to submit to the Bible’s teachings, or who insist on living in sin, causing the witness of the Christian Church in the world to be stifled or skewed, or even to become an anti-Christian witness. The demons are powerful, and they will not be overcome by unbelief. They will not be overcome by false doctrine. They will not be overcome by a tepid or timid faith. But, as we learn in today’s Gospel, they will be overcome—all of them—by a faith that clings steadfastly to Christ and His Word. They will be overcome if you fix your gaze on Christ Jesus, hold fast to His word, endure testing with patience, and wait expectantly for His help to come. Then you will see what the woman in the Gospel saw, that faith overcomes all the demons. For, as St. John writes, whatever is born of God overcomes the world (and the demons with it). And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. See to the strengthening of your faith by immersing yourself in the Word of God and by receiving His Sacrament often, and may God, who is faithful, grant you a firm and steadfast faith, the kind that is fixed on Jesus and His mercy toward sinners. Against such a faith, the demons don’t stand a chance. Amen.

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The Apostles’ Creed

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon on the 2nd Chief Part of the Small Catechism

Isaiah 42:1-9  +  Colossians 1:12-23

The Second Chief Part in the Small Catechism is the Apostles’ Creed. A creed is a statement of faith, what a Christian should and does believe. The Apostles’ Creed wasn’t put together or approved by the apostles, or by a Church council. It was put together, starting in the second century, as far as we can tell, for practical reasons, as a way of teaching new converts the basics of the Christian faith, so that, when they were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, they knew the God into whose name they were being baptized.

So the Creed has three parts or “articles,” one for each Person of the Holy Trinity, each of whom is credited as having a primary role in certain aspects of our salvation.

In the first article, God the Father is emphasized. We believe in Him as the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. Implied in that belief is the acknowledgement that the account of creation in the book of Genesis is historical and true, that the whole universe, all things, visible and invisible, had a beginning and were created in six literal days, that all life, whether plant or animal or human (or angel!), comes from God, and that man is the crown of His creation, that the human race was (originally) made in His image, according to His likeness, with a rational soul and with a perfectly good and righteous character.

We also believe that God the Father preserves His massive creation, but all for the benefit of a single planet, the one we call “Earth.” (And yes, we say that, even knowing how vast the universe is. God’s creative focal point was always Earth.) He holds it all together and causes it to keep functioning according to the laws of physics that He wrote into His creation. God’s work of preservation includes providence, as He continues to provide for all His creatures the things that we need to sustain this body and life. It also includes protection, as the Father sends forth His angels to shield us from harm and to guard and protect us from all evil, not because we deserve it, but because our Father is good and kind toward all that He has made.

But when you say in the Creed, “I believe in God the Father,” you don’t just mean that you accept these facts as true. You’re saying, “I believe in this Father who has done all these things for His creatures, including me, and I recognize that I owe Him my thanks, and my praise, and my obedience.”

But, as we know, mankind has not been obedient. Mankind quickly turned away from thanking and praising and worshiping God, to seek out his own, sinful path. And so, instead of wiping us out or condemning us to an eternity in hell, God the Father is credited with something else: He planned already in eternity to send His beloved Son into the world to redeem fallen mankind, and then He carried out that redemption in time. That’s the theme of the Second Article of the Creed.

In the second article, God the Son is emphasized, who is both true God and true Man. True God, as we heard in the reading from Colossians, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn, not in the sense of being the first thing created, but in the sense of being “born,” not created,” the firstborn (or, as He’s called elsewhere, the “only-begotten” or “only Son”) of the Father, through whom and for whom all things were created. But to redeem fallen mankind, the Father sent His Son into human flesh, to be born of the virgin Mary. When you say in the second article that He is “our Lord,” you’re telling the world that you not only know who Jesus Christ is, but that you acknowledge Him to be your Lord and Master, whom you love, whom you serve, to whom you owe your undying allegiance, to whom you owe your very life.

And why do you love Him? And why do you owe Him your life? Because you know Him as your Redeemer, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, so that He might purchase and win you from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.

But, of course, your Redeemer didn’t stay dead. His state of humiliation ended with His burial. But then the Father exalted Him. He descended into hell to preach His victory to the spirits imprisoned there, and He rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the Father’s right hand to reign over all things until He comes again in glory, at the end of the age, to judge the living and the dead.

And what was His goal in becoming your Redeemer? His goal wasn’t to set you free and then leave you be. No, He redeemed you that you should be His own, that you should live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from death, lives and reigns forever and ever.

But what is His kingdom, and how do you come into it, and where does it all lead? That’s the theme of the Third Article of the creed.

The Third Article focuses on the Holy Spirit and His work of sanctification. People are not automatically saved just because Jesus died for their sins and rose again. We’re saved by our faith-connection to Jesus Christ. But faith is something we’re born without. In fact, we’re incapable of it by nature. By our own reason and strength we are unable to believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him.

And so the Lord Jesus, as He reigns at the Father’s right hand, sends the Holy Spirit into His Church, to call people through the preaching of the Gospel: Repent! Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved! The Spirit is the One who enters our hearts through the word that’s preached, enlightening our eyes to see Jesus as our Savior from sin, death, and the devil. When that happens, the Spirit gives us new birth and sanctifies us, setting us apart from the sinful world and bringing us into Christ’s holy Church. He gathers all those whom He has enlightened and brought to faith into the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints throughout the world, where the Gospel is rightly preached, where the Sacraments are rightly administered, where, through the ministry of Word and Sacrament, He continues to enlighten us with His gifts, forgives us our sins richly and daily, keeps us with Jesus Christ in the one true faith, and abides with us to turn us into holy people who are progressively molded into the image of Christ, our Redeemer.

And where does it all lead? It leads to the Last Day, when our bodies will be raised from the dead and transformed into glorious bodies, like that of the risen Lord Jesus. And then we who have been sanctified by the Spirit in this life will go into the life everlasting, where we’ll live in the presence of our God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, forever and ever.

These are the basics of our Christian faith. These are the things that every true Christian believes. These are the things that we stake our lives—our very souls—upon. So, with the catechism, let us always boldly and gladly confess the Creed, and, after each article add a heartfelt: This is most certainly true! Amen.

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A great High Priest who was tempted as we are

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Invocavit

2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

It says in the book of Hebrews: Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Those words look back, in part, to today’s Gospel, where we watch Jesus, our great High Priest, enduring the temptations of the devil during His forty-day fast, being in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. And as a result, we can now approach God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, as someone who can sympathize with us in our weaknesses, as someone who, through His victory over temptation, both earned for us mercy (the forgiveness of sins) and gives us the grace to withstand in the day of temptation.

After His Baptism, where Jesus, our great High Priest, was anointed and placed into office by God the Father, He was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. His being tempted was an essential part of God the Father’s plan for Him. Not that God tempted Him; the devil alone did that. But since the devil had had so much success against the human race, going all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it was essential that the Son of Man also be made to confront the devil, to see how He would do. Would He stand? Or would He fall, like the rest of mankind has always done? If He stands, He is qualified to be the great High Priest who offers Himself as the sinless sacrifice for the sins of the world, and who will forever stand before God the Father as the one priestly Mediator between God and man, between God and sinners. If He falls, at any point, then mankind belongs to the devil forever. There is no other plan for our salvation.

Let’s walk through the three temptations that are recorded for us in the Gospel.

The first temptation is a temptation to doubt God’s goodness. It comes at the end of Jesus’ forty-day fast. He’s hungry, starving, even, and the devil tries to take advantage. If You are the Son of God. You’ll notice, the devil begins two out of the three temptations with that “if You are the Son of God” condition. It was about 40 days earlier, when Jesus was baptized, when, you remember, God the Father spoke from heaven and proclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” “Well, if that’s true,” the devil implies, “then You should get some special privileges, like tapping into Your power as the Son of God to turn these stones into bread for Yourself. Wouldn’t that be nice? You haven’t eaten in over a month, right? You could have food right now, this very minute. You’re entitled to it. Right?”

It’s eerily similar to the devil’s temptation of Eve in the Garden, where he tried to convince her that she deserved to have that piece of fruit that was just hanging there in front of her eyes. God had no right to keep it from her. She was entitled to it—even though God had given her all the other fruit in the garden, and every possible gift and blessing was at her fingertips, except for this one thing that God hadn’t given her: the forbidden fruit.

Hasn’t the devil approached you in similar ways, holding forbidden fruit before your eyes, tempting you to doubt God’s goodness, trying to convince you that you’re entitled to things that God hasn’t provided for you (in spite of all that He has provided for you), persuading you to become discontent with what you have, to believe that, somehow, God owes you? “Don’t focus on Him. Focus on your hunger! Focus on your need! Steal, if you need! Fight, if you need to! (Forget the fact that the fruit is forbidden!).”

Turning stones into bread to feed Himself was forbidden to Jesus. He was sent to live in humility, like the rest of us. He was expected to depend on His Father for providence, just like the rest of us. He knew it would have been “cheating” to use His divine power to provide for Himself. Now, Jesus could have argued with the devil. But, instead, He chose to answer the temptation very simply, with the written word of God. It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Moses spoke those words to the Israelites, reminding them why God had caused them to wander in the wilderness for forty years: And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Jesus, too, had to be humbled, and tested. But unlike Israel, He never complained. He never grumbled against God. He waited patiently for His Father to provide, and so He passed the test and defeated the temptation.

In the second temptation recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, the devil tempts Jesus to doubt His Father’s word—just as he had done with Eve in the Garden of Eden. He took Him up to a high point on the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down! For it is written, ‘He will put his angels in charge of you,’ and, ‘In their hands they will lift you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ Yes, the devil can use God’s word. He can pretend to go along with what God says. That should serve as a sobering warning for us, because many people use God’s word today for evil purposes, just as the devil did with Jesus. The devil didn’t quote Psalm 91 to get Jesus to trust in His Father. He quoted it so that Jesus would doubt His Father and put His Father’s word to the test. Would He really keep His word and send His angels to rescue Jesus, if Jesus jumped down from the temple? Only one way to find out!

Hasn’t the devil tempted you in similar ways to doubt the word of God? Did He really create the world in six days, as He said? Was the world really destroyed in a flood? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? If only you could find some proof, something tangible, something scientific! Or, maybe worse, he uses God’s word to lead you into false belief, as he tried to do with Jesus, so that you misinterpret God’s word, so that you end up believing something that God never intended, and then stake your life on it. He never intended, for example, for His promises of angelic protection to lead His children to needlessly endanger their lives.

But Jesus, our great High Priest, knew His Father’s word well enough to stand up to the devil’s temptation. It is written again, ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’” Again, He was quoting Moses, who was warning the Israelites not to repeat their past sins of testing the Lord, as they did early in their journeys when they angrily demanded that Moses give them water to drink—as if God had to prove His faithfulness by giving in to their demands. Jesus refused to do such a thing. He would trust in His Father’s word and in His Father’s faithfulness—blindly, if necessary. Nothing His Father said could ever be false, could ever be wrong. And so He passed the test and defeated the temptation.

Finally, the devil tried to get the Son of Man to abandon God altogether so that He could have everything a man could ever want—riches, power, fame, and fortune, the world itself—and have it easily at that, without having to work for it or earn it, or suffer for it, just by switching sides from God’s side to the devil’s side. All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

Hasn’t the devil approached you with similar temptations? Have the job or the relationship that you want! Have the pleasure you desire! Have the approval of men that you crave! For once in your life, stop worrying about what God wants. You do what you want! You take what you want! All you have to do is set aside the First Commandment briefly.

Jesus would have none of it. Go away, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ And so Jesus endured every temptation and passed every test. He met the requirement of sinlessness and so became our great High Priest.

Now, since our great High Priest faced temptation just as you do, since the whole purpose of His incarnation was to become the sinless Substitute for sinful mankind and thus to become the perfect Mediator between God and man, since He has now conquered the devil and death itself, Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, to Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Mercy Seat of God, that we may obtain mercy. Come to God with your sin, with your shame, with all the times you’ve given in to temptation, and give it all to the great High Priest! He has already suffered for your sins and offered Himself once for all as the sacrifice for them, the sacrifice that God the Father has accepted. Come to the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ, and you will obtain mercy from Him, even the forgiveness of your sins.

And, as forgiven children of God, Let us come boldly to the throne of grace…and find grace to help in time of need. You will be tempted again. You will be tempted throughout your earthly life, tempted as Jesus was tempted, tempted to stop listening to God and to listen instead to that other voice, the voice of the devil and his demons, the voice of the unbelieving world, the voice of your own sinful flesh, nudging you away from God’s commandments, prodding you toward sin and shame and disgrace. In such times, turn boldly to the throne of grace. Remember how your great High Priest used Holy Scripture to withstand temptation, and equip yourself ahead of time with the word of God, so that you have that mighty weapon at your disposal when you need it the most. Pray to your High Priest. He will understand your struggles, will sympathize with them, and will offer you all the help you need to stand strong for Him, as He once stood strong for you against the devil and against all the powers of hell. As it says in Hebrews, Since we have a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Amen.

 

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