Seeking both openly rebellious and secretly self-righteous

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 3

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

I think you probably know the story of the prodigal son; it’s at the end of Luke chapter 15. Today’s Gospel doesn’t include that story, but that story gives us a useful perspective that helps us understand the two parables we have before us today: of the lost sheep and the lost coin. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father has two sons. One is openly rebellious, the other is openly obedient but is revealed in the end to be secretly self-righteous. In that parable, both sons become lost, but in different ways. Both sons need their father to go looking for them. Both sons need to repent. Both sons need saving.

That’s the story of all mankind in a nutshell. All people are lost, by nature, by birth, neither knowing nor worshiping the true God. We all start out life openly rebellious against the true God, pursuing our own beliefs, our own passions, our own pleasures, our own good. People’s rebellion begins in their heart from the earliest age and then manifests itself in all kinds of ways. (You don’t get a “pride month” recognized and celebrated around the world without most of the world being openly rebellious against the true God.) Now, some of those openly rebellious people are brought to a knowledge of the true God and make a beginning in His Church. They fix up their lives, for the most part, and become openly obedient children of God. But then many enter into another state of lostness. They become secretly self-righteous. They begin to trust in their own goodness and merit before God, as if He should be proud of them for being such good people. Openly rebellious or secretly self-righteous—in the end, it doesn’t matter, because both groups of people are lost. Both wretched in the eyes of God. Both under His condemnation.

And yet, our God wants no one to remain lost. He wants no one to be condemned. And so He goes out looking, pleading with them now, before it’s too late. Because one day soon, He will come, not seeking to find the lost, but to give them the everlasting punishment they deserve. For now, He still seeks, as we see in today’s Gospel, where we encounter both groups of lost people.

First, we see the tax collectors (who, at that time in Judea, openly practiced legalized theft and extorsion) and the “sinners” (that is, well-known, public scoundrels, sex workers, and adulterers). They’re openly rebellious against God. They’re impenitent—not sorry for their sins but determined to keep living in them. They have no desire to change (or to be changed). At least, not until they hear Jesus. These tax collectors and sinners in our Gospel were coming near to hear Jesus preach, calling them to repentance, offering a clean slate with God the Father to all who came to Him, seeking God’s mercy through Him. And Jesus was happy to have them come.

Second, we see the other lost group. In the Gospel they’re called Pharisees and scribes. These are the self-righteous religious people. They’re lost, too. They’re impenitent. They don’t believe God when He tells them that all people (including them!) have sinned and fall short of His glory. They don’t humble themselves before God, as Peter told us to do in today’s Epistle. Instead, they exalt themselves before God. They signal their own virtue before the world. They don’t cry out for God’s mercy, they don’t appreciate His grace. In fact, they’re so arrogant and condescending that, when they see the tax collectors and sinners coming to Jesus, they get angry: The Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Since we have two groups of lost people in our Gospel, it’s fitting that we also have two little parables, one for each group. The parables are similar in many ways and we wouldn’t want to press the distinction too far. But we might say that the parable of the lost sheep focuses on the lost openly rebellious sinners, while the parable of the lost coin focuses on the lost secretly self-righteous sinners. (While the parable of the prodigal son that follows deals with them both.)

The tax collectors and sinners were like the one sheep out of a hundred that goes astray and becomes lost. They rebelled against God and lived for themselves, oblivious to the very real devil who, as Peter says, is like a roaring lion, prowling around looking for someone to devour. But God, the Good Shepherd, wasn’t willing to give up on them. No decent shepherd would be, as Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees, that any of them would do the same thing for one sheep that went astray. How much more shouldn’t God seek to bring back the human beings (His special creation, made in His own image) who have gone astray! Of course He receives them when they come to hear Him! Of course He welcomes them back into His Church and into His family when they repent and seek forgiveness from Jesus! He is, after all, the one who would soon give His life on the cross to pay for all the wrong they had done. He’s thrilled when sinners recognize the error of their ways and come to Him for mercy! And all of heaven rejoices with Him when that happens. I tell you, in the same way there will also be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.

Such is the care and concern of God for every sinner, yes, even for the openly rebellious. That includes all non-Christians, no matter how decent they may appear, because all non-Christians are, by definition, open idolaters, people who deny the true God and refuse to worship Him through His beloved Son Jesus Christ. It also includes the Christians who have rejected the holy life to which God has called us and have chosen instead to live in sin. It includes all LGBTQ supporters and practitioners, and all those who have committed or supported abortion. It includes all the heterosexual people out there, too, who shack up or hook up outside of marriage. It includes porn stars, and porn producers, and porn watchers. Thieves. Race-baiters. Liars, false accusers, etc. God sent His Son Jesus into the world to suffer rejection, torture, and crucifixion as the payment for their sins—for the sins of the world. And now the risen Lord Jesus sends out ministers in His Church to call sinners to repentance, to look for them and to find them with His Word, with His Law and His Gospel. And the Holy Spirit works through the Law to bring them to see how lost they were, to change their attitude toward sin, so that they no longer love it and embrace it, but come to hate it and reject it. And through the Gospel the same Holy Spirit leads them to flee in faith to Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. And when they do, God and His angels and all the saints, in heaven and on earth, rejoice over them.

But there are some, like the Pharisees in our Gospel, who do not rejoice over them when they come to repentance, because they have come to believe that they have earned God’s approval, and that other people need to earn it just like they did if they are to have it. No mercy! No forgiveness! Certainly not for free!

The Pharisees in our Gospel were like the one silver coin that the woman lost. Now, a sheep may be dirty and smelly and prone to wander. But a silver coin was seen as very valuable. And the woman who lost it didn’t have a hundred of them; she only had ten, so losing one was a much bigger deal than losing one sheep out of a hundred. And yet, for as much value as that coin may have, it’s absolutely worthless as long as it remains lost. It can’t purchase a single thing. It’s good for nothing.

But with the same care and concern as the shepherd had for his one lost sheep, the woman in the story lights a lamp and sweeps the house and searches until she finds her one lost coin. And with the same joy as the shepherd had over finding his lost sheep, she rejoices and calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me! For I have found the silver coin that I lost.

The Pharisees were outwardly good citizens, shiny and valuable, like the silver coin. But they were secretly self-righteous, still lost, still impenitent, and, therefore, useless before God. They trusted in themselves, not in God. They looked down on others, instead of loving them as God demands. They didn’t seek the repentance and salvation of the tax collectors and sinners around them; no, they wanted to see them all burn in hell. They were generally mean and nasty people, because pride and self-righteousness always end up making a person mean and nasty. But God valued them just as much as He valued the tax collectors and sinners. He wanted to find them and to have them found just as much. The blood Jesus shed on the cross for the tax collectors was the same blood He shed for the Pharisees, and His joy when any of them repented—like Nicodemus, or like the Apostle Paul—was just as great.

We don’t have Pharisees anymore. But there are plenty of Christians out there who share much in common with them. These are the ones who think highly of themselves and who look down their nose at everyone else. They’re proud of how religious they are, or how orthodox they are, and they mock those who don’t live up to their standards. What they don’t realize is that, by their self-righteous attitude, they have broken away from Christ. They have become lost. They need finding. And so our merciful God goes looking for them, too, warning them to recognize and repent of their self-righteousness, persuading them to seek God’s approval in Christ, and never in their own worthiness.

Now, I ask you this morning to examine yourself. Do you find yourself among the openly rebellious? Do you find yourself among the secretly self-righteous? If so, then repent! And what does repentance look like for both groups? It looks like coming to hate your sin, whether it’s open rebellion or secret self-righteousness. And then, it looks like trust in the Lord Jesus, who paid for those sins and yearns for you to be found and find peace and comfort in the forgiveness of sins. It looks like being baptized. And then, it looks like a life lived within God’s holy Church, a life of daily contrition and repentance, a life of prayer, a life of hearing and learning God’s Word and receiving the Holy Supper of Christ’s true body and blood, a life now devoted to fighting against your own sinful passions and desires, a life now devoted to loving God and to loving your neighbor.

As Peter expressed in today’s Epistle, living in repentance as someone who has now been found by the Lord Jesus also means you get to cast your cares upon the Lord, because He cares for you. It means being sober and diligent as you watch out daily for the many ways in which the devil tries to lead you back to impenitence and lostness. It means resisting the devil, and there’s hope in that, because it means the devil can be resisted. As a penitent child of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, you can stand against the devil. You don’t have to go along with him either into open rebellion or into self-righteousness. You don’t have to follow him into hatred or into despair. Peter reminds us that, for as much as we may feel alone in this world, suffering so many attacks from the devil, the world, and our flesh, we aren’t alone. It just feels that way. In reality, Peter says that the same sufferings are being brought upon your brothers in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen

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The seventh trumpet and the happy ending

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 2

Revelation 11:15-19

It’s been a challenging journey so far through the book of Revelation. Throughout the book so far, but especially in the vision of the seven trumpets, we’ve seen many pictures and symbols that are hard to interpret with much certainty. We’ve seen scary images of destruction and violence, including the destructive force of false doctrine as it ravages the Christian Church on earth, destroying the false Christians and causing much tribulation for true believers.

It’s time for a little break from all that. It’s time to skip ahead to the end of the story. Every story has an outline, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and each of those main parts is divided up into smaller parts. The end part of the outline for a thriller, for example, is made up of the crisis, the climax (which is like the final showdown), and the resolution, after the hero comes out victorious.

This evening we have before us only five verses, the sounding of the seventh and final trumpet. They’re clear, straightforward, and easy to understand. And, even though this isn’t the last chapter of the book of Revelation, these verses take us to the very end of the world—as each series of visions does. They take us to the resolution and show us the final victory of God over His enemies and ours, and the everlasting joy of God’s people.

Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

You may recognize these words from Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. When the final angel sounds his trumpet, it signals the end of the world, the day of judgment, and the beginning of the open, visible, glorious reign of “our Lord and of His Christ.” The Father has entrusted the reign to His Son, to “His Christ” during this New Testament period, as the One who died and rose again, as the Head of the Church, as the Bridegroom in heaven ruling for the benefit of His Bride still on earth. But in the end, St. Paul writes that Then comes the end, when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

That’s in keeping with what we confess in the Athanasian Creed, that the Son of God comes from the Father, not the other way around, and that He is equal to the Father with regard to His divinity, and lesser than the Father with regard to His humanity. Christ reigns now at the Father’s right hand, with the Father’s complete approval. He will still reign at the end, together with the Father, but somehow (and we don’t need to know how) His role will change at the end after He wins the final victory for His Church, and the Father will reassert His primary role as King of kings and Lord of lords. All the power of the powerful people of this world will vanish. And, willingly or unwillingly, the kings and presidents and rulers of the world will lay down their crowns at the feet of God.

And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned.

If you recall, we identified the twenty-four elders earlier in the book of Revelation as the sum total of all believers from the Old Testament and the New Testament. They describe themselves a few verses later as Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great. Once God wins the final victory over all the forces of evil in this world, the Church will give thanks. We give thanks now, of course, and rightly so. But that final thanksgiving will be the most joyful of all, because now, to our thanksgiving, we inevitably add a, “Lord, have mercy!” Now, to our thanksgiving, we tack on a prayer for God’s help and for His continued providence and preservation during this time of tribulation. But then, at the end, when our God has finally removed every harmful and painful thing from our lives, every danger, every hardship, every sorrow, our joy and thanks will be unending and perfect.

The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”

The nations were angry. We see it even now. The nations rage against the Lord and against His Christ. Everything Christianity has touched is right now, at this very moment, being dismantled by the rulers of the world. Western society, Biblical morality, the Bible’s version of creation and the history of the world, Christianity’s condemnation of sin and its insistence that there is only one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But if you compare the anger of the nations with the wrath of God—well, there is no comparison. As Jesus once said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The prophet Zephaniah spoke of this day, and his : The great day of the LORD is near; It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A day of devastation and desolation, A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of trumpet and alarm Against the fortified cities And against the high towers. “I will bring distress upon men, And they shall walk like blind men, Because they have sinned against the LORD; Their blood shall be poured out like dust, And their flesh like refuse.” Neither their silver nor their gold Shall be able to deliver them In the day of the LORD’s wrath; But the whole land shall be devoured By the fire of His jealousy, For He will make speedy riddance Of all those who dwell in the land.

So let the nations be angry with God and with His people. God’s anger is far worse, and it’s about to be revealed against all those who failed to take refuge in Christ. He will destroy those who destroy the earth. That’s not talking about climate change or environmental impact. It’s talking about how men destroy the earth with their pride, with their violence, with their deception and crookedness, and, yes, with their destructive wars. They themselves will be destroyed—not wiped out of existence, not annihilated, but punished eternally in hell, even as God destroys this present earth and replaces it with the new heavens and the new earth.

As for believers in Christ, the time has come that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great. This is when Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes are fulfilled: Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Or as Peter wrote, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. The reward of our eternal inheritance, the reward of God’s visible presence among His people, the reward of happiness untinged by sadness, the reward of eternal life unthreatened by death will be handed out to each one of those who have remained faithful until death. That’s what the Last Day will be like for believers in Christ Jesus.

Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.

Even as the earth is destroyed, God’s temple in heaven is opened for believers. And the ark of the covenant, which symbolized God’s presence with Israel on earth but which was covered up 24/7 by a veil, will not be covered in heaven. In other words, God will no longer hide His presence from His people or restrict access to Himself. Terror will strike the unbelieving as they are escorted to their doom, even as God’s people sit down with our Father and with His Son at the heavenly table, where we will dwell with Him forever.

You and I have lived our entire lives in the end-part of the story, in the climax section, where things are at their worst in the world. But it’s all building up to the Hero’s victory over every evil, and tonight we’ve seen just a brief preview of what life will be like after that. It isn’t cheating for us to skip to the end and read how things turn out. No, it’s God’s gift to you, to show you how things turn out so that you have renewed strength to remain steadfast in the faith until then. Amen.

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Come to the Father’s supper in Christ!

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 2

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

An invitation has been extended to you to attend a rich, glorious supper at the house of a certain man. There is no date or time stamped on the invitation, just the fact that a supper will be given, and that you’re invited to it. You’ll be told when it’s ready, so be ready to go when supper time comes! Oh, you’re eager to attend this supper—or, at least, you say you are. But you’ve waited a good long while for it. You’ve taken on a number of tasks and added to your to-do list and grown comfortable with your life as it is. So when the messenger finally comes to tell you it’s time, you decide you have better things to do.

That sums up what happened with the people of Israel. Since the time of Abraham, some 2,000 years before Christ was born, God had revealed Himself to them. He had taught them, trained them, explained to them how He had created the world, how mankind had sinned and brought death and destruction on our race. He had revealed to them His plan of salvation and had given them a special place in that plan. They would be the recipients and guardians of His Word. They would be taught the truth while all the nations around them went astray. They would be the people to whom Christ the Savior would be born and among whom He would preach and teach and live. The date and time of His coming wasn’t spelled out in the invitation. But they were given hints and clues, and when He finally came, John the Baptist was the first to announce to the nation that the supper was ready. It’s time to go! It’s time to repent of your sins and believe in Christ Jesus and live under Him as your King in the kingdom of God!

Come on! This is what we’ve been waiting for all this time? Jesus? I mean, His miracles are something, but He’s just a man, right? He isn’t promising a better life here on earth—that’s what we really want. He isn’t praising us for waiting so patiently for Him and acknowledging that we deserve to live with God forever. No, He’s telling us we’re sinners who need a Savior. He’s telling us we have to change, to be “born again.” He’s telling us we’re slaves to sin and that we need Him to free us from it. And then, to top it off, we see Him welcoming bad people into His company. We see Him spending time with thieves and prostitutes and poor people and crippled people, and we even hear Him sometimes praising people who aren’t Jews, people who weren’t on the original guest list to the supper! Bah! We have better things to do than to attend this kind of supper.

And God was angry, like the man in the parable Jesus told in today’s Gospel. God had given His Son to be born as a man in order redeem sinful mankind, starting with the Jews. But they didn’t want God’s greatest gift. In fact, they hated it, hated Him and eventually crucified Him.

But God also knew ahead of time that it would turn out this way. In fact, it had to turn out this way so that the Son of God could die for the sins, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles—of all people. God is determined to have His house filled—determined to give people eternal life, determined to forgive the sins of all those who turn to Jesus in faith. And so He keeps sending messengers out into the world to invite anyone and everyone, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, until His house is full. Anyone who wants Jesus for a Savior can have Him for a Savior and can live under Him in His kingdom and taste the supper of God’s goodness and grace and love. Anyone who wants God for a Father and Jesus for a Brother can have it!

But the Jews weren’t the only ones to refuse God’s invitation. Many who have heard this Gospel, this good news, have found better things to do than to come into God’s kingdom and become members of His holy Christian Church, and many who have become members of the holy Christian Church have since walked away from it, in their hearts, if not with their feet. People want to approach God in their own way, believe their own way, behave their own way. They want to “believe in God,” but only as a minor part of their life. They don’t want their livelihood disturbed by Him, or their traditions, or their family, or their fun. Or, they have simply believed the devil’s lie that rings out in the world, “There is no such thing as ‘God.’ You—you are your own god. You are the master of your fate. Celebrate pride! Just follow your heart and be true to yourself!”

What deadly advice that is! There is only one true God, and it isn’t you, and it isn’t I. He has given us His Word, and in it He has revealed the truth about all things, starting with the truth that Christ Jesus came to save sinners, and that salvation and eternal life are found only in Him. If you want some other supper than the one God has provided for you in Christ, then you will never taste His supper. What you will taste is eternal separation from God the Father. What you will taste is an eternity with a very different father—with the father of lies, also known as Satan or the devil.

But if you want God for a Father, then this is the only invitation that works, to enter His house through His Son Jesus Christ, to come into His holy Christian Church through repentance and Baptism, and then to live as members of His Church, regularly hearing and learning His Word, receiving Christ’s body and blood, each day turning away from sin and living for righteousness, living the life of love that God has set forth for you in His Word.

Still there is room in the Father’s house. Still the word goes out: Come! All things are now ready! As the hymn said, Delay not, delay not, O sinner, draw near. The waters of life are now flowing for thee. No price is demanded; the Savior is here. Redemption is purchased, salvation is free. Hear God, the Holy Spirit, calling you to faith and calling you to remain in the faith and to live as members of His Church. And for as much as we would like — as God would like! — for all men to come to the supper with us, take comfort in the fact that God knew that most of those whom He invites wouldn’t come, and yet He kept inviting until you heard the message, until you came into His house. And now He gives us some small part in extending the invitation to others.

You fathers who are here today, you can’t overestimate how important your role is in that inviting. You can’t overestimate how important your example is to your children. Your example of godliness and faith doesn’t guarantee that your children will come to the Father’s supper. But no one on earth has a greater influence on them than you do. So be the fathers God has called you to be, and leave the rest in the capable hands of the true Father, who will hear your prayers for your children and will work mightily in their lives to coax them into His kingdom and to keep them there.

May He keep all of us there until the day of Christ’s return, when we fully taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are they who take refuge in Him! Amen.

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This is how God loved the world

Posted on May 31, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Pentecost

Acts 10:42-48  +  John 3:16-21

You all know John 3:16, God so loved the world… We memorize that verse. We use it often. I’ve used it often in sermons. It was sort of the basis of my justification-by-faith-alone essay. Would you believe I’ve never preached on this text before? It always comes up in the Church Year on the day after Pentecost, and we have never had a service on that day, nor have we used the assigned readings for that day on any other day. Well, this evening we don’t have time for a full treatment of the text, but that’s all right, because it really is quite simple.

Most people who believe in a generic god talk about God’s “love,” by which they basically mean that God is nice, and caring, and never judgmental or condemning, and he’ll let everyone into heaven in the end—which allows them to do whatever they want, whenever they want, always falling back on idea that “God is love.”

But Jesus tells us plainly, simply, directly what God’s love looks like. “God so loved the world.” That phrase doesn’t mean “He loved the world so much.” It means, “He loved the world in such a way that.” In other words, Jesus is about to tell Nicodemus, with whom He’s speaking here in John 3, this is how God loved the world: He gave His only-begotten Son. Now, that’s not the end of that sentence; it’s not the complete answer, but it’s the first part of it. God loved the world—the fallen world, the sinful, corrupt, selfish, me-centered, devil-serving, headed-to-hell, already-condemned world, including you and me (unless you hope to be saved from eternal death in some other way)—in such a way that He gave His only-begotten Son. You know how much is packed into that saying. The Father planned all of human history so that His Son, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, might be given to us sinful men as a man like us, given to our race forever, in order to seek and to save that which was lost. Not only that, but the Father gave His beloved Son to suffer and to die on a cross for us. That is how God loved the world.

But the sentence continues with the purpose of that giving. This is how God loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son so that (for the purpose that) whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God the Creator, the one against whom all mankind had rebelled, had placed a judgment of death on our race after Adam and Eve’s sin, because their sinful condition passes down to all their children. But that same God chose, of His own freewill, to sacrifice His beloved Son on the cross so that all the sinners in the world could escape from that death sentence and live eternally with Him, by believing in His beloved, only-begotten Son. Yes, that’s the “condition” for spending eternity with Him. You have to believe in Jesus; you have to want Jesus for a Savior; you have to want to be saved through Him alone.

Of course, we’re so far gone by nature, we couldn’t even believe in Jesus on our own. And so the God who sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, sends His Holy Spirit into the world, to call sinners by the Gospel, to persuade sinners, to enable sinners to believe in His Son. He wants us to believe. He enables us to believe. But He doesn’t force anyone or compel anyone to believe. He enables us to believe, while still allowing us not to.

For the one who believes in Christ Jesus, the sentence of condemnation and death is removed here and now. He who believes in Him is not condemned. Or as Paul writes to the Romans, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the believer, the guilty verdict is changed to innocent. The brand of “sinner” is changed to “saint.” The sentence of death is changed to life. And the status of enemy of God is changed to child of God.

For the unbeliever, nothing changes. Do you hear that? Nothing changes. He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The unbeliever is already condemned. Condemned on the basis of the sins he has already committed and the sinful, godless condition in which he was born. Condemned, because he refused the path of justification that God provided for him and laid out for him and invited him to. The mind of the unbeliever is so arrogant that they despise justification by faith alone in Christ and then still have the audacity to accuse God of being a big Meany for not saving them in some other way, in the way of their own choosing.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. This is the condemnation. In other words, this demonstrates God’s righteousness in condemning them. God sent His Son, who is the Light, who is Truth, who is Goodness, who is Love personified, into the world to save the world. And most men preferred darkness, preferred lies, preferred that which is twisted and ugly and evil to that which is righteous and beautiful and good. They preferred the false freedom of the devil to the true freedom of God. Their condemnation is clearly deserved.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. Think of the tax collectors and sinners. While they were determined to live in sin, they avoided and hid from God’s Word and the ministry of it. But God’s Word moved them to acknowledge the truth, to reconsider their sinful choices, and then Jesus invited them to come to Him for forgiveness, and they came, and repented, and believed, and then, as believers, they stopped living in sin and started living according to the truth. Believers are not afraid to have the light of Christ shining on us, because our past sins have been cleansed by Christ and our present life is not one of practicing sin, living in sin, clinging to sin, but of daily contrition and repentance, if we are genuinely believers in Christ.

On the other hand, consider the Pharisees. They were happy to have the people of Israel view their works. But when Jesus came and exposed their hypocrisy and the lack of mercy underlying their works, they hid from Him, and even hated Him. They refused to acknowledge the truth, that they were sinners and that Christ was the Savior sent to save them.

What has changed? People love to pat themselves on the back and think of themselves as good people, but when God’s Word exposes them as sinners, they hide from Christ and remain in the darkness. They’ll talk all about God’s love, until it’s proclaimed to them that God loves them in such a way that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to suffer and die for their sins so that they might turn away from their sins, and from all their idols and false saviors, and believe in Christ alone for salvation. When that message is proclaimed in the world, then it becomes clear who the ones are who truly know and appreciate the love of God. They are the ones who repent and believe in Jesus. In them—in you who believe! — the Holy Spirit’s work has had its intended effect, and God’s purpose in sending His Son into the world has been fulfilled. In them—in you who believe! — the Holy Spirit continues His work of guiding you away from sin and toward the works that are fitting for saints, because you have been born of God and have come to know that this is how God loved the world, by giving His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Amen.

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The Church is built by the work of the Spirit

Posted on May 28, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

There were three Old Testament feasts every Jewish man was supposed to celebrate in Jerusalem: The Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and Feast of Tabernacles. Now, Passover was followed immediately with the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread, and on the Sunday that fell in that Passover week was another little feast called the Feast of Firstfruits, when the very first fruits of the harvest were collected in March or April, as the guarantee or proof that there would be an abundant harvest to come a couple of months later in May or June.

Well, Jesus, our Passover Lamb, was slain. And on the Sunday of that Passover week, which was the Feast of Firstfruits, He rose from the dead. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward, at His coming, those who belong to Christ. So in our celebration of Holy Week and Easter, we’re really celebrating the fulfillment of those Old Testament shadows pointing to Christ. The same is true on this Day of Pentecost, when we celebrate the fulfillment of the shadow of the Feast of Weeks, 50 days (or seven weeks + one day) after the Feast of Firstfruits. On that day the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples in Jerusalem, proceeding from God the Father and sent by God the Son, bringing about the harvest, or the conversion, of some 3,000 people who were baptized on that day in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, today we see in the book of Acts, not the Holy Spirit Himself, because He is a Spirit—unseen and unseeable—we see not the Spirit but the three signs that the Spirit had been poured out on the believers in Jerusalem. External signs, visible signs, and signs that in and of themselves teach us something about the Holy Spirit’s purpose and work.

It began with the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. Not wind, but the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. And since the word “wind” is related to the word “spirit” in Greek and in Hebrew, that was the first sign that this was the arrival of God’s Spirit. It was also a sign of how the Spirit would do His work in this New Testament period, invisibly, like wind or breath, working on the hearts of men through the preaching of the Gospel, preaching, which is made up of breath and sound formed into words.

Second, there were the tongues of fire resting above the heads of the disciples, another miracle indicating the Spirit’s presence. Tongues, because the Spirit would work through the tongues of men, again, through the preaching of the Word of God. Of fire, because the Word of God is compared to fire in Scripture. As God said through Jeremiah, “Is not My Word like a fire?” Or as John the Baptist prophesied about Jesus, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Or as Jesus said before His crucifixion, I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! And what does fire do? It burns, and it spreads. It sets other things on fire. In the same way, the Spirit would kindle the fire of faith and love through the preaching of the Gospel, faith and love that would spread throughout the world like wildfire, even as the preaching of the Gospel would spread throughout the world like wildfire—a fire that is still burning 2,000 years later.

And third, the actual tongues of the disciples were then turned into the Spirit’s instruments to proclaim the wonderful works of God in many languages, languages that were known to the hearers visiting Jerusalem that day, but unknown to those who spoke them. It was no accident that the Spirit was sent on a day when large crowds were gathered in Jerusalem from all the surrounding nations, to keep the Feast of Weeks. It was God’s purpose to show that Jesus the Christ was the Savior of the whole world, to show that the Gospel was intended for every nation, tribe, language, and people, that there is no such thing anymore as a favored race or a favored language. It signified that the Gospel is truly to be preached in all the world, in all the languages of men, so that not just a few lucky people in Jerusalem, but all men everywhere might be brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and so be saved from the wrath that will one day be poured out on the world for all the sins of men.

Those were the external signs or witnesses of the Holy Spirit given to the early Church for the purpose of confirming the apostles’ testimony about Jesus. The gift of speaking in other languages sometimes accompanied the preaching of the Gospel as the apostles went forth into the world. Other external signs were also given at times: the gift of prophesying future events, the power to drive out demons, the power to perform some miracles of healing. They were given to help the young Church grow and to attract the attention of outsiders, exactly as they did on the Day of Pentecost, and it’s a historical fact that those gifts ceased to be given after the days of the apostles. But those things weren’t the main work of the Holy Spirit. The true work of the Holy Spirit goes on.

And what is that work—or better, what are those works? The first work is faith itself, both bringing people to faith and preserving believers in the faith. As Paul says to the Corinthians, No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. He works through the preaching of the Word of God to persuade sinners to repent and to believe in Christ Jesus and to baptized for the forgiveness of sins. The crowds in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost would have never believed that story about Jesus being the Christ, about Jesus being raised from the dead, about Jesus reigning at the right hand of God the Father, about God’s free offer to forgive the sins of all who believe and are baptized, without the Holy Spirit working on their hearts to persuade them, to convince them, to bring them to faith.

Of course, that work was directly related to another work that Jesus alluded to in today’s Gospel. He told His apostles, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I have said to you. The Holy Spirit was responsible for the inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures, which testified about the coming Christ. As Peter writes, Prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In the same way, the same Spirit would also be responsible for reminding the apostles of all the things Jesus said to them. That’s why we have absolute confidence that the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, are trustworthy and true.

That inspiration of Scripture doesn’t continue today; it was completed through the apostles. But the teaching continues. He taught the apostles all things that they needed to know and understand so that they could pass them on, so that the truth of Christ could spread like wildfire. Now the same Holy Spirit drives believers into the inspired Scriptures. He opens and enlightens the minds of believers to understand the Scriptures. He gives us discernment. He restores our fallen reason so that the things of God make sense to us, while the same things make no sense to the minds of unbelievers. That’s why the actions and beliefs and thought processes of the unbelieving world often appear absolutely insane to us, because the Spirit has restored to us Christians a measure of sanity and reason.

Another work of the Holy Spirit is the work of sanctification in the sense of leading and guiding Christians to lead holy lives as we await the day of judgment. He sanctifies us in love. Love for God, love for our neighbor, and a special kind of love for our fellow Christians. He continues to use His inspired Scriptures to teach us what love looks like, how God defines love, and then He works in our hearts to lead us in the direction of love, always having to struggle against our sinful flesh that wants to lead us in the opposite direction.

Another work of the Holy Spirit is comfort. Comfort, after He brings us to know and to lament our sins. Comfort, during times of testing and tribulation. Comfort, when the world and everyone seems to be against us. He comforts us by turning our attention to Jesus, to Jesus and all He has done for us and all He has promised to do. This is the comfort that Jesus talked about in today’s Gospel, too. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You don’t always experience perfect peace in your heart, but when you hear the words of Jesus, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, they have an effect on you, don’t they? Don’t they comfort you? Don’t they battle against the troubles of your heart and the fear that bubbles up in your heart, to bring you some measure of peace? That’s the Holy Spirit.

And with comfort and peace comes also boldness, boldness to pray to our Father in heaven in the Spirit of adoption, boldness to face the struggles and the challenges of each new day, boldness to speak the truth in all things and to accept the backlash it will bring from the world that hates the truth. It’s that boldness we see in Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost or in Paul’s missionary journeys, where he was so often persecuted for preaching the Gospel. None of us has that kind of boldness dwelling in us naturally. But the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of believers. God has made His home with us, and that’s the source of all our strength.

Bringing people to faith through the preaching of the Gospel. Preserving us in the faith through Word and Sacrament. Giving us the Word of God in the Bible and teaching us to understand it better and better. Sanctification. Comfort. Boldness. These are the works of the Holy Spirit who dwells with believers and in believers. These are the works by which the Christ’s Church is built and fortified and by which Christians are guided and strengthened in our lives and in our mission. Give thanks today for the Spirit of God who dwells among us! Dig into the Scriptures He has inspired! Treasure the Sacraments by which He works! Rejoice in the comfort that He offers! And follow where He leads—to turn away from sin, to trust in Christ Jesus, and to live a life of love! The Spirit is God’s gift to you. So treasure it, and use it! Amen.

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