Our only hope is for God to come down from heaven

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Bulletin

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 25

Isaiah 64:1-12

As we start into the last three chapters of the book of Isaiah this evening, we reach the grand climax of the book. We hear Isaiah pleading in chapter 64, pleading for God to come and save the miserable, pitiable people of Israel. And in the last two chapters, God will answer. And His answer, as usual, is one of comfort and everlasting victory for those who repent and believe in Him, and one of rejection and eternal condemnation for those who refuse to repent. Israel, in its Old Testament form, would cease to exist because of their impenitence. But the believing remnant of Israel, Israel in its New Testament form, will inherit the new heavens and the new earth. But, as Isaiah knows very well, the only way for anyone at all to be saved is for God to come down from heaven.

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might shake at Your presence, as when the melting fire burns, as the fire causes the waters to boil, to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!

Isaiah foresees Jerusalem already in ruins. He sees the people of Israel sitting in darkness, with no hope. No hope, except for this—if only God would come down from heaven! If only He would rend the heavens, tear the heavens open and come down to earth to save them. That’s the only possible way for sinners to be saved. God Himself has to do it. And He has to do it in person.

He had come down once before to rescue Israel. When You did awesome things for which we did not look, You came down; the mountains quaked at Your presence. Again Isaiah looks back to the redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt, when God had come down and performed wonders for His people, when He had guided them through the wilderness, when He had spoken to them from Mt. Sinai and made a covenant of peace with them, when He had fought for them against all their enemies. That’s the kind of thing Isaiah wants Him to do again!

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by ear, neither has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, those who remember You in Your ways. No other god comes in person to save. Even the stories of the ancient Greek or Roman gods who appeared to men from time to time are all stories of incest and adultery, stories of selfish, self-centered gods who were looking out for themselves. That’s the best kind of god mankind could invent. No other god came down from heaven out of mercy, to rescue His errant people, except for Yahweh, the true God, the God of Israel. He acts for the one who waits for Him. So wait for Him! He has promised to act on your behalf. He meets him who rejoices in doing righteousness. So rejoice in doing what is right in God’s sight, and remember your God in everything you do!

Indeed, You were angry, for we had sinned; in our sins we remained a long time, and shall we be saved? But we all are as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags; and we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs up himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have consumed us because of our iniquities.

Isaiah places himself forward, at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction and the Babylonian captivity. By that time, the vast majority of godly Israelites would be gone. And even the godly had to admit that, according to the strict judgment of the Law, even their righteousness, even their good works were unclean, were polluted with sin. Not even the believers kept the Law so as to be saved by their good works. How much less the unbelieving in Israel who remained in their impenitence. They had sinned and remained in their sins for a long time. God’s anger toward them was justified, as were His plans to bring judgment upon them.

But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; and we all are the work of Your hand.

Here is the penitent cry of the believer. The penitent “sigh,” you might say. After all the anxiety about the sad state of the nation, the sad state of the Church, the believer casts all his anxiety on God, and says, “Here, Father! Take it. You’re in charge here. We know that. We are in Your hands. We know that you will do what is right.” With that in mind, Isaiah makes a final plea:

Do not be wrathful beyond measure, O LORD, nor remember iniquity forever; look upon us, we pray, we all are Your people. Your holy cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised You is burned up with fire; and all our precious things are laid waste. Will You refrain Yourself from these things, O LORD? Will You hold Your peace and afflict us beyond measure?

In Isaiah’s time those things hadn’t happened yet. Jerusalem wasn’t a desolation, yet. Zion wasn’t a wilderness, yet. The temple wasn’t burned up with fire, yet. But Isaiah saw it as clearly as if he had been transported 120 years into the future. And as he looks out at the burning, desolate landscape of Judea and Jerusalem, he pleads with the Lord to not be angry forever, to remember His mercy and love. In other words, He pleads with the Lord to ordain an end date to Israel’s suffering, to set a day and an hour when He would rend the heavens and come down to save His people from their misery.

And that’s just what the Lord did. Not when Cyrus came along and finally released Israel from captivity in Babylon. No, the Lord didn’t come down from heaven for that, but reigned in heaven over world events to cause it to happen. But the Lord did finally come down from heaven, in person, about 700 years after Isaiah’s time. He came down as a little baby who was placed in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem. He dwelled among the very kind of sinners who had caused God’s wrath against Israel in the first place, not to destroy them, but to bring them to repentance, to call them back into His kingdom of grace. Yes, God, the Son of God, came down from heaven, in person, and made Himself the one atoning sacrifice that can turn away the righteous wrath of God, and now calls all men to be reconciled to God through Him.

The same Jesus, God, the Son of God, will come down from heaven just one more time. Jesus talked about it in the lesson you heard this evening from Luke’s Gospel. And what will the world be like leading up to His return? Just as in the days of Noah, leading up to the flood that destroyed the world. Just as in the days of Sodom, leading up to its destruction by fire and brimstone. So will the world be. And just as Israel was, leading up to its destruction, so will the Visible Church be. And, if you look at the state of the world and of the Church, you can’t help but notice that mankind is ripe for destruction once again. So let us pray to the Lord with Isaiah, in humility, in repentance, and, most of all, in hope, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down!” And you can be sure that He will, at just the right time. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged | Comments Off on Our only hope is for God to come down from heaven

Jesus will preserve His homeless Christians

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Folder Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 25 – Third-to-last Sunday

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Matthew 24:15-28

We’ve come to one of my favorite Sundays of the Church Year. Not because its Scripture lessons are especially foundational to our religion, but because it describes so well the odd situation in which we find ourselves in the Church, the ecclesiastical chaos all around us, the outward disunity we find in the Christian Church. Sometimes it almost feels like our little independent Lutheran church is a church without a home in the larger world of Christianity. But, as Jesus describes today, that’s exactly how it has to be in the days leading up to His return. In today’s Gospel, Jesus predicts this apparent “homelessness” for the faithful, but He also gives us good reasons not to worry about it, but to take comfort in His promises and to follow His instructions so that we may escape the terrible destruction that’s coming upon those who fail to flee from their home when their home is invaded by the abomination that causes desolation.

It was the end of the day on Tuesday of Holy Week, and Jesus had some final instructions for His disciples. He had just finished telling them about the destruction of Jerusalem that was going to take place. Looking back, we know it took place about 40 years after Jesus predicted it. The disciples, assuming that the destruction of Jerusalem must mean the end of the world and Jesus’ coming again at the end of the age, asked Jesus, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? As it turns out the destruction of Jerusalem would not be so closely tied to the end of the world. But it would foreshadow the eventual apostasy and destruction of the Church, leading up to the return of Christ and the end of the age. So the things Jesus says about Jerusalem’s destruction, and the warnings He attaches to them, are not only intended for the Christians living at that time, but for us as well.

In answer to His disciples’ questions, Jesus first goes on to describe the New Testament period and the signs of His coming, including the sign that the gospel would be preached to all nations, and then the end will come. Then He goes back and describes the conditions leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, which are similar to the conditions leading up to the end of the world. He says that they will see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place. 550 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Daniel prophesied an abomination of desolation, an idol that would cause desolation and destruction, being set up in the temple in Jerusalem. That was partially fulfilled about 160 years before Jesus was born when the Syrian ruler Antiochus set up an altar to Zeus on top of the altar to God in the temple and sacrificed pigs on it. But Jesus says that wasn’t the only fulfillment. Another abomination causing desolation would be set up in the temple.

That was fulfilled in the years after Jesus’ ascension, when Jerusalem refused to believe the Gospel. The Jews kept offering their sacrifices in the temple. Those sacrifices once pointed ahead to Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. But now they were being offered in rejection of the Christ. So the very sacrifices that once were pleasing to God had become an abomination in His sight. By rejecting Jesus as their Messiah, the Jews had become idolaters. The more entrenched they became in that anti-Christian idolatry, the worse their behavior became, until they engaged in open revolt against Rome, and then the Roman armies besieged Jerusalem, and finally went in and destroyed the city.

But Jesus knew that something similar would happen to the temple of the outward Christian Church, the Visible Church. Idolatry would take root in the Church and become an abomination in God’s sight, causing the desolation of the outward Church. That happened with the various forms of idolatry that were promoted under the Roman papacy, all of which pushed Jesus and His Word to the background and replaced Gospel with Law, faith with works, and forgiveness with constant guilt. But it has also happened throughout Protestantism, and even within Lutheranism. Idols are set up in the Church. Jesus is pushed to the background, and all sorts of other things are pushed into His place, so that His Word is twisted, so that His Gospel is minimized, so that preserving the institution of the church that a person grew up in becomes more important than preserving the Word of God itself. And hearts that are supposed to be clinging to Jesus begin to cling instead to manmade things. All of that is an abomination in God’s sight, and it has caused untold desolation within the Visible Church, to the point that it’s basically now every man for himself when it comes to interpreting the Bible and understanding the truth. This is all part of what Jesus refers to as the great tribulation. Jerusalem lived through it in the first century. And the Christian Church has been living through it for quite some time.

Other conditions during this great tribulation include false christs and false prophets performing great signs and wonders that will deceive many, that will come close even to deceiving the elect. In other words, these false prophets and their “signs” will not be easy to detect as false, or at least, will be so widely accepted that it will take great courage to denounce them as false. That can include the supposed apparitions of the virgin Mary. It can include the miracles that the Pentecostals claim they can do. It can also include “science” as the teaching of evolution, for example, has almost entirely supplanted the teaching of God’s Word, not only out there among the atheists, but among most who call themselves Christians as well. How many people have been led astray from the Word of God by that idolatrous teaching! And then there are the other false doctrines that become so popular in their various churches and church bodies that practically no one is willing to challenge them anymore. False doctrine becomes “settled doctrine,” and then the abomination has truly taken hold.

But the days will be shortened, Jesus says, for the sake of the elect. And Jesus will return before it becomes impossible to hold onto faith. But He won’t return in secret. He won’t return two or three times. He won’t be coming to perform some kind of rapture and then going away again for a while. No, He’ll return once, at the end of the age. And everyone will see Him at once. His return will be public and visible to all.

Those are the conditions that will exist in the Church and in the world in this New Testament era. Now, given these conditions, what instructions does Jesus leave for us?

First, very simply, let the reader understand. In other words, search the prophets, search the Old Testament Scriptures and study the Bible, whether it’s the prophet Daniel or the prophet Isaiah or the Psalms or the five books of Moses. Read and think about what you read. Read and pray for the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment and spiritual insight.

Second, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, that is, when you see idolatry begin to take root in the holy place of the Church, Flee! Flee to the mountains! Flee from your “home.” And do it sooner rather than later! That’s what those references mean about, if a person is on the housetop, not coming down to get anything out of his house, or a man in the field not turning back to get his clothes. It’s also what that reference means when Jesus bemoans the poor women who are nursing or pregnant, or those who may have to travel on the Sabbath day. Those were literal impediments to fleeing leading up to Jerusalem’s destruction. But the urgency in Jesus’ words still applies very much to our situation.

What does it mean to “flee to the mountains”? It means getting away from idolatry in all its forms. Whether that idolatry is set up within a given church or a given church body, leave it behind, and do it quickly. Get out of that visible church. Leave your “home.” That doesn’t mean get out of the Christian Church entirely, of course! But it means you may not be able to stay in the church of your youth. You may have to spend months or years searching for a little church up in the mountains, that is, disconnected from the big and powerful church bodies in the world.

Practically all of you here, in our little “church in the mountains,” have already done this, so you know what it entails. You know what it is to be “homeless” in a spiritual sense. Here in Las Cruces we’ve still been mercifully blessed with a beautiful church building, but not all of our members live close enough to enjoy it. You know what it is to not have a big and impressive church body to take comfort it, or to have a big church with choirs and multiple musicians and all kinds of programs, to not have a voice in the world or a seat at the table with prestigious religious leaders. And why would we expect any of that, if we’re being faithful to Jesus’ instruction? Why would anyone who is in the process of fleeing from his home expect to have all the comforts of home?

Third, Jesus tells His fleeing Church to keep praying that our flight may not be hindered or delayed. God alone provides the ministry of His Word. And God alone provides the strength and the courage we need to live in away from “home.” Our sinful flesh would love nothing more than to stay where it’s comfortable, or even to return to a comfortable home, in spite of the abomination that may be there. But, Jesus says, “Remember Lot’s wife!” She started to flee from her home in Sodom, but turned back toward it in longing and suffered a tragic end. So keep praying that the Lord would guide and protect us as we flee, and guide and protect and strengthen all His children throughout the world, that all may flee from every abomination before the desolation comes.

Jesus’ final instruction to His fleeing Church is this: When people try to convince you that Christ is to be found here or over there, don’t believe it. Don’t be deceived. Don’t go out. It’s easy to grow impatient as we wait, especially in the midst of the great tribulation. So it can be tempting to go looking for Jesus and His salvation wherever anybody tells you you can find Him. In this place, in that practice, in this novel doctrine, like the rapture or the millennium or the real absence of His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. But Jesus’ instruction is, don’t believe any of that. Hold onto His Word and wait patiently for His very public return. Look for the true Church in the marks of the Church: in the pure preaching of the Gospel of Christ and in the proper administration of His Holy Sacraments. And be content with that until He comes.

St. Paul told us a little bit about that coming in today’s Epistle, with everything taking place in quick succession. First He’ll raise from the dead those who have fallen asleep in Him. And then He’ll bring the still-living believers up into the heavens to join the newly raised believers, all safely and joyfully gathered around our Lord.

So, in the midst of this great tribulation, in the midst of fleeing from idolatry in the Visible Church and living as those who have no earthly home, keep watching for the Lord’s return, as eagles carefully scan the countryside for the meal they so eagerly desire, and then all converge on it as soon as they spot it. So set your hearts on the Lord Jesus Christ and be watching diligently for Him. In the midst of the tribulation, in the midst of our flight, Jesus will preserve His homeless Christians. He will shorten the days of this tribulation as much as necessary, so that not a single one of His believers has to miss out on the salvation He’s coming to bring. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Jesus will preserve His homeless Christians

Where is the Savior of Israel

Posted on November 6, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Bulletin

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 23

Isaiah 63:11-19

Isaiah Chapter 63 began with the picture of the Lord as a Warrior, a Warrior who fought for His people against their enemies, but ended up fighting against His people Israel when they made themselves His enemies, when they turned against their Savior. In the rest of the chapter, His people look back at how good they had it, at how good the Lord had been to them in the beginning, prompting them to ask the desperate questions, Where is He now, that Savior of old? Where is the Savior of Israel? And why does He cause us to go astray? As we’ll see in these last three chapters of the book of Isaiah, the answers to those questions differ, depending on the heart of the one asking them.

Then His people remembered the days of old, of His servant Moses, saying: Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in their midst, who led them with His glorious arm by the right hand of Moses, dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name, who led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? As the cattle which go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused them to rest, so You led Your people, to make Yourself a glorious name.

Accused, condemned, rejected by God, made desolate, captive in an enemy land, the people of Israel had learned what it was like to have the Lord God as their enemy. Because of their sins, because of their impenitence, because each one had turned to his own way and stopped caring about what God said or what God commanded, the people who bore the name of God were abandoned by their God. Where could they turn if God Himself was against them?

Some, most of Israel, turned back to God’s saving history, but in confusion. They turned back to recall that decisive moment in their history when they were without hope, enslaved by the powerful Egyptians. But God stepped in. God stepped in through His servant Moses. God stepped in through Moses and accomplished the impossible. With ten plagues against the Egyptians, with parted waters of the Red Sea, with divine intervention so that the Egyptians armies perished in those very same waters, God had come to Israel’s rescue. But Israel as it faced captivity in Babylon, Israel as it suffered in captivity in Babylon, and also Israel as it rejected the Christ when He came, could only look back in confusion and ask, “Where is God’s salvation now? We need His salvation again!” But those very same people who claimed to be searching for God’s salvation rejected His salvation when He sent the Christ to them. They didn’t want Him for a Savior. So all they can do is look back at His past salvation with confusion.

Some, a handful in Israel, turned back to God’s saving history in repentance and hope. They remembered the mercy, and the love, and the power of the God who had brought them out of Egypt and made a covenant with them in the desert. They repented of their sins and turned back to that Redeemer God and asked, “Where is He now?”, not in despair, not in confusion, but in hope, because the LORD, Yahweh, is a God of forgiveness and undeserved salvation. Where was He then? He was about to send His Christ to suffer and die for their sins. Where is He now? Still here in Word and Sacrament to forgive sins to all who believe in Him, still forming a new Israel out of all believers, and about to return to take His new Israel to our eternal Promised Land.

Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and Your strength? The stirrings of Your heart and Your mercies toward me are restrained. For You are our Father, though Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel does not recognize us. You, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer; Your name is from everlasting.

A cry, a plea: “Where are Your zeal and strength?” Some, most in Israel, asked that question in despair, as Jesus’ disciples asked while He slept and their boat was sinking in the storm, “Lord, don’t You care that we are perishing?” You’re supposed to be our Father! Where is Your fatherly care? Here You are, letting us go into exile, stay in exile for 70 years. Here You are, sending Roman armies against Your people and destroying Jerusalem and removing Your covenant from us, as a nation, just because we didn’t want to be saved by this Jesus. It makes no sense!

Others, a handful in Israel, asked that question in hope. Where are Your zeal and strength? We look to You for salvation, and we gladly expect the Christ whom You will send! You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, and to all who receive Him, to all who believe in His name, You have given the right to become children of God. So You are our Father. And on that basis, we plead with You to act on our behalf. Show Your zeal and strength in upholding Your children, in saving us from sin, from death, from the devil and all His demons! Show Your zeal and strength in guiding the affairs and governments of this world so that Your Gospel may be preached, and so that Your Church may be built and preserved until You come to rescue us at last from this wicked world.

O LORD, why have You made us to err from Your ways and hardened our heart from fearing You? Return for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your inheritance. Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while; our adversaries have trodden it down. We have become as those over whom You have never ruled, as those who were not called by Your name.

Not only “where?” but “why?” Why have You made us to err and hardened our heart? Most in Israel asked that question in accusation and arrogance. “You made us err, O Lord! You hardened our heart from fearing You! Why would You do that? If you had just left us alone, we would have gladly followed Your ways and feared You as we ought. But no. It’s Your fault that we turned away from You. How could You make us sin like that? Why would You deprive us of the land and of the temple we were promised?” Oh, the pride of man is great. Even when we’re forced to acknowledge our sins, we want to blame God for them, as Adam once blamed God in the Garden of Eden. This woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me some of the fruit, and I ate. Those who would blame God for their sins, and for the consequences of their sins, are delusional.

But some in Israel, and some still today, ask that question differently. We know that, if God does make us to err, it’s only in response to the erring we have already chosen. If He hardens our hearts from fearing Him, it’s only the righteous punishment we deserve for hardening our own hearts from fearing Him, as He did with Pharoah at the time of Moses, about whom it says that he first hardened his own heart toward the Word of God that Moses spoke. Only then did the Lord further harden it.

And so the penitent one answers his own question: Why have You made us to err and hardened our heart? Because we first chose to go astray. We first chose to be stubborn and hard-headed and stiff-necked, to follow our own dreams, our own path, our own desires. And so we deserve all the punishment we have received.

But our case is not hopeless. Not at all! Because the Gospel is still going out, calling out to all those who mourn over their sins, Take heart! Don’t be afraid! The Lord Jesus came to seek and to save the erring and wandering sheep. He came to soften the hearts that are hard, and, by His Spirit, to replace them with hearts that believe, as He promised through the prophet Ezekiel: Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

Where is the Savior of Israel? It’s a question that can be asked in unbelief. But it’s also a question that can be asked in faith, and in eager expectation that the Savior of Israel—the Savior of the Holy Christian Church—will soon come to rescue His penitent people from all their troubles. So look back at all the saving acts God has already accomplished for His Church. Look at His present acts of salvation, including His providence of the holy ministry of His Word in our midst, including His guidance of the governments of the world that we’re witnessing even now, giving His children a little reprieve from the madness that we have been surrounded by. Where is the Savior of Israel? He is here with us even now. Trust in Him and hope in Him, and you will not be disappointed. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged | Comments Off on Where is the Savior of Israel

Put your hope in the One who reigns over Caesar

Posted on November 3, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Folder Download Bulletin

Sermon for Trinity 23

Philippians 3:17-21  +  Matthew 22:15-22

The last time the 23rd Sunday after Trinity showed up in our liturgical calendar was six years ago, on the Sunday before the midterm elections in our country. And here we are today, on the Sunday before the general election, hearing again the Scripture readings for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity which turn our attention to our citizenship under “Caesar,” and to our greater citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. Even if you’re as tired as I am of thinking about the political realm, don’t tune out from the Word of God before us today, because your Lord Jesus Christ has something to say to us about it, and we dare not ignore Him.

First, let’s walk through the Gospel. It was Tuesday of Holy Week and the Pharisees and leaders of the Jews were preparing their case against Jesus to put Him to death. So they conspired together to trap Him in His words. Now, remember the political situation in Israel at that time. Rome had conquered Judea some 60 years before Jesus was born, at the time of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar was such a popular figure that all future emperors of Rome after him were given the title “Caesar.” At the time of Jesus it was Tiberius Caesar who was in charge, and you see on your service insert a picture of the coin that bore his image. King Herod himself served under Caesar’s authority, so the fact that some Herodians were present when our Gospel takes place is relevant to what happened next.

The Pharisees had carefully crafted their question to Jesus, using flattery first and then presenting a yes or no trap question that could have derailed His ministry right then and there. Teacher, we know that you are truthful and that you teach the way of God in truth. You do not care what people think, for you do not pay attention to who they are. So tell us, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? If He answers no, then they have Him for inciting rebellion against Caesar, and Herod’s officials are there to witness it. If He answers yes, then He has to spend His last few precious moments of teaching explaining it to His followers, who were angry at living under Roman rule and saw the Roman tax as an unjust burden that the people of God shouldn’t have to pay. Either way, He would end up being sidetracked away from His main message.

Jesus sees right through their trap and gives them the perfect response. “Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for paying the tax.” So they brought him a denarius. And he said to them, “Whose image is this, and whose inscription?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “So give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” It wasn’t exactly a yes or a no. But who could argue with what He said? His answer made it possible for Him to stay “on message” and move on, without getting sidetracked on this final day of teaching before His crucifixion on Friday of that week.

You see, God does have something to say to the Christian about the Christian’s responsibility toward secular government. It’s important, but it’s certainly not the heart of the Gospel message, not nearly as urgent as Jesus’ warnings to repent of all sin and to put your trust in Him for eternal life, not nearly as important as the judgment Jesus was foretelling for those who rejected their God and Savior, not nearly as important as the sacrificial death Jesus was about to suffer for sinful mankind at the end of the week.

And so, instead of fleshing out, at that moment, God’s will regarding the believing Christian’s duty as a citizen of Caesar’s kingdom, Jesus saw to it that His apostles fleshed it out sufficiently in the rest of the New Testament writings, so that we, who have already been born again and made citizens of the kingdom of heaven through faith in the Gospel, might have His teaching on this topic without losing focus on the heart of the Gospel, which is repentance and faith in Christ Jesus to deliver us from sin, death, and the devil.

You heard the apostle Paul say something about this in today’s Epistle. He says, Our citizenship (that is, the Christian’s true citizenship) is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies, that they may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the power with which he is able to subject all things to himself. Our true King and Emperor is Jesus Himself, seated at the right hand of God, reigning supreme over every king, over every Caesar, over every earthly kingdom. Heaven is the true home of the Christian. We’re just passing through this life, in the world but not of the world, and whatever earthly citizenship we may have here is temporary and far inferior to that other citizenship, in which Paul writes that Christians have been made fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.

But that doesn’t mean that our citizenship here on earth is unimportant or meaningless. Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, working through the acts and decisions of men, has appointed “Caesars” all over the earth and has commanded us to “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” What does that mean?

First, who is Caesar? The Roman Caesars no longer exist. But “Caesar” is a reference to whatever secular authority God has placed a person under. The overarching authority that a single emperor used to have over everyone in a vast territory has now largely been diminished and spread out among various government officials and branches of government, each having its own scope of authority, with each nation having its own authorities and forms of government. So, for us, that means city government, county government, state government, and the federal government of the United States.

Now the question: What things belong to the various forms of “Caesar” where we live? Jesus said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Well, what things are those?

To Caesar belong honor and respect. Peter writes, Fear God. Honor the King. God would have His children honor the secular authorities. Honor begins in the heart and extends to our behavior. Now, “to honor” doesn’t mean to love or to like, necessarily. To honor certainly doesn’t mean to worship. And it doesn’t depend on how honorable Caesar may or may not be. Because it’s not about honoring the person. It’s about honoring the position of authority that God has established, and it’s about trusting in God’s good purposes in governing the events of this world, even through ungodly and wicked authorities, as has been the case throughout most of history.

To Caesar also belongs our conditional obedience. St. Paul writes in Romans 13, Whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves…And St. Peter writes, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. God would have His children submit to or obey the authorities who are over us, but conditionally, only when they issue lawful orders, within their scope of authority, and only where their commands don’t conflict with God’s own commandments. So we pay our taxes, even if we don’t think they’re fair or just. We obey the laws of the land, even if we disagree with them. But we don’t obey blindly or unconditionally. When Caesar ordered the early Christians to worship Caesar or to offer incense to the gods of Rome, the faithful Christians rightly disobeyed Caesar, even though it meant they were tortured and put to death. We obey whenever we can obey in good conscience, because, as Peter writes, this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men—as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.

“Bondservants of God.” That’s what Jesus would have us remember when He says, Give to God what is God’s. What things belong to God? Everything you have belongs to God. Your very life belongs to God. Your heart does not belong to Caesar, but it does belong to God, along with loving God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not only honor but worship belongs to God—not to the government. Faith and trust belong to God, not to the government. As the Psalm says, Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. But, on the other hand, Trust in the LORD with all your heart. And unconditional obedience belongs to God, even if you don’t understand why He commands what He does.

So, since God has placed us under the laws of the kingdom where we live, that means that He also allows Christians to use secular laws and public ordinances, to make contracts, to do business in this world, and even to serve in secular offices, as long as these things are done lawfully, without disobeying any of God’s commandments, and with love for our neighbor at all times.

He has even given His Christians a role (in this country, at least) in choosing our various Caesars—thinking not only of ourselves, but also of our neighbor’s good. He has given us the responsibility to evaluate the available candidates for office according to His Word and to vote, not for the Caesar who will be perfect, but for the Caesar who, of the available choices, will best conform to God’s will, as an authority under God’s authority, to vote for the Caesar who (as far as we can tell) will do the most good and the least amount of harm for our neighbor, according to God’s Word. And since intentionally killing our innocent neighbor is one of the greatest harms that can be done, abortion is one of the most clear-cut issues for the Christian, making it our duty, as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, to do everything in our power, as citizens of an earthly kingdom, to keep the more-pro-abortion candidates as far away from power as possible, and you know very well who they are in this year’s election.

Who will Caesar be for us after Tuesday’s election? I suspect that, in some cases, it won’t be altogether clear for a while, and that it’s going to get messy, and that you’ll have very angry people on both sides claiming that an election was stolen and possibly causing chaos like we’ve never seen before. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it together, as the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, with God’s almighty help. Make it your purpose to avoid violence, to avoid hatred, to avoid vitriol, and to avoid despair. Do your best to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. But above all, pray to the one who is above Caesar, and put all your hope in Christ, who reigns supreme over every Caesar, for the good of His beloved Church. Leave all things to God’s direction. And, as Paul writes, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Put your hope in the One who reigns over Caesar

Good reasons to be happy

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
Sermon
Download Sermon

Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Bulletin

Sermon for the Festival of All Saints

Revelation 7:2-17  +  Matthew 5:1-12

As we pause today to give thanks to God for the glory of the Church Triumphant, for those whom we call “saints,” “holy ones,” for all the believers in Christ who have fallen asleep in faith, who have entered their eternal rest, who have fought the good fight here below, who have run their race, and who have now received the crown of glory that never fades away, we hear again Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount, where He describes some of the rewards those saints have now received. But as Jesus preaches this sermon, His purpose isn’t primarily to give us comfort about those who have already finished the race. It’s to give us comfort for ourselves as we still run toward the finish line, as we still compete for the prize. And it’s also to spur us on toward the finish line, because great rewards await us there. He paints a picture for us of the Christian life, and He assures us that, as we live it, we have good reasons to be happy.

That’s really what the word “blessed” means in this context. “To have a good reason to be happy.” Let’s briefly walk through the Beatitudes this evening and take a look at who Jesus says has good reasons to be happy, and why.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We always need to take note here of the “in spirit” part of “poor in spirit.” God has compassion for those who are materially poor and wants us to have compassion for them, too. But they aren’t the ones Jesus called “blessed.” It’s the “poor in spirit” who have good reason to be happy. It’s those who are humble before God, who are penitent, contrite, sorry for their sins who have good reason to be happy, because the kingdom of heaven doesn’t belong to those who, like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, try to tell God how wonderful they are, or how deserving of His kingdom, but to the poor in spirit who, like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable, offer God nothing, but seek His kingdom only on the basis of the mercy He has promised for Christ’s sake. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such poor in spirit even now.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Not all who mourn have good reason to be happy. But those who mourn with godly sorrow, whether over their own sins, or over the rampant wickedness they see all around them, or over the state of utter desolation in which outward Christianity finds itself in the world—they have good reason to be happy, even as they mourn, because comfort is coming, ushered in by the Holy Spirit of God, now already through the Word of God, and soon when the Lord Jesus returns to take care of every problem that makes Christians mourn.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

To be meek is to be gentle, like Jesus. That doesn’t mean you can’t be forceful and direct and bold when necessary, as Jesus also was. But in Psalm 37 it says that “the meek will inherit the earth,” and there it defines “meekness” as those who don’t behave wickedly or trust in themselves and their power, but who commit their way to the Lord, who trust in Him, who are still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him, who refrain from anger and wrath. Such people have good reason to be happy, because without lifting a finger themselves, they will inherit the earth, because God will worry about defeating the devil and all the wicked. The Christian can remain meek, because God will fight for us.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Again, pay attention. It’s not hunger and thirst for food and water that makes a person blessed. It’s hunger and thirst for righteousness—those who have such hunger and thirst have a good reason to be happy. There are two ways to hunger and thirst for righteousness. You hunger and thirst for righteousness by knowing that you have no righteousness to offer God, and so you crave the gift God has promised, the righteousness of Christ being counted as your own through faith in Him. You also hunger and thirst for righteousness by yearning for justice in the world, both for yourself and for others, to be treated fairly, to be treated rightly. In both cases, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness have good reason to be happy, because in both cases they will obtain what they so fervently desire. Christ’s righteousness is given even now to believers, and Christ’s justice will be carried out when He comes again.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

You remember the parable of the unmerciful servant. The king forgave him his incredibly large debt, and then he went out and mercilessly mistreated the one who owed him just a little bit. So the king threw that merciless wretch in prison until he could repay everything. God first shows us that kind of great mercy by forgiving our sins and bringing us into His kingdom. He’s serious about wanting us then to show mercy to others. Will we lose out on something great by showing mercy to someone? On the contrary, the merciful have good reason to be happy, because they will receive even more mercy from God.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

We only become pure in heart through the forgiveness of sins and through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, so that our love for God and our neighbor is genuine, and our motives are pure. So we pray with the Psalmist, Create in me a pure heart, O God! And then we have good reason to be happy, because we will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

The opposite of making peace is not just making war, but causing discord and strife, allowing bad feelings to fester and divisions to get wider, refusing to forgive when a brother repents. But God has called us to peace, and to live at peace with people, to the extent that it depends on us, and to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Those who work toward peace and maintain peace and who forgive those who trespass against them have good reason to be happy, because they will be called sons of God, because in doing these things, they are imitating their Father in heaven.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Being persecuted doesn’t sound like a reason to be happy, but Jesus says otherwise. Being persecuted “for righteousness’ sake,” that is, doing what is right in God’s eyes, saying what is right and true and then suffering the consequences for it as the people of this world make life difficult for you. Some Christians stumble and fall when the threat of persecution comes. They give in to the demands of the wicked to avoid persecution. They refuse to bear the cross that Jesus told us we must bear, if we wish to be His disciples. And, in this way, faith dies. But those who accept the burden of persecution willingly show themselves to be disciples of Jesus, and they have good reason to be happy, because, as we sang on Sunday morning, take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, let these all be gone. They yet have nothing won. The kingdom ours remaineth.

Finally, Blessed are you, when for my sake they insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who came before you.”

No one likes to be insulted. No one likes to be lied about. No one likes to have people saying bad things about you, to your face or behind your back. Still, when you’re insulted or lied about or talked badly about because you were being faithful to the Lord Jesus, Jesus wants you to know that you have good reason to be happy, to rejoice, to be glad, because you’re in the best company of all, in the company of the prophets of God, in the company of Jesus Himself. And, while you may be hated and spoken against here, your reward in heaven just keeps getting greater and greater, the more you’re despised here for the sake of Christ.

Now, all the good things Jesus talks about here, all the blessed results of Christian faithfulness here on earth, are already being experienced by those who have died in faith. So think of the apostles and prophets and other role models of faith from the Bible. Think of your loved ones who died in the faith, or church members who were with us for a time but are with us no longer, having crossed over from the Church Militant into the Church Triumphant. Take comfort in the Word of God, which assures you that the saints in glory have received prizes that far surpass anything they suffered here. But above all, take the words of Jesus to heart for yourself, so that you devote every day to being the kind of Christians that Jesus describes here in these verses, penitent, believing, and striving to live according to God’s commandments, that you may always have all these reasons to be happy, that, together with the saints in glory, you may always live with the blessing of Christ your Redeemer. Amen.

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Good reasons to be happy