An invitation for weary children to rest

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of St. Matthias

Acts 1:15-26  +  Matthew 11:25-30

Our Scripture readings this evening are the readings for the festival of St. Matthias, which occurred two days ago. Matthias is only mentioned once in Holy Scripture, and yet he was a disciple of Jesus from the very beginning, unmentioned and unnamed, standing in the background of Jesus’ earthly ministry. After the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven, but before the Day of Pentecost, His remaining eleven apostles concluded that they were meant to fill the vacancy among the Twelve left by Judas Iscariot when he betrayed the Lord and then hanged himself. In order for such a man to be a true eyewitness to the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus, he had to have accompanied the apostles from the beginning, “from the baptism of John to that day when Jesus was taken up from us” (Acts 1:22). Barsabas and Matthias were the two qualified men who were nominated, and Matthias was the one chosen by lot to be added to the number of the Eleven, after which little is known for certain about his life and ministry.

Now, the choosing of Matthias to be counted among the Twelve Apostles is a little strange. After all, Jesus appeared on and off to His disciples for 40 days after His resurrection. And yet, Jesus never handpicked Matthias to replace Judas. On the other hand, He did handpick the apostle Paul some time later, and we know from the New Testament what a vital role Paul played in the founding of the Christian Church, leading us to conclude that maybe Matthias wasn’t Jesus’ own choice for rounding out the Twelve foundational Apostles. But his selection for the office of the apostolic ministry was still entirely valid. He was still called by God through the Church to be a minister, to preach and teach and administer the Sacraments. In fact, the manner of his calling sets the pattern for the calling of all future ministers in this New Testament era. The Church, both ministers and laymen, gather. They pray to God to reveal, through their choice, whom He is sending into the ministry. And then, whether by lot or by vote, a man is selected.

As I said, we don’t know anything about Matthias except for what is said about him in Acts 1, but since we know that he was with Jesus from the beginning, it’s altogether possible that he was one of the 70 (or 72, as some manuscripts have it) who was sent out by Jesus ahead of Him, to preach and prepare the way for Jesus. Those 70 performed many miracles, including casting out demons, and when they returned from their mission, they told Jesus in amazement, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name. And Jesus replied, I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Although Jesus wasn’t with them on their mission, He was still watching them. He was with them through His Holy Spirit, through whom He was watching—and participating in—all they did in His name. And He not only saw Satan falling as the disciples cast out the demons. What else did He see? He saw the same things He had seen already in His own ministry. He saw most people, especially the wise, the smart, the religious leaders, rejecting His message. But He also saw simple people, and little children, even, believing it. And so, it was in that context that He spoke the first words you heard tonight from Matthew 11. He prayed and said, I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and have revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.

The wise and well-educated religious leaders thought they knew God so well. They would have fit right in in our modern world, where people pretend to be religious, even Christian, while they intentionally ignore what God actually teaches in His Word about right and wrong, sin and grace, and faith in Christ being the only path to salvation. But because people think they know God so well, they don’t like it when Jesus steps in and tells them something that clashes with their “knowledge” and their version of morality. And because they don’t want to listen to Jesus, God chooses to hide the truth from them, to hide Himself from them, because God only invites people to know Him by knowing Jesus.

Little children, on the other hand, have no problem with the illogical, supernatural things that Jesus says. He says, “I am the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” and a little child doesn’t say, “How can that be?” or “That’s not fair!” A little child says, “You’re amazing, Jesus! Tell us about God, Your Father!” Jesus says, “I will die on the cross to pay for your sins and then rise from the dead.” And a little child doesn’t stop to think about how impossible that is. She just says, “Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross for me and rising again.” Jesus says, “The water of baptism will wash your sins away and bring you into my family,” and a little child has no counterargument, no argument at all. He just watches Jesus do what He says He’ll do. And that child who simply takes Jesus at His Word knows God a thousand times better than the smartest theologian, the greatest Bible scholar, or the most devout religions people who question, deny, or ignore, Jesus’ Word, because God hides Himself from the wise and learned, but invites little children to know Him through Jesus. As He says in the next verses, All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

That’s great news for the little children here today. Jesus says in Matthew 18, I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So it’s not about how old you are. Even the 80+-yr-olds here today can be little children when it comes to Jesus, little children who sit at His feet and listen to His Word and trust in the things He says. So if, like a little child, you look to the Word of Christ and know Jesus to be the One sent from God the Father to be your Savior, if You trust in Him to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then join Jesus in praising God for inviting little children like you to know him.

Jesus makes the invitation even more specific in the following verses: “Come to Me,” He says, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” This is one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible, and I’m sure many of you knew them by heart before you came to church this evening. “Come to Me,” Jesus called out, but you notice, he didn’t invite everyone. He invited only the weary and burdened people to come to Him and rest with Him. The tired people! But not people who are tired because they stayed out too late last night or worked long hours at their job. He’s inviting people who have weary and burdened souls.

Who are they? They’re people who are exhausted from living each day in rebellion against their Creator. Exhausted from carrying around years’ worth of guilt and regret. Exhausted from trying to be good enough for God to accept them and love them. Exhausted from fighting against a sinful nature that, no matter how hard they try, they cannot get rid of, and from living in a world so full of wickedness. It’s these people, all of them, whom Jesus invites to Himself and says, Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Now why would Jesus offer these tired, weary, burdened souls a yoke to put on? Because He has a sense of irony. A yoke is normally put over the neck of a farm animal. It’s a symbol of hard work, working underneath someone else’s rule. Every religion in the world offers you their “yoke,” teaching you how to be a good enough person to be accepted by God, which, in today’s world, often means being so good that you would accept and tolerate things that the Bible calls evil. No, they say, to be good enough for God, you have to be a better person than Jesus was! You have to be more accepting, more “loving,” more tolerant, less “judgmental.” But their “yoke” is worthless. It’s fake, but it’s still a heavy, burdensome thing. And it produces only death.

Jesus’ yoke, on the other hand, offers, not work, but rest, because Jesus took up that yoke of God’s Law upon Himself, and like a work-horse, ploughed the whole field of God’s commandments for us. Jesus’ yoke is the Gospel, and to take His yoke upon you is nothing else than to recognize Him as Your Savior and as Your King, to trust in Him as the One who has saved you from the burden of sin, death and hell, to believe the good news that He has done God’s work in your place, the good news given to weary and burdened souls that you don’t have to do one single thing to earn eternal life. You can rest in Jesus, and in what Jesus did for you.

You can rest, knowing that God has already punished your sin on the cross of Christ. You can rest, because Jesus is gentle and humble in heart and doesn’t want you to go through life wondering whether or not you’ll be in heaven when you die, but resting in the knowledge that heaven is God’s gift to you through faith in Jesus. You can rest, because, as you struggle every day against the devil, and the world, and your sinful flesh, God knows your struggle, and God knows how to defend you, how to strengthen you, and how to rescue you in due time. These are the things that make His yoke easy and His burden light.

So don’t turn down this invitation today, the invitation to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He Has sent, to know Him and to enjoy the rest He invites you to have with Him. Be a little child. Hear the Savior’s invitation, and accept it with joy! Amen.

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Overcoming the obstacles to the growth of God’s Word

Posted on February 23, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Sexagesima

2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

Today’s Gospel is about the power of the Word of God. But it’s also about the condition of the heart of the one who hears the Word of God. Jesus compares the word that is preached to a seed, and the hearts of those who hear to various kinds of soil.

The Word of God, like a seed, always carries inside it the energy, and the ability, and the tendency to grow. For a normal plant or a tree, healthy growth looks like the seed being embedded in the soil, sending down more and more roots, so that the plant gets the moisture and the stability it needs. As the roots go down, or even before, a stalk begins to spring upward, putting out leaves to catch the sun’s rays, which is converted into more energy. It gets taller and bigger until, when it’s mature, it produces flowers, and then fruit that ripens until it’s finally ready to be picked. But the conditions matter, don’t they? The seed may be healthy, and the dirt itself may be the right kind of dirt. But if the conditions are poor, the seed may not sprout at all, or, even if it does, it won’t mature and produce the desired fruit.

What does growing look like for the seed that is God’s Word? Well, ideally, under healthy conditions, the Word of God is preached, accusing everyone of being a sinner, who hasn’t loved and worshiped God as he ought, who hasn’t loved his neighbor as he ought, who stands under God’s eternal condemnation and will be judged by God on the Last Day and sentenced not only to death but to eternal death in hell. This preaching hits home with the hearer. It strikes fear and dread into his heart. He realizes that, it’s true, God is real, and he hasn’t given God the honor He is owed. He deserves this threatened punishment and God’s righteous wrath.

But the seed of the word of God contains more than this. It contains a message of hope for the poor sinner, a message that centers on Jesus Christ, whom God the Father sent into the world to redeem sinners. It’s a promise that God holds out to the world, inviting all men everywhere to look to Christ Jesus for salvation. The sinner draws hope from that promise. He looks to Christ in faith, confident that God will keep His promise, that his sins will be forgiven, that he will be accepted by God because of Jesus and will escape eternal death, and just like that, the seed has sprouted!

But the word of God is not done. It contains more. It teaches the newly sprouted plant, the new believer, to come to the water of Holy Baptism, to stay close to the preaching of the Word and to the Lord’s Supper, which are, together, like the life-giving water that a plant needs. It teaches the believer to grow in the grace and knowledge of God, never to be content with knowing just the basics of the Christian faith. It teaches the believer that he must daily take up his cross and follow Jesus, being willing to suffer for the name of Christ, and bearing up under suffering with the patience and strength that God will give. It teaches the believer to live each day in contrition and repentance, to set his heart, each day, on leading a holy life, completely devoted to God, and to keeping His commandments. And it offers the continual comfort and strength necessary to do this, not just once, but until the believer has grown to full maturity, in faith and love, and has, with God’s help, weathered every storm, and has, by God’s power, produced a lifetime of good works.

That, dear friends, is the Christian life, start to finish. It’s not flashy. It’s not necessarily exciting. It’s like a plant growing in a field. It’s a slow and steady process. But, at the end of the process, what is produced is something wonderful, something beautiful, something astounding.

In today’s parable, Jesus describes how that process is often disrupted. He gives three examples of the disruption. There’s seed that falls along a dirt road. The seed is good, and the dirt itself is fine. But the conditions aren’t right for a seed to grow there. The soil is far too compacted, too trampled upon (or driven over, in a modern setting), so the seed would just sit there on top and would eventually be either crushed or snatched away by the birds. This is what happens very often when the Word of God is preached. Instead of listening to and pondering the message, people tune it out, think about other things, or immediately reject whatever is said because it challenges what they currently believe. It happens out there in the world. It can happen right here during the sermon. The hearers hear but don’t really listen.

Then there’s seed that falls on rocky soil. There are some softer spots on top. The seed can germinate and begin to grow quickly, but it doesn’t get very far, because the rocks keep the roots from going downward and outward, so there’s not enough moisture to keep the process going. The hot sun soon overpowers the growing plant, and it withers and dies. This is what happens very often when the Word of God is preached. A person believes, and is excited about the Gospel, but there’s no deepening of the roots, no ongoing watering with Word and Sacrament, no struggle to resist temptation or to bear the cross. And so faith dies. It happens all the time.

Then there’s seed that falls among thorns or weeds. The soil itself may be fine. The seed itself is potent as ever. But a plant that has to compete with weeds almost always loses, because part of the curse of this sinful world is that the weeds grow faster than the good plants, they’re hardier than the good plants, and they end up choking the good plant, stealing its moisture, blocking its sunlight, tangling up the roots and the leaves of the good plant, until its growth is stunted, so that it never reaches maturity or puts forth edible fruit. This is what happens very often when the Word of God is preached. A person begins life as a Christian, grows for a while, goes to church for a while, but then the cares, riches, pleasures, and concerns of this life take over. God and His Word become less and less important as other things become more and more important, and so they don’t finish the process of the Christian life, meaning, they don’t finish life as Christians. What makes this disruption of the Christian life so insidious is that it’s sometimes a slow process that goes unnoticed until it’s too late, until the person is left with nothing but an outer husk of faith, without its saving power.

But, finally, sometimes, the seed falls on good soil—those who hear the Word with a good and noble heart, keep it, and bear fruit with patience. In them, the process of germination and growth and bearing of fruit is allowed to continue, until it’s finished, until it’s time for the harvest, and the farmer and his family, and the whole village that he feeds with his crops, rejoice together in what that tiny seed has now become.

Now the question that really matters: What kind of soil are you? Or, maybe a better question, where are you in this process? What are the conditions like around you? You’ve all heard the Word of God. You’ve all confessed your faith in the Lord Jesus and your commitment to follow Him, to follow His teachings, so His Word has penetrated into your hearts. But do you still hear His Word sometimes without really listening, without pondering what you hear? It can happen. Are you continually deepening the roots of your faith through regularly hearing and learning God’s Word, so that you’re ready to face temptation and persecution when they come? Are you watching out for those annoying cares and riches and pleasures of this life that threaten to creep up on you and choke the faith God has given you, that threaten to keep you from doing all the good works God created for you to do, to keep you from finishing your lives as Christians? Are you hearing the Word with a good and noble heart? Will you hold onto it, and bear fruit with patience?

No one can fully answer all those questions until all the obstacles and disruptions have been overcome, until you reach the end of your life with your faith still intact and with the harvest of works God is seeking from the seed He has sown in you. But the questions, like the parable itself, are there to help you, to guide you, so that you don’t take the Word of God for granted when it’s preached, because, if you’re prepared for the conditions that you know can come along and adversely affect your faith, and disrupt your growth in the Christian life, then you’ll guard against those conditions. You’ll recommit yourself to hearing God’s Word fruitfully and to putting it into practice. And you’ll remember that you must keep doing this, slowly and steadily hearing and growing, hearing and growing, throughout your whole life. But God Himself will see to the growth. The power for you to grow is not in you but in the seed, where it’s always been. It’s in the powerful Word of God, which is like the rain and snow that come down from heaven and water the earth, making it bud and flourish. Such is My Word, God says, that goes out from my mouth; it will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish that which I purpose, and will succeed in the thing for which I sent it. May God’s Word always find, and create, in you a good and noble heart. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Amen.

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You have to know God to work in His vineyard

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Septuagesima

Acts 17:22-34

On Sunday we considered the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where those who were hired last, toward the end of the day, had spent the whole day—their whole lives—outside of God’s kingdom, but were invited in, nonetheless, and given the same reward as those who had started working early in the morning. This evening’s lesson from Acts 17 gives us a glimpse of the recruitment process for the late-in-the-day hired workers.

The Apostle Paul goes out to “hire” workers for God’s vineyard, that is, to preach the Word of God to them and to call them to repentance and faith in Christ. And what he sees at first, as he walks around the famous city of Athens disgusts him. In the verses before our text begins, Paul’s spirit is provoked—he’s appalled by all the idols he sees throughout the city. Athens had beautiful sculptures and ornate statues and temples for all their many gods, based on a mythology that went back hundreds, maybe thousands of years: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Athena, and an endless list of minor deities and demigods. They had put such time and effort and human ingenuity into the sculptures and statues that represented these gods. They had created an elaborate system of worship. They had invented dozens of belief systems and religious philosophies. They were so proud of their piety, of how religious they were.

They were proud, but Paul was appalled and disgusted, as every Christian should be. Because none of the Greek gods were real, none of their beliefs were true, just as all the gods and beliefs of all the nations, from the Saxons and Vikings in the North to the Africans in the South to the early settlers of the American continents in the West, were all unreal and untrue. It was all manmade. It was all wrong. It was all worthless, and, worse, an abomination to the true God.

But Paul doesn’t address the Athenians with disgust or with any sort of pride. He addresses them with respect, you might say, with sincerity, and with hope—hope that, once they were told the truth, they would abandon their longstanding false religion. He addressed them with trust that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was powerful to break through centuries worth of devotion and zeal and a mountain of pride, to bring these Greek idolaters to repentance and faith in the one true God, who can only be worshiped if He is known, who can only be worshiped in one way, through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The Athenians invited Paul to speak after hearing bits and pieces of his message in the marketplace. So he addressed them: Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you. It’s not okay to worship God as an unknown, without truly knowing Him. It isn’t God-pleasing. It isn’t helpful. Paul would not have been better off leaving the Greeks in ignorance, any more than the early settlers of the Americas would have been better off left in ignorance to worship their own gods. Those who don’t know the true God will perish in their ignorance, outside of the Lord’s vineyard, unless their ignorance is corrected.

The reality is that, even after almost 2,000 years of the Christian Gospel going out into the world, most people, even here in our own country, still don’t know the true God. Many have given up on the concept of “God” entirely, becoming fools, because, as the Psalm says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Many reject Christianity and worship idols. But perhaps the biggest problem in the world today is just how many people think they’re worshiping the God of Christianity when, in fact, He remains an unknown God to them.

I’ve talked with many people who think they’re believers, who think they worship the God of the Bible, but in their own way, according to their own personal beliefs, disengaged from His Church. We were just watching a TV show last night where a “Christian” minister joyfully proclaimed to a troubled soul that, “No, God won’t punish you for living together outside of marriage! You have nothing to worry about there!” What a relief that was for the troubled soul! But what a soul-destroying lie it was! No, many people who use the name of God, and of Jesus Christ Himself, don’t actually know Him at all.

So Paul began to reveal the true God to the Athenians. I’ll summarize his points: God is the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t need anything from man, not our sacrifices, not our devotion, not our rituals. He gives life and breath to all. From one blood, from one man and one woman, Adam and Eve, He made all the people and all the nations on earth. He determined where and when they should live. He wants to be sought and found. He isn’t far from us. “We are His offspring,” that is, we came from Him in the first place, and we owe Him everything. He cannot be or be contained in man’s artwork. God “overlooked” these times of ignorance, that is, He didn’t wipe out all the idolatrous nations of the earth, but allowed them to live out their lives on earth and even still provided sunshine and harvest for them.

But now, Paul says, God commands all men everywhere to repent. He has set a Judgment Day for all men, and Jesus Christ, appointed by God, risen from the dead, will be the Judge.

It’s really important to see how Paul preached to these people who didn’t know God. Not, “It’s okay that you were worshiping false gods!” Not, “You’re all good people, and God accepts you just as you are!” But, “God commands all men everywhere to repent.” It’s vital that people hear the truth in today’s world, too. If they were living separated from God’s holy Christian Church, not paying attention to God’s commandments, not hearing His Word, not sorry for their sins, not trusting in the Lord Jesus for forgiveness, not determined to live as saints, according to God’s commandments, then they must hear that, no matter what notions they had about “believing in God,” they weren’t believing in the true God. And God commands them to repent, which includes acknowledging their sins, looking to Christ for forgiveness, being baptized if they weren’t already, becoming engaged with His Church, hearing His Word, and determining to lead holy lives from now on.

Many of the Athenians stopped listening when Paul mentioned a man being raised from the dead. That was just too much for them. But against all odds, contrary to all human reason and possibility, some believed. They believed because the Gospel is a message filled with power, the power of God’s own Almighty Holy Spirit. So don’t worry that the message of repentance, the message of the cross, or the message of the empty tomb, is hard to accept in today’s world. It was always hard to accept, impossible to accept. But the Holy Spirit worked through it then, and will keep working through it until the end of the world, bringing late-comers into the Lord’s vineyard, a few here, a few there, until the end of the day—the Day of Judgment—when we will see the Lord Jesus in whom we have believed coming to judge the world and to give out the promised reward to all who worked for Him in His vineyard. May we be among them! Amen.

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God’s kingdom is not a meritocracy

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

Even before Jesus went to the cross, He foresaw a challenge in His Church going forward, a sinful tendency, common to all men, that sometimes showed itself even among His chosen apostles, and would be a recurring problem in His Church, because the members of the Church of Christ are still sinful people. Always have been, always will be, until we’re finally rescued from this sinful world. Jesus tells the parable in today’s Gospel in order to get ahead of the problem, as it were.

The problem would initially center on the Jewish Christian Church as it started to incorporate more and more Gentiles into the Church—non-Jews, who hadn’t grown up under the Law of Moses, as all the Jewish believers had, people who had engaged in every form of idolatry and wickedness for their whole lives. It was really not very different from the problem of the Jewish tax collectors and sinners who had spent much of their lives living very poorly under the Law of Moses, not doing many of the things they were supposed to do under the Law. And it’s a problem that still comes up repeatedly in the Church today. The problem, or the question, is, Is God’s kingdom a meritocracy?

What is a meritocracy? It’s a word that gets tossed around quite a bit these days. It’s what many people rightly want for our country. It means you get ahead, you get rewarded, by merit, by what you’ve earned, by how qualified you are, not by any other factor. The most deserving get the job, or the scholarship, or the prize. Your pay scale should reflect how hard you work, how many hours you work, how good you are at your job, without considering any other factors, like race or gender. Everyone gets treated equally, based on their performance alone. That’s the definition of fairness—in the affairs of the world.

But God’s kingdom is not of this world, and it doesn’t work like the kingdoms of the world. It’s not a meritocracy. There is fairness in it, a certain kind of equality, but it’s a God-centered fairness instead of a man-centered fairness. In other words, it’s a fairness that’s not based on man’s performance or man’s qualifications, but on God’s free choice to give an equal reward to all who are in His kingdom—His “vineyard,” as Jesus describes it in today’s Gospel.

And what is the reward? Forgiveness of all sins. A clean slate that stays clean as long as you’re in the vineyard. Adoption into God’s family. Rescue from this dying world. Eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace with God in Paradise. That’s the promised reward, the “denarius” that’s promised at the end of the day.

And who gets it? All who are “hired” to work in the vineyard, everyone who comes into God’s kingdom, which, again, is His holy Christian Church. How does a person come into it? By hearing God’s call to repent of our sins, and by hearing God’s gracious invitation to come into His kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ, which includes the renouncing of sin and the determination to lead a godly life, a holy life, according to God’s commandments.

So, everyone in the kingdom gets the same reward, no matter what their ancestry is? Yes. No matter the color of their skin? Yes. No matter how long they’ve been a member of the Church? Yes. No matter how wickedly they lived before they came into the Church? Yes.

“But, that’s not fair, not fair to the Jews who spent their whole lives trying to meticulously obey the Law of Moses, not fair to those who have worked hard to lead a holy life, who have dutifully avoided sin, who have suffered much for the name of Christ!” Of course it’s fair! Didn’t God tell you, when He invited you into His kingdom, what the reward would be? Of course He told you! Will He fail to give you that reward? Of course He won’t! You’ll receive exactly what God promised. And so will the one who was only in the kingdom for one hour, for a much shorter stretch of his life than you. God, in His wisdom, God in His generosity, has decided to apply His Son’s sacrifice equally to everyone who is baptized into His Church family, to all who continue to live in repentance and faith.

And, see, that’s why God can give equally to everyone. Because the basis for the reward is not your work at all. It’s the work—the righteous life and the innocent death—of Jesus Christ that earned the reward for everyone, so that all who are attached to Jesus by faith receive everything that He earned.

And that’s also why it’s a terrible, dangerous thing to start thinking that you deserve eternal life, even a little bit, because of all the good you’ve done in your life, or because of how long you’ve been a member of the Church. Equally terrible and dangerous is the notion that creeps into a person’s thinking that he deserves a better reward than what God has promised, something more than just His forgiveness and adoption and eternal life and Paradise. “No, all Christians get that. You’ve worked longer and harder than most. You’ve been such a good person! You deserve extra credit!”

No, no. If you ever find yourself starting to think that way, wake up! Remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard! Remember how annoyed the owner was with the first workers, who grumbled that they were receiving the same as the rest, even though they had worked harder and longer. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me on a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I give you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?

The early Christian Jews began falling into this sin. They had worked so hard to keep the Law of Moses, being circumcised, eating the right foods, following the right rituals. They were brought into God’s kingdom from infancy. Then the Gospel goes out to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles don’t even need to be circumcised? Don’t need to eat Kosher? Don’t need to follow any of the rituals of the Mosaic Law? It’s not fair! So some of them tried to insist for a time that the Gentiles did need to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses. But God, through Peter, and Paul, and James of Jerusalem, through this parable that Jesus Himself had taught, made it clear that He wanted to give the Gentiles the same reward He gave to the Jews, without requiring them to go back and do more work under the ceremonial Law. And, in the end, the Christian Jews did welcome the Gentiles, and they became one Church under the New Testament of Christ.

On the other hand, Paul, in the Epistle you heard today, would later write to the Corinthian Christians, most of whom were Gentiles, that they shouldn’t become haughty, either, as they watched many of the Jews rejecting the Gospel and being rejected by God because of it. Because just as many of the Jews perished at the time of Moses when they fell away from the faith, so the Gentiles, too, would perish, if they didn’t remain humble and steadfast in the faith.

So, in God’s vineyard, in God’s kingdom, no one gets to boast or take pride in his work. No one ought to look back fondly or proudly at his own works, or compare his works with those of another, except to recognize on a daily basis that our own works, even the good ones, are tainted with sin, and, therefore, they do not make us the least bit deserving of God’s grace, or of the reward He has promised to believers. We are all directed away from our own merit, to the immeasurable grace of God, who prepared this vineyard for us to work in, and who brings each one into it when and where He wills.

Once you’re in it, be diligent at the work God gives you. Hear His Word faithfully, regularly. And don’t just hear it, but ponder it, and learn it. Receive His Sacraments. Live as the saints God has called you to be, avoiding what is evil and pursuing what is good and right. As Paul wrote in the Epistle, run this race of the Christian life in such a way as to win the prize!

But always remember, at the same time, that, unlike a race, you don’t win the prize because of how fast you ran. You don’t win the prize because you earned it or “merited” it. You win the prize in the end because of your connection to Christ Jesus, who has merited every prize and every conceivable good gift for you, that He might share His merit with you, and give you every reason not to eye God’s grace and generosity with disgust but with eternal gratefulness and appreciation, knowing that you have been freely given a place in God’s kingdom, not by your merit, but by God’s grace alone. Treasure God’s free grace! Live in it! And toil away in God’s kingdom, not to gain God’s favor, but because, in Christ Jesus, you already have it. Amen.

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We preach a Gospel of light

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for midweek of Transfiguration

Matthew 11:25-27  +  2 Corinthians 4:5-6

This week of the Transfiguration, we’re still focused on the glory of Christ that is real, but that is hidden from the world. It’s hidden from our eyes, too, so that we can’t see it. But our joy as Christians is that God the Holy Spirit has revealed Christ’s glory to us, so that we believe it is real, so that we see it with the eyes of faith. He has enlightened us with the Gospel so that we believe that Jesus is true God and true Man, and also believe in Jesus, the God-Man, as the One who speaks the truth to us and saves us from wrath and condemnation by the power of His blood shed on the cross.

Tonight, with Jesus and with the Apostle Paul, we have to take a step back and simply say a prayer of thanks to God for giving us this light, and by light I mean knowledge, and by knowledge, I mean both the knowledge of Christ and the confidence that goes with it, which we call faith. And not just to us here, but to all true Christians who hear the preaching of the Gospel and believe in Christ Jesus as a result. Because that faith-knowledge is and always has been hidden from most—hidden, as Jesus says, from the wise and the prudent. Hidden, or “veiled,” as St. Paul writes just a few verses before the ones you heard tonight, veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

It’s not that we have some secret knowledge that we’re unwilling to share with “certain people,” like the lodges or the secret societies of the world claim to have. No, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, our preaching is like a bright light, unmistakable, not hidden at all. And we don’t shine that light on ourselves. We do not preach ourselves, Paul says. Ministers—true ministers of Christ—don’t highlight their own accomplishments. No, Paul writes, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord. We preach about Christ Jesus plainly and openly—that He is the Lord, the Son of God and the same God proclaimed in the Old Testament who came into the world and took on human flesh to take away the sin that we have done.

Our sin is exposed by a different kind of light, the light of God’s holy Law, that is, His commandments, which tell us what is right and wrong in His sight, commanding us to do the right and avoid the wrong, but also accusing us of doing just the opposite in many cases. Now, whatever the details are of your disobedience to God’s commandments, the Law reveals that you are sinful, and, therefore, unable to escape from the Law’s just condemnation. You’ve earned God’s wrath for yourself, and a place in hell. All people have. That’s what the Law preaches.

But the light of the Gospel is also revealed through preaching. It shines forth from a God who is good and merciful, who gave His Son to be punished for the evil you have done. The light of the Gospel shines from Christ, who is good and merciful, and who bore your sins in His body. The light of the Gospel lights up the mercy of God in the face of Christ and shows you where to find the mercy and the forgiveness that you so desperately need: in the ministry of the Word of Christ and the Sacraments of Christ. God the Holy Spirit is active in the preaching of the Gospel, shining the light of Christ Jesus out into this room, where He is being preached, out into the world wherever His Gospel is preached, and penetrating the darkness of men’s hearts with that light, just as He once penetrated the darkness of the universe with His command, “Let there be light!” So He has shone in our hearts, Paul says about himself and his fellow ministers, that we, in turn, might shine forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Not everyone sees it. To them the Gospel is veiled. Their minds are blinded by Satan, the god of this age. They don’t believe in this merciful God. They pretend that Jesus doesn’t even exist, or they twist the real Jesus into someone else, someone who “gets us,” as the ad campaign falsely portrays him, instead of portraying Him rightly, as the God who died for our sins and rose again, and calls us to repentance, that we may sin no more.

So what should we do? Is it a matter of saying just the right words in order to convince them, in order to lift the veil from their hearts and to cure the blindness of their minds? Not at all. Jesus and His apostles spoke all the right words. The Gospel shone forth brightly from their mouths. And most still didn’t believe.

What we do, all that we’ve been given to do, is, we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. Ministers preach Him, and you laymen speak openly about Him and show by how you speak and how you live that Jesus is, indeed, your Lord. And God the Holy Spirit will enlighten whom He will enlighten. Through His Spirit, Jesus, the Son of God, will reveal the Father to whom He wills to reveal Him, as He said in the Gospel. As for you, to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed the light of Christ so that you believe in Him and confess Him, rejoice in God’s gracious election, and in God’s mercy to you, that you should hear the Gospel rightly preached and have the Sacraments rightly administered, and that you should believe the voice of the Gospel and see the light of the Gospel unveiled. And we ministers will continue to preach Christ Jesus the Lord, even as you Christians continue to live in the world as children of God, as children of light, and as the very lights that God has strategically placed into this dark world, that Christ may be honored, that the faithful may be preserved, and that your neighbor may be helped, and even eternally saved. Amen.

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